Some time this month we held yet another parastos of IV5pp. I know I missed the previous meeting because I was out of the country, and I remember the next year much clearer, so this must be the month - I knew it was winter.
this time in some new fancy restaurant at the west exit, on Novi road. The kafeni being in barely usable condition (and then I half destroyed it by transporting all the parts for the chimney in it at once), I had no transportation, so we arranged for Siške to take me in his fića. He had a house in my neck of the woods, nothing much, just a cute little house, just two blocks from here.
Don't remember much and I don't think anyone had a camera, nothing was written down (except maybe the tab). At least half the class was there - I know I got into one of my moods, and personally thanked a couple of the girls (Dragana and who else?) for not giving me any signs back in the school that they may be willing, the scarcity has taught me to appreciate love when it comes. They both (three?) took it in their stride, whether for having drunk enough not to mind me being more drunk and spilling my sentiments, except Oli Boj who said „but why didn't you ask me?“. Um, yeah, almost did, but not the year when you thought I should have.
That's all I remember.
I remember even less when was it when our washer croaked, the one from the early eighties, which I already scrubbed of paint on the outside... not with an actual grinder, had a sandpaper disk mounted on a drill, and then put a sheet sticker over it to prevent further rust. My firm didn't fare that badly at the time, inasmuch that salaries weren't late, but that was pittance. We just couldn't find a way to fix the damn thing. We were, just like any other lumpenintelectuals at the time, one such small catastrophe away from disaster. But Tereza [came] to a rescue, a friend of her fixes washers, on the side, as a tezga. Turned out the guy was an amateur, graduated something, of course or else he wouldn't be fit company for her, used to work in tourism or some such thing which practically doesn't exist anymore, so made ends meet doing this.
He played the whole spiel, with dismounting the motor, taking it for a check, calling in to say it burned and would need rewinding... but he's got a different washer, of pretty much same age, which he fixed and can offer as replacement. The amount wasn't too big, and okay, let's do this, it's not that we don't know who he was, if the thing croaks prematurely we can grab him by the scruff. The malfunction probably wasn't much, a busted capacitor or worn out cogs in the so-called programator, but he couldn't charge for that as for a full replacement. And we didn't care, if the clunker does the job, we got rid of the old one and got a new one with almost a warranty. And it did hold for as long as we needed it.
Come to think of it, there was another factor - in the old house it was rather damp. The old adobe walls didn't dry properly, and the drip from thawing snow etc would always get partially soaked, and we had underground water (the old well's water was only 3m from topsoil to surface), capilars can't be turned off except by insulation, which didn't exist. This house, however, is dry. So rusting is off the list of problems now.
23-V-2023 - 16-VII-2026