Category: everyday life

Three Morning Commutes

Since public transportation ridership is rapidly returning to pre-pandemic levels (I know many doubt this, but I experience it every day :)), I had to switch to the earliest commuting wave. When I started my current job, I used to take the 7:15 or 7:30 train, and occasionally the 7:00 AM train. However, these days, there is no chance to find an open seat on eitgher of them, so I switched to 6:30 AM, which was luckily added about a year and a half ago, When it was just added, there were barely five people waiting for it on the platform, but now there is a small crowd, and I have to rush in to find an open seat. And if, for whatever reason, I am not making this train, I am taking the L.

On Monday, I took a day off because I needed to do several conference-related and mom-related things, and I left the house at an uncharacteristic 7:45 AM. A CTA attendant at Jarvis station was visibly surprised to see me at the wrong time :). It was very interesting to observe the crowd on later trains, especially closer to the Loop. Early morning is for service workers, people working shifts and some occasional crazy IT like me, or contractors all all kinds, trying to start their billable hours as early as possible. Later, it’s a time for traders and the rest of the IT, especially working parents, who have no choice of commute time. And an hour later felt like students and freelancers commute. I was surprised to see that L-trains were even more crowded that an hour earlier, and I think it’s the Metra/CTA difference. Metra is officially out of the rush hour by 8:30, but the CTA rush hour continues. That’s the loudest and the friendlies crowd of all, with the least smarphone usage during commute, if you can believe it. They actually talk!

Mom’s Updates

Mom’s God-given case manager L. visited her on Friday. She texted me an apology that she might be 15 minutes delayed, ended up being on time, and texted me again that she would wait for me to come. Pure angel.

Gave both of us a million hugs, told me how to talk to the agency, and increased mom’s help hours to 83/month. Mom finally started to realize that this is going to be a huge assistance for her, so now, instead of blaming me for “I didn’t react properly” on her fainting episode, she tells me that “I didn’t explain to her” what I was planning to do.

On Monday, I took her to her doctor for the check-up. I was not surprised that he didn’t find anything wrong with her in general, but I was surprised that there was nothing visibly wrong with her left leg. All neurological reactions were fine. He said that, obviously, fainting is not normal, but three weeks later, it’s hard to tell what was wrong.

Mom was very happy with the results of this visit and immediately went on a long walk with her caregiver. The good part about her ordeal is that she came to turms we needing more help, and hopefully she won’t be getting out of the house on her own.

The CheckOut Piano Series

The Checkout is our new “local” venue. I’ve been there twice already (here is one of the posts), and when they announced the Sunday Matinee Piano series, I decided to take my mom there, hoping it would be less stressful for her than going to the CSO.

The concert was brilliant! Same as during my previous visit, I enjoy the unique opportunity to hear an exceptional performer in a very intimate setting. The performer, Feiyi Liao, is a doctoral student at Northwestern, and he performs not only with exceptional techniques but also with a heart and soul.

The program was “classic” (Mozart, Gershwin, and Franz Liszt), but each piece sounded like “for the first time”. I chose the seats so that my mom could see the performer’s fingers over the keyboard (if that’s not the case, the concert is lost for her). She liked it :).

This Yamaha concert grand was donated to the CheckOut by Piano Forte. Beautiful sound, and the primary reason for the Solo Piano Series

Tulips from My CSA Delivery

My CSA offered tulips as add-ons, and I ordered a small bouquet of the Monarch Beauty. I love them! They are getting more and more beautiful every day!

The Lake In Winter

There have been a couple of sunny days since I came back, and although I am mostly working all day long, I had a couple of opportunities to walk on the winter beach and say hello to the Lake!

Ribbon!

Since McCorminc skating rink closes at the beginning of February for the second year in a row, I decided to try to go to the Ribbon when I am back from my trip, and yesterday, I went there for the first time; and not just this year, but actually for the first time to the Ribbon.

I absolutely loved the skating experience, it’s way more enjoyable than McCormick, but getting there takes more time, so there is absolutely no way to go there over the lunch break, even the extended one. The only option is to go after work, and you need to take both your backpack and your skates, and also take them home. Additionally, you have to rent a locker because there is no option to leave even your boots, let alone the backpack, in plain sight: it’s not a circle, it’s a ribbon :). Minor things: there is no free skating; even if you have your own, it’s $5, and a locker price is $3 for a small one, where you can fit nothing, as I realized yesterday, and $5 for a bigger one.

A travel time from my office, including renting a locker and putting my things there, was almost 40 minutes, so once again, I need to figure out how to fit it into my schedule and how often I can do it, but I am really glad I went and figured it out. It was a little bit pushing the boundaries 🙂

Magellan

Magellan is the Philippines’ Entry For Best International Feature at the Oscars, and the reviews were raving. I decided it’s a must-see, even though the movie is almost three hours long. Judging by the description, I expected more or less a traditional, colorful historical movie with a pronounced social message:

At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (Gael García Bernal) navigated a fleet of ships to Southeast Asia, attempting the first voyage across the vast Pacific Ocean. On reaching the Malay Archipelago, the crew pushed to the brink of madness in the harshness of the high seas and overwhelming natural beauty of the islands, Magellan’s obsession leads to a rebellion and reckoning with the consequences of power. A vast, globe-spanning epic from Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz (NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY), MAGELLAN presents the colonization of the Philippines as a primal, shocking encounter with the unknown and a radical retelling of European narratives of discovery and exploration.

My first reaction was disappointment: it felt more like a Tarkovsky movie, just with prettier landscapes. Iwas even thinking of quietly leaving the screening. But gradually, my perception changed, and I kept watching. If you watch the trailer, it does not give a good impression of the movie. The trailer is more dynamic and less picturesque. And doesn’t show even a percent of violence.

Maybe three hours is too much to say “colonialism is bad.” You decide.

Mom

It turned out that my mom fainted when she went to the grocery store with her caretaker several days after I went on my trip. I knew something had happened and that she was hiding something because she missed a day of emailing me. I figured I would find out anyway, and I finally talked to her caretaker over the weekend. It sounds strange because the store called the ambulance: they took her vitals, and absolutely everything looked perfect. But now she is afraid to leave the house on her own, and the caregiver can be there only twice a week. Also, it appears that her glasses didn’t change from outdoors to indoors immediately when she entered the store, so she is afreaid to wear them,

With all of that, in addition to the work crisis follow-up and some super-urgent Prairie Postgres matters, I had to make tons of mom-related calls. Now, her case manager is coming on Friday, and we will discuss adding more help (she has tons of allowed hours she does not use).

I also scheduled a visit to her family doctor for next Monday, ordered new glasses for her, and dropped off the frames.

She was at her biannual checkup on January 5, but she never tells the doctor what her problems are and says everything is fine. Having her vitals remarkably OK, it’s challenging for me to explain that not everything is OK. Last time, I left a note for the doctor before the visit, noting that she had complained about her left leg. But when she was at the doctor, she said she didn’t have any pain, so he let it go.

We’ll see how it will go this time,

February

The Sunday weather was gorgeous, but because of my 50-hour work day Thursday – Saturday, I had to stay at home most of Sunday, finishing some urgent chores in all areas of my life, and I got out of the house just once.

The Dance Of Death At The Steppenwolf

I didn’t really get this play. I chose to go because I haven’t been to Steppenwolf for a while, and they had discounted tickets for the Chicago Theater Week, and also, I wanted to take my friend Y to a show. When we talked about it, I didn’t know that I would have a work crisis! There was supposed to be nothing going on this weekend, and I asked her which show she would rather see at the Goodman or at the Steppenwolf, and she chose that one. The description looked interesting, and I didn’t know the play, so I readily agreed.

In the high stone tower of an isolated naval fortress, Alice and Edgar are about to celebrate 25 years of wedded bliss—if decades of resentment, recrimination and mutual sabotage count as bliss. But when an alluring visitor arrives, the delicate balance of their tedious arrangement falls off its axis, cracks growing into canyons. In Conor McPherson’s wicked take on Strindberg’s masterclass in marital warfare, a twisted love triangle waltzes off the edge of a cliff, plunging us all into the deep.

The play was written in 1900, which I didn’t realize before I came to the show, and that probably explains why “I didn’t get it.” For example, it was challenging to figure out the nature of the relationships between Alice and Kurt and the “vampire kiss.” When I read more about the play, I got an impression that it was a “symbol” of something. I think it was all about symbolism, and as I have recently realized, I do not understand it or like it.

One thing is for sure – the acting was superb. Even when you can’t make any sense of the plot, the acting is incredibly believable. My friend enjoyed it just because of that, and texted me later that it was a great experience, but to be entirely honest, I think she was just happy to see me :).