On twonyseventh, early evening, watching stuff on yewchoob, keeping three browsers open, third week in a row. In my regular waterfox there's both forums, statistics for api_posetu.prg, preview of current article from here, plus one random, just looking at them helps remember something, get a reminder, or to just notice some lapsus which needs to be fixed. Two firefox windows - one top right, where I read the news from Danas and N1, though they overlap by at least 70%, and on the left video channels by Kesić, Šprajc, Šarović (KTV) and if anything interesting comes along, them I just refresh about twice a day. Just finished watching something, I think Radovan Seratlić were hosted by Kesić, and then I ran mrz again and heard some buzz from the left channel... Fckt is it possible that some idiot page kept playing in the background, I keep autoplay turned off on all of them but maybe one went rogue when I wasn't watching... Went through each in turn to check, and then the buz stopped, the landline rang. Dragana... Ah, the buzz was from my phone.
She asked why wasn't I responding, said I was watching the doček of the runners in Varaždin and finished and heard the buzz but didn't recognize it as the phone... She said what fucken marathon what runners, they run a bit for the cameras then sit in the van, it's all fake. Know what, I said, I walked with those people, I've been there, cut the bullshit. And slammed it on hook.
A minute passed, she called again. What was that? I disconnected, don't crap to me, once you stand sixteen minutes in dead silence with two thousand people around you, then come up with an opinion. Aaaalriiight... er, tomorrow evening. Ah, that, yes we're coming.
Spoke with our Seattleians, everything's fine, Anita has new sneakers and sandals, Stanley went to see his dad but the old man was asleep and he didn't speak with any of the staff, so no news. He spoke with his last landlord, still unclear for how much more to keep the apartment, because there's little chance that he'll live there again. Of the storage where he held what he was hoarding, there's no access until the unpaid rent is paid up, and if he never pays they may just sell out the stuff to recoup the loss. Though who knows, there may be valuables, there's at least one Roland electric piano from who knows which year, but those can bring cash only if in mint condition, or for parts otherwise... To make the sale worthwile it would take months of sifting through all the junk to just see what can be sold and it may eventually turn out in the red, because Sturgeon's percentage of the heap is at least two nines, if not more. Meanwhile, the guy buying the grand Toyota fourrunner bled up few more grand, worth waiting and charging him some waiting fee.
Monday. I carried my whistle just in case, who knows whether the grand noise is still on, the blockade of RTS was finished today, they're finally opening the process for the new REM. Didn't know that at the same time there was a big walk from main square to the SUP (secretariat of interior affairs aka police) becuse of batoning up the folks at DIF (PE education college, formerly State Institute for PHysical culture) in the morning, and even if I knew about it, fuckit, it's a frendz parti. At least I shot a nice string along the way, low sun light and the dusk itself look well this time of year. I carried the shooter because I memorized that I should, forgot the why, though. And recalled it later - when she was rummaging through the leftover things to wear - what's still good to wear, what's for recycling, what's to pass down the chain to someone with small kids, what's to discard, she found some blouse or something, in a really merry floral pattern, looked nice o nher, so we agreed she'd wear it tonight, to counter the two and their permanent stalinist un-colors (gray and black), but then the thing required a wash first.
We drank the same tutifruti 24.2, the one with figs, blackberries and whatnots, poured three each, just as I imagined we would. Borče, though, probably had one more, when we're at Dragana's he's sitting by the window and the bottle is on his side of the table, if he poured more to himself I wouldn't have noticed. For dinner she made some pohovan'd [steaks] and rizibizi (rice, some green peas and carrot), just right for not overstuffing ourselves, and when we switched to roze, I still kept visiting the rice bowl. As if it were peanuts and cashews (though she usually has almonds and hazelnuts too, just like she did this time). There were also slices of lemon over the meat, so later I just took one and nibbled it away. And the princes krofne, which really went. Dragana said she's got more of them but with no sugar powder on them. That's how I like them, sugar kills the taste, I shake it off regular ones first.
We touched, along the way, Borče's IV3, so I remembered to ask about D.Ć. (mentioned 01-XII-1988.), who was mentioned this fall as seriously ill, some throat cancer, had half the jaw surgically removed already... Says he threw the spoon this winter. Fuck, we were always the smallest division, there was never more than 27 of us, and now we're the most numerous, only four of us under the meadow. They're already missing a third, and the neighbors aren't much better.
The talk zigzagged, as it usually does, we were decently loud, specially when Borče pulled Ajnštajn (Einstein) when he wanted to make some point. I said where did you find that cuntmouth, he robbed Mileva blind, the plagiarist, his main achievement was to remove her name from the book cover, to vanish her from whatever they did together, and the half of Nobel prize he left her, was no good will nor humanitarian act, it was a stipulation of their divorce... Aggrandizing him and removing her from the talk is a serious red rag for me. Then there was more planning of wannamake trips, where we two kept wisely mum. I remember blowing my whistle a bit a couple of times, just for order's sake, let them keep in mind that they are sitting with two who are on blockades' side.
In parting I somehow maneuvered it to stay last for two seconds with Dragana, guess to make it up to her for cunting her up so last evening. The cab I hailed at 2:15. Not much of fresh talk with the cabbie, same old about renumeration of houses in some streets, specially those crossing Klajnova bara (Klein's pond/puddle), where the numbers began where the puddle ended, then the puddle was filled and now all of those built on the landfill have numbers like 1a, 1b, ... all the way to p, not in any order. And so do ours and the neighboring street, for different reason. For the enth time, I can recite the whole thing on autopilot, regardless of how much I drank.
On tuesday we talked with Nina - Lena postponed her talk for wensday, claiming „we dine all together“. She took the kids to the zoo, posted tensome shots. Sanda didn't feel like going and was glad she allowed them to change her mind, she liked it. Seems they have a merry time.
So we spoke with Lena on wensday. She recounted the gathering of the team from her second job, the one of 2014-18, which later somehow got sold and mostly dispersed or the work and guys went to other countries. It was interesting that they mostly knew each other but not all [of them], because there was quite a throughput later. Any software company, once the pumping of money begins, soon runs into straits and starts tightening, the string on the [money] bag, and becomes a training center. There was an interesting case soon after, some guy from that team, who wasn't there at the meeting, called her at some ungainly time... Errm, he bought an apartment in their building, on some lower storey, and managed to lock himself in the bathroom. Luckily, he had his mobile with him and remembered whom to call. The apartment wasn't locked, just come down open the door, there's no handle on the inside of the door, it's all under reconstruction... Milan went down and let him out.
We didn't go to any protests this week, the local portals were reporting post festum, weren't announcing.
On sunday, the fourth, we went to Belgrade again. Swung by Roda first, she went to Rerso (aka Pepco, in case it's not really cyrillic) to buy bodićes and šorces for Tanja, and I for resupply of ernafil. They had the regular, of 4x50mg, better than the 2x100 of last time, where I had to cut. Not that it's any problem, it's just neater this way, and one never knows whether the other half undergoes anything until next week.
Although fourth of may is the end of the long weekend, the road was almost empty, at least on our side, and on the opposing side the clusters were smallish and far between, so I skinned the two-three slowpokes before they had a chance to become annoying. Whenever I saw a stretch of straight and well paved road (even the parts they repaved eightsome years ago have developed some potholes), it pleased me to step on it a little - not more than 120, just enough for her to go pedagogically with „you don't really have to...“. Around the seventh time I just waved my hand down, to say to lower it, because it's not that I'm forcing speed headlong („like a fly without a head“) and when it's crowded, just using these stretches when I can. We rarely, if ever, force this in any direction, she's not nagging me and I'm not mad at her either, because the 95% of it I see before she does and by the time she utters I'm already reacting, but I don't want to suppress her, I need her for the remaining 5%. And I was trying to entertain myself with driving, having slept just four hours the night before, monotony was counterindicated.
I didn't bring my mobile, so we couldn't announce ourselves. Accidentally we shared the elevator with a lady from the same floor, but she didn't carry hers either, so we rang the doorbell. Surprisingly, Api wasn't any louder than usual, seems to remember us, despite not seeing us for four weeks. Milan had the same problem with sleeping like I did, so he appologized and went to sleep (the word he used was more of 'decease', but then a similar word in slovenian means 'retiree').
For lunch we went to the corner, across from the right wing of SIV, to Pomidoro. We two tried out the cauliflower potaž (whatever the Frenches choose to spell it, potage, pottagee, pautage, ... fuckem), not bad but not attractive either, and the bread cubes in it could have been roasted a bit, kruton-like. For the main course we took a pizza mafiosa each, well, as far as tavern pizzas go, this was just right. Nothing to slash veins over, but nothing to complain about either. I mean if I was able to eat it whole and still walk all the way back without falling asleep... and at home one slice (sixth of a plek) knocks me down on the spot.
Tanja had a good appetite, the potaž by spoons and nibbled the edges of pizza crust, got loud only when she had to wait more than ten seconds for the next spoon, so mom and baba took turns with the spoons, blowing at it to cool it off. And she hit the crust, the teeth are coming, almost visible now, it must be itching.
Nina called in the evening (Go we saw overyester, when Anita's birthday was), they went to Bush Gardens, Violet had a great time, the others grumbled. And it's gone complicated there, they don't hand out the printed map, it's an app you download, and the app is in the „whom did you have do this, maam?“ category, and the parts still under construction weren't properly marked in it, so there were detours galore, they definitely won't take a yearly ticket. She had to buy a plushie, yet another one, some consolation for each girl, another 60$ gone, but then everything's expensive anyway.
On monday we meant to go to the garden, but a downpour was announced. It did come, eventually in the evening. At least we were entertained with Vučić's crazy stunt in Miami, or as the people's poet would have it
miš je prekino duboki naklon
pa je seo u novi falkon
pojurio nazad kao hrt
da ga pregleda dr smrt
(mouse interrupted his deep bow / and sat into the new falcon / headed back like a hound / to be checked by dr death)
For viewers with cheaper tickets (v. Alan Ford), the falcon is the new luxury jet for the government, which doesn't use it much, it's practically his personal plane. The „interrupted bow“ is Vučić's attempt to crash a fundraiser party, where he got a tenuous entry through some truckers' union where the chicago Serbs (what with Rod Blagojević) are some factor, along with the million dollar ticket and help of Giuliani, under a fake name Aleks Vuči (!), just to grab a few seconds of photo op with Trump. He announced, in all of his media, that he'll meet with him at least twice, for a full hour. Well they made him, and quietly shooed him out, there's your plane, just go home, let's not turn this into a diplomatic incident. He covered it up by immediate heart trouble, for which the best cure is to sit out the ten hour flight home, without a doctor, but with his camera people. Just point a camera at him and he feels better right away.
Dr Death is Zlatibor Lončar, specialist for removing witnesses who suffer sudden ills during investigation. And he's not the first one, Sloba also had his, but at least that guy wasn't a minister.
Seventh. All congratulated Lena for her birthday, and she had a news for us: Tanja's first tooth.
For something like ten days I fail to force myself to do anything. Scribble here a bit, the 3d graph app (the one of 04-X-1988., again, in Python now, building over the 25-II-2017. version) I copied from fox and mean to rework it, and even that I don't touch for two days. At least I redid the vector calculus to get the projection coordinates, and it crossed my mind that I don't need to calculate the factor by which to extend or shrink the vector of the point to make it lie in the plane of projection - I may keep it at the same distance from the eye, perhaps just the same distance as from eye to centre, as if projected upon a sphere... which would give an interesting effect, something fisheye-like.... ummm. Watching funny videous, found a couple of chinese channels where they line them up quite neatly (and I still watch them muted, fuck that business, I don't want to hear awmahgudding hundred times an hour), and even she joined me. Guess it suits us to watch the recounter to the revenge of former ef students - to see those who have earned the right to need to know nothing now suffer from their ignorance.
Eighth. Mala Zelena (The Little Green One) had kittens, think it's four, can't count them on the picture, being mostly black. Two days later one of Zelena's five died. So the count is presently at 22. When going out we walk very carefully, not to step into any, and watch out when closing the door, they meouw nastily when a paw gets sclenched (in serbian: from priklještiti - to tighten in pliers or vise, and prignječiti - to squish, someone accidentally composed, near the end of elementary, a verb prignještiti).
These days I remembered to check on Berix - last time I looked her up, she was nowhere except in a local catholic charity service. So now I felt like checking again and there she was, on the LinktIn, doing seesharp. I wasn't in the mood to register there just for this, so I tasked Lena, and just now (friday, 9th) she passed me a mailto link. Sent one and waited. Just when I sent it, got one form Dženk, said he sent me a SMS, which didn't arrive, but said he's installed Telegram, so I sought him by his mobile number, so let's see each other. We did see him at his mom's funeral, but didn't see his Biljana since, well, before the nineties when they left for Canada.
In the afternoon I thought we'd drive to the big zbor of citizens downtown, but remembered it belatedly, we didn't quite speak of it in advance, she already took up some embroidery... Never mind, we're a bit overage for such stuff, and her whistle is now tied to Tanja's stroller to play with, we'll at least watch Šarović's live feed from Loznica. With pancakes, apricot pekmez spread on them.
Hour or two later, Dženk emails, he installed Telegram, we scheduled a talk for the evening, when they return from shopping. Berix also emailed, both of them actually... because she gave the wrong email first to Lena, namesurname@gmail instead of surnamename@, corrected it later but I already wrote to the wrong one. That got an immediate reply, sorry dunno who you were, wrong address perhaps, yup, seems soo, sorry about that, you have a namesake in PA. Then I got the right one, and while I suppered a reply came with „of course I remember... at work, will write at length during the weekend“.
By sunset, Lena sent a video of Tanja learning to blow the whistle :). It's in the right place, she'll use it more.
So I talked with Dženk in the evening. He's just about the same as a year and a half ago, except this time no tux, so his membership in club 100 was obvious, but he said it's all lean, just 12% grease. We didn't see Biljana, she was somewhere, next time. Nothing much all in all, just flat chat about software and health. On the subject of the latter, we gave a consensus to a fuckoff to official medicine, those guys just look for ways to make money on you. Same about cholesterol, how can something that your body produces by itself be damaging to itself, rubbish.
30-IV-2025 - 16-VII-2026