Tag: friends

Lena In Chicago

Lena arrived an hour after my friends from Helsinki left for the airport (and I am happy to report that despite the World-Wide-IT Crisis, they safely made it home). I barely finished washing the sheets and towels.

Lena brought lots of cherry-flavored goodies, some fresh pickles from her garden, and lots of enthusiasm for doing touristy things in Chicago. And if you ask me – I am always in!

Georgis O’keefee for the third time 🙂

Porches Painting And Planting

I started to write this post two months ago, but then things became more interesting, and I held off on posting it. Now, the whole process is finally in progress, so I can at least report on the current status.

How it started. Last year, there were talks about painting porches, but they died away with no outcome. I planted everything I wanted to plant, and life was happy. This spring, I planned to hang up my flower baskets while Boris was here in April because it’s a job for two people. But shortly before he came, we received a notice from our association that this season, we are definitely having the porches painted and repaired, so “please do not take the deck furniture out and do not plant anything; we hope to be done in May.”

How did it turn out. I didn’t plant anything, but my furniture is always on the deck, just covered for winter. At the beginning of May, I started to suspect that it would not happen in May. In mid-May, they told us that they chose contractors. At that point, I decided that I would be planting, and when my girls were here during the first weekend of June, we went to the Windy City Garden Center. Right then, another message arrived stating that the work would begin “after the holidays.” This was a total crush because my friends from Finland would arrive just before July 4, which would mean that they would have this construction for the whole duration of their stay! Also, I felt so miserable without the plants that I decided that I would be happy even if they would hang on there for a month!

Development. Since then, the dates have shifted multiple times. Finally, this week, the work began. I know that my tier won’t be started for at least three more weeks. That means that my flowers will last for two months! My only regret is that I listened to the “do not plant” statement and wasted almost a month!

The equipment is arriving

My guests are saying that so far, it was not that noisy and they can survive, so I hope it will be all OK!

Showing The Best Of Rogers Park

I had a total of five days off work, including two vacation days I took on July 3 and 5 to help my friends feel at home and show them all of the Rogers Park highlights. I think I succeeded: they love it here!

We went to the beach several times (actually, at least twice, they went without me).

On July 4, we went to look at the Artists of the Wall:

We went to Devon Market and Morse Market (and to get to the former one, I made sure that all of them had a bike they could ride. My friend Natasha didn’t ride a bike for several years, and she never did biking in the street traffic. I could understand her anxiety – I felt the same way when I first biked in Rogers Park, but she survived :).

This morning, we went for breakfast to the Common Cup:

And then to the Glenwood market, where we got purple and yellow beans, Benison bakery pastries, Mickii’s cobblers, flowers, and tart cherries. And Natasha got herself a new neckless, and then we all got different flavors of popsicles.

And then we went to the Art Institute, where, to my deepest disappointment, we found the Ryan Canter closed because of the NASCAR race – don’t ask what it has to do with that! However, Sonia compensated this loss with another round of slashes in the Crown Fountain:

Tomorrow, I will be back to work, but I think my friends will find their way around and things to do!

Aquarium

Today, we visited the Aquarium. I love this museum, and I reserved the tickets immediately after knowing my friends were coming. This was a great idea since the Aquarium was sold out for the day!

What I completely forgot (or ignored) was that this weekend is a NASCAR weekend. Although the races are happening during the weekend, the street closures started a week before (and would still be there the week after). Last night, I tried to figure out what exactly would be opened and closed, but without any luck.

That being said, getting there was quite an adventure, and Sonia (the youngest child and my goddaughter) was screaming that she couldn’t go anymore, but when we finally got to the Aquarium, all the hardships were forgotten! I love when people love the Aquarium and when they not just quickly browse the exhibits but actually pay attention to all of them, so it was a real joy!

We spent five hours in the Aquarium, and that’s only because we skipped the show and a big portion of it is closed for renovation. And a way back seemed not as bad!

ORD

I am sitting in Terminal 5 of ORD, waiting for my friends from Helsinki to arrive. I know that the aircraft landed more than twenty minutes ago, but nobody can tell how long is the security line.

I have a full fridge and places for five people to sleep, and that’s exciting – I didn’t have any international guests since pre-pandemic, and that will be the first time I have international guests since I moved to Rogers Park.

The first line from today’s WBEZ newsletter says:

It’s a fact we Chicagoans hold dear: No city summers better than ours.

And don’t you dare to tell me otherwise!

Friendship

When we met with my friend N. on Sunday, she asked me whether I could promise her to wear the gift she was going to give me all the time. I said yes, and this bracelet is on my wrist now – all the time!

Titanic Exhibit

Last Sunday was a very special day for me – I had a reunion with my very special friend, with whom we hadn’t met in person since the start of the pandemic.

It was never easy for N. and I to meet even before that due to our insane work schedules and living far away from each other, but before the pandemic, we tried our best to meet once a month. Then, we had to isolate, and then life just took over.

I am infinitely happy and infinitely grateful to my friend for keeping our friendship alive through almost four years, and even more grateful that we had a chance to spend several hours together.

For our reunion, N. suggested we go to see the Titanic exhibit in Skokie, and I was happy to do that. The exhibit was totally worth it, presenting a wide range of historical facts, lots of artifacts, photographs presenting how life on Titanic looked like, and even a recreation of some ship’s cabins. I didn’t take that many photos, because I was absorbed in the experience, but I still ended up with a lot of them!

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Biking In February

Sunday, when it started to warm up after a frigit Saturday
Tuesday just before sunrise

Radical Clay Exhibit

My friend, who moved from Chicago to Boston last year, was in town last week, and we went to the Art Institute for the Thursday evening hours. We saw an exhibit I hadn’t seen yet – “Radical Clay,” which presented the works of Japanese contemporary female sculptors made of clay/porcelain. 

The exhibit is small, but all the artworks are extraordinary! Here are some pictures that I took and some from the official webpage. 

This one is called “Looking for a crush”
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A Week In Review

Time will tell whether it was a good idea to try to accomplish the impossible. For the whole week, I would go to bed about midnight (except for Saturday, when it ended up being 1 AM Sunday)and wake up at my usual time, which is between 4-30 and 4-45 AM.

At work, having been in the office for only four days between two weeks of time off, I had endless meetings and then worked after hours trying to do some actual work. I was planning my presents, ordering things, writing the cards, etc. In addition, I had many problems with my conference website, sending tons of emails trying to correct them and meeting with the Talk Selection Committee. I had to prepare a million things for the upcoming PG Conf EU week and manage several 2024 conference submissions.

I took Friday off, and I decided not to go to the Corporate Christmas Party because otherwise, there was no way for me to bake my Christmas cookies. I want to be very clear here: this was not a sacrifice on my side; these are my priorities, and I would be way unhappier if I didn’t do cookies this year.

Lena also took Friday off and left work earlier on Thursday to drive to Chicago so that we could start baking early Friday morning.

I do not recall whether I mentioned it, but this year, due to all of the time constraints, I decided to utilize the Tree Santa company for my Christmas tree delivery because I knew I wouldn’t have time to go and choose it. Since Friday was literally the only day I was at home, I also scheduled the tree delivery for Friday.

It turned out the tree was too thick to fit into my tree stand, so they had to give me one of theirs, and it was not as nice as mine. As for the tree itself, it was fine, but the shape was not as I liked it (too thick in the middle), and the top was “tripled,” and Lena and I spent a lot of time trying to put the star on it.

At 5 PM, we called it a day and went to the Christkindle Market and then to Millennium Park to see the Chicago Christmas Tree and listen to the carolers.

Continue reading “A Week In Review” →