Category: everyday life

Anna Karenina at Joffrey

Joffrey Ballet put on a new “Anna Karenina” production with an all-new score by Ilya Demutsky, which is stunning. I spend almost an hour searching for the best photos, and they can only remotely reveal what a stunning production it is. There is very little of Tolstoy left. For example, the best part is the scene of Anna and Vronsky’s intimacy, which is 100% against Tolstoy’s beliefs. If you remember this part of the novel, he does not describe the scene, he just said that “it happened.” And then, he describes all the horrible feelings of “murder” and how Anna is disgusted with what just happened. This goes with Tolstoy’s idea that sex is sinful and “unnatural” and ruins the love, not compliments it. All the nonsense that people with a strong desire often say since they feel guilty about how they feel.

Anyway, is erotic scene is so beautiful and so powerful!

Continue reading “Anna Karenina at Joffrey” →

I have a question again – a different one

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

On February 15, we had one more live meetup of the Chicago PostgreSQL User Group. I am very happy with how it went, except for one thing.
Positive things first, the attendance was at the pre-pandemic level first time after the pandemic! I would even say it was on the higher side of pre-pandemic attendance. The speaker was outstanding (would you ever expect less from Kirk Roybal?) There were a lot of questions during the talk and after the talk, and some people stayed after 8 PM. All of this was great, and I think that how a good meetup should look like, and that’s why we have live meetups.
However, there was one thing that I didn’t like. Look at the picture below:

I asked the audience how many people had female coworkers. At least two-thirds raised their hands. And then I asked: so where are they? Why didn’t…

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The Ripple, The Wave…

Flexible theatre memberships always look appealing because you think you will just choose the day which works best for you when it is closer to the show. And then, since a show is not on your calendar, you forget that you must choose.

This happened to me with my Whenever Goodman membership: the play “the ripple, the wave which carries me home” looked very interesting, but I thought, “I will look at it next week, this week is too busy,” until all of a sudden, I received an email saying that the show must close the upcoming Sunday.

Fortunately for me, I opened this email before Sunday, and luckily, Igor and I found one show time that worked for both of us.

We were almost late for the show because we went out for dinner and got very engaged in our conversation, so when we rushed into the Owen theater five minutes before the show started, and ended up sitting close to the extended family of the actress who played a leading role!

It is surprising how many people are unaware of the history of pool segregation and how many horrible things were happening fairly recently. Even the author of the play admits in the interview that she was not aware of many of them before she started working on this play. For me, the show’s most shocking moment was when the main heroine’s mother talks about three boys, two black and one white, who were killed (she does not give details of what happened, except “out of four only one returned”), and she says about their funerals:” They should have been buried together, but no cemetery would do this.”

I am glad we got a chance to go. This is one of the plays which is almost too close to reality, and although there are a lot of funny moments, it is very tragic, and very close to ho

The Fablemans

Oh, how much I loved this movie! I am so glad I made a non-existent time in my schedule to watch it! Once again, thanks for 400 Theater being so close to us and running all the new releases. Funny thing – for the first time ever, I used a senior discount:).

I just can’t get over it – what a great movie! I liked everything about it!

Why I do not want to work in a startup anymore

Reblogging from “The World of Data”

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

For those who have known me long enough and heard me saying, “I want to do one more startup before I retire,” quite often, the title of this post would be at least unexpected. And I won’t swear by it. My life had taken so many unpredictable twists that the only thing I learned very well was “never say never.”

However, recently, I was saying something different: “I hope to stay with this company until I retire.” And once again, I won’t swear by it because life is unpredictable, but I started thinking about what changed my mind so drastically.
It is not only that I enjoy working with everybody in this company (I was fortunate to have wonderful co-workers everywhere I worked), but most of the problems I have to solve here.

A startup’s appeal is that you come to uncharted territory and build everything from scratch. There is…

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Black Sesame Lava Cheese Tart

Saving the recipe…

Hettie D.'s avatarHealthy Cooking - Hettie's Way

Finally tried this recipe today, and it is delicious! Still unsure whether or not it’s too much work for busy me 🙂

Copying the whole recipe here:

ngredients:

  • 2store-bought pie crusts, thawed

  • 228 g.or 1 blockfull-fat cream cheese, softened

  • 80 g.or 1/3 c. + 2 tbsp.black sesame paste

  • 35 g.or 2 tbsp. + 1 tsp.milk (any fat percentage)

  • 120 g.or 1/2 c.heavy cream

  • 75 g.or 1/3 c. + 1 tbsp.granulated sugar (may use more if sweeter is desired)

  • 6 g.or 2 tsp.cornstarch

  • 5 g.or 1 tsp.lemon juice

  • 4 g.or 1 tsp.vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. In a medium bowl, cream the full-fat cream cheese and sesame paste together using an electric beater.

  2. Add in the milk and heavy cream and use a spatula to cream the mixture together until smooth. Do not use an electric…

View original post 316 more words

One More Time About My Cup Holder

The only cups that fit perfectly in this cup holder are IKEA cups! It was made for IKEA and designed to hold any IKEA cup model! And any non-IKEA (aka US) models just hang unevenly…

She Said Movie

I finally watched “She said” over the weekend. I knew it was a great movie and wanted to watch it for a while, but somehow, finding a place online to watch it was challenging! It is not available on Amazon, and it was not on Hulu (I do not use Hulu, but while searching for a place to watch, I decided to accept a free month of Hulu, which they sent to me for my birthday). I finally found it on Apple TV (yes, I also accepted three months free of Apple TV, it came with my new iPhone, and I am going to drop it because I do not use it!)

So, I finally watched it. What a great movie! I do not want to write at length about it, it just checks all the marks. Watching it, I could not stop thinking about how deeply sexual harassment is enrooted in all aspects of our life. I recall my teenage and young adult days, and even later – I can’t believe to which extent it was expected! We never thought about complaining, it was just a force of nature you had to consider. I realized one small but rather astonishing fact while watching – we never thought kissing against somebodies would be abuse! You were not raped, what you are complaining about?!

The movie emphasized one more time the power of numbers and the importance of everybody coming together and raising their voices against whatever evil we want to fight.

Anne-Sophie Mutter

I went to her concert on Sunday – it was a matinee performance, so I took mom with me. It is always hit or miss (I never know whether she will enjoy a performance or start critiquing random things). This time, it was a miss – she said that the music didn’t engage her and then proceeded to criticize the musician’s clothes and other unrelated stuff. But enough about that.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is one of those artists who are so well-known that it feels like they “always were around,” and you might be unsure whether they are still alive. It was almost the case this time: I knew that she was the most famous violinist for the past twenty five years. The program mentioned her “forty seven years of performing.” So when you see her coming to stage in a bright pink strapless ball gown, it feels surreal :).

She is great. The concert lasted for two hours, and she was on stage all the time, and then did three encores!

The second part of the concert was “The Four Seasons,” and it was as great as on this video:

Video From My Birthday Party

I just realized this post was sitting in the drafts for two weeks!