Tag: family

Cirque du Soliel: OVO

Today, I took Nadia and Kira to a Cirque du Soleil performance (my Christmas gift for them). This year, Cirque do Soliel performs at NowArena, which is very far from my house with no public transportation access.

It was a lot of Ubering, and I was very tired, but the performance was excellent! I got the seats, which I hoped would be good but I was unsure of, and they were perfect: the artists were right there, and we could see their makeup and facial expressions! Posting a couple of pictures just to show how close we were and how awesome it was to be able to see all the details!

Two more comments. First, as much as I admired the show, most of the acrobatics was very traditional, all classic tricks, just performed in the new environment.

And second, the venue policies were horrible. No outside food and beverage allowed, no water fountains inside, a bottle of water costs $5.5, and a bag of popcorn $8.

Also, I lost the belt of my new Estonian coat, and we had to go back and ask the personnel, Fortunately, they looked, and found, and returned it to me!

Mom’s Birthday Celebration

Everything went great, even with all the things I mentioned yesterday, plus today’s problems on the Red Line that made Igor and my mom being 30 minutes late to her party, and some guests as well :). There were a couple of times in the past when my mom got really upset about us not letting her know in advance that somebody was going to visit, that’s why we tried to plan it being a surprise, but not a complete surprise :).

I invited those with whom my mom interacted through all these seven years she has been in the USA, with the hope that she will remember. I was pleasantly surprised that she recognized everyone and addressed everyone by name, even those she hadn’t seen for a long time. About half an hour later, however, she started to ask me again who was who and how she knew them. When I shared this observation with Anna and John, they suggested that she got tired, and they must be right. I am going to focus on the positive side of things 🙂

Everyone whom I asked came, and the food was delicious, and Vanille’s cake was awesome.

Continue reading “Mom’s Birthday Celebration” →

Mom’s Birthday

My mom turned 90 today. We are giving her a “semi-surprise party” tomorrow, and we have already had enough of disasters: Vlad couldn’t come because the earlier snowstorm in DC pushed the training he had to conduct to the weekend; both Anna and I had a work crisis (and Igor was super busy, too). We had to move to another venue two days before the party. Anna forgot the frame for our collective present at home; all the printing is done not at the last minute but one after the last, and so on.

After disassembling my Christmas tree, I realized I needed new boxes for ornaments. I ordered them, and they arrived, but I didn’t have time even to unpack them until today, so i was repacking ornaments when Anna’s family arrived.

BTW the boxes are great, and I feel like I always feel when I replace something old with a newer model – why didn’t I do it earlier?! It’s so much better!

Christmas in Milwaukee

Merry Merry Chicago One More Time

When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to take Nadia to the Christmas concert on December 20, I offered an alternative plan: I took December 23 off, purchased the ticket for matinee performance on that day, and suggested to pick up Nadia on the evening of December 22, and then come back with her on December 23 and stay to celebrate Christmas. Unfortunately, there were no Amtrak tickets available for me for “swapping a suitcase for a child” (the only acceptable train was sold out), so Anna had to drive to Kenosha, and I took Metra there (and took another Metra back 20 minutes later). I packed a gigantic luggage with presents and all the things I needed in Milwaukee so that the next day, Nadia and I could travel light.

The trip back was very long, but Nadia entertained herself by reading all the names of the stops and keeping track of them – for some reason, stops had not been announced on this trip!

The next morning, we went to Common Cup for breakfast (I am so glad Nadia likes Common Cup as much as I do – yay!).

Then Nadia decorated all of the remaining cookies, and I was impressed by her skills! I told her that next Christmas, I will request her help in my cookies’ operation!

Continue reading “Merry Merry Chicago One More Time” →

Mom’s Caregivers

It took almost four months, but my mom finally had all the services she could have. Setting up the homemaker service took five visits from different social workers and coordinators from different organizational levels, but finally, everything is in place, and the woman who comes to her is really nice! She has been there only once to do some cleaning, and it looks like I will need to tell her what she can do to help my mom because my mom can’t realize what she needs help with. I have a long list, however!

On Wednesday, a technician came, and her wearable device was set up, although she is complaining and does not want to wear it. Learning something new, including the simple thing of pushing a button and an overall concept of wearable, is challenging for her, so I am unsure how effective this device will be. I just hope for the best.

Another thing I was planning to do but am unsure about is setting up her paratransit. They need us to show up for an interview where they will determine whether my mom needs paratransit, and that’s a whole project on its own. However, since one of my friends uses paratransit, I know it entails long waits and possible delays, so I am not sure it will be worth using it instead of Uber. Still thinking about it.

Everyone who interacted with my mom through these months was either just nice or exceptionally nice, and I am surprised and happy to see so many dedicated people working in elderly care.

Together

Vlad is in Chicago this week, and since it does not happen very often, everybody adjusted their plans. Anna, John, and the girls arrived on Saturday morning, and we all met with Vlad for brunch at Revival in Andersonville.

It was great to be together – it was at least a year since last time. Also, it was great to be in Andersonville. I realized that I have almost never been there since Vlad has not worked there for years, and I missed its vibe and being able to walk and stop at different shops and meet people.

After Thanksgiving

Boris nearly missed his flight: there was a traffic jam at the ORD entrance, and it took Uber 50 minutes to get to the terminal. I believe the better strategy would be to Uber to Cumberland and take the L to ORD. But it is what it is. I am sad about such a stressful ending to a very good week we had.

As it always happens, I have more things not done than done, just because I have all holiday things, plus work, plus the conference, plus our NFP, plus conferences where I submitted some proposals. Plus twenty different professional projects I want to start. Oh, and plus, it became sharply cold and my body didn’t have enough time to adjust.

Nevertheless, we had a very good time together and did many things around the house. Boris repaired a bookcase that started to fall apart after I returned from my last trip, and then he moved bookcases around as we planned several months ago but never did. We took down the flower baskets, covered all the balcony furniture for winter, and put up Christmas decorations.
I feared that because of how busy I was this year, I wouldn’t feel as joyful decorating the house as I usually feel, but this fear was unfounded. Everything except for the tree is up, and Christmas is in the air 🙂

Thanksgiving

I never know what to write about Thanksgiving. We made it :). Actually, the cooking time was the least effort I remember. It took me more time cleaning up, doing the dishes, and packing the food to go, but I am done with that, or with most of that. Boris helped me a lot (probably more than ever), and I am also very thankful for that. I am tired, but also, since Boris and I were chatting all the time while I was cooking and he was helping, I got a lot of new Postgres ideas that I want to try 🙂

I know I am hopeless:)

My son-in-law said I have a secret extra day of the week – I wish!!!

One thing we always have for Thanksgiving are pies from Vanille:)

Mom

A quick review of the past couple of weeks. Health-wise, she is doing great. I took her to her doctor two weeks ago (that was the hospital visit follow-up), and he was really impressed. He said that unless there are any concerns, he does not need to see her until June. At the same time, after we reported everything that happened to my mom, he looked at me and said: you realize that that’s just the beginning? Make sure to call her every morning to check that everything is alright.

I understand that, and that was one of the reasons I was still looking for a caregiver closer to my mom’s house. The one who started to visit my mom before I went on my trip, turned out to be great. Mom really likes her, and I asked her to meet with my mom at least once a week even if there are no specific needs. It is also great that she can take my mom to places where my help is not really needed, like the nail salon. I even asked her to take my mom to the blood test. To be honest, this small help frees up a lot of my work time, and that’s the primary reason I feel like I am becoming a human being again.

We ran out of the nurses’ visits, which was not so bad because there were objectively no reasons for them and because my mom insisted on somebody being there during the visits, even though the nurse spoke Russian. The insurance won’t cover it anymore; as I said, it’s good enough for now.

One of the things the nurse arranged was a social worker’s visit. Mom had this weird idea that if she would admit she needed help, I would send her to the nursing home, so she always said that she didn’t need any help. The social worker came anyway, and she assigned a Russian-speaking case manager for Mom. This case manager called me a week later (not three weeks later, as we were told). I had to take off work again, but at least I got some valuable information, especially regarding the subsidized housing. Now that I have learned how it works, I am not surprised that we are experiencing a housing crisis. Anyway, I contacted both subsidized housing and filled in applications. One was accepted, and another was returned, and we still need to fix the issues and turn it back. I don’t know what to make out of the fact that two houses have entirely different applications!

For a reason unknown to me, my mom believes that she will be placed in a room “with somebody else,” and she still thinks that it’s “a nursing home.” I hope she will realize that this housing is much better than where she lives now and, more importantly, that she will have Russian-speaking neighbors. To be honest, that’s the sole reason I want her to move into one of these buildings, and if I could pay the full price for her to live there, I would be happy to do so!

In addition, the case manager performed a memory evaluation for my mom, and since I know what it should look like, I realized that she did a very basic one. I guess that anything better than complete dementia is considered to be “ok” at this age. A side note: my mom got very upset with this evaluation and said that she is not a mad old lady :), which is very true!

I think those are all updates for now!