23-VII-2024.
Yesterday the last batch of the earlier fruit was up for distilling. Everything regular, kittens all around, weather not too hot, we got it all down pat... When I cut off the first still (i.e. separated the potable rakija from the patoka to redistill next), she took the good beans (third day, one more day left, excellent). We lunched while the patoka got done, so then I went and emptied the leftovers, crammed the rest in, second batch. It takes some thirty minutes to start dripping, just right for a nap. She'll be the dežurni...
A torrent woke me up. She managed quickly, took an umbrella, and while came to on the fly, didn't take me long, she separated the methanol and held the umbrella so it wouldn't rain into the rakija. Then I took over, sat there for some twenty minutes, even took a measurement once, but barely, it's going too slowly - well of course, the rain is beating on the lid and cooling it, part of the vapors may condense on it... well, I left the umbrella to cover the condenser and part of the bench, and went inside. It is how it is, and the rain lifts particles of soil into the pot, well let it just go anyhow, we won't cut this off, let it just collect and we'll redistill it. Right then Lena called and not the landline, as it was offline for two weeks and she doesn't know that it got fixed meanwhile, tried my phone but I was outside, so it's mom's. She needed to know how to distinguish real contactions from the early ones. I caught only the end of the talk, „we'll go to that hospital then, they're just fifteen minutes away, and we'll see“.
The rakija, on the other hand, still turned out quite right, guess because it was going slowly, so by the time the rain stopped, the average in the pot didn't fall below 52%, and our cutoff point is 50%. So despite all the rain we got 7,4 liters of tutifruti, perfect. True, my shorts and the lower back of the shirt were wet, but a real fisher has to get his pants wet sometimes.
But I didn't wash the still because the rein came back. Had just enough time to fill it with water, so the biomass in it wouldn't dry. Then at 18:39 Lena writes in Telegram, said „it seems these are contractions“. And that was from that birth ward... and then they went home to catch some sleep, the plan being to go in the morning to have birth. But at 0:39 she writes in the communal chat, „we're at the ward, baby arrives soon“.
It's not my first time, I know that reporting is a third order of priority, we won't know anything until it's all over... but all the same, there's no use trying to sleep. She didn't have that problem, so she went to sleep, after feeding the fishes first (of the four two have remained, but now they are twice larger than they used to be, and of those that Nina had, there's only one, hiding somewhere in the jungle). Around 1:35 Nina called me, we talked for a while, can't remember exactly what, just that she was looking really well. Ah, yes, Raja and Violet passed the school year... at some friend of hers from the homebirthers' club, who is a certified teacher, said they're okay, wrote them a letter to certify completion of academic year, done now, moving on. And the seat of my pants was dry by that time.
And so, she's asleep, I'm watching „Expanse“ the second time, just wading into the third season... And around three I give up, seems I'll fall asleep after all. Which I did, except I got half awake two or three times after six, dreaming repeatedly how what I see of news on Telegram is unrelated to reality, when I wake up it will all be different, and if she's woken up, maybe she didn't look yet, or if she did why didn't she wake me up, maybe it will really be around noon... So I got up around 6:30, saw she was out (feeding the chicken and the cats), cast an eye on Telegram and look! Tanja was born at 3:32, the news posted around five, „All fine, she got a 9, 10 mark. Came out afer 10 minutes of push, and already sucks like a professional“. Baba congratulated the same minute. Next minute there's the first shot. Not so much the baby, for what little can be seen of it, but the two of them look so beatified... Well, all the luck to you.
And so we're a baba and deda, the seventh time.
And there was a blast from the past: the „grade“... is the Apgar score, which I heard mentioned hundreds of times on my last job, but didn't look up until now...
Took a nap a bit before the lunch, and then Lena called and we saw her for some 20 minutes, looking all good and fresh (Tanja was sleeping in the next room). Then after lunch (beans, 4th day) we did another round of noodles and... I did my share fair and square, nothing wrong with me, didn't miss a beat, my eyes were peeled to work, it's that my soul was asleep as they say, and there was no way I'd stay up after we finished. While I was out, three more photos arrived. Of course she doesn't look like her parents, it's always grandparents, including aunts in this case. Now (some fifteen minutes after the shots arrived) it seems she's got baba's pretty nose... and we'll see yet whether one nostril will turn out to be a bit larger, that'd be from me.
Then a brief video call at 19:45, so we saw the klinceza live for a minute or two, even heard her for a second when she stirred a bit, I quickly knit four screenshots, and then the connection broke somewhat, then she called again but then the connection got much worse, at a rate of ten pixels a minute. But what matters is that we saw her. She said Milan was present at birth, and was commended by the staff for not being in anyones way at all. His comment was „you have no idea how much stuff came out of you“. As baba commented, it's spare parts and wrapping, it all comes out. She didn't get torn, just a bit on the skin, a little suture, all fine. And she sucks, when she hooks on she won't let go, the nurse tried to detach her and couldn't. Then she unhooked on her own and fell asleep the same instant.
And the staff... the birth doctor (there's a word which I should know, but can't think at the moment), two midwives, a pediatritian, a surgeon with an assistant and a few more, at least eight of them were present in the room. Mostly there for just in case, and with nothing to do but just be there.
And then I sat to write this before the details air out from my head, and then remembered to report to... who, really. Of relatives there's none left, after we ignore the ones who didn't report to us their weddings and births, only Boba remains. Sent him „you've become an aunt and uncle, and we deda and baba for the seventh time“, over Telegram, which he didn't notice until I sent him an sms to take a look. Then he reacted in five seconds... along with „that house of yours is getting tight, one more storey just for the kids“ - „sure, if they'd come... and you, planning? a storey, I mean.“ - „We do plan. A storey, I mean. 😜“
At 21:48 I wrote on burundi „Logging out for tonight, while I know how. Reason, granddaughter.7(0)“, and then we sat to celebrate. There was some pear left, also some apricot, she made some cigarettes, and somehow hit it right with just one left for the morning. That's when a memory hit me, unbid, of our first couple of years together, we two alone, no place to call our own, no way to travel anywhere together... And look at us now, there's fourteen of us, counting with sons-in-law, in three timezones, with several hundred square meters under roof, with no debts whatsoever, despite it all.
The one cigarette, miraculously, waited for me. One of the three days in a year when I get up before she does.
Mentions: burundi, dežurni, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Milan Nastić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), rakija, Ryu (Raja), Tanja Nastić, tutifruti, Violet, in serbian
23-VII-2024 - 5-VII-2026