Everything Happens For A Reason

When I go to early morning escorting shifts, I leave the house at 5:50 – 5:55, so that I am on the train at 6 AM, but on Friday, I left the house just five minutes later and had to wait for the next train.

Also, my pro-choice buttons are always pinned to my escorting vest, because otherwise, I often forget them. On Friday, I just pulled my pink vest out of the closet to tuck it into my backpack when I remembered that we are now supposed to wear rainbow vests on weekdays, and the pink ones – only on Saturdays. I unpinned my buttons from the pink vest and almost put them in the pocket, but since I wore a hoodie with very wide-open pockets, I thought they could fall out, so I decided to pin them to the front of my hoodie (just until I get to a clinic).

So I walked on the CTA platform with my buttons pinned at my breast, and with the train just left, and slowly walked to the front. There was a young woman, also staying at the front, who passed me to throw away a can, then passed me again and asked, “Excuse me, can I ask you something?” I saw your buttons. Do you have anything to do with clinic escorts? And I replied: Yes, I am one of them! And I am going to the escort shift right now. And then she asked: ” How can I join clinic escorts? I wanted to do this for years, but I didn’t know how!” I told her: You need to go through the training, and then you can sign up for shifts. But before I connect you to our team leader, let’s talk!

She was a teacher, and she taught in Chinatown, so until I got off at Lake, we talked non-stop. She kept saying: I am so glad I asked! And I kept saying: I am so glad I had my buttons on, once in a year! We’ve exchanged emails, and I introduced her to our team lead, and she signed up for training. I hope she will be a good addition to our team!

But what were the odds?!!

***

My second cousin, my only relative who was still in Russia and with whom I communicated on a regular basis, passed away.

I was not notified until the day he was cremated, but it is what it is, and I can’t change it. But besides that, this whole situation is one big horror story. I do not have the mental energy to talk about details, but I will post more soon. It’s just something that appeared out of nowhere and altered my trajectory, and even though I already learned that there is nothing I can do (interfere in the current situation, where I have tons of concerns), I am still having a hard time accepting “nothing I can do.”

Swiftynomics by Misty Heggeness

As it sometimes happens, I learned about this book because the Chicago Public Library announced a meeting with the author. I knew I wouldn’t be able to come because it was the day we did the egg coloring at ODS, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to join on Zoom, but I also knew that the livestream would be saved on the Library YouTube channel, so I bookmarked it. I tried to put a hold on the audiobook in the library, but there were over 100 people ahead of me, so I purchased the book and started listening, and actually finished it before March 31!

If you just watch the video, you might get the impression that Misty is mostly focused on Taylor Swift, but there is way more to it in the book! She speaks about all the well-known things which other authors mention (and which I cited from other books), like the “opportunity cost,” and how women with small children still choose to work even if the cost of the daycare consumes all of their earnings, because otherwise they would decrease their future earnings and chances of future promotion. She says that although “ordinary” women can’t afford what Taylor Swift can in terms of childcare, traveling with children, etc., she demonstrates what things should be, and what every woman should expect from society.

Also, I like how the book is structured, how it puts things into perspective, connects the dots, and also, how actionable it is.

I am not saying its a must-read, but if you pick it up, I hope you enjoy it!

Touring Chicago

My colleague from London just share with me his photos from our Sunday excursion, and most of his pictures are really great, so i told him I am going to steal them and share 🙂

Current Events, Briefly

I have so many things going on, and so many things I am behind on, that I worry about them all the time, and barely posted anything here for almost a week. If I didn’t mention anything happening on any particular day, it means that on that day I came home from work and started crossing the things off my list; mainly different tasks, big and small, related to the conference and to the meetup, and kept doing it until late.

On Wednesday, I visited a potential new venue for our meetups. I liked what I saw a lot, but things are still in the making, and I do not want to share until they materialize.

On Thursday, I finally went to the early morning escorting shift after a long winter break, and then went to the ACM meetup after work. The meetup went well, although there were way fewer people than I expected (probably because we didn’t have pizza :)).

Then, it was Good Friday, which we have off, and I took a super-early train to Milwaukee (and I already posted about it). We had a good time there, but the weather was really bad both Friday and Saturday. I returned to Chicago on Saturday morning and walked to Lea to have breakfast there (I needed something to compensate for the cold and rain!)

Then I returned home and did the conference things until evening, almost non-stop, until it was time to go to see mom and to take her to Above the Law theater. I really like Above the Law, and they did great with “Cyrano,” but my mom was in a really bad mood and yelled at both Igor and me (and she kept doing it since then!)

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On Saturday evening, our co-workers from the London office landed in Chicago, and I took them touring the city on Sunday. It was still cold, but at least sunny and no rain, and it became warmer later in the day, so we had a great time overall, and I could show them a lot!

(They still owe me my pictures, so I will post more when I have them!)

And once again, I came back home from our touring day, and started emailing/discussing/posting to speakers, volunteers, and attendees, and it feels like I will never be able to complete all the tasks I need to complete!

All this week, there will be meetings at work, and a lot of collaboration, and I still need to execute on one million community things, and I am still nervious about all of them, and about not enough conference advertisement, and mom still yells at everyone, but I have no time to be upset about it!

Good Friday In Milwaukee

We colored two dozen eggs, ate tons of Finnish and Estonian chocolate, and Anna and I spent more than three hours talking non-stop (and found an amazing coffee place!)

About “Leaving It For Later” And When Not

When somebody has a newborn baby, is working day and night to meet a deadline, or is in another challenging situation, their house might become a mess, or they can forget something important that they would never forget to do under other circumstances. This is all perfectly understandable.

What does it have to do with me? It’s not like I have always been a model of cleanliness, nor are my current standards of having things in order model ones. However, I have this thing where the sight of a mess is aesthetically displeasing to me, to the extent that most times I can’t do anything else when there are things on the floor or dirty dishes in the sink. I tidy things up right away just because it makes me feel better.

Still, the two weeks before I went to Helsinki were really exhausting. I felt like I was doing something all the time, and most of what I was doing was past due. And several times, I caught myself leaving a mess behind. For example, under normal circumstances, I would not leave the house with a pile of things on the floor or dishes not put away in the dishwasher, but I have had it several times that I had to leave immediately so that I am not late.

And each time I realized how quickly the entropy builds! You miss putting things away just twice, and now all of a sudden, you need an extra 30 minutes to get everything back to order.

It was a timely reminder for me why I am going out of my way to do all this small chores right away. Also, similar thinking appies to non-household chores. For example, when several months ago I lost one week worth of updates of my finanicial excel, I was furious, because just three days before I recorded almost two weeks of my Amazon transactions and a week worth of Visa transactions. I was very proud of myself when I was done, and it was all gone. Back then, it was a reminder to be sure I save my work in addiiton to the autosave mode, especialy after working offline, but also, I was questioning my habit of recording Amazon transactions once a week (I know why I do this, and there is a good reason, but still).

The reason I was thinking about it all the other day was that I ws in Helsinki, and wanted to spend as much time with Boris as I could when we are physically in the same location. However, I felt that it was important not to fall behind on recording my expenses, especially since I am using a diffterent CC when abroad. Same with several seemingly small things, like scheduling next A/C tune-up or filling in medical paperwork for the upcoming procedure.

I think I ended up balancing it right, still spending most time together but not feeling bad about coming home and needing to stay up later the first night I am back.

VALO Pictures

By now, Jarco, who oversees all the technical side at Valo, is my good friend, and happily greeta me when I arrive. This time, he told me: now we have a proper app, and you can make reservations there, and you can also get your morning porrige for free. Do you like porrige?

Unfortunately, for some reason, I was unalbe to find the app in the App Store, which I reported to him later that day. Next day, when he saw me walking down for breakfast, he asked meL are you eating a proper breakfast today, or just porrige? That was, in fact, the day when I ate fruits and protein at home before heading to Valo, so I said – I was thinking just a porrige today. He said: OK, let’s go! He walked down to the cafeteria with me and told the cashier: she is booked for today, she just doesn’t have the app, can she have porrige?

That was very sweet, and although it looked like I could get the same porrige for free just showing my QR code, I was very thankful to him for taking care of me 🙂

And I can’t miss this opportunity to show VALO Works one more time. I never read the inside of the cards which are placed on the shelves in each room:

On Friday, I was in a corner room – the view from the window

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Friends And Chocolate

I can’t be in Helsinki without meeting with my friend Natasha! I was so thankful that, even though she now works full-time, she still found time to stop by my coworking space after work, and we sat and talked for almost two hours! (And yes, I love that we could do it in the same space, and it was OK with everyone)

Natasha brought me a bag of Ukrainian sweets: there is a new store operated by Ukrainian refugees, and they ship directly from Ukraine. She was happy to support their business, and the sweets taste great (and it’s a terrific idea to mix all varieties in one bag – I can barely find two of the same kind!).

(I might still bring some of them home, althought I can’t guarantee :))

Morning Biking, Season 6

This is going to be my sixth summer in Rogers Park. On May 9, it will be five years since I moved here, and six years since I discovered biking along Lake Michigan. That being said, even though it’s not even five years just yet, it’s definitely season six 🙂