Category: everyday life

Last Tuesday

In the past two days, I have slowly regained the sense of normalcy, which sometimes resulted in the desire to fall asleep while walking, but mostly in a burst or energy and a fountain of new ideas.

Now, I feel I need to explain more about what exactly was happening during the past three months, but at the same time, I want to forget and move forward.

Let’s focus on the past week. Except for a very modest Easter celebration, I was busy working on my opening and closing remarks for the conference, finally looking into my own presentation which was in a miserable state, and a million small conference-related questions, like finalizing logistics for both training and the conference days, finding additional free tickets for students, emailing, confirming, advertizing, etc. My co-workers from the Austin and London offices arrived on Monday, so we tried to work together on things. On Monday night, I finished all my presentations and went to bed thinking that I should have probably saved them on OneDrive, but oh well, I will do it the next day. On Tuesday morning, the first thing I saw on my phone was a message from one of my European friends: Hettie, is the PG Day Chicago site down? I jumped up to check on my computer (not trusting the phone). The site was up. Then I thought that this would be my only opportunity that week to bike in the morning, and went biking, returned later than I planned, and took “the next” train. This train was crowded, and there was no place for me to sit and do any work or what’s not. I was the first one to jump off the train and ran to my office building.

The elevator doors were closing, but the people inside read the sense of urgency on my face and held the door. I thanked them and got in< and then… this elevator got stuck! We were not stuck for very long, but by the time I entered our floor at 8 AM, I already had a day worth of stressful events!

Easter

A rare case, especially for spring, when the morning weather was so much better than later in the day!

What surprised me this morning was a large number of people watching the sunrise on the lake. And not just watching, but also setting up a picnic, chairs, tables, food, and water. I mean, I am all for such a way of celebrating Easter, I just never saw it before (or never paid attention).

We had a small Easter celebration at my house, just for me, Igor and my mom.

I bought Colomba bread for the first time in my life, and now I am head over heels about it! It is so rarely happens to me that I can’t stop eating something, but that was the case.

A Day Off

One of the perks of working in a trading firm is that there are no trades on Good Friday. An extra day off is great, especially after several completely exhausting weeks.

Of course, the negative part is that there is no breakfast catering:), but the Charmers Cafe across the street works just fine. And unlike in the office, they make good cappuccino!

Last Week’s Review

There has been almost no “me” here during the last week, but there has been a lot of “me” on professional social media. We were advertising Prairie Postgres and the training we organized on April 24. If it were all in one event (the conference and the training), my life would be much easier, but unfortunately, I have to do double work organizing two independent events (and driving our caterer crazy). I am overjoyed that we were recognized by the Postgres Core Team before the start of the conference because it gave me some stability and protection.

However, I am ending up not having enough participants, because I lost advertising time in the beginning, and because I didn’t have much support in promoting Pg Day from people who were supposed to help.

If that wasn’t enough, I had to finish a tutorial proposal for ADBIS; that was what Boris wanted me to do last year, and I promised, but then didn’t because there was too much going on. This year, ADBIS is happening later (at the end of September), and it will be in Finland, so there were even more reasons to try to submit. Realizing that it would be even worse that year, I wanted to prepare the proposal in January, when I was in Helsinki, but this didn’t happen. I started slow, and the deadlines were approaching, and I ended up writing these eight pages of a semi-academic paper during the last two weeks, on top of my PG-crisis. I was putting away almost everything, but I couldn’t put aside work, and work was in a full-blown crisis because of Trump’s trade war.

And on top of that, somebody asked me to apply for yet another board. I know, it sounds insane, but if this happens, I will share the details, and then probably people will understand why :). Nevertheless, this application took several additional hours.

Also, I was sending reminders for training and making sure I placed as many students as possible to attend the PG Day for free. The results could be better, but they are not hopeless.

I have one more week to survive. It would be much better if Boris were here, but I will manage.

The Lake!

Things keep piling up, and my life is insane, but on the bright side of it, I am meeting with the Lake during my morning bike rides again!

And also, although you can’t see a sunset over the lake from our side, the evenings are equally beautiful!

Personal Update

Boris is not coming in April. His previous US visa expired in March, and he was supposed to get an “auto-renewal” (without the interview), at least that’s what the system determined. He mailed his passport to the embassy as instructed, but two weeks later, he received a response form them that he needed to schedule the interview. By that time, there were no slots available until May.

It’s not the end of the world yet (although we keep wondering what it could be), but at a minimum, a serious alteration of our plans. On Anna’s advice, I asked our Congressperson’s office for assistance, but after looking at our case, they said there is nothing they can help with.

(That was an FYI since many of my friends read this blog as my news feed, no actions required :))

Ryo Sushi

I do not know why there are no crowds at Ryo Sushi: they are at the premium location, they are open on evenings and weekends, their prices are very modest, and the food is above and beyond! I really want them to stay open, although I also hope that I will never have to wait in line to get in!

The Seafood Udon is my favorite!
The Ramen lovers were also happy!

Two Operas

This week, I attended two operas in Lyric, and that’s it for this season. The first one was La Boheme. It was the first time that I listened to it live, and I loved every moment of it! Everything was perfect, the acting, the set and the costumes, and all the voices were out of this world! I am reposting the photos from the Lyric Opera website, because I know they will be gone soon!

Two days later, I went to the Listeners. My neighbor read the reviews and said she did not want to go, but I was intrigued and went alone. I have nothing against modern operas, and was open to hearing something new. When I read that this opera is about “a cult,” I became unsure but decided to give it a try.

In the end, it was not my thing. Or rather, I do not think that the story was opera material. The promotional video looks tons better than the opera itself. But maybe it’s just me!

Continue reading “Two Operas” →

On Abortion

At the PAC event on March 18, the speakers mentioned the number of out-of-state abortions performed in Illinois per year. Even before Dobbs, the numbers were high: 19K in 2022 and 87K in 2023. They didn’t have the numbers for 2024 yet, but I can only imagine!

That’s for this Saturday morning, when I was once again in escort by the FPA clinic on West Washington.

The anis are trying to blend in with the colors very similar to ours, but you can still tell them! And you can see how close to the clinic entrance they are!

One woman I was escorting to another clinic entrance said that she “didn’t expect these people to be there” and asked: Are they here every day? I said: yes, and they are not coming from other states, those are ours, “homegrown” antis. And she said: Oh, I am not from here, I am from Texas! Then we had a usual conversation about ” why are they doing this? what are they trying to achieve? that’s my choice.”

I knew that people from Texas come to Illinois to have an abortion, but that was the first time I met someone who went such a long distance to get the care they needed. And once again, it reminded me how important it is to preserve all rights and freedoms in our state.

Books

I haven’t updated Goodreads in a very long time, so now I have to add a whole bunch of books at once. That’s because of how my life has been during the past several weeks! I mostly listened on the go, mixing the audiobooks with BBC news and WBEZ podcasts. And sometimes, I was too stressed to listen to anything! Here is my list from the past five or six weeks:

Machiavelli for Women. I read it because Stacey Vanek Smith came to our office and gave a talk, and I was in Finland! I couldn’t even dial in because I was on my way home from the coworking, and the day was insane, and I couldn’t leave earlier. I liked the book, but I liked the author’s talk and especially the Q&A even more!

Bel Canto by Ann Prachett. I read it for the book club at work, and didn’t like it. Can’t tell why exactly, but it is entirely “not my book.” If it weren’t for a book club, I would abandon it after the first ten minutes of listening, but I listened to the end, hoping to figure out why people chose it. I am not even going to stay for the discussion later this week.

The Goddess of Warsaw. I was listening to it non-stop, that’s how captivating it was, but the ending didn’t feel convincing.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens. I remember why I started this book and who recommended it, but it didn’t click. I am half into it, and thinking whether I should abandon it or finish.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. I gave it four stars, but maybe I will get back and change it to five :). I love these series, and possibly I have higher expectations than I should.