Category: everyday life

Mother’s Day And Mom

I wanted to do something more interesting than having coffee together for Mother’s Day, so I got the tickets to CSO for Renee Fleming and Eugeny Kissin’s concert. At the beginning of the season, I booked several tickets for Sunday matinees to take mom, but I had to return half of them because of scheduling conflicts. When I saw that concert, I thought there was no way thee ae any decent tickets left, but to my surprise, I was able to get two tickets, if not in the first row, still pretty close to the stage. Then I thought that I was not even going to try to make any dinner reservations because it would be impossible to get anything for Mother’s Day. Again, to my surprise, Forte was wide open, so I got the reservation right after the concert.

Overall, things were good. Mom complained about all the usual stuff but within average :). Unfortunately, one more time, I tried to reason with her when she told me that “here” things are different, and “back at home,” they would always announce the performers and the pieces, and she would not take my reminders that it was always the case at the classical music concerts. I blamed myself for getting into the arguments, but overall, she enjoyed herself.

I have weekly sessions with a therapist now, and these sessions helped me to realize that whatever I am doing and how I am talking to mom won’t change the speed of her decline; it will take its own course. I know that when I start reasoning with her and call for logic, it never ends up good; it makes bother me and her upset. So I am trying not to contradict her and not to argue, just to let it go.

I think that if I learn to control myself most of the time, it will be better for both of us. It’s along the lines of me stopping trying to fix everything and let things be the way they are.

Today’s good news: I finally got in touch with a Russian-speaking case manager, and she gave me a lot of good advice and reassured me that we will be able to resolve all the things related to mom that I am struggling with right now. That was very encouraging and really elevated my spirits.

Now, both mom and I need to focus on her citizenship interview that is scheduled for next week. She is panicking that she might forget some answers or not understand some questions, and I am panicking that she might start Putin’s propaganda… We have a weekend to rehearse, and I need to find and print all her documents, and a copy of her application. Hopefully, all goes well!

I Am Glad I Am Here!

Last week was two years since I moved to Rogers Park. Since then, I have changed jobs three times and had a lot of ups and downs, but one thing is for sure: I am so glad I moved! I enjoy coming back home, I enjoy walking the neighborhood, and that’s my home for real.

New Planting Season

Even though I have no time and no car, and nurseries do not do deliveries, and even the water in our courtyard – what can stop me?

Morning Biking

A swimmer!!!

What I Liked About Yestreday

It’s not necessarily that I managed to squeeze in so many activities in one day. It’s not about numbers. It’s about the fact that throughout the whole day, I did what I wanted, things that were important to me and that I didn’t want to miss.

And also – I had many people’s interactions. I talked to the people in my neighborhood, and that’s what I didn’t do enough recently, especially because the winter was long and the spring was cold.

I talked to the florist from whom I bought the annuals for my balcony, I talked to many vendors at the crafts fair, I talked to the artists in the Greenleaf Center, and to the people at Grant Park.

Funny thing. I felt like I spent tons of money during the day because I bought from so many vendors. But when I sat down in the evening to record all my spendings I realized that it was way less than I thought. I believe it’s because all the interactions, whether I purchased something or not, were meaningful.

Saturday – As Planned!

That’s the most amazing fact about today – I did pretty much everything I wanted, and som more!

Long (ish) bike ride in the morning:

My cleaning lady came to wash the windows, and this year, we were also to open all of them. While she was washing the windows, I did a big portion of my emails and started my submissions to PG Conf NYC. Then I went down to Jarvis square fair and bought a lot of plants for my balcony and for our courtyard vegetable garden. Then I hung out for a little bit at the fair, chatted with the neighbors who also went down there, bought a crazy artisan doughnut

and hurried to the Abortion Protection rally (and finished my conference submissions on the CTA)

After the rally was over, I went straight to the Switch on Summer event (Switching on the Buckingham fountain). Last year, I came there too early and as a result, didn’t stay till the actual turning on the fountain (it was too hot). This time, I came at about 1-15, and it was perfect!

Continue reading “Saturday – As Planned!” →

Sleep

For the past three or four months, I have been making an effort to sleep more. I had a feeling that recently, my five-and-half hours were not enough anymore, and for the longest time, I had a battle with myself to get six hours of sleep every night. I rarely succeeded (except for when in Finland), but I kept trying. I thought I managed to do it rarely often and was surprised to see that my Apple watch rarely tells me that I met my sleep goal.

A couple of days ago I finally decided to look at the stats in the Health app, and I found out that the length of my sleep didn’t change for the past two years! When I was trying to sleep more, I ended up having more time “in bed”, but exactly the same sleep time, which is something like 5 hours and 15 or 20 minutes.

Now I am going to stop trying because lying in bed and not doing anything is a complete waste of time! (Sleep is a waist of time in general, but even my body needs some :))

SSI Again

I was preparing for another long call with Social Security, but mom received a letter of the denial of coverage. That’s what they told me in the first place, but for some reason, they processed the application and then formally declined it.

Now I will wait for the citizenship to go through and try again. I really want to schedule an in-person appointment because it is very difficult to explain all our circumstances over the phone. Also, I am unsure about Medicare – on the one hand, I want to wait till her citizenship, and on the other hand, they do not like when you apply later than you become eligible.

Well, one thing at a time.

Simple Solutions

For a while now, I thought I needed a new fridge because the one I have now is most likely as old as the house after the rehab, that’s circa 2005, and also, it was generating some weird noise. The noise stopped a couple of weeks ago, but still- I do not want to be in a situation where I need to buy something immediately because the old one is broken.

I knew that I would have a problem with the fridge height – there is a shelf right above it, and the existing fridge just – barely-makes it. And I had a similar problem in Palatine, but there it was an actual hard limit.

I spent a lot of time on the internet (it turned out that you can’t ask Google “less than 67-inch height!” I mean, you can ask, but the results will be unsatisfactory).

So I spent a lot of time looking for a suitable model, and then I finally limited my search to three, and I asked Boris to help me to make a final selection. When we got on the call, I started by saying that I couldn’t get all the cool new features I wanted because all the newer models were higher than 67 inches. For that, Boris replied: why won’t we just lift the shelf several inches up? It’s plenty of room above it! And then I realized that I was subconsciously led by my Palatine experience where there was nothing to lift! I checked how this shelf is attached, and it turned out it’s just four screws on each side and one board on each side!

We decided to wait till Boris comes at the end of the month and move the shelf up, and then I can choose the fridge of my dreams!

Warm Weather Is Back, And Lots Of Work

I found one more biking opportunity – after the evening rush hour. Now, and for the next two months, there will be enough daylight to bike after 6 PM. Yesterday, I left the house at 6-15, and the traffic was much better than it is between 4 and 6, and probably even better than during lunchtime.

And today in the morning – the sunrise from the same place 🙂

I am almost sad that I have breakfast and lunch at work and do not have an opportunity to eat breakfast outside. The closest I can get to it – sit by the window at the cafeteria:

The weather is amazing, and the whole city seems to be outside. I took a stroll after lunch, and everywhere on the Riverwalk, there is people ]sitting, eating their lunches, and enjoying the weather.

And there are so many things I need and what to do that they hopelessly do not fit anywhere, and I do not even have time to write down my to-do lists :). So instead of blogging about what I didn’t do or do not have time to do, I should better tell what I’ve actually done!

And it was this beautiful morning bike ride, and an exceptionally productive day at work, and a walk along the river, and dinner at the ODS (only a partial success since most residents were somewhere outside :)).