Category: everyday life

Watching The “Music Man”

On Saturday, I was at Goodman’s performance of the “Music Man.” I have a “Whenever Goodman” subscription, which means that I could choose which shows I will be attending, and how many tickets I will allocate for each. I knew that the last play of the season would be the “Music Man,” so I’ve saved the last four tickets for it, not even knowing whom I will invite.

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A Couple Of Words About Myself And Biking

Unlike all normal people, I didn’t learn to bike when I was a child. Taking off the training wheels didn’t work with me, and my mom didn’t consider this skill a priority. Later, some of my friends made attempts to teach me, and I remember at least two of those. Both ended up with no success, and I was pronounced unfit for biking. I was of the same opinion on this subject; you might not believe me, but I was sure that there are two things I will never learn: to ride a bike and to take pictures. Go figure :).

When we’ve moved to the US, Boris taught all my children how to ride a bike (actually, Anna might have mastered it while still in Russia, but I can’t remember now). And then he started to teach me :). I was so afraid to start this process one more time that he suggested I use Anna’s 12-inch bike first, and I did.

Twenty years later, I can’t imagine my life without biking. In fact, during my after-surgery period, biking was the thing I’ve missed most. Since I am a very social person, I joined the Palatine Bike Club and started to participate in various bike rides in the community.

Although the Palatine Bike Club has been active for a while, until recently, Palatine was not the most bike-friendly community. Things started to change in the last couple of years, and although we are still far from Madison, WI in terms of being bike-friendly, what we have now (bike lanes, bike racks) is a huge improvement. Although I am keeping telling everybody, what we should be more like Madison 🙂

About The Biking Event, And How I broke My Bike And Fixed It

On Saturday morning we had a first Palatine Community bike ride, with the Mayor and Village officials present. Although it was extremely hot, there was no question for me, whether to show up or not. Taking the weather into account, the participation was great. The police (both the cars and bikers) were escorting our cavalcade through the whole ride and would hold the traffic when we were crossing the Northwest Highway. It was a real community event, with many people participating for the first time.

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Cooked: Survival By ZIP Code

In these super-hot July days, when the temperature climbs to the 100s, I’ve attended the screening of the documentary Cooked: Survival By The ZIP Code. I watched it on Monday, unfortunately almost the only screening without any public discussion as a follow-up. That was my only option to see it, and I am happy I went, but boy, how much you want to discuss this movie after the final acknowledgments appear on the screen!

From the Siskel center website:

Inspired by Eric Klineberg’s book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Helfand (BLUE VINYL) takes a hard, personal, and often quirky look at the inequity of natural disaster, beginning with her family’s own experience of Hurricane Sandy. She ultimately zeroes in on Chicago’s shockingly inadequate response to the deadly July 1995 heatwave, during which the city morgue overflowed with the sudden deaths of 726 citizens, largely the elderly and people of color from the city’s impoverished South and West Side. This audacious look at natural disaster American-style starts with the stark premise that a zip code can be an accurate predictor of life or death when nature unleashes its worst. With increasing frequency and force, climate change sets the agenda for hurricanes, floods, heat waves, and such, but systemic neglect, deep poverty, and political expediency have already drawn the line between the survivors and the doomed, even before disaster strikes.

Cooked: Survival by Zip Code (2018) | Official Trailer from Kartemquin Films on Vimeo.

I do not even know how to describe this movie. It could very well become trivial – who does not talk about the predominantly black impoverished neighborhoods. Yet the evidence is striking. The footage of the news coverage back from 1995. Mayor Daley statement: “That’s why we love Chicago.” The refrigerator trucks storing the bodies awaiting autopsy outside the city hospitals. The life expectancy numbers – sixteen years difference between the North and the South.

The director takes a broader approach and poses very pointed questions to the officials: why we can’t address the issue preventively, before a disaster strikes? She also links the heatwave casualties with the overall state of the neighborhoods: the absence of affordable health care, inability to pay electric bills, the food deserts. If fact, one of the most striking episodes is the one in the mobile grocery store when the workers on the bus are trying to convince a teen to eat an apple – for the first time in his life!

The movie calls for action, and I can’t imagine anybody dismissing it’ s message.

About The Play I Saw Today

I like the Silk Road Rising theater a lot. I’ve been coming to their performances almost since they were founded, and I find most of the plays they stage quite exciting. When I’ve received their newsletter where they announced the short festival of the staged readings of the plays from the former Soviet Middle Asia republics, I immediately started to contemplate, who I can see them all.

This plan appeared to be impossible, for a simple reason that I have other things to do as well, but I still wanted to see some of them. So today Igor and I went to see “Uzbek, ” and I am keeping thinking about what I saw.

It is a great play, and in my opinion, it touches the topics which are very relevant to Russian society these days. However, both Igor and I feel that there was not enough context for the part of the audience, which is not very familiar with the subject of the play.

During the after-show conversation, one of the Russian playwriters said, that this play is supposed to be “hilarious,” which is true, but only if one can understand the cultural references, can figure out, which statements are an exaggeration, which are sarcastic and which are satirical. And if you have no idea, how things look in reality, you can’t appreciate the author’s reference points. For example, if you are unfamiliar with the ways of Russian bureaucracy, you can’t see the point of comparing it to the Uzbek bureaucracy. If you do not know anything about different socioeconomic groups in nowadays Russia, you can’t detect the origin of the person by listening to his alternated speech.

Now that I’ve thought about this play for some time, I do not think that all the jokes are so funny, even if (or precisely because of that) you know the context.

Several people talked to us after this conversation was over, and they were saying that they were going to ask the same context question and that they agree with me.

The reason why I react at this with such a fuss is that that’s precisely how the myths are being born, and precisely the reason I am so articulate in my posts about the Soviet and Russian history, describing all ifs and why.

Sometimes Russian actors, singers, and playwriters are going on the international tours to cater exclusively to the immigrant audience, and there is nothing wrong about it if that’s all they plan. However, I think this specific play can potentially bring a lot of value in the understanding of the current situation in Russia by the America audience if accompanied by more details about the setup and cultural and historical context.

The Independence Day Weekend

I’ve returned from my Amsterdam vacation on July 3, just in time to dive into the 4th of July festivities. That was the plan; during all my twenty-three years in the US, there was only one time when I was out of the country on this day. It happened two years ago, back then there was no option for me to be away from work for more than a couple of days, and I went to Helsinki to see Boris taking only one day off in addition to the long weekend.

And I felt that I’ve missed out for the whole year! Something had happened, and I was not a part of it! After all, missing a birthday of the country is almost like missing a birthday of a family member.


After that one time, I’ve told Boris I will never do it again and agreed to come to Amsterdam before the conference only under a condition that I will be back to the US for the holidays.

I am spending this weekend with my family and friends, and the best part of it is feeling being a part of my community.

While I Was Away

The playground, located very close to my house, the one my kids used to play when they were little, was under construction for the past couple of months. Also, there was some new construction going on at the opposite side or the road.
I went biking just a couple of hours after I’ve returned from my vacation, and when I was turning left to go to Lake Louise, I saw that this new part was completed.

Only ten years after I saw similar “sports- grounds” in Helsinki for the first time, and marveled them, they made their way to Palatine :).

Granted, they won’t substitute a gym, but it’s great to have such “sports- grounds” on the road and to be able to make a power-stops.


Do You Like Melons?

I love melons! And do you like to squizz some lemon juice on top of your melon to experience this beautiful combination of sweet and sour?

Now, what would you say to a “lemon melon”? I’ve bought it just out of plain curiosity. It looks like a small cantaloupe on the outside, inside it’s more like honeydew, and when you taste it, it is precisely like a honeydew sprinkled by lemon juice!

A Beautiful Day In The Forest Preserve

I weed scout life hack: if you are planning to epilate your legs, do it before you scout it the forest preserve! If you forget about it, you will have to wait for three days for all your scratches to get healed. But then you would not want to show your wounds to anybody anyways!

I didn’t make this mistake on Sunday, and enjoyed scouting my area – I think it’s the most beautiful prairie area in the whole forest preserve. Since it has been quite rainy lately, there are more wet spots than usual, and I’ve ended up with my feet wet in the first twenty minutes of the walk. But look at the pictures – isn’t it worth getting a little wet?

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Small Town Chicago v.2

Friday happened to be a FannieMay day. I was picking up the River Cruise tickets for my friend, and when passing a FannieMay store at the corner of Michigan and Waker saw a large sign in the shop window:

I’ve entered the store and looked around. There were all sorts of sweet activities going on. You could taste local coffees with FannieMay chocolates; you could see how the famous FannieMay turtles are being made:

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