Original article here. Couldn’t agree more.
Continue reading “TIME Magazine: The Right To Disconnect”Category: everyday life
Cultural Events
Last week marked the opening of the new theater season. So far, I attended the following events;
- The Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas concert at the Guarneri Hall. It was good (the pianist, Adam Neiman, was excellent), but the lecture before the concert was unnecessarily long and not very informative. I have a feeling that everyone was just waiting for the speaker to be done and to listen to the music. Also, because of that lecture, the concert ended later than scheduled
- Dirty Dancing at Nederlander Theater. I never saw the movie, so I couldn’t appreciate all of the details my neighbor was admiring, but I liked the music, the acting, and how the dances were staged. Not out of this world, but really nice.
- Liliom – John Neumeier’s ballet at Joffrey. The libretto is based on the play Liliom, which was also the basis of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. Great, as always 🙂 (well, so far, the only ballet I didn’t like much was Eugene Onegin)
Pictures below were taken by me:
To be continued next week 🙂
Life On Pause
I started this post three days ago, when I truly believed the title reflected the reality. It does not look like it as of now, but I am going to keep it anyway and continue from where I started.
I am not working at DRW anymore. I took some time before I made the world know, but since I already announced it on LinkedIn, I thought I would let people know here. (I meant to publish this post before I shared it on LinkedIn, but then life happened :))
Several years ago, I thought I would retire at 67. After working at DRW for a couple of years, I adjusted my plans and decided to retire at 65. My wealth manager approved it, as long as I still worked part-time.
For the past several months, however, it was so emotionally challenging that I dreaded coming to work (which is absolutely not my normal state of mind), and I thought that the only thing I wished for was to retire immediately.
Since, as I said, it ended up being anything but a pause, I do not want to say more at the moment. I promise to share more details in a couple of weeks. Now I am posting just so that people who know me in real life don’t think I am withholding important information from them. As of now, I barely have time to do anything, including things I was hoping to have time for. I will tell more; I promise!
Horseflies And How To Fight Them
When Lake Michigan water suddenly became cold for several days, another unpleasant effect was an increased number of horseflies! These creatures are usually very successful in making me leave the beach because their bites are really painful, and once they are around you, nothing can stop them.
On the third day of this cold water period, the horseflies started to attack me immediately when I got out of the water, not even letting me dry myself with the towel (in fact, there were multiple horseflies on the towel and on the beach mat), so I had to run away, trying to dry myself while I was running!
I thought I should look for anti-horsefly spray, but when I typed it into the Amazon search bar, I saw that most anti-mosquito sprays work on horseflies too. I checked my supplies – it had been a while since I needed mosquito spray, but I found one and decided to take it to the beach next time.
For a couple of days, nobody bothered me on the beach, but I kept putting the spray into my beach bag. Two days later, the horseflies were back, so as a precaution, I sprayed myself with anti-mosquito spray after applying sunscreen.
Then I sat down on my beach mat and saw something black on it. My first thought was that those were some unknown sand beetles, but the next moment I realized that those were dead bodies of the horseflies! They didn’t even fly away – they just dropped dead!
I guess problem solved, although in a more dramatic way than I planned!
Biking North
Anna wanted to try to bike from my home in Rogers Park to her house in Milwaukee, which would be the longest distance she had ever covered in one day, and she asked me whether Boris and I would like to follow her for a portion of this route and then take a train back. We enthusiastically agreed. Originally, we were thinking about going with her all the way to Kenosha, but it turned out that there were no trains from Kenosha in the middle of the day, so we would have to wait for hours to go back. So, instead of making 45 miles to Kenosha, we only did 30 miles to Waukeegan.
We would never be able to do it without Anna, because the maps are not accurate, some directions are confusing, and it’s not always obvious where the path ends. Also, there is no safe biking path from Rogers Park to Evanston, which is a shame. Biking on Sheridan is not a safe option except for a very early morning on the weekend, and things are still confusing. There are great bike lanes in Evanston itself, including multiple protected lanes, but you still need to get there!
I took notes on Metra stations where I will be able to get to the bike path straight from the train, and I might try to go on a shorter ride later, although I will still need to consult Google extensively.
Oh, and this French cafè in Highland Park where we had breakfast was something!!! I almost want to go there just for breakfast!
One last note: it always feels that you are going North, and it always surprises me. The climate is more “livable,” although I still won’t trade it for the lake 🙂
Milky Way
I saw it on Monday!!! I’ve seen it only a handful of times in my life, and Monday was one of them! I got out on the balcony around 5 AM to water the flowers (otherwise I forget to do it before the day’s heat), and I noticed the stars were very bright, the sky was clear, and I could see way more constellations than usual. And then I thought: how come I see this strange white cloud? Then I realized the “cloud” formed a circle, and it wasn’t a cloud!
The pictures make the sky look dark blue and make the Milky Way look like a cloud, which was not the case. It was almost black, and the Milky Way looked magical.
Art Institute: Mary Cassatt Exhibit
This new exhibit just opened at the Art Institute on Friday for members’ preview, and I marked my calendar to be sure to attend on Saturday, like in the old days, when I was always the first to see the newly opened exhibit.
As it often happens, it was a new discovery. Although I saw “The Child’s Bath” in the permanent exhibit as many times as I visited the Art Institute, it was “one of many Impressionist paintings”, and I was absolutely sure that Mary Cassatt was French!
Not only was she American, but she lived in Chicago before moving to France, and she witnessed the Great Chicago Fire!
And Suddenly, The Lake Got Cold!
That’s the worst that could happen to the lake!!! At the very end of summer, no matter what the weather is, the Lake is consistently warm, often warmer than the air, and I could already feel it in the second half of August.
And then, just when I created one extra extended weekend with one extra day off, there were three days of winds and starting-and-stopping rains, and by Monday evening, the lake water was ice cold! I knew nothing about it and plunged in Tuesday morning. I boldly walked into the water, and suddenly felt something not right! It felt like mid-May, and I couldn’t stay in the water for more than 30 seconds.
When I walked back home down the alley, a car slowed down beside me, and a dad with the kid in the back seat asked me: Excuse me, I am just wondering, is the water the same frigid cold as yesterday evening? I replied that I was not there last evening, but the water is frigid indeed. He said: OK, at least I am not crazy! I couldn’t believe it – it’s not right! I agreed, but unfortunately, nothing could be done.
The next morning, the situation was the same. I asked Grandfather Google what the matter was, and he replied that the winds pushed the warm water away from the beaches, and the cold water from the depth of the lake had risen. That was understandable, but excruciating, since the days are already getting shorter, and I couldn’t believe it was possible, even with the current heat wave, to warm up this vast body of water for a second time within one season.
Still, I kept coming. On Thursday, it was not only cold, but also the unimaginable number of horseflies didn’t let me even dry myself! There were so many, latching at my legs, my sandals, and my towel, that I had to run from the beach, all wet, pulling on my beach tarp on the way.
Today, I resolved to give it one more attempt. And the miracle happened! There was a moderate wind in the direction of the shore, and nice waves were coming. First, when I stepped into the water, I immediately felt it wasn’t as cold as it had been for the past several days, though it was still cold. Then, when I walked deeper and turned my face to the waves, I suddenly felt the movement of the warmer water!!! It was coming back, not on the surface, but beneath it!
Miigwech aapiji, Michigami! Chi-miigwechwi, Gisis!
Mom’s Doctor
I had to do it all over again and switch my mom’s doctor one more time. After her doctor made us wait for over an hour, I decided we needed to look for an alternative. I thought that since I needed to take an Uber to get my mom to a doctor anyway, the distance didn’t matter, and I could expand my search to find a Russian-speaking doctor. I thought that since she doesn’t follow advice anyway, it might be important for her to be able to communicate directly with the doctor. Also, I was hoping she could be administered a memory test in Russian.
We switched from one doctor to a Russian-speaking one and scheduled an appointment. My mom didn’t like the new doctor, and if you ask me, she was not wrong. It’s funny that she has been complaining about the doctors not doing the same things as Russian doctors, like not listening to her chest at each visit or not giving her a better prescription for constipation. But now, speaking to a very traditional Russian doctor, she was upset that the doctor didn’t give her a visit summary, didn’t speak directly to her, and sent her to way too many tests. As for me, I didn’t like all these things either, plus the fact that she was saying all the time that she is the only good Russian doctor left in this area, and that only Russian doctors are any good.
Since my mom has already forgotten that she didn’t like her “one before last” doctor (who, I think, was the best she ever had) and told me that she never ever complained about her, I told her that I am going to switch her back, which I did, since we were still in the open enrollment period. I still need to wait before we see that new/old one, and I am not ruling out that my mom will be complaining again, but at least in that case, I have access to the patient portal and can message the doctor!
I am slightly upset because of the time wasted, but at least I tried, and there are no “what-ifs” left.
The South Trailhead
And finally, we achieved our goal of getting to the official end of the Lakefront Trail. If I hadn’t consulted Google Maps beforehand, I would never have reached it, because at the end, it becomes a tiny path and goes onto a busy sidewalk that goes around the Southshore Cultural Center.
The south trailhead looks even less glamorous than the north one which we pass each time we go biking, and it took me time to find the actual”end” sign.
Since I was busy navigating on our way to the endpoint, I only took some pictures on our way back. The view of lake was stunning!
That was probably the first time on our long trips that we took some snacks with us, because we knew we would be away from any breakfast places (at least the ones we know), and we didn’t have time for exploration; also, since it was a very hot day, we tried to get back home fast.
There was a bench with a beautiful view of the harbor, which Boris noticed on our way forward, and we stopped there for a snack.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the situation with the public restrooms- availability, opening hours, and cleanliness is tons better in the south portion of the train than on the north one!
