07-VI-2023.
Nothing much going on. The visits on sGradlj.com are generally stable, around 1200-1600 a day (with bots having slackened off).
On 4th, we had the second crop of green peas from the backyard. Sanda and Linda helped baba take the peas out of their pods. On fifth, we had seen the first potato from one of the bags. This year she planted them in strong black plastic bags, so the roots of the surrounding trees wouldn't soak out the moisture from the soil. So far so good, looks nice and promising. Of course, don't count the money until all cards are down on the table.
On 6th Raja finally broke his chair. I did get them two of the three chairs that dad bought when he broke two of three armchairs (which were once in my room) when they came in 2018. He's fidgeting a lot, a healthy kid with lots of energy, so first the hooks holding the backrest against the frame loosened, and now the frame unwelded in one place, somewhere below his butt. So I fired up the Joda and brought the third one. What I mowed with švorceniger last week seems to hold fine, except out on the street, that calls for a repeat soon.
That being said, in Klincaid we can call this a throwaway year. Nothing. Well, almost. We'll have some apricots (finally), but no cherries - the cherries have rotten on the branches, and the cherries are too few and to small to bother picking. Ditto for plums, few and far between. The quince blossomed handsomely, and the fruit began growing, and then it just withered on the branch, all of it. Maybe some pears and apples.
But we had the first 22 leaves of tobacco. Just a sample. She washed it, and at home took out the stem, sliced it into thin strips, and in the evening dried it in the fruit drier. We smoked one each, just for test. Well, no letter no postcard, but then still much better than the shit we used to smoke near the end of 1993. Few weird smells - about three puffs before the end I sensed some bit of smell one gets when entering a summer kitchen while tomato juice is cooked. Summary - not bad, and considering this is a quick sample, dried on the quick and dirty, looks promising.
By the time we were leaving, she went into a verbal duel with the thief neighbor. He was quick on his words, but didn't have the time to come up with anything plausible as an excuse. As for the one thing for which I have proof, the drip watering system, he said he bought it from someone in the next village. Yeah right, within four days the guy comes here, steals all that, takes it home, offers it for sale, and accidentally it's exactly you who buys it, mere 40m from the place where it was stolen from. „I could guard your stuff“ „well why didn't you?“ „I could be a good neighbor“ „so why aren't you?“. The burgers (scratch that, pljeskavice) we ordered for Nina, Raja and Violet were long ready when we got to the brzožder (v. house dictionary).
Today finally Dragana called. I was playing chicken with her, just waiting to see how long will it take until she calls. I didn't call her at all, except the email on 06-V-2023. with the picture of the tablet's screen. Not that I'm angry for anything, it's just that my dear keeps pestering me how I keep calling her and she never calls us. So, okay, let's wait and see. And patience won.
She's in health trouble, as usual, goes for a 2nd magnetic resonance scan (didn't quite hear what she said they maybe saw on the first one, she must have been sitting on her terrace and there was a lot of background noise), has a stuck shoulder or neck, hurts as soon as she move her head even slightly to the right, and of course the leg acts up at least few days a week. And she's escorting her sister to the hospital quite often, as they've found cancer even on the remaining breast and lungs. Just sitting and waiting while she's with the doctor is enough for her ankle to swell, not to mention walking down the halls and to the car. And yes, Bajlo called just when she was waiting for that (private ambulance) car to arrive, said he was in town and he could drop by and maybe they could visit us here. She told him the situation, but no, he had to take at least his five minutes. The guy is just an unstoppable conversationalist on the phone.
Afternoon, mowing the backyard and lawn the third time. Now the streetdide is easy, I'm not mowing at Aleksa's, his son is here. I did, for a few years, while I was parking the van there - which I did when we'd return at night and it'd be too complicated to maneuver. The steering is stiff until you step on the pedal (adding fluid into the power steering does help), so this was the easy technique until I thought of arriving through the next street all the way through, then coming into our street from the other direction and then parking at an angle on the other end of our lawn. To leave, just reverse a few meters and you're ready to go.
The son, no matter the rumor that he's powdering his nose a bit too much, is the second Rroma I know (after Faik) who keeps working around the house. He put a line of tiles at the bottom of the terrace wall, plastered and whitewashed the whole terrace, today even fired a barbecue, for himself. Even planted tomatoes, just to try it out.
We sat to have a drink around midnight. Until then, we sat separately, as usual - she on the bed, watching videos on gugolj, about growing and processing tobacco, I in the saloon, watchings 4th season of Killjoys on cimet. We were at half the bottle of last year's pear, which is nice, smooth, but the taste is too mild, gentle. So I brought the 22.1 tutifruti for a remedial exam. It failed the first time, few months ago, we just didn't like the taste and put it back in the cask to sit more. Same happened with 22.2. This time the first sip was... a bit strange, but not bad. Sensing there was some plum in it, and with plum the first sip is usually strange and then the rest of it just goes, we decided to stay with the shot and see how it goes.
We went to bed at three thirty. Stuns nicely, does more for the mood than against the balance. A miracle.
Eighth, finally two days in a row with no rain. In the afternoon I took out the long ladder and picked the narrow cherry. Sheer sorrow, instead of 10kg I got barely 5, and half of it had already perished. At least we'll have figs.
Rain came after midnight, announced by a lengthy drum solo and lightshow across the sky. Didn't mind, the nap I took in the afternoon was mere half an hour, so I slept just fine.
On tenth, IV6.73 had their 50 year parastos. As usual, the hungarian class stays separate from the other five, about which I'm even not sure whether they did theirs. Good that they did, knowing that they didn't do it at 40 (did at 41...). My job was to drive her to town, and I meant to continue to the captaincy (old port authority), there's a hobby shop, same brand as the one in Subotica where I bought that good shovel on 03-VII-2015., which the neighbor stole this winter. Not this time. The traffic was so congested, we didn't even reach the Žitni, turned left one street before it, and she stepped out to visit the Chineses and buy an umbrella. I could have driven on, but given the impending rain and the congestion, just turned back and went home. The rain did come within 20 minutes and lasted less than half an hour and that was it. At least I was at hand for the kids while Nina slept.
Of the guys I knew from IV6.73, present were Vanji, Eči, the printer and his wife, Đenđi and the guy we met at police HQ. I know a few more, about. She brought lots of stories - how the guy who died recently had just the week before had a booster shot; how of the four doctors in the class one still works, because there's a shortage, and she's handling exactly the vaccination. The tavern owner addressed my dear at some point, saying he remembers me and specially her, as she was the most beautiful girl in town. And there I thought I was the only one who knew that.
Then they went to Vanji's vineyard, where he went into his usual spiel about the two sorts of wine he prepared for degustation, where she topped him with „why didn't you print that so we can study later, we're drinking and going to forget“. He didn't even prepare any snacks, allegedly not knowing whether they'll come in the first place. Sold bare five liters. Said the sales aren't going well. But he still wants to expand, and wanted to buy a piece of land from the next neighbor, but the guy screwed him - swapped fields with someone else, and this other guy won't sell. The younger son runs the company well, Avai grew to sixty people now. Three granddaughters and one grandson, and while he had mouthfuls about how she prefers female children, he kept talking of the grandson. And yes, the old professor who appears on our meetings was there too. She's 92, now vision impaired, so Đenđi had to cut her meat and feed her. Which she did neatly but not regularly, had to wait for herself to finish the talk, which took too long.
Twelfth. Took Linda and Sanda to Springfield. Now they more playact the roles of whatever scenario they play out than jump, climb and monkey around, pretty much half by half. Then we went over to Lidl to get the groceries, and by the time we were done another shower fell. We stood in the lobby for a while, waiting for it to subside. There comes Grne, still at work, says rain is not the best for business, it's the scorcher, a tropical heat, when it goes like crazy.
Had a misunderstanding in getting to the car. I thought to run for it myself and then drive the Joda to the entrance. By the time I got my belt, glasses, contact, start the engine, I heard the rear door open. „Where do you think you're going? Without us?“ „Meant to bring the car to you, but... well.“ It was actually the girls, when they saw me running, they just followed.
Thirteenth. Called telekom in the morning to report a malfunction - the router has lost more than half of range and bandwidth on wireless. In the yellow room and the salon there's practically no signal, and in the rest of the house it's just very slow and off at times. They lost the sound menu, the „if you want ... press one“. Instead, they installed some speech recognition thingy, which was supposed to work like the one that Cox had 15 years ago. Didn't understand a word I said, but at least I got redirected to a live person much faster. The critter, however, is not allowed to tell me to just go to their shop and get a new modem. She has to follow the procedure.
Picked the big cherry, under which I park the Joda. Got some 20 kg, and they aren't too shabby. As much as I'm annoyed when the leaves intrude between the fruits, this time I liked that, as the rot didn't spread. So we ended up with not too many squished or moldy ones. She immediately made pekmez, actually still doing the 2nd batch as I write this.
While I was on the ladder, noticed someone putting a notice on our electric pole. For years nobody did, and now we have two in a row. One is a mason, advertising „undercutting walls, drying out, insulation“ which is popular here, many of the pressed clay houses suffer the problem. This new post was a young mom with a boy of some six years, they lost a cat. Cute black male, with a blue ribbon. I offered Dženifer for replacement, but there was only Amelija in the backyard, the ugliest one we currently have, all slimy and snotty and rheumy, and half smaller than Dženifer (of the same litter). Didn't take her, but Nina wrote down the number, so in a few weeks, if they haven't found their fucker, we may have a few interesting ones to offer.
In the evening, first tried to call Bajlo, it's his birthday, but of course he keeps the phone on the table, and calls back when he notices. Then called Dragana for the same reason, too bad I couldn't make a group call and say „...to all who celebrate“ (common turn of phrase here, for various red days in the calendars - because the orthodox church sticks to julian, theirs are 13 days later, and it's finally become impolite to apply such things to unbelievers). While the talk with him took its minimal fifteen minutes, with her it was below three, she had guests and was in the middle of putting something on the table.
Fourteenth. In the morning, as scheduled, Mića came and mounted the new AC. The old one leaked all the freon, at the outside unit. We stick to the same logic for all the apparata with tubes - once there's a leak on one, from material fatigue, it's not worth fixing. When one pipe breaks because of age, the other pipes are just as old and the chances are high that another one will break soon. So replace. So we got this new one, same model as in upstairs bedroom. Well, what passes as „same“ - some plastic is different, and the remote is better - clearer display, and no flipper switch for mode, but three buttons for each (dry, cool, heat). And it cools just fine. Violet was rudely awakened when he ran the big fat drill, but he had to, the old hole was just too narrow.
Another difference in the model - it costs about the same as before, but now you get less. The tubes and other stuff needed for the installation, including the plug at the end of the power cable, aren't included in the package. Which made the installation cost 12000 instead of 8000.
Mentions: 03-VII-2015., 06-V-2023., Aleksa Pajkov, Avai, cimet, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Đenđi Todorov, Endre Felbab (Eči), Faik Rizvani, Grne, gugolj, house dictionary, IV6.73, Joda, Klincaid, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), maturski parastos (parastos), Mića the electrician, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pekmez, pljeska, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sGradlj.com, Springfield, švorceniger, tutifruti, Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), Violet, Žitni, in serbian
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