04-XI-2024.

On sunday the burundi was still abuzz about the Novi disaster. I barely managed to read it all, because I slept until noon - the previous evening was interesting - and right after lunch we went to Belgrade, to see Tanja again. My parking slot was waiting, the drive was easy and... quiet, because I tried to change the disk in the pladžer, and it gave me attitude and barely accepted it on fourth try, then didn't recognize it.

Tanja is a really cute babe, lively and strong, pushing up on her legs, wants to lean on them. Lena says they told her not to allow the baby to sit until six months of age, to stand until nine. Yeah, right, they keep telling you such things, we lived in two countries and when one compares what's a must and what's a must not in any two of them, the part where they agree is very small, most of it is exactly opposite. What in one case is a must, the other don't do at all, and look there, all alive and grew up on both sides. Well, the medicine.

She had a bundle of some picture books printed on some silky cloth, says these were done by Velinka. Blast from the past right there. But she didn't illustrate them, she's got a print shop for that kind of thing.

Milan mostly slept over our stay, he caught some kind of weekend flu, just like it often managed to happen to me in the preceding decade. He reappeared as we were leaving, appologized, and I said „I had that several times, it's cured by sleeping, sometimes I slept sixteen hours in a day, what need I tell you as you're already doing everything as you should“.

(... 39 words...) The trip back went on without music again, but I wasn't sure that the coffee will do its job, so gimme that radio. Turns out the Joda is smart that much, the magic „next“ button which is right under my thumb on the steering wheel, in case of radio, means „next station“... Eh, wish the trains would [do] so.

In the evening we spoke with Nina at length, didn't for some ten days. Work goes, halloween was fine, the masks and costumes were a success, and on the third front she's talking with Mark to come. He means to drive, which would be 22 hours on the road, and means to move to live with her. Of course, as the specialists for moving we already suggested that he'd leave the car, go home by train or plane, so to avoid having to drive three times. For the main move she suggested to pack his stuff into a container and have it delivered. Though, there's a question of where to put all that. Well, „o tom potom“ (on that after that, i.e. later).

On the other coast, Stanley and Go have some trouble with the hag, and the hag with some inspector, who's pulling it tight. It's not that she's some civil code inspector, it's that she's got tennants, namely them, and the city, just like any other city there, looks to protect the tennants from living in dangerous places. And the deck aka terrace was the problem, it's partly rotten. Stanley already replaced a few planks there, now another dozen should be, but it won't be done because the hag means to remove the deck altogether when they move out, which is by end of november, but no, the inspector insists that it should be safe. So it had to be done, and how was it done - the guys laid, lightly nailed, pieces of half inch plywood over the weak spots, and now that'll screw their move, they'd have to roll the dolly over those edges when they take the stuff to the truck... Previously they knew where the weak spots were and could easily circumnavigate.

They started preparing for the move - he's selling the inventory, fixed one Toyota already, the other one needs few final details, that one would earn him at least fisix thousand, against the increased rent. Talked with them at length too, and then had to cut it short because Anita was impatient to go see that new house. Go fixed her phone photos upload to mega.nz, so the next day I picked them up, including the shots from this scouting. The house is quite sizable, it's got a bunch of stuff, even some crazy laser lightshow in the kitchen (!).

So we saw them all in one day. Though, Raja, Sanda and Neša appeared only briefly onscreen, and Violet not at all, but that was compensated with lots of Linda and Anita in front of the camera.

I kept fiddling with my mrz pludger (mp3 player...), to make it move on when it finds a song which is in its tables but gone from the disk. Just the same problem as with fes, the tables contain an inventory of what's on disk, but then what if the quantity on the books differs from quantity in the warehouse. Solved that during the day, with a couple of thousand remaining on the bottom of the barrel, which have no tags inside, doesn't say who's playing, and such may even get the app stuck, there's all kind of garbage in there, some even from the Napster era. Tried to comb through a few of them, turned out the Strawberry doesn't take them at all, when it's not the tags missing but also simply a bad file. That's how it goes, whenever I write some code which goes through any kind of heap, it finds all kinds of shit in it.

By the time we went to the frendz parti I managed to get it to some satisfactory level, even shoved the serif font into the playlist. I don't understand why is it a serifless in 99% of cases everywhere, it's harder to read. I switch to serif wherever I can.

We walked at ease, even with a smoke break on the bench at Roda, arrived alright, except I had to rush when we got up, despite me having rechecked the level and peed before leaving. Nope, this must be on the nerve basis. Borče arrived while I was still in the bathroom. Dragana had a cute event the other day, some granny was exiting the shop below, and she held the door for her, even held her tote while she buttoned up or whatevver, and then the granny goes „eh child, may god give you the chance to live to my age“. And what's the age, she asked, and granny said seventy two. Well, a generous wish indeed... Which prompted us all to share our impression that we somehow turn out to be the oldest wherever we go. Except those who look a lot older than we, of those you never know how many years younger they are.

Borče reverted to playing music - no matter that he's also got a new phone, from his hand anything will screech - and that while I was talking about something. I stopped momentarily, and he said go on, I said I won't. Why, because of this? Yes. So he had to stop it. And what I was talking about was the meaning of the word „mellow“ in english, what kind of feeling is that (later, as I wrote the serbian original of this, I remembered the best expression, „raspilaviti se“, to pilaf oneself out), and then arrived at the case of „mellow yellow“ of 27-XII-2008., and he passed me his phone to find the song to play, but nope, it's an android, that's not his phone, it is owned by the Gugao, there's no ad blocking, I just gave up. Then Dragana gave me her new phone to install the ad blocker, but also nope, she doesn't even use a browser, there's an app for yoochoob... well for exactly that reason, nobody will write an ad blocker for each app separately, if that's even possible, they don't allow addons, that's why everyone out there wants you to have their app and not the browser, so they can shove ads on you. Advertising is evil.

We even touched up on fashion and the general impossibility of finding anything that's not exactly current, which is somehow all wrongly cut, can't dress up regularly. Then it went on to tailoring and what they (had) made and wore, and there Dragana mentions those legendary skirts of her youth, as she said, „domindžos“*. Whooooa, it's been ages since I last heard the word, it's a dopičnjak for decades already.

We drank the 23 apple, a lot of it went, and when she served the butkice, we switched to wine, all of us, which is a rare occurrence. And so a lot of wine also went, and I think it got to me nicely, I even toppled my wine glass, luckily not on the tablecloth, but over my plate and in my lap, which would have dried in half an hour, but no, Dragana must find herself useful, so she brought the blowdryer and started drying me. What a blower, that's industrial, could warm up an apartment, I just moved a hand into the jet and almost got burned, take that away.

It was past two when I called a cab. Dragana managed to burden us with some meat, so she wouldn't have to eat it herself all the way to friday.

(... 19 words...)

On sixth one from IV6.73 called, Anuška died, our oldest live professor, at age of 96. How regular she was on each parastos (v. 26-V-2024.), even danced until five years ago. She died recently, was already buried, in probably Pančevo, and now there'll be a mass in the catholic church. I stayed at home, and she went, on foot. Zvezdana picked her and gave her a lift, as she needed our phone number, to let us know when the [pork] halves arrive, should be in a couple of weeks. I think I haven't forgotten how to chop a half, we'll see. We mean to make čvarci, of course, and stuff the rest into the freezer. Will have to make room in it first.

She recounted the event afterwards. She wasn't in the church since, guess, childhood, when she was forced to attend, including sunday school (though, that part was in the monastery in the gimnazija building), and she noticed it changed a lot. It used to be all latin (except reading parts of the bible), it's all in hungarian now. The floor tiles are replaced, something much smoother now. And they didn't have to kneel every now and then, everything is simplified, though the priests forced them to stand up several times, and the whole show is under such scene direction (well, they got nothing else to do all day), the mizanscen (mise-en-scene), the dramaturgy, and the costumes have changed (from then crimson to something green), just missing coreography.

There weren't too many of them, three chicks from IV6.73 and a cousin of someone from the class, older but also Anuška's student.

----

* „do mindže“ - up to the cunt.

Mentions: 27-XII-2008., 26-V-2024., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), burundi, butkice, čvarci, dopičnjak, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), fes, frendz parti, gimnazija, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gugao, IV6.73, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Mark Anderson, maturski parastos (parastos), Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Novi Sad, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Stanley Berger, Tanja Nastić, Velinka, Violet, Zvezdana, in serbian

5-XI-2024 - 25-III-2026