Tag: family

Flight to DC

Mom

It has been very difficult to communicate with my mom recently. More than ever, she chooses to complain about everything. Her apartment didn’t get enough heat. I called the office; they told me they would install extra heaters, but then the parts won’t come on time (supply chain crisis), and there was almost a month wait.

So first, mom complained that everybody ignored her. Then she was happy for a couple of days, and now she is complaining that it’s too hot. She does not remember how she didn’t have any control over the temperature in her apartment in Saint-Petersburg. Now she is saying that she could always open a balcony door in Saint-Petersburg, and here she is afraid to open the window.

Then comes a usual chain of complaints like she could always look out of the window and see how people were dressed outside and figure out what’s the weather. Nothing new; it’s just that she repeats it more often, without anything positive in between.

Also, all the conversations related to the war are impossible. Last weekend, Igor brought some local Russian newspapers to her, which she could not ignore. She asks”not to talk to her” about the war, but this is becoming increasingly difficult. On top of it, she forgets more and more things and gets very defensive, if not aggressive, when I remind her. She’s saying that that’s me who forgets things and then “accuses” her. I think I need to message her doctor and ask what’s the right way to handle such situations.

Several other issues are very difficult to handle, but I will stop now so that I won’t do the same thing as she does 🙂

Mom

I made some progress with Mom’s medical appointments in the past two months. First, we met with the social worker, who talked with her about the Power of Attorney and Advanced Directives. She sent us a copy of the document to review with mom and sign it.

Since the doctor suggested it, mom could not object to discussing this uncomfortable topic. Previously she was always like, “I do not want to talk about it; I didn’t give it a thought.” Now, she had no choice but review :). Then, we met with a geriatric specialist. I wanted to arrange that for a long time because I am never sure whether I am too alarmed when mom forgets things or the opposite – I do not notice when it’s time to be alarmed.

We talked for a very long time. On the one hand, there was some reassurance that things were not that bad. On the other hand, they do not have a baseline. For them, the fact that mom does not forget to turn the gas off, can cook, and shop for her groceries is enough to conclude that she is in decent shape. I know, however, that these are very basic skills for her that will be there the longest. We will see how things will progress.

Another progress was with her hearing aid – she was seen by a high-skilled professional, ee=vverything free, everything without long waits. Now we are waiting for t=her new hearing devices to be ready. The place where they are made is Russian-speaking, but she still has so much trouble understanding what she is asked that I had to call them back afterward to clarify several things. (I could not go with herl Igor did, and he was sure she understood the questions, which was a wrong assumption).

I do not want to take her for a vision test until she has her new hearing aid, which will most likely happen later in spring.

A Weekend With My Girls

On Saturday, we had another Chicago Adventures day. Anna, Nadia, and Kira came to Chicago for a day. I bought two tickets for “Peter and the Wolf” in CSO, and this time, I went with Nadia, and Anna and Kira explored the Art Institute while waiting for us.

The day started a little bit catastrophic. The CSO requires all unvaccinated patrons to show a recent COVID test. For PCR, it can be a day old, and for antigen, it has to be three hours before the show. Anna took Nadia for the test the day before, but the results were not ready by the evening (and neither did they come Saturday morning). Anna called the CSO guest service, and they assured her that there are several pharmacies very close to CSO, where they could get a COVID test right before the show. I was a bit skeptical, knowing that many places in the Loop are closed during the weekend, but there was not that much choice.

The train arrived on time, so we had an hour and a half before the show, and we started walking in the direction of the CSO. We didn’t see any opened pharmacies on the way, so we headed to the Walgreens closest to CSO. It was open, but we saw that the pharmacy itself was closed for the weekend when we came inside. That was concerning, but we still had both time and hope. I asked an associate where the closest Walgreens is to get a COVID test, and he said: two blocks North. It was in the opposite direction to the CSO, but at least we thought we would get it done. Nadia was doing great walking with almost no complaints.

When we reached this other Walgreens, it turned out that… yes, their pharmacy window was closed, too! We had no time to go anywhere else, so Anna bought an at-home test from Abbot’s Lab, installed the app on her phone, and we opened it right there on the pharmacy floor :). Anna swabbed Nadia’s nose and started the test. We didn’t have time to wait for the required fifteen minutes, so we started walking towards the CSO, and I was trying to hold the test horizontally :).
The test was ready just when we reached the CSO. It was not so easy to show the test results on the phone while the phone had to stay with Anna :), but we managed.

There was one very tall person in front of us, and we was leaning left to his three children – all the time!
Continue reading “A Weekend With My Girls” →

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 🙂

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” →

Detskiy Sad At The Dacha Part 2.

It has been two months since I posted my last historical blog. These blogs require more time and thoughts, and my life in November and December didn’t exactly have any room for extra thoughts. 

Following my New Year resolution, I will continue from where I left. My last post was about summer 1968 when I stayed at the dacha with the other kids from my detskiy sad. Although it was summer, fresh fruits were perennial “deficit.” Parents took turns to buy cherries or strawberries at the farmer’s markets and deliver them to the dacha. I asked mom recently, but she does not remember any details. It was definitely not every day, and the fruits would arrive after a nap. I remember slaying in bed and seeing somebody’s mom serving strawberries in the saucers. 

I am trying to recall how often we had “parent’s days.” Later, when I was at pioneer camps, we had parent’s days only once per three-week session. But I do not remember how it was with detskiy sad. I think mom was coming once a week. Sometimes, my father would come, too, and we would go for a walk in the woods. They always brought me some fruits and other treats. Once, my father brought me mango – they were non-existent, mango juice would come along sometimes as a rare treat. 

However, I do not remember missing my mom that much.

Sometimes, the teachers were cruel and punished us for no good reason. Sometimes, the night shift counselor would wake us up to pee into the bucket and not wet the beds (even though almost nobody did). But is was never like, “I want to go home!”

I do not think I had any unhealthy separation issues when I was a young child. As I mentioned, I had no problem adjusting to detskiy sad from the beginning. My completely unhealthy attachment to mom developed later, under her direct influence. 

I am not sure why she wanted me to be so dependent and miss her so much. Perhaps, she needed it for her self-esteem – to know that she is “in demand.” Perhaps, she does not know that there could be other relationships. Now, I feel sad when I observe that she developed the same emotional dependency on me. I try very hard not to abuse it. To my New Year resolution – I should be more emotionally invested when I interact with her. Simply to give her more. 

New Year Celebration

For some reason, my company has January 3 off for January 1, not December 31, as in most companies. On the one hand, I am grateful I have one more day off tomorrow. On the other hand, it was challenging to get everything ready for a New Year celebration when you work on this day and are still new at the job, so things take time. 

I decided that I made enough salads in Milwaukee, and since only three of us are celebrating, I just made a nice three-course dinner. I had a lot of farmer’s vegetables, so I made borshch entirely from this fresh organic produce. I also had a chicken from my other CSA, and I roasted it (frantically searching on the web and combining three different recipes in one :)).

Borshch looks so festive in these plates, I should use them more often!

And I made an apple tart and a pumpkin pie as I had wanted for a long time. (For the record, the purpose of this post is to showcase these two pies :))

Cookies from friends from all over the world!

Usually, I am neutral about the New Year, but it was good that we celebrated (Igor and I went to the fireworks right after). 2021 was a very eventful year, more than I wanted, so it was a good idea to mark its ending with something a little bit more special than I usually do. 

My New Home Office

The first thing (literally) they told me before I even signed the offer letter was about the home office setup allowance. I could (and should have) spent $500 on the office furniture, and that’s not counting external monitors, cables, etc.

Boris told me I should get an adjustable desk. I told him (one more time) that I do not like working standing, but he said that the adjustable desk would be good for me. I asked Anna what she would get for the home office, and she was: Mom, get a standing desk! – Are you guys related or what?!

Then, there was a long story of choosing all of the components, and then they started to arrive separately! I was hoping that all the parts would arrive while Boris was still here, but this didn’t happen. The tabletop arrived after he left, and FedEx just dumped it on the grass by the front door. Thankfully, Anna and her family came a day later, and they carried the door to my apartment, but they had no time to assemble it. 

When Vlad visited unexpectedly, I was more than happy to see him, but my next thought was: oh, he is here for just a short while, he won’t be able to assemble a desk for me. And you know what? He and Dylon found the time to assemble the desk, install the monitor arm, disassemble the old desk, bring it (and all the packaging of the new desk) down, and put the old desk on Craig’s list! That was a real gift! Almost better than Nancy Pelosi candle 🙂

Lots Of Presents

What else about Christmas? There was a lot of cooking and a lot of washing dishes, as I already mentioned. And there were presents. 

Nadia spent a lot of time coloring the wooden ornaments, and then she packed them for different people. It was great to see that she already understands the joy of giving.

 

I was very happy with the presents I picked for my granddaughters. I got insider information from Anna that Nadia thinks that Baba will give her ice skates for Christmas. I was happy to follow up :).

Continue reading “Lots Of Presents” →