Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

Christmas Comes to Palatine

Everybody is posting pictures of beautifully decorated streets and houses, and it’s challenging to stand out in this crowd. I am still going to post the photos from the Holidays on the Town event in Palatine.


Last Friday, the was an official ceremony of the Lighting of Chicago’s Christmas Tree, but I didn’t stay in the city. I returned to Palatine to take my Mom on the tour of our local businesses. Everybody stayed open till 9 PM; everybody had food and drinks for the visitors, and each shop was beautifully decorated.
I was really happy that with my new iPhone 11 Pro I could take the perfect shots in the dark!

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Home Movies from the 1970s, Part 3

That is the last of the three digitized movies. It covers the period from summer 1972 to winter 1973. I am nine years old at the beginning and ten at the end. In the beginning, you can see that my front teeth are broken. That was due to an accident at the carnivals when Mom and I were riding a tiny electric car and bumped into another one. At that time, there was no easy way to fix them, and they remained broken until I was nineteen or so.

That summer, I was at the same place in Estonia, and I played with the same dog Neron as a year earlier. We went on a trip to see an Orthodox Convent. A cat named Dunia lived in the house where we were renting. Also, I think I’ve visited an exhibit of Rodin’s sculptures because I am trying to present them :).

In the last scenes of this movie, I am already wearing glasses. Mom and I are going cross-country skiing, and most likely, my Grandfather was filming us.

Enjoy 🙂

My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.

Now Life is Getting Better and More Holiday-like

Last night I was finally done with preparation for my training, meaning I completed the presentations for the last two topics. I will do a dry tun of this last hour, the same as I did for the previous five hours for my coworkers. There will be still lots of edits, proof-reads, etc. but at least I have no more untouched parts. There is still work, more work than ever, and also lots of things to do for the conference and the holidays, but I feel tons better now!
Even during this crazy week, I still had some holiday fun. On Thursday, we had a Thanksgiving potluck at work. I decided that this is a good opportunity for me to expand people’s horizons and made borsch — tons of it. Two large containers went to the potluck, another two – to the Youth Shelter, one – to my neighbors, and one – to Mom.


The potluck itself was great, lots of food of all possible origins. As usual, desserts are my favorite part of the deal, and I made an effort to sample them all 🙂


Also, in short breaks between meetings, I managed to get to the post office and to B&N and get the holiday packaging and the Christmas cards.


I always order holiday stamps directly from the USPS website, because in the post offices, they often run out of some designs. This time I could not resist ordering a couple of USPS ornaments 🙂

More to come!

Do the Dates Matter?

Last week, when I was leaving the Youth Shelter, I told that next time I would come on December 11 for their Christmas party. I was very apologetic that I will be away for so long. I said that I wouldn’t be able to come because I will have my family coming for Thanksgiving and that I will be out of the country for Christmas. And one of the residents said: I do not think I ever had a real Christmas. He said it matter-of-factly and continued our conversation, and I was stunned.

I immediately remembered how my dear friend N. told me that she is going the spend her Thanksgiving and Christmas not with her family, but with those who need it most. At that moment, I felt more than before the rightness of what she is doing.

Our grown-up children are often the subjects of the parental wars over Christmas and Thanksgiving – everybody wants them in their homes. But how does it feel on the opposite side, when you do not have a place to go…

I remember that last year, I was talking to Vlad about bars being opened on Thanksgiving and Christmas (and him always having to work on these days). I told him: I can’t imagine anybody heading to the bar at Christmas! He replied: Mom, you will be surprised!
I guess I never realized how many. A girl from the nail spa told me today; I am going to have a Friendsgiving on Friday, I have nobody to get together with.

And here is another thought. In our family, since we all are scattered around the world, we learned not to stress out about the particular days, knowing quite well that it’s the thought that matters. Although I have to admit that there are some dates, we are trying very hard to make. But the reason we are so flexible with dates is that each of us knows we have our family. That we care about each other, and that we understand the difference between important and not so important things. We do not need any symbolic reassurance.

And for a person who lives in a world of uncertainty, the symbols are way more important. They make a world around more friendly and more accepting.

There is no moral for this story. I just learned something about the world and myself, and I will try hard to give my holiday time to those who need it most.

What Your Card Can Tell About You

Chicago has some public transport, which makes it better than many other US cities that don’t. Chicago Transit (CTA) has several different types of transit cards.
I have the one which perfectly fits my public transit usage pattern: it is linked to my credit card and automatically loads additional funds in a $25 increment when money is running low. One of the best things about it is that several people can use this card on one trip – I just need to tap it for each person who rides with me. It’s always the easiest way when it comes to giving tours to the out of town visitors.

I often think about my CTA card like a perfect sample of my life, if you look at where does this card go with me, and who uses it with me. Within just one week, it was used to get on the train the Great Magnus, my friend who was taking CTA for the first time in her life, and a homeless man, for whom I tapped one more time 🙂

First Motion Picture Unit

More details about the First Motion Picture Unit, the U.S. Army’s film production unit.

gremrien's avatarnocuous

Hettie asked about the authorship of the movie about Berlin, and I am very glad that I did some research about it and learned this interesting stuff!

I’ll quote my commentary to her:

“It’s good you asked this, because I was wondering about it too, but wouldn’t look it up specifically. I was sure that it was neither the Soviets (they did not have such a quality equipment/skills, and even if they used some looted cameras and film, they would rather make some hideous propaganda than such neutral/sympathetic to Germans footage) nor Germans (I doubt that any German would be allowed to film such things and be able even to fly over the city with the camera). And I imagined that it should have been some Americans, while they were still free to roam around the Soviet zone of occupation.

Now I did some research and found out that it…

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Berlin in July 1945

Reblogging two incredible posts by my friend, which showcase the works of s First Motion Picture Unit, the U.S. Army’s film production unit.

gremrien's avatarnocuous

Wow! Look at this fascinating color footage of Berlin in July 1945! It looks like a high-budget conceptual movie. The ruins are mind-blowing, and yet there is a feeling of a Really Great City and Really Cool People, right?

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Life is Still Crazy

This week was even worse than previous. Although I work through most of the weekend, I didn’t have enough time to prepare for all of the training I wanted to run this week in the office. Thereby I constrained myself to not doing anything, except necessities, and spend each and a single minute I had “extra” on the training development. 

I didn’t help much (maybe partially because, in reality, I was doing something extra, like going to the performance of Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra on Tuesday). So now, at 11:15 PM, I have a little bit more than half of tomorrow’s training ready. I’ve already booked 2.5 hours tomorrow morning to complete it, but I am ashamed of myself. 

Still, today after work as was at the Open Door Shelter. Last week, a group of youth from the Open Door Shelter had a field trip to the Christkindle Market, and I asked to message me when they will be close – my work is just a block away. We had a really great time at the market. One of the girls mentioned how much she loves German potato pancakes, and I told her we can make them next time. 

Today was the next time:), and we peeled and grated 10 lb of potatoes, and made beautiful potato pancakes. And I had truly amazing conversations with some of the youth. And when I was walking out of the shelter, thinking about these conversations and smiling, I felt that this is something I can never let to disappear from my life… 

For the Love of Dresses

I bought this dress four years ago (if not earlier) in Helsinki. It was a new fashion back then, and as it always happens with the trendy European clothing, you can’t be sure whether they will ever become fashionable in the US.


This one never did, which made it timeless, and now I can’t even tell why I didn’t wear it for the past three years. At some point, it felt too short, or that there is no proper occasion… I don’t even know! I wore it last Monday when I was taking my friend to Vlad’s bar, and I was like: OMG, I love this dress so much, it’s a perfect fit!


Here for me to remember to wear it more often 🙂

Home Movies from the 1970s, Part 2

Here is the second movie from the 1970s. It starts in the summer of 1971 and ends in February 1972. 

As I’ve mentioned earlier, good mothers were expected to rent a summer home somewhere “on the fresh air.” Like many other leninradians, my relatives from my father’s side were renting summer houses, or more often, a couple of rooms in a home in Estonia. Saint – Petersburg (back then – Leningrad) is situated very close to the border with Estonia, and from 1940 to 1992, Estonia was a part of the Soviet Union. The Estonian city of Narva was just across the border, and there was a resort Narva-Joesuu, which was renting out almost each and single home during summer. 

We rented a room and a veranda, which served as a kitchen. My great aunt Fania would stay there pretty much all the summer. My aunt Kima, my cousin, and my Mom were there periodically; my uncle Misha and his wife Nadia were renting one more room at the same house. 

  • This movie starts with us going on a tour somewhere nearby, I do not remember where exactly. 
  • Then there is me in a costume of the Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley, I read something about here that year. I was so fascinated with her story that I wanted to impersonate her. Most of the costume is assembled from different pieces of adult clothes and jewelry. The wooden sword was made by the younger brother of my cousin’s best friend. I know that it sounds too distant, but they both were around quite often and felt like family members. 
  • The big black dog is a Newfoundland owned by the friends of the family. He was not a purebred and was given away for free. His name was Neron, and I loved him and used each opportunity to stop by the house where he lived and play with him. 
  • “A Musketeer” episode. Traditionally in Russia, both adults and kids would dress up for Sviatki – the time between Christmas and New Year, culminating at the New Year masquerade. Since all religious holidays were forbidden in Russia, the tradition reduced to the New Year masquerades. This costume was constructed for my school New Year’s party, and I wore it at home for the actual New Year celebration. I was eight years old (almost nine) and was at the peak of my musketeers’ fascination. Everybody pitched in for this costume. My great aunt sacrificed her dark blue pure silk dress, the top was used for the jacket, and the skirt made the cloak. One of my great aunt friends lent a dark-blue velvet hat, another friend – some real antique lace collar and cuffs (all to be returned after the holidays :)). Not Brabant, but most likely old Vologda :). The baldric was made of dark blue bookbinding material (acquired by my aunt who worked in the publishing house) and decorated with the pieces of colored foil collected from the chocolate candies consumption:). The feathers on the hat came from two sources: the black one was a real ostrich feather my great aunt owned, and the white one was made of paper by my aunt – that’s when I learned how to make them, and I still can do it on the spot. I think that covers pretty much the whole costume.
  • The figure skating competition. The caption reads: getting ready for the White Olympics 1980. But that time (February 1972) I was nine, and I was taking the figure skating classes for three winters. We rarely got a chance to train inside, so it was always “weather permits.” I loved figure skating (and I still do :)). Our coach arranged for us to have a very close-to-real competition with the obligatory figures to be performed and with your own freestyle program. The competition was graded by three judges. My great aunt hand made the figure-skating dress for me. It was made of dark red wool with the giant grey snowflake on the chest and beautiful patterns on the skirt – and that’s what I wore during this competition.

Enjoy 🙂

My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.