Tag: life

I Think I Found The Limit

… of how much I can squeeze in one unit of time. Namely, I can’t do something for what I need five days into two and a half days.

That’s what was going on. I confirmed with my friend Lena, who comes every year in December to help me with cookies that she is coming for Dec 6-8, and then I launched my usual cookie advertisement. Two weeks later, Lena told me she wouldn’t be able to make it. It was 100% not her fault; she had an unexpected personal situation, but the fact was that I was on my own. And also, although at least five people told me they would come and help decorate, nobody showed up. On top of it, I had only one weekend instead of two due to the late Thanksgiving, and Vlad going to be in town on the second weekend.

At least I was smart enough to take Friday off (I planned it anyway), but it didn’t help much. Before I had a chance to get to baking:

  • Unpacked and shelved Amazon Fresh deliver
  • Had a call – somebody wanted to connect with me professionally, and that was the first option available, 45 min
  • A visit from a social worker from mom’s insurance (1.5 hours, including walking)
  • going through my baking supplies, finding mice dropping, cleaning the whole pantry, throwing away damaged goods
  • another professional call was scheduled for Friday for the same reason: “I am at home anyway.”
  • Going to the Night Ministry office to drop the presents (the last items I ordered arrived on Thursday, and I couldn’t fit this trip into any other day before the deadline) – two hours

That way, I started baking at 3-30 PM and baked until pretty late. My phone was showing a very low battery, but since I knew I would plug it in for the night, I thought it was not a big deal for it to run out of power. It was already 11-30 PM, and suddenly, the screen went black. I plugged the phone in and waited, but nothing happened, and no buttons could wake it up. I tried three different plugs and waited, and it didn’t even show the battery picture. Finally, i went to bed and left it plugged, and then I woke up at 3-30 AM and saw that the screen was still dead.

To be continued:)

I am a Morning Person!

About Mom, Life, And Other Random Thoughts

Mom wants her freedom, and it’s scary. I understand how she feels, and most likely, if I were in her place, I would feel the same way. I also understand that she can’t really process any new concepts, and I remember what the doctors in the hospital told me: at the end of the day, you do what you can do. I talked to one more potential caregiver last week, and I was trying to talk to my mom about bringing in one more person when I was away, but she was turning the conversation into her usual spiral, no matter where it would start and no matter how hard I tried.

Today, I took her to the matinee concert at the CSO, and she was upset, I am not sure with what, and then she didn’t like anything at the concert, starting with the first piece that was performed and ending with Christoph Eschenbach not wearing a bowtie. I am trying to distance myself from such situations, but at the same time, I always start to worry whether I am moving in the same direction.

I know that I have already started to forget words, and for the past two years, I have been trying to record all occurrences of forgotten words. I believe it was once in two months two years ago, then – once a month, and now almost weekly. The funny thing is that most of my forgotten words are food-related:). The rest are names of people (not the people I knew in the past, but celebrities) and names of places. Boris has nothing of it, and he remembers the names of my former co-workers better than I.

***

Another topic my mom brings up frequently is a statement that she feels sorry for me because although I am an accomplished professional, I didn’t have “magical moments” in my life. I know exactly what she means because she often speaks with pride about some super weird relationships she had, when a guy from her work invited her to a theater or a concert once a month, and sometimes, they went to one of the imperial parks around Saint-Petersburg (actually, Leningrad at that time). She keeps saying that “these days, nobody can even imagine such relationships when there was nothing except for talking.” According to her, the best and most magical part of this relationship was that there was no kissing, no intimacy. They would go out once a month, and he would record tapes for her, and that was it. I can’t imagine why not having something like this in my life makes me “unhappy.” I honestly and truly believe that my life is as close to a fairy tale as possible, and the number of magical events that happened to me is way above the average :). Boris threw a dozen hypotheses, trying to explain what was behind this statement and what kind of reasoning could lead to this conclusion.

I might make a separate post about these hypotheses because I believe there could be some historical reasons for that.