Berix said she'll fill me in with more details and let me know of Syracuse's position the best she can (will can?), but when it comes to the actual negotiations, I'll be alone. She mostly convinced me that she won't suffer a loss, as she prefers to have her firm as small as possible, less responsibility. This is already too much, her business keeps two extra families afloat (ours and Sharlene's, whose husband is an invalid and they have five kids).
Dad asked whether we're seeing Jose, in Richmond perhaps. He's not coming by, as far as we know, only Marla does, and that also depends on her mood and money flow. She bought a car in better condition, now needs to stretch for once more the amount to get them in order.
Nina told (we typed, don't remember what app we used, perhaps IRC or whatever we used, ICQ?), that her company wasn't impressed as much by whatever gifts she brought, as their jaws dropped when they heard how she spoke english... She said she didn't have the heart to tell them she kept doing her homework on a computer and submitting it printed for three years... She just told Vuk what's the speed of our internet, which almost brought tears to his eyes.
She said how buses now go until half midnight. Knock on wood - the Autogang seemed untouchable and unmovable for decades, and if they managed to force them to finally start adjusting their schedule to city's life, then things are indeed moving. Do they still have those boxes to drop the change in? Believe [it] or not, the ticketing system is the same here, except there are no tokens. Cash only, no change back. The price is 0,75$, and it holds for one layover - if you need to continue, you tell the driver and he notifies your next driver that there's a transfer, and the guy waits for you. You may get a transfer ticket. I read about it somewhere, and the UScrew guys confirmed, didn't try myself, it's always easier to drive and a lot cheaper, even when parking costs.
The conspiracy to destroy the public transport was executed here long ago in a score of larger cities, to force people to buy cars. The companies behind it were Ford, one tyre manufacturer (possibly Goodyear) and the gasoline bunch. This happened in the late fifties. So nowadays only a few cities have proper transportation, the intercity is reduced to just one company, railway too. Everything is adjusted for cars.
So driving is cheaper, per unt; cumulatively, more people consume more, which was the goal. The bus cost of 75 cents a ride means 4,5$ for the three of us to visit downtown; the car consumes half a galon of čorba, which is about 0,65$, plus a buck or two to park (and not always, it's free on weekends).
Another example - the čorba to DC and back is 6-7 bucks, and the bus is 19$ per seat one way, plus the subway and bus from the station to Alexandria, there you go.
The system is set up so that one can [live] without car, but gets screwed then :)
Dad also asked what about the medicines we ordered - some of them are not produced anymore, of some even the pharmacists never heard, and of phenergan he asked in which form [do we want it] - tablets, cream or syrup. „Tablets, one box. They have bunch of things against allergies, but they avoid having something as universal and simple as the phenergan on the market, they rather invent separate meds for polen, dust, almost for each flower separately“.
Looking to buy a scanner, mostly because Lena's drawings, as the shooter never gives you uniform light, corners come darker and the edges are never parallel. On twonysixth I dropped by yet another shop and they got nothing below hundred bucks, which is ridiculous, could have bought one for hundred [german] marks at home. They have one at Walmart for fifty, but want to see the rest first.
A propose* how much Lena eats, she's got a hefty appetite and grows as if from water, I continue writing to dad. „I'd introduce a Sloba to them Amers to lose some weight. Though this Đorđe Nj Buš** isn't far - steals elections, invents a war when his ratings fall, allegedly lowers the tax but then runs the budget into the red (after five years in the black), cooperates with the business mafia and his party is a legislative payola... the only thing he never brags about is foreign languages, well not even english, actually. He's not really illiterate, he almost always manages to clearly read what they wrote for him.
They have an emisija here, called „saturday night live“, which is more or less like our Indeksovo radio theatre. Furthermore, just like Mićko used to be more convincing as Sloba than Sloba himself was, and just like all our politicians look more true to themselves on Korax's cartoons than on photographs, these guys once did Bush (the speech on „axis of evil - Iran, Iraq and one of those Koreas“) so well, that for the first dozen seconds we didn't know whether he was the real one. Then when we saw the real one, we said that here too Mićko is a better Sloba than Sloba :).
On twonyninth visited Paige for dinner. He actually meant to put together more programmers from the end, and some potential customers as well, but the book fell down to two letters, him and me. He lives in a „trailer park“, which sometimes really means permanently anchored trailers (in the poorer version). Here, it's whole apartments in container type boxes. It's about three and a half meters wide, and as long as you want, i.e. how much you buy. He bought this second hand and not in best shape, quickly and for pittance, when he divorced. Cost him mere 6000$ (a cottage of the same size would have cost, brother to brother, 20000 at least). I had the pleasure to guess where the front door needed pressure applied to finally close, and how much to lift the fridge door to close.
Not bad inside, somehow feels like a ship, spacious, except it looks like shit on the outside - no roof, forest uprooted (but intact across the road), bare lawns. They bring these houses on trucks, then roll them onto their blocks (guess concrete, but wouldn't be surprised if they were wooden), screw them in place, connect to power-water-sewer-gas-phone-cable and then sheathe the posts to hide them and to stop the animals.
It's a bit screwy with him, because on one side I'm grateful to him a lot, he jumped in with a tezga when it got tough, and on the other he's sufficiently older and different from me, which is always some problem in communication. I keep taking care to not insult him by accident, as them religions are mostly a way to claim the right to be insulted by anything you want... So the atmosphere around this lunch was a bit forced. He prepared something mexican, called a taco, which is a stiff pancake of darker corn flour, folded in half, then filled with ground beef, salsa, beans, boiled corn and then you eat it almost like a burek, except you keep it up so it won't drip.
The weather finally cleared up, so Lena and I finally, after some while, went to the pool again. We already got skilled in football in water, i.e. we pass the ball to each other but without hands, headbutt only. Last year's ball deflated a little, which makes it just easier to catch. When tossing it by hand, we don't throw it in the air, but rather horizontally just above the water, or skipping on the surface, practiced that too. I was never skilled nor precise with a ball, don't know what's wrong with me now :).
There was an extra front side effect... too much sun. We may have applied something initially against burnout, maybe two-three times, and then we counted on having accumulated enough tan to be safe henceforth. And she was, while my brow's skin peeled, and then the new skin tanned during the next three or four outings. Later, during august, it started peeling again, from the middle outwards, not as much as the first time. Then there was too much work, we were stepping on the eHosp seriously, so we skipped some ten days, and the peeling never finished. From eyes outward it peeled spottily and stayed so until winter, so I was declared a Neelix, which is a character from Stari Drek Voyeur, who is just as spotted in exactly the same area, from above the eye to the temples.
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* in serbian, „a propao“, which is a double joke. „Propao“ is the proper third person past tense of „propasti“ (to fall through, to fail, to go bust), but colloquial speak says „propo“, so this is a fake overcorrection. The other thing is that we use „a propo“ in its original meaning, as „in regards of“, or „on the subject of“, not as a fake french for „appropriate“.
** Đorđe is serbian George; nj is on the same position as w on cyrillic keyboard and also in the cyrillic juski, so this was our running joke. There was also a typo on B92 once, where they typed Buđ (mildew) instead of Buš, the keys being adjacent, to the right of P on the keyboard.
14-III-2025 - 23-XII-2025