Category: everyday life

Is It Just Me?

I couldn’t stop laughing!

Morning Biking

Saturday Early Morning – it’s foggy!

WTTW Event

On Wednesday, Igor and I attended one more WTTW event in the FIRSTHAND: Homeless series. This event was dedicated to the migrant crisis. I was extremely disappointed with it. I had to leave to return to my guests, but Igor stayed to talk to the participants., soI might have more updates from him when we talk. My disappointment was mostly because I do not think this event achieved its purpose.

The purpose, as I see it, was to make more people aware of migrants’ challenges: why things are so difficult for them, what obstacles they never thought about, and why they are fleeing their countries in the first place. None of these questions were answered. To be honest, I do not even think the documentary covered “homelessness” specifically. There are multiple (too many) challenges these people face, and my feeling was that the questions of getting work permits and enrolling kids in schools took preference, and the horrific housing crisis was sort of left on the back burner. (Waiting for Igor’s comments on that).

Porches Painting And Planting

I started to write this post two months ago, but then things became more interesting, and I held off on posting it. Now, the whole process is finally in progress, so I can at least report on the current status.

How it started. Last year, there were talks about painting porches, but they died away with no outcome. I planted everything I wanted to plant, and life was happy. This spring, I planned to hang up my flower baskets while Boris was here in April because it’s a job for two people. But shortly before he came, we received a notice from our association that this season, we are definitely having the porches painted and repaired, so “please do not take the deck furniture out and do not plant anything; we hope to be done in May.”

How did it turn out. I didn’t plant anything, but my furniture is always on the deck, just covered for winter. At the beginning of May, I started to suspect that it would not happen in May. In mid-May, they told us that they chose contractors. At that point, I decided that I would be planting, and when my girls were here during the first weekend of June, we went to the Windy City Garden Center. Right then, another message arrived stating that the work would begin “after the holidays.” This was a total crush because my friends from Finland would arrive just before July 4, which would mean that they would have this construction for the whole duration of their stay! Also, I felt so miserable without the plants that I decided that I would be happy even if they would hang on there for a month!

Development. Since then, the dates have shifted multiple times. Finally, this week, the work began. I know that my tier won’t be started for at least three more weeks. That means that my flowers will last for two months! My only regret is that I listened to the “do not plant” statement and wasted almost a month!

The equipment is arriving

My guests are saying that so far, it was not that noisy and they can survive, so I hope it will be all OK!

Work And More Work

I took two more days off to spend time with my friends and to show them around. While I was off, I occasionally looked at work Slack and saw that work was accumulating and that several things required my attention. Still, I decided not to work and not to interfere until I was back.

As a result, today, I came to the office at 7 AM and left at 5:20 PM, and the only breaks I had were for breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria. One of these days when your butt hurts from sitting! And there were still more things to do.

And I believe I didn’t mention that my talk was accepted for PG Day UK! Actually, one talk was accepted, and another is on the reserve list, which means that I need to prepare both! I am excited and nervous :). And I do no know where I can find time for that!

Next week, I am hosting Chicago PUG, and I already have over fifty RSVPs, so it might be yet another eight RSVPs meetup, and once again, I am excited and scared. Life is good, but one life is definitely not enough!

Showing The Best Of Rogers Park

I had a total of five days off work, including two vacation days I took on July 3 and 5 to help my friends feel at home and show them all of the Rogers Park highlights. I think I succeeded: they love it here!

We went to the beach several times (actually, at least twice, they went without me).

On July 4, we went to look at the Artists of the Wall:

We went to Devon Market and Morse Market (and to get to the former one, I made sure that all of them had a bike they could ride. My friend Natasha didn’t ride a bike for several years, and she never did biking in the street traffic. I could understand her anxiety – I felt the same way when I first biked in Rogers Park, but she survived :).

This morning, we went for breakfast to the Common Cup:

And then to the Glenwood market, where we got purple and yellow beans, Benison bakery pastries, Mickii’s cobblers, flowers, and tart cherries. And Natasha got herself a new neckless, and then we all got different flavors of popsicles.

And then we went to the Art Institute, where, to my deepest disappointment, we found the Ryan Canter closed because of the NASCAR race – don’t ask what it has to do with that! However, Sonia compensated this loss with another round of slashes in the Crown Fountain:

Tomorrow, I will be back to work, but I think my friends will find their way around and things to do!

Breakfast

I can’t believe it, but last Sunday was the first time I had breakfast outside this season! That’s mostly because I have breakfast at work most days, and also, I was away a lot, but still! One of my favorite things!

ORD

I am sitting in Terminal 5 of ORD, waiting for my friends from Helsinki to arrive. I know that the aircraft landed more than twenty minutes ago, but nobody can tell how long is the security line.

I have a full fridge and places for five people to sleep, and that’s exciting – I didn’t have any international guests since pre-pandemic, and that will be the first time I have international guests since I moved to Rogers Park.

The first line from today’s WBEZ newsletter says:

It’s a fact we Chicagoans hold dear: No city summers better than ours.

And don’t you dare to tell me otherwise!

Lake Michigan Last Sunday

The ride in the direction to the South was so nice and pleasant that I knew it would be close to impossible to bike back – and it was!

Dishwasher

Continuing on the topic of appliances. When I moved in, the dishwasher was not working, but it could be repaired, so I didn’t shop for a new one. I made a couple of interesting discoveries after it was repaired, such as finding pieces of broken glass on the bottom, and way later, I found the cap of the rinsing liquid dispenser. The dishwasher door would not stay in the intermediate position and would always fall all the way horizontally, but the job of cleaning was performed fine, so I could live with it.

I really liked the dishwasher which Anna had in her house. The things I especially liked:

  • After the cycle is over, the door opens a small gap, so some air gets inside and helps the plastic surfaces to dry. I wash a lot of plastic containers, and I like the idea you do not need to additionally dry them when you unload a dishwasher.
  • I love the third rack! It has space for all of those “not fitting into” things, like cutlery, small lead, blender parts, etc.
  • I love that it operates so quietly that you can barely hear it

When I finally decided to get a new dishwasher a couple of months ago, I texted Anna to ask about her dishwasher brand. She didn’t reply right away, and I was already deeply in the process. Also, wanted to make sure that it would be delivered when Boris was in town and could be at home for delivery. Long story short, I went through several dozen models available in Lowes, looking for all of the above criteria. After I placed the order, Anna finally got back to me, and it turned out that I purchased the same one as she had :). It’s sad that only Samsung could check all the squares!

Later, I discovered one more exciting feature: the cycle auto-selection. This thing can actually figure out how dirty your dishes are and select the washing cycle accordingly!