Bilja, of course, won't bother to buy a throwaway local sim card, and my old nokla can't have Viber... so, email. I thought of dropping by around 11 and emailed her so, but she replied that they're at the market, back by 11:30. So I scheduled myself to 12, got on my bike and was there on time. My dear said she'd fudge the lunch, and I should take them to Banatska.
But no. I left the bike in the yard of Domaćin's b'n'b and found Bilja in room #3, said she needs a few minutes to shape up. Pushed my bike to the tavern, parked it there and waited. She came shortly, but said no lunch, they just had breakfast, I guess it was a burek at the market, and that we should move to b'n'b's own cafe, as the daughters should be returning from the gym soon. Okay, deal. So I reparked the bike again, we ordered one small dark nikšićko (another place where don't have a choice of beers, but rather „keep the program of this brewery“, no draught). She handed me the phone, took pics of me as I opened the box.
A colleague came by with a pal, whom I haven't seen since 07-IX-2013., we used to work together in mašinska, though we remember the school's then name differently. I said it's only since Bilja started coming more frequently that it happens that in the present company the mathematicians are in majority (the pal used to teach russian), she tips the balance.
Then the daughters came, and we sat a bit more. The less thin one, who was here last year, even asked for a cigarette... so what we thought that they abruptly left then was not because of the smoke. Moreover, Bilja says that, despite not smoking for years now, she still likes the smell of smoke, specially the first whiff when somebody else lights one. I topped it up with the special fragrance when leaving the movie, when someone who's a meter ahead, and thus already outside, lights up - that first smoke is the best there is.
We mostly talked about language, and the sorcery (aka spells), which then caused a little visit to sGradlj.com, in the „how is it read“ section.
When I got home, I solemnly took out the sim and microesdee cards out of nokla and inserted them into the new phone. Plugged it into zmajček to charge...
Near evening Dragana called, said she's going with Bilja downtown to watch Amira Medunjanin or Marija Šerifović, whichever was scheduled for the evening, but screw that, Nina is in the gym in the evening (lost no weight yet but tightened up), she is tired, having cooked more tomato stuff, I guess a đuveč mix to put into jars, just add rice and meat.
On 13th (saturday) I messed with the phone... called Bajlo to schedule the next parastos for 11th, but then we didn't know the neighbors' schedule, so next day around noon I called Gavra briefly (he was cooking something) and they have no plans yet. Okay, we call dibs on 11th, yours is 4th or 18th. That call I barely made, the phone kept reporting it was unable to call.
Then I managed to send a message from a terminal window (!) to Dragana, but I didn't know whether she got it, because I tried to solve and learn too many things simultaneously. Then the kids wanted to go to Days of beer again, they liked it last time and they had a plan what they wanted to get now, and what to get again. Despite a saturday, I managed to park even closer - right under hte windows of once Bangro's lesser building, where we had offices in 1996.
Met nobody we knew this time, and for dinner we took a pljeska each, from the Moskva tavern's stand, Nina tried Violet's leftovers overyester and liked how meat tasted. The dough not so much, not too bad but it's not the old leavened, just passable, as good as it gets nowadays.
On sunday I still went through phone woes, and by evening it wouldn't even recognize Globaltel, not to mention any messaging. The updates get stuck somewhere, and Arch's mechanism doesn't resolve dependencies automagically (though Kleks of oldwave says it should). On Debians it is automagical.
So in the evening I called Borče and Dragana on the landline. She didn't respond at first, she's gotten into flatly refusing unknown numbers, but eventually relented the fourth time, so we talked.
Linda tried to shorten her bangs, botched it just like everyone does at some point (except Neša, he's somehow a natural), it seems the long hair over her eyes finally started bothering her, so Nina finished it for her. Now they look... well, like twins.
In the evening we talked with Lena first - she had a preliminary interview for m$ and Signal, we'll see. The apartment is being finalized, they bought all the appliances to be built into the kitchen cabinet, the woodwork (particleboardwork now) is in production.
Then we talked with Go and Stanley. Her garden failed this year, nothing grew. The kids are fine, even the cat's ball healed nicely, and he sort of cloned - at some point she saw him on the couch, than an almost identical cat out in the yard, had to check twice that he wasn't teleporting. Then noticed some differences. Stanley is taking a convertible to get painted, perhaps he'll ride it, but preferably sell it. His favorite cars to ride are junk cars, with stealability below 0,1. All in all good, fun talk.
15-VIII-2022 - 5-VII-2026