Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

Romance In Our Lives

Yesterday’s visit to mom was one of these visits when she retells her life going through the usual circle. One of the stories she shared with me shortly after she came to the US was her very long romantic relationship with one of he co-workers. She was divorced at the time, and somehow I can’t recall whether he was married or not. I remember that her very last romantic relationship was with a married man, but I can’t recall what she said about that one. In any case, they would meet once a month and go to one of the suburbian parks and picnicked by one old oak stump, and they sometimes would see a play, and he also recorded a lot of audio tapes for her, basically audio letters with music.

Where I am getting is that when she retells this story, she always makes a point to mention that it was purely romantic and that there was nothing sexual in these relationships, and that’s “not how people are these days,” and that “nowadays generation does not understand.” I always listen to this politely and never ask her what is so good about “nothing sexual,” especially between people in their 30s. However, yesterday, there was a new addition to this story because she continued to something along the lines “every parent wants their children to be happy,” and then “sometimes I am sorry for you that you didn’t get what you deserve.” Then she proceeded to her usual paragraph about Boris speeding up my professional career and how she “never asks personal questions.”

It shocked me, to be honest, probably because I am so used to people commenting that they envy the never-ending romance I have in my life. So much that sometimes I have to explain that there are not only roses:). Yes, those who hear about our “long-distance relationship” for the first time often think (or even say) that that’s not right. But everybody who knows us knows how much in love we are. Not writing off all storms and all fights we had in the past, we are the biggest gift to each other.

Now I am really curious what she thinks I missed in life :). If anything, I felt sorry for her for a long time because I thought that she never had a complete and absorbing relationship of hers. I thought that was why she was so jealous of me and hated Boris and our relationships. Later she told me about her other relationship, and I realized that she actually had a good one in the second half of her life, and I stopped being sorry for her in this particular case. What she is sorry for me about, is still a mystery 🙂

The Lake. Any Time Of The Year

The other day, an Uber driver who drove me and mom home from EuroAsia restaurant told us that he used to live almost where mom lives now, and he now lives in Arlington Heights. I laughed and told him that we just moved in the opposite direction. But what was really funny was that he immediately started talking about the thrill of living a block from the lake, almost in the same words as I talk about it: I never lived so close to the water, it was unreal!

… I walk to the lake several times a week, and in winter, it is as beautiful as it is during the warmer season.

Old Photos – Summer 1995

In early December (a Christmas promotion) I sent several random old items to be professionally digitized. I already showed two home moves from that batch. The other two were one mom’s old black-and-white film and a stack of my colored slides from different times and places.

I almost forgot that at some point, Boris took these pictures of us at the Peterhoff Fountain Park.

Continue reading “Old Photos – Summer 1995” →

How Crazy A Birthday Can Go

Almost like the year 2021, my birthday turned more eventful than I would like it. I only slept for 3.5 hours the night before because I needed to finish a report (I had to present it to the customer at 10 AM the following day). A coworker told me that he would help me to process the raw data (the program which should be doing it ended with unexplained errors), and then he didn’t. After I realized that I wouldn’t get any help and I would need to process the data manually, I could not get to the task right away. I had two medical appointments to which I had to take my mom, and then I had Chicago PUG. So I started at 8:30 PM, worked till 1 AM, slept until 4:30, and then continued.

On top of it, it turned out that I had a COVID contact over the weekend, and then I had an unexpected day of fatigue on Monday, which under the circumstances could be interpreted as COVID. So it was home testing, frantic talks with Boris about whether I should exchange my ticket, looking for a testing site nearby (and I had zero time for all of that – see the previous paragraph).

I had a great meeting with a client, went to COVID test, got a negative result, shared with Boris, and then instead of going to sleep, when to the EuroAsia restaurant with Igor and Mom to celebrate my birthday.

The only thing I can think of now is sleeping, and wishing that not the whole year will be like that!

About New Year Resolutions

Speaking about my New Year resolutions, I am very determined to put them into action and have already made multiple changes to my daily activities. For one week, I did what I hadn’t done for a while – recorded all my activities through the day and what I spent time on, including things I do in parallel, like exercising and listening to an audiobook.

Another thing I am trying to be consistent with is going to bed before 11 PM, preferably at 10:30 PM. I am up around 4-30 AM regardless of the day of the week, and I know that although for a while, five and a half hours was enough sleep for me, now it is six hours. I didn’t sleep enough in December, and it negatively affected everything in my life. There are still only a few days when I go to bed at 10:30, but at least it’s always before 11.

And yet another thing I am trying to be more aware of is the time I spend on social media. Funny story – most people think they should do less of it, while I know I need to do more :). There was not enough of my professional presence at the end of 2021. I am allocating enough time to do meaningful things on LinkedIn and my professional blog. Also, I started using Twitter because it is professionally required. I am still struggling to do it in a meaningful way :).

Also, I am working really hard on not abanding relationships I have with many people, in real life and virtually. It’s easy to say, “I have no time for this,” but it goes both ways: people need me, and I need them. I am trying to reach out to those from whom I didn’t hear for a while because I understand that sometimes they also feel uneasy to contact me because they think it was “too long” and “I am busy.” So far, it proved working 🙂

Igor Levit’s Performance at the CSO.

Brilliant. Amazing. Standing ovation. The piece in the video is not the one he performed on Sunday, but I like this promotional video.

I am so glad I went to this performance, you can’t even imagine.

The Last Minutes Of Chicago Christmas Tree

One of the perks in my new company is having one Friday of the month off in addition to the regular PTO. They are called Wellness Fridays. One of these Wellness Friday was this week, and I went skating at Millennium Park. The regular entrance was closed, and that’s what I saw:

More House Repairs

The Christmas tree ordeal was not really that bad. The real problem happening at the same time was my furnace. I knew that both the furnace and AC were old when I moved in and that, ideally, I had to replace them both. But having the list of things that didn’t work at the time of my move, I decided to try to last through the winter. Actually, after I refinanced, I theoretically could replace the furnace, but at that time, all my work things started, and I had no bandwidth to think about any house repairs. 

Well, it didn’t last through the winter. Moreover, it broke on Sunday morning. And it was a cold morning :). 

Out of four places I called for emergency service, only one was able to come the same day. They fixed the furnace, and I signed a service agreement with them, and when they asked whether I wanted to replace the furnace, I agreed. And I agreed to replace the air conditioner at the same time :). We agreed on the installation date of January 19, but the furnace stopped working the next morning again! They came and fixed it. They left the door off and showed me which button to push for restart. And a couple of hours later, their manager called and asked me whether I wanted the new furnace to be installed immediately … 

So now I have a new furnace, a new air conditioner, and a couple of takeaways.

  • The brick buildings can keep the warmth! There was no heating for seven hours, and the lowest the indoor temperature went down was 63F.
  • Only do business with companies that provide emergency service during after-hours.
  • When it’s time to replace, replace. 
  • In many cases, it’s good to work from home!

Christmas Tree Removal

I have always cut and chopped my Christmas trees and burned them in my fireplace for the past several years, so I didn’t need to think about their disposal. But I also knew that there was a certain day when I could leave a tree by the garbage containers, and the village would pick it up.

With this in mind, I didn’t think it would be a big deal to get rid of a Christmas tree while living in Chicago – I heard that there were a lot of free programs available. But when I checked on the first week of January, it turned out that you have to drop your tree off at designated sites. I couldn’t do it without a car, and no Uber would drive a tree for me. I looked and looked, and nobody was offering this service. A couple of websites indicated that they are sold out. Finally, I found one service called Tree Santa and signed for a tree pickup on January 10.
The night before, I stripped the tree of all decorations, and Igor and I carried it down and put it in the corner of our courtyard.

They were supposed to text me the day before about a more precise pickup time, so when there was nothing, I messaged them, and they replied that they had too many requests and staff shortage, and they extended pickups till January 21, and can they move me to the EOW. I told them I could only wait till Wednesday, and they promised to reschedule.

The new pickup time was set to 2:30 PM on January 12. At 3:15 I messaged them and asked what’s the ETA :). They said that they are struggling (which I completely understand!) and that they will update me. At 5:15 (since they are supposedly working till 5 PM only) I messaged that it’s OK, I understand, but tomorrow is absolutely the last day. They messaged back: are you sure the tree is still there? I replied – yes, because I would need to unlock the gate for somebody to pick up the tree!

Then, at 6:30, I went skating because I didn’t want to miss this opportunity again. And guess what – when I was skating, somebody called me: can you open the gate? Well, it was almost 8 PM, and I was 50 minutes away from my house!

I started to text my neighbors, nobody responded right away, but in 2 min the tree person called me and said that somebody had let him in. Well, it ended up being my neighbor :). ‘
All well that ends well, but that’s a very typical story of this COVD winter!

Skating And The City Lights

Yesterday, I finally did what I wanted to do for a very long time: I went skating after work, for the last timeslot. Each time I tried before, it was always something that would stop me :). And maybe, I just didn’t want to get out of the house in the dark of the night.

I am so glad I did it yesterday; I had a lot of work that had fallen on me by the very end of the workday, and I made an effort to step out (full disclosure- I took my laptop with me :))

I know it’s a cliche, but the city lights are magical, and skating under the city lights instantaneously filled me with joy! I planned to skate for just half an hour but ended up skating until they called the patrons off the ice 🙂