The Boy’s Town Halloween Parade happened! It didn’t happen last year, and it looks like it was almost a last-minute decision this year. It was way smaller and quieter than usual, but OMG, it’s so good that it happened!
Halloween!!!
Category: everyday life
November 8
I finally read the new guidelines for entering the USA for foreign tourists, which are going into effect the following Monday. I like that there are no more per country considerations, and the requirements are uniform across the globe. That is a huge plus. I am slightly upset that we still have to take a COVD test before returning to the US, but once again, that applies to both citizens and visitors, so I can’t complain. Besides, I completely understand the rationale behind this requirement.
The thing which I was upset about was the exclusion of Sputnik from the list of approved vaccines. Formally speaking, it is not targeted vaccine discrimination; it’s just that Sputnik is not approved by WHO yet. But the thing is that people in Russia who are doing the right thing and getting vaccinated still won’t be able to travel to the US.
And I am not talking about tourists. I am talking about people such as my mom’s friend whose daughter was working on her green card, and her interview in the embassy was scheduled for March 20, 2020… And I am not even talking about people from many other countries, including Mexico, that purchased Sputnik.
Biking Along The Lake.
I never had a bike ride as I had on Saturday! The weather was stormy for several days before that, and it was raining non-stop. Saturday was the first day when it finally stopped raining, and Boris and I went on a bike ride.
When we were close to the Navy Pier, we saw a police barricade across the bike path. Since we saw the bikers and runners passing it, we figured out it was not indicating any immediate danger (and we were right, it was removed on the other side of the stretch, and when we were heading back, this first one was removed as well).
On that stretch of the Like Frnt Trial, the water often comes very close to the bike path, but this time around, the waves were running over the bike path all the time!. We saw huge chunks of seaweed on the asphalt, so thick that we had to dismount and walk the bikes. Then one of the waves reached Boris, and he was wet up to his knees! His breaks lost traction, and so did his feet, so the next time we had to stop by the crossing, his bike ran into the rear of my bike, and he fell off (no injuries). Our final destination for this ride was the Field museum (I will blog about it separately), and he had to walk around in the wet shoes.
Sometimes, life is fair, and I was covered by another wave, with a similar effect on the way back. I thought that if somebody took a picture of bikers covered by the waves, it would be very impressive!!!
How The Week Goes
For several days, I had zero time to blog. I didn’t take a single day off, and Boris also worked all days except for Monday. We decided that we were trying to get “back to normal,” and our normal life means work.
On Saturday, there will be yet another early morning work for Boris. Actually, it sort of works for me because in normal life, I get up almost at the time he had to get up all this week to accommodate his European schedule.
On top of that, I took mom to the doctor on Monday, and we had a CSO concert on Thursday (an amazing one!), and also it was raining almost non-stop.
Also, I cooked a lot, and I baked a lot. And that’s more than “in normal life,” but these were the dishes I wanted to make and didn’t have either time or occasion. There was nothing extraordinary, but I would cook something fancy once a week, not twice a day in normal life.
We went grocery shopping together a couple of times. I do not feel safe biking in the rain, which means I didn’t go shopping on the bike and had less shopping capacity. Boris helped a lot; I think I am prepared for the cookie-baking time on the front of flour and sugar :).
We have Saturday and half-Sunday left, and too many things we want to do :).
Oh, and on Sunday, we were at a neighbor’s apartment, and Boris noticed how they had light strips in the dining room and ordered similar lights for us. And now the dining room looks amazing!
Maggie Daley Park
Last Saturday, we tried the idea that Anna and I had been talking about for a very long time. Namely, Anna and the girls visited just for a day to do some activities in the Loop without stopping at my place.
That day, the CSO had the very first children’s matinee since before the pandemic, and I bought tickets for Anna and Nadia. Originally, I thought that both parents would go, but that didn’t work with John’s schedule. At the very last minute, Anna arranged to take Nadia’s best friend with her.
Fortunately, the weather was great, so it was easy for me to babysit Kira while everybody else attended the concert.
Kira seemed to be intimidated by the crowd by the Bean and didn’t want to leave the stroller, but she was very fascinated with the chairs at the Pritzker Pavillion and spent good thirty minutes putting them up and down:).
After the concert was over and we all had lunch, we still had three and a half hours before their train back to Milwaukee. We went to Maggie Daley Park. That was such a delight! We never went there before, except for one time during the pandemic when most things there were closed.
OMG! Their playgrounds are so amazing!
I had to leave earlier to go to ORD to meet Boris, and the girls almost missed the train 🙂
Medicaid
Yesterday, mom had her first doctor appointment with Medicaid. It was just how I hoped it would go. I switched her to another doctor right away after we received an insurance card, and I looked up this doctor online. This doctor is relatively close (we walked there), and she is an actual MD, not NP. Not like it really matters, but you could tell she has way more experience with older patients. We didn’t have to wait. In fact, they took us even five minutes earlier than our appointment time, and we spent in total over one hour with the doctor and the nurse.
Mom really liked this doctor (and she told her so) because she listened and discussed all the options seriously and at length. Before mom’s appointment, she had to fill in a lot of paperwork, and I really liked one, which was a sort of doctor-patient contract. This contract said that the providers and other specialists will do their best to explain the treatment plan, prescription, and everything and always have the patient’s best interest in mind. In turn, a patient promises to be honest about their conditions, not hide anything from the doctor, and follow the treatment plan.
That worked great because when the nurse started to fill in mom’s information and asked whether she had any body pains at the moment, she started saying like “this is not important, all these bruises and such,” I told her that she had just signed the paper promising to disclose all her information.
Also, they gave her both a flu shot and a Moderna booster, which saved us a trip tp the pharmacy (here, it’s not exactly the next door, and I do not have a car). And, to her surprise, she didn’t have to pay anything for that.
Now, I think she started to realize what it means to have insurance :).
Fall Is Here
Boris arrived last night, once again in the aircraft barely 1/4 full, and this time, nobody asked him for his marriage certificate or proof of vaccination. Which, honestly, makes me worry! Because it means that the border control does not know anymore what’s allowed and what’s not.
On the good side of things, Uber from ORD does not cost $100 anymore, but somewhat around $35, which is cheaper than before the pandemic.
Today was the first seriously autumn day, with rain, and wind, and cold. From sandals to boots, in a matter of several days.
How My Life in America Started , and About My First CEO
And reblogging this post as well. After all, the longer I live in the US, the more I am thankful to a person who brought me here
My move to America won’t be possible without Pam – the CEO of the company, which hired me for my first job in the US. She was an outstanding personality and quite a controversial character, but one thing for sure: it’s only because of her that my move to America has happened.
Granted she was considering the interests of her business first, and for sure I was initially paid on the lower margin of the acceptable pay rate for a position, but she took on herself a responsibility of bringing me over.
In was not only about the money (although if you think about it, with myself and my three children, there were four visas and four airplane tickets to pay for, and as I’ve mentioned earlier, I had no money at all, so all these costs were upfront).
But what is more important, she’d taken on herself a responsibility…
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Our First Day In The USA
Reblogging the post I published a year ago about our first day in the US. That’s what was happening on that day twenty-five years ago.
Yesterday, there was a 24th anniversary of the day when Vlad, Anna, and I came to the US. In the past several months, I wrote so many posts about our last weeks in Russia and the first weeks and months in the US that I have almost nothing to add. But today, I was thinking about these first days again, and suddenly I recalled some of my feelings.
After Val picked us up at O’Hare, he drove us to Des Plaines, where I would sign the lease for my first ever apartment. I was tired; I barely understood what was going on. In addition to Val, one more VIN.net employee was waiting for me in the leasing office. His name was Art; he was a sales rep, and he was supposed to help me understand what I was signing; apparently, Pam didn’t trust Val to explain it to me :).
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Flying to America for the First Time
Today is the 25th anniversary of us (Vlad, Anna, and I) leaving Russia to fly to America. Reblogging the post about that day 🙂
Before I start, let me tell you a couple of words about how my children have reacted to the news that we are going to go to America. First of all, they were very excited to tell everybody around, and the funny thing is that nobody believed them! They would be at the playground, and would tell other parents: we are going to America for two years!!! And other parents would be yea, sure… And then I come and say that it’s true!
When Anna and I were talking recently about these weeks before our departure, she told me that she remembers there was one thing she was sad about, but she can’t remember what exactly it was. But I remembered! The Fall play in their daycare was in rehearsal at that time; it was a modern version of the Russian folk tale “Репка” (“The Turnip”). Both of them were…
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Hettie's Reflections 