Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

Injuries And Physical Therapy

While I was in Helsinki, I decided that my biking injuries were not healing fast enough, so after I returned, I went to physical therapy. Funny that I thought that my hip injury was healing slower and causing me more problems, but I soon realized that it was the opposite. Just after one visit to PT and doing exercises for a couple of days, I could run to catch the bus again:). It’s not healed completely, but the most important thing that affected my quality of life has improved.

The hand is healing more slowly, most likely because I use it all the time and often forget that I should be careful. When I went to PT for the second time (on Friday), my favorite physical therapist was in, and he did so many exercises with my hand, and it hurt the next morning. However, I see an improvement! It might still be a couple of weeks, and I still have bruises everywhere on my right side, but the progress is undeniable 🙂

Artists of the Wall 2026

Artists of the Wall is an annual Rogers Park event. I never participated in the actual painting, but I always loved what others had created. Anyone (although it is mostly local residents) can register to paint one of the sections of a 600-foot-long wall located by the lake near Loyola Beach. The Artists of the Wall Festival has been taking place since 1993, when neighbors banded together to cover up graffiti on the wall. Each year has its theme, but it’s usually broad enough to cover pretty much anything you want to paint.

This year’s theme is We Are All Neighbors.

First, last year’s paintings are covered with white (my mom’s photo), and all the slots are marked.

Then, for two days, participants create their paintings (sometimes, people come later to finish).

Continue reading “Artists of the Wall 2026” →

The Suffs

I saw this show on Wednesday, and it was absolutely perfect! Everything: the play, the music, the lyrics, the characters, the singers, political relevance… They said from the stage that all characters were realy people, and we caoul look them up.

And that’s what I am going to do – there are too many good stories that I want to know about!

Summer!

I think I already had at least three announcements that summer is finally here, but it was still “not exactly”, because the lake was cold, and the temperatures were not getting to their summer level, and during the heat wave, I was away:).

The latter one does not imply that I wanted to be here during the heat wave:), but only after I came back, and was finally able to go to the beach after work, I could feel Chicago summer in full; the way I love it. Chicago summer at its best is the reason I never want to be away, at least in July and August.

On Tuesday, I finally went to the beach after work, and it felt super nice. And yesterday, I took a late break at work (I do not care what it is called, and why I am taking a break shortly before most people leave home; it’s just the time when I actually can take it!)

When you come to the office at 6:30 AM (no, I didn’t work, I had a virtual training session)
And then take a break at 3:30 PM, and walk the Riverwalk, and hear the music from the fun boats and from all the cafes you pass
Continue reading “Summer!” →

The Wild Party

I came back to Chicago on Saturday evening and had tons of plans for Sunday, which were only partially realized. One of the things I’ve done is watch the Wild Party movie at the Siskel Center. It was the first movie of the 20th Century Queer series, filmed in 1929. It was definitely an interesting one, especially in how openly it presented bisexual characters, and their balancing between lesbian and heterosexual relationships. You almost think that you are imagining things … except that you are not! Dorothy Arzner, the film director, was an open lesbian, and somehow, in the 1920s, it was still OK to make films like this (or nobody figured out yet that the homoerotic topic should be tabooed).

Now I am curious whether there were other movies like that!

Narva-Joesuu

On Friday, we got up at 5 AM in order to catch the 6:30 AM train to Narva. This time, we didn’t mess up with the buses, and took the right one, and didn’t even miss the stop, and were at the cemetery at 10:15 AM.

The weather on both Thursday and Friday was much better than forecasted. On Thursday, it was just sunny with no rain. On Friday, the rain was starting and stopping, but it was still light enough that we could walk around for a while, and we took shelter at a bus stop for only the last 30 minutes.

I was sure I would find the grave immediately, but I got lost again, and after wandering “somewhere close,” I asked a lady tending another grave if she could help me. The lady looked at the photo on my phone, but couldn’t recognize it, so I kept moving in circles, until she suddenly called me: Woman, woman! Here it is! I realized I completely forgot this way of addressing strangers (woman, girl, man, etc.).

Anyway, I found it. And now that the lot is cleaned up, I see that more repairs are needed, so we’ll have to figure out what we are going to do with it)/

Same as last time, Boris and I walked from the cemetery towards the village center, and passed the wood where I used to go berry-picking.

Once again, we stopped by the house where I spent three summers of my childhood. This time, however, it looked like there was a massive construction in progress, so I suspect that next time I visit, this house won’t be there anymore. Well, I am glad I had a chance to see it!

We had an extra hour and a half in Narva, and the rain stopped again, so we walked to the fortress (the view is so breathtaking that I can’t stop looking!)

Another 3-hour train ride to Tallinn, walking under the pouring rain to the ferry terminal, and a two-hour ride to Helsinki (this time, comfortably sitting in the cafe).

Boris believes that as long as someone remembers a person who passed away, this person is not completely gone. For him, that’s the reason to take care of this grave and keep visiting it. I do not hold this belief, but still, somehow, it’s important for me not to abandon it after I found it.

… And I Can Also Be Creative!

I mean “creative” the way I say it about some of our users: you would never imagine what they could possibly mess up!

On Tuesday, Boris and I planned to go for a bike ride after I got back from work (it was the first time I had tried biking in the late afternoon in Helsinki). Because of that, I tried to leave promptly at 5 PM, and as I’ve mentioned many times, depending on how long I have to wait for a bus, the door-to-door time is 12-19 minutes. I should also mention that the buses in Helsinki move much faster than in Chicago, and the distance between stops is significantly longer.

I called Boris to say I would be home soon, got out of the office and walked to the bus stop, and in a couple of minutes, I saw bus #400 approaching. This route stops in a slightly different place from all others at my destination, but I knew where to get off (or at least I thought so!)

There are multiple road construction projects and road closures throughout Helsinki, and a couple of streets around our building are completely closed to traffic. In addition, this bus didn’t have a new and improved screen showing all upcoming stops, and (a really rare case!) neither displayed nor announced them. I didn’t realize that it was already time to get off the bus and missed my stop. Getting off at the next one, I thought that I did not want to add more than ten minutes to my commute, and I would be better off walking across the street and getting on any bus going in the opposite direction. It would be a great idea if I didn’t forget to press the stop button upon entering the bus. I stood by the door, presuming the driver would realize I was going to get off, but I was wrong! The bus didn’t stop, and I was two stops back! I walked to the opposite side of the street again and, once more, saw bus #400 approaching, but I couldn’t bring myself to board it 😂. I decided to wait for a couple more minutes and get on another bus. When I finally walked into our apartment, I told Boris that he wouldn’t believe what had happened anyway, so we should just get on our bikes and go!

Estonia PUG Meetup

Estonia PUG Meetup

Tallinn

It was supposed to rain both days we were going to spend in Estonia, and I couldn’t be happier with the weather forecast going wrong! In fact, there was not a drop of rain the entire time we were in Tallinn, except for a time when we were walking to the ferry on Friday evening. We were so sure that it would be raining that we didn’t even have any plans for the good weather, so after disembarking, we stood for a while trying to figure out what to do :).

Roterman keeps offering something new each time we walk through it

Continue reading “Tallinn” →

You Know I Am Good In Messing Things Up…

On Friday (in the morning of the day of my departure), I received an email from Chase Visa saying I didn’t pay my bill, which was due on that day. I clearly remember scheduling the payment for June 24 (it happened to me once that Chase processed my payment the next day and left me with a past-due amount, so I always make sure I have a payment scheduled a day before the due date).

I logged in to my bank account, and there was no payment on June 24, which left me puzzled. A minute later, I realized what was wrong: I had scheduled the payment for July 24 instead of June 24! I promptly scheduled a new payment, but since it was Friday, I could only schedule it for Monday, which would make it four days overdue.

I started calling my bank (and it’s not easy in the middle of my workday), and as always happens these days, it takes some time to reach a human. Fortunately, I succeeded, and a person on the other end of the line told me that they, “as a courtesy”, will remove the fees when they receive my payment on Monday. Which they did, and life became better 🙂

Then, on Monday, I was booking our trip to Tallinn, and was struggling with the Tallink website: they are prompting people to book a day trip, which is way cheaper than any overnight trip, so I did it incorrectly first, that tried to rebook, then was adding and removing meals, and finally, when it looked like everything was done, I hit the payment button. It was spinning forever; I saw the charge appear on my phone, but the Tallink website responded that “something was wrong,” but they will resolve it and send me an email.

The email never arrived, and Talling was still showing as an unpaid trip, so on Tuesday, I sent a message to customer support. They replied that I had a duplicate booking, and they just canceled the second one. I thought that the issue was happily resolved and didn’t look at the reservation again. It was only on Thursday morning, right before we were ready to leave the house, that I realized two things: that the booking had not been canceled, was a day trip, and also that I hadn’t booked a meal for the inbound trip. Unfortunately, it was already impossible to change the reservation, so I had to book a new one for the next day (this was a minor thing, because of the special pricing of day trips). What was worse that there was no way to pre-book a buffet, which I was hoping for. If there weren’t that many people on board, we could pay for the buffet “at the door,” but the ferry was packed. I was very disappointed, even though Boris kept telling me it wasn’t a big deal. And it was not, I just hate when things are not going as planned.

There are a lot of places to eat on a ferry, and even more places to sit, so it was just me not checking the tickets.