12-XII-2024.
The dull ache of winter, these days around the solstice, short as they were, it's practically dark around 16:00, and the daylight doesn't look much better. We're doing pretty much nothing. That is, she's knitting, just finished a sweater for me and began to put it together and then switched to sewing, it's been decades since the last time she made a winter coat for herself, and she found she had some thick woolen cloth... But let's do as we agreed first, a walk after lunch. Not immediately after, though, a catnap first. Luckily, we lunch quite early. After six days of the extraordinary beans (okay, five, cut it with spaghetti on fourth day), and remembering the „how can you eat beans for five days?“ - „one has, one can“, it's finally a pizza day.
And then I noticed I didn't make any shots since second of december. Everything the same, shot it all a dozen times, and a walk around the neighborhood should bring the scenes I didn't spot in quite a while, because we walk only to the frendz parti, the rest is by car, sometimes bicycle. So, a photo safari is due. We came to the corner, where we'd have to decide to go left to Fabrika station or right to supermarket, and then she noticed a change in the landscape... down the street we saw the overpass. Uuuuu... this is a first, the view was blocked by an accacia thicket which was older than the street. One Dragiša had a pigpen there, built from a Green plan loan (which my dad underwrote, he was in charge of issuing those loans and tracking the fulfillment of contracts), and his backyard was there even before the street formed. Then when there was a street, this Dragiša already threw the spoon, the yard overgrew with accacias. Which is why our street was a dead end from that side; the first house number on the even side is eight, so there are three more lots for future expansion. Now all of a sudden it's passable, it's been razed through, the pigpen is flush with the curb line. We walked over it, wasn't thoroughly muddy and we have long ago mastered the technique, can walk over mud as long as it's not watery. Saw there were manholes already, so the sewers are there. We reached the back end of Bečkerek's parking, saw there's some ongoing construction of yet another cube between that and the customs. Walked over to Fabrika station to see how it is, now that they're finally refurbishing the railroad around here, after 40-60 years of neglect and dismantling. But there was nobody around, just some twenty or low flat wagons on which they carry the beams and tracks for the recounstruction, all empty. The heaps of old beams I was seeing this summer are now gone, just a couple of stacks of the new concrete ones. There's works going on somewhere, not here and not today.
Then three days later I saw that the passenger train to Belgrade is running again, and that it reaches the Pančevački most station in two hours. There must be a stretch of the track where it can hit a hundred, because this part here, by this station and former bager is in such shape that I think 20 would be risky. The timetable says 11 minutes from the main station to here, which sounds quite risky to me. Too fast for this shape of track.
Walked around, passed by the customs, saw that it's about to be a hospitality object (that's the official language), there's a regulation billboard with all the data about investor, supervisor, architect etc, and a render of its future look. Okay, will not be gray but rather white, no windows unless that's what two big holes up front are meant to be, but there are no partition walls inside, it's a hangar, no floors and yet it's seven meters tall. Took a shot of that too...
When we got home, I spilled the news to the platoon meeting, that we won't be a dead end for long. Nina, of course, said „pics or it didn't happen“ (though proper serbian would be „or it was not“), which I, just as expected, soon did and posted. Go looked at the render and said „If the architects they have now are so retarded and incapable, I'm glad I didn't stay nor become one of them 🤮“.
In the supermarket they had no pangasius, only mackerel and hake (had to look them up on wikipedia, I'm thin with names of fish, birds, flowers in all languages, almost including serbian), just when we planned to have a firh čorba the next day... well, never mind, it'll be a pork fish čorba and a podvarak (meat, rice, sour cabbage, baked in a plek). The last shot of the series was this, through the yard of the third house from us, which I then posted on burundi accompanied with this text: „My nearest neighborhood... this counstruction was begun by a doctor here, when he inherited the land and split it into eight lots (the last one, on the other end of the diagonal, is ours) [that house is visible on the second photo for 15-VII-1986.]. He died some time later, and the widow wasn't interested, the children got who knows where, this sits as it is. When we started building in 1983, this was as completed as it is now, just lacked any surrounding greenery. In the nearer house, through the yard of which I shot this, also nobody ever inhabited“. This launched a whole thread...
Vasa (under new alias, Old Dry Keith): „I always dreamed to squat some such abandoned/unfinished construction, to throw in and old sofa, a table, a metal box furnace, to have pals with whom I'd sit there, one is a disreputable lawyer, the other had no luck in life, third is a bearded intense character from the end whom we know only by nickname, we'd sit on beer crates, talk about universe and conspiracies, actually I think I want to be a hobo.“
Fikret: „Not that I always did but...
An old friend was guesting by us last night. I tell him how I went on business to the once big factory which had the misfortune to be a line of defense during the whole war. It suffered severely but two years after the war both the factory and production in it were renewed. Then after seven-eight years it was destroyed again by stamps and signatures and properly looted. A couple of years ago they rented it out to privatniks, who turned the once production halls into storage or production plants completely unrelated to the original purpose of the factory but for now it clicks just fine.
What the second renewal bypassed is the factory restaurant and mess hall, some hundred meters away from production halls. Built in a for me prettiest style as the similar objects were built in the yugoslav seventies and early eighties. I came nearer to peek from close by in what shape it was. Looks better inside than from outside, I rapidly calculated that it would need some fifteen-twenty thousand euuros to be put into function. The woodwork, repainting, some fifty square[ meter]s of wall ceramics, plus some ten tables x four chairs..Kitchen, still modern to the day, is still there. Pal and I renewed the restaurant in a minute, first for the workers from the nearby plants, then we expanded the works to the vicinity as well, the phones kept ringing for orders incessantly. We returned the investment really fast and the cash started seriously dripping. An hour later we gave up on the renewal and serious profit and quickly we had a detailed variant to squat the restaurent, to just gather there, that it should never be empty, thatis that at any day one from the team should be there, that we'd cook meals by the old mess hall recipes, sip coffee and tea from the white cups with blue stripe, play music, organize gigs, show movies. We're old to jump into hospitality, and fuck the profits, let's squat a little and have good non-profit time....“
White kitty: „it's super being a hobo, I do that every summer, 10/10 would recommend [these two words in english], as the young would say. look this beauty, abandoned resort in sutivan. skvot with a view“ and posted shots, really some terrace and 100m below, sea.
Horse nile: „strongi migrants broke into a vikendica at kelebija vajbs“
White kitty: „mor lajk we'll go to socialistic resort this way or other vajb“
In other news, this year's apricot passed examination. Tastes a bit milder, not exaggerated, but suits, really suits. And slides.
Friday, thirteenth, to all who celebrate it... The pork fish [čorba] and podvarak, catnap, walk, this time to Lidl and Roda. I sank a bit deeper into sleep so we took off a bit later than the day before, but I counted on returning at dusk anyway, for photos' sake. Along the way we met Zvezdana in our street, right on cue to hear why she doesn't call, she said she'll drop by to see about the payment for the half [pig]. They're in a hurry, she said, off to visit their daughter in Spain for some ten days, will do when they come back. Okay, ball is in your yard.
In Lidl we bought exactly nothing. All the same as it always is - clothes in five shades of gray, one uglier than the other, choise of meat shrinks, of salami and sausage there's less beef and pork, mostly switching to chicken and turkey, canned meat long gone, now there's only fish and, okay, various poultry pašteta, and the fresh meat section keeps getting more advertisements and less meat. But then we hit the jackpot in Roda, by collective intuition. I somehow knew into which aisle to turn into, and she know at which shelf to bend down and peek, and there it was - the maggi spice. We were looking for it for a number of months, guess since spring. We bought three bottles right away, so we're supplied for a year or two.
And another good shot on the way back - on the playground at the beginning of our street they mounted reflectors, in a strange combo of sodium yellow and guess 6700K leds, turned out quite well.
Fifteenth, to Belgrade again to see Tanja. Lena and Milan took the opportunity when a team is present to mind the baby - Stojan was there already - to set up the new year fir, with a twenty meter long line of small white lights, and simply enjoyed doing something physical together. Tanja was in a really good mood, expect good photos. This close to the solstice it becomes dark really early, while we're still there, so I started turning on the lights, which turned out to be complicated - there's an eight switch bank on the wall by the couch, and I didn't succeed in finding a combination which would give me just the needed lights and not too much. Then they both started trying out other combinations, including the other bank of switches on the wall between their studies, and the wiring schema gradually gained a convoluted shape, why is this on the same switch with that... well, complicated.
Didn't speak with Go because she chimed in after midnight; couldn't on monday either because it was a frendz parti day, so tuesday it'll be.
Some time before the time to go, (... 145 words...). That's what got me thinking... and indeed, come new year I'll take Byo off sGradlj.com and will find some other way for it to reach the readers. She said to print it, well what size of a forest would be needed for it, I'm well over 3800 articles here, of arbitrary length, or maybe I should just zip it all and send to the asking. Well, that's a possibility, I'm already thinking...
For the sitting we took the older apricot, of 2019 (miraculously still a whole quarter of a cask is still there), and one of the three identical bottles of roze (two that they brought last time, so none of those, found a third). Light walk, full moon, but didn't bring the shooter because it was +6 so not to arrive with frozen fingertips, and we're mostly heading west so the moon was behind us. We took the seemingly longer way, Pašićeva and then by the cemetery, waved to ours, there they are right behind the wall, arrived at Lesnina at 19:15. The space where there was one furniture salon, then another, then whatever in the meantime, then the chinese shop, now there's a Lily's drugstore (including a pharmacy in one corner), so I waited outside while she bought makeup. She just remembered she once knew how to do it, so why not jog the memory and relearn the skills, it's been decades. So I saw when Dragana closed her windows, airing in advance, and still we arrived before 19:30. Borče was already there. My new sweater was noticed, it was ready by last monday but had to be washed a bit, so the seams would flatten and everything should settle, which it did swimmingly, it fit me like poured. The heating in the building is fierce, so I took it off by the time of the second shot, and we ran the brandy to all four shots, which is a rare thing. Though, with those deci and a half shots, with thick bottoms, one never knows how much to pour, but then judging by the level left in the bottle, this was actually a bit less than 0,05 liters per shot. Never mind, the wine also went fine, we had a really good time, and the snack went also fine - pohovan'd wings and karađorđe steak, where everyone took at least three wings and the steaks we cut into halves and less, so only half of that got eaten. We two aren't used to copious dinners, and were done in more by food than by booze.
The matter of calendar, ahem, the next sitting should be on thirtieth, which is somehow moot, one day before the doček... for which none of us had any plans... so in three words we agreed to postpone that for a day and have a real doček, we're sitting that long anyway. Various anecdotes were mentioned, and we touched on Tejka's cretin of the husband, who kept company of tough boozers, and she joined them because she was madly in love with him, so there. And Dragana said he was indeed a cretin, there Duca was their kuma and kept the relationship with them for as long as she could stand him, then her film broke, the guy was too much. That company of boozers had one guy who drank only votka (we write it as it's pronounced) and managed to peel off a whole liter before 11 in the morning. Though we drink too, we don't really have to, can skip any number of days, as it were. Specially as we two can't drink in the day, I'll need the head still, who knows what the day'll have in store for me until evening. And there we returned to Tejka, when Dragana asked whether we ever distilled pure plum. We did, while they bore enough fruit, but it all went to my dad, he did drink a lot last few years, and then she remembered Tejka's father, who was never a boozer, but likewise got well into it in the last few years. Well, I guess it's because he saw what's his family turning into, all crazy and crazier.
Don't know when we parted, because around half two Dragana wanted to open another wine, which we refused, but then she found a half liter and poured that, and we got into more chat. I didn't call a cab because one was waiting there, so there's no time recorded in the phone. She claims we were in bed at two; to me it seems it was two when we got the cab. Doesn't matter, it was a nice evening anyway.
Mentions: 15-VII-1986., The dig, 20-I-2026., bager, Bečkerek, burundi, Byo (Byo), čorba, doček, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dušica Tošin (Duca), Fabrika station, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), kum, Lesnina, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milan Nastić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pašteta, plek, pohovano, sGradlj.com, Slavica Tejin (Tejka), Stojan Nastić, Tanja Nastić, Zvezdana, in serbian
25-IX-2024 - 5-VII-2026