When I was planning my long weekend, I planned for a long bike ride on Monday morning. Then, the forecast showed rain at 6 AM. I thought I will wait, but then I thought – what if it won’t rain at six, and instead will rain at eight? What a fool I would be then! I left at 5-40, and yes, the rain started at 6-05 :), so I had to come back. But after breakfast, it was beautiful outside, and I went for the longest bike ride of this season. Actually, I do not think I ever took such a long ride all by myself. I was not even sure how the paths are going where I was planning to go :). And I had a great time!
I love summer in Illinois. I am not talking about just summer in Chicago, filled with all these amazing events and activities: music festivals, parades, markets, Crown Fountain, icecream at the River Walk, and the fireworks on the Navy Pier. Chicago summer is fantastic, but I also love Illinois summer away from the city.
I love that it is hot. Yes, I know that many people hate the Midwest summer for being hot and humid. But I love it. Maybe, that’s because, since my early childhood, hot weather was a luxury. Something we didn’t get at home. You had to travel to The South. The South was almost as appealing as “zagranitza” (see related post).
In any case, I love it when the outside temperature is in the lower 80’s. My picture of the perfect summer is the following. It’s warm enough that I can wear shorts and a sleeveless top. I am on my deck, or rather on the wooden steps of my deck, I am barefoot, and my soles feel the warmth of the wood. The mourning doves are mourning; I hear their uuu! uuu! The sun is not setting down yet, but it starts to go down, My back is feeling the door of my kitchen. It’s never extremely hot on my deck because the sun never touches it directly. And it’s that moment when I sit there and do nothing. No audiobook in my ears. No looking at my phone. Nothing, but the sun which starts to descent, and the mourning of the doves …
Every year, the first day I can sit like this marks the arrival of summer. This year, it was so cold for so long that I could not even believe that this day will come, even a week ago.
And now, for the fourth day in a row, we have a perfect summer. Each day of the long weekend was a gift!
Here are some pictures of want I was doing on Sunday.
Every year we hope that the weather will be nice on Memorial Day weekend and that what is considered the official start of summer will bring the summer weather.
Unfortunately, more often than not, that’s not the case. Either it is raining, or it is below 70 F or both, but most often, the weather is not good for swimming on the day when pools are official open. This time, it was the opposite. The pools are not open, but the weather exceeds expectations! I decided to take upon the advice of the health authorities and spend most of this weekend outdoors. And also, doing some good things for myself.
I wrote that post almost a month ago and didn’t publish. Today, there was another reason to question my age, and since I do not want to write about it, not yet, I decided to publish that post instead:)
I had a funny conversation with Boris the other day. He asked me whether I remember N. I said – no, I do not think I knew him. But he was with the Department of Informatics forever! – Well, there was no Department of Informatics at my time! – Whatever it was called then… – It was called a Department of Software Engineering, and I remember V, I remember S, and I remember K, but I do not remember N. – Nevermind, I just learned that he passed away. He had a heart attack. And he was only fifty-three…
And here, despite the tragic turn of the conversation, I started to laugh: fifty-three?! But I am fifty-seven! – Do you mean that he was not a faculty member when you were a student? – Precisely! And after I graduated, I had no interest in this department. Do you think I am forever twenty-five years old? It was a good laugh, despite the tragic topic.
Boris tells me about my “white lady” – a bike which we bought together last year. Back then, he was telling me that it did not have any economic justification, and I was saying that I want to have my own bike in Helsinki. So now, this white bike sits in his building bike storage right by his bike, and we both hope we will have a ride together someday. One of the things to look forward …
Since I am writing my historical posts in random order, not following the chronological sequence of events, I didn’t write anything about Igor’s childhood. Not trying to squeeze in one paragraph all his first seven-year of life, I will mention here that when Vlad and Anna were born, he was about to turn six and was attending a kindergarten. I already mentioned that the Soviet and later Russian educational system was very different from the American. At Igor’s time, children would start school when they were seven or were going to turn seven in September (some exceptions were allowed). The school would go from the first to the tenth grade, and all educational establishments for children younger than seven were called Kindergartens. In the Soviet Union and during the early years of Russia, there was no private daycare, and all kindergartens were parts of the state educational system. Inside a kindergarten, groups for children under three were called “nursery groups,” three-year olds were attending “junior groups,” four-year-olds – “middle groups,” five-year-olds – ” senior groups,” and six-year-olds – “preparatory groups.” The latter would be an equivalent of the US kindergarten.
Igor had a vision disability, and inclusion was unheard of in the Soviet Union. Starting from the age of two, he attended a specialized kindergarten for children with visual disabilities. I had no choice there, and I was fortunate that one of those kindergartens was situated just seven minutes walk away from our home. We were even luckier that this kindergarten had two groups for children with severe vision disabilities, and when Igor was four, he started to attend one of those groups. That was a real blessing – since there was no inclusion nobody would address his specific needs otherwise. Next year, he had to start school. Once again, since there was no inclusion, he had to go to one of two boarding schools for children with visual disabilities. Luckily for us, that school was undergoing some repairs- remodeling, and the dorms were closed. That meant that for the time being, all students had to go home for the night.
On Friday, we had a movie night again, this time I invited my very good friend who loves movies, to join Igor and I. And she, in turn, invited her other friend, who is also a passionate movie lover. Our group of four watched Mr. Jones movie.
The movie seemed very interesting from the synopsis, and when I saw it coming in the Film Center from your Sofa series, I decided right away that that’s what we are watching next time. But I have to admit, I didn’t do any reading ahead.
Because of that, in the beginning, it seemed very confusing. The synopsis was saying “right before the WWII,” so I was thinking about 1937-39, but actually, the events in the movie took place in 1932-33. Initially, some small historical inaccuracies were distracting, but later I was really taken by the film. The cinematography is brilliant, and the story is captivating.
While we were watching, Igor googled the film’s origin, and we were surprised to learn that the film is based on real events.
Today, I continued googling and found a website dedicated to Gareth Jones. The site has references to most of his publications, and after I found it, I could not stop reading. Is it unbelievable, how much he was able to witness! I also found that the book of his Soviet dairies is available at the Chicago Public Library. Hopefully when the library will resume operation, Igor will be able to check it out.
It is so unfortunate, that Gareth Jons was not really heard, or rather not listened to!
The other day, on one of the NPR programs, they were explaining how the authorities decide on the order of the places being reopened. We often wonder how that order is determined, why WAL- Mart is open while a hair salon is not. They said that there is a way of calculating the impact of opening places, which takes into account several factors. They include the need (to which extent the services are essential), the possibility of infection spread, and the desire of people to have these services. Believe it or not, the big box stores stay the highest on that list, and gyms, liquor, and tobacco stores stay at the bottom! Go figure:)
As our governor said, if nothing drastically bad would happen during the next six days, we are entering stage three. The city will lag behind, possibly two-three weeks behind. And it will be still masks/gloves/distancing.
I hope we won’t need to go back!
The first thing my mom asked when I told her about that was when she can see her grandchildren. I have to say that she was very patient about that, and didn’t complain. We discussed it and decided to plan some outdoor meetings in the beginning of June.
I do not remember how that movie ended up in my watch list. After I started to watch Siskel From Your Sofa movies, all the third parties started to send me their newsletters, so it should have come from one of those. I was intrigued by it’s description and was looking forward to watching it.
Maybe, I had too high expectations, but the movies left me with a question: so what? Everybody should pay taxes? Richer people should pay higher taxes? Yes, I know, I agree, so what now?
Not like I didn’t like the movie, I liked it, but still…
If anybody is interested in watching, here is a list of current and future virtual screenings: Capital Movie
I would think that if I have so much work, I won’t be upset about anything else. But somehow it adds up: my ginormous workload, the overall worrisome situation in Illinois with a still-growing number of cases, being apart from the rest of the family, mom going crazy because of isolation. I am trying to imagine how restless other people are becoming when even I, with all my understanding of the necessity of quarantine, have a difficult time continuing that way.
Last week, I started to bike early in the morning regularly. I loved these very early bike rides for a long time, but now it’s even better because usually there is nobody on the bike paths before 6 AM. However, today, I met several large groups of people walking in the forest preserve. That explained why there were no deers today :). One group consisted of at least ten adults with no masks on. And it was 5-40 AM.
One of the things which makes me feel tired is the fact that I constantly hear comments, both from “left” and “right,” about my behavior. It looks like in the eyes of half of the world, I am not doing enough and endangering myself and everybody around me. And for another half of the world, I am a panicer subdued to the propaganda.
My honest feelings are that none of us have enough information to evaluate the risks completely adequately. And every day, more information becomes available. I do not know about others, but my opinion on what’s the right behavior changes often. I am trying very hard not to criticize anybody’s behavior because I am not sure whether the ways I am handling the situation are better. I am trying very hard not to be angry with people. Success varies :).
I made quiche a couple of times in course of the past two weeks following that recipe. I love quiche, but I always thought that to make it right is a long and complex process. Besides, since I live alone, I was not sure what I was going to do with this huge thing.
It turned out, that humans can make quiche:), and that a large quiche tastes way better than a small one; and also, a slice of a large quiche can be frozen as well as a small one. And it is alway a good idea to share 🙂
Half with ham and cheese, and another half with spinach and mashroomsThe smaller ones were not that good!
Hettie's Reflections 