14-V-2025.
Monday, twelfth, at Borče's, the frendz parti. Slowly on foot. By the paintshop in Baranjska we met Vera, chatted our fill with her. Just the other day we mentioned how we didn't see her, nor her mom or daughter, for year and a bit already. She said her mom spotted us on the photos from the local community zbor, was really glad to see us.
Up the stairs it was not that easy, there's, first two floors and a bit in one go, but the remaining two floors required at least three breaks. Not that I get dead [tired] but just have a lot to breathe, and she didn't take it easy either. We brought the same tutifruti 24.2 from the big cask (there's some leftover in a smaller cask, different only by having some pumpkin in the mush), that one goes nicely.
The evening was standard, didn't hear anything new nor big, except Dragana recounted how at least ten [people] asked her „what did you find on him“, about some guy who was her boyfriend around first grade, who was not much of a frajer, and was also chubby then (more later), said „eh, what did I know then, a klinka. Borče outdid himself on the food front, a rolled chicken surrounded with grilled vegetables, simmered all together, he just didn't remove the stretching net around the meat, so Dragana went to the kitchen to help him remove it. Which was a success, there were no greasy spots on the clothes, despite the net being elastic, something rubber. And then he even got out the icecream and some apricots from a can. The first wine served was a roze in name only, I've seen white wines with more color... He sait it's made of roze grapes, but without the peel. Not bad, but then all those wines are the same to me, exactly what Dragana says about the beer. My dear, having heard what beer is at hand, decided to go for špricer.
Overloaded with food, we didn't hold out long, got home around half two. I can take drinks, but eating this much and this late, comes heavy. Okay, can do that too, but not for so long. At least I slept well, which is where she was less lucky.
Wensday, the first trip to Klincaid for the year. As I told Lena later when she called, „the grass is not knee high, it's not to the balls, it's up to [yer] elbows“. We were ready for anything we may see there, having left it in Schrödinger's care for the seven months since our last visit there, and things weren't bad. The broken glass where (kids?) would get in has lost its obstacle, the hedge trimmer's comb which I tied there with wire is now on the floor, but nothing new is missing, all the tools are still there. Though, my degree chair, which came with the old desk, is gone, but nobody sane would steal that, I keep parking švorceniger's engine on it when starting it, it's got years of dripped oil in the seat, so guess it shouldn't be gone, possibly my gang took it inside after the last party, they can't possibly know that we keep that one outside. We'll check. [checked and yes, they left it in the gonk]
After just sitting there for a while and then taking a look around, let's work some... The švorceniger took dozens of attempts until it started, guess I put too much oil, but once it got started, it got in stride. First I cut a path to the rear, which is our main path anyway, that's where we go most, then went out on the street, at least to do the part between the cherries and blacktop*. Had to take a break three or four times, but by the end I was breathing better already, this was the fast track to back in shape. And the engine took several tries after the third break, but once I got it rolling, it worked like a dragon.
There won't be any apricots nor cherries. As for the cherries, perhaps half of the regular crop, maybe even less. Pears, quinces, plums, apples are promissing, to knock on wood. But never mind, I've got dibs on half a ton of pears from the neighbor, there'll be work. On the way back we stopped by Svetofor, they have that jumbo pack of ass paper with 48 rolls, where one or two mayb have faults in perforation, never mind, if it's something we like, we don't give a damn how cheap it is.
In the evening we already babysat Tanja, Lena left her alone at the mac to talk with us, to clap and show us what toys she brought to the couch, while she was making dinenr, and Milan talked with the neighbor lady from next building, who owns a catering shop and at times burdens them with a kilo of leftover beans, not to go to waste. Erm, the parties she makes at times, the two hours with scripted events and rules as per someone's recipe, have taken well and this lady... came a week ahead of schedule. Lena checked immediately the invitation she sent out, to see whether there was any fuckup ambiguity in it, but no, no confusion from her side, it was Milan who confused matters afterwards, with this one.
Thursday, Željko and Žorž visited (v. 22-X-2023.). The latter tried to come twice, to pick the pack of RJ plugs he forgot here, third time the charm. They arrived around 15, stayed until 20:30. Žorž is long past any alcohol, and Željko initially declined, taking it easy, coffee first... And then he got lucky. Of course, the rakija in the bottle was quince. He drank at twice my speed, so I poured him the second when I was at half of the first. Then from third on he poured himself, every second time to me as well, as I declared myself so. Eventually it was as much as we two drank the night before, the quince is a wonder.
And I also heard how it happened that the so-called Zbuljajić (v, 28-X-1995.) enlists with JUL. He was allegedly a wunderkind at faculty, cleaned up the fifth year of ETF (electrotechnical) in june, and then became a selfproclaimed programmer. His company, „Monstr soft“ or some such, had an office at the end of a hall on upper floor of komitet, while Žorž had his on the other end. Somewhere in the middle was something that belonged to SPS, where they needed some tracking of the refugee accomodations, to be able to show the data to the Swedes, who were financing it, just to show that it's alright, because it was already looking, as per manual tracking, rife with dead names and mistresses' cousins, that they're housing more children there than whole Bosnia ever had. Zbuljajić wrote the app, and at some point Žorž dropped by and saw the guy in the office sweating over it. Look at this, says the guy, try to find yourself among the populace. So he tried, knowing that any baptised app should return a „not found“ in a microjiffy, but nope, this spins for a whole minute and still does nothing. What the fuck is this... so they made a deal that Žorž would write it from scratch, they have five or six days until the Swedes come to check. But the data entry is a problem... maybe if we took a whole class from economy high, sign them up for a few days of practice work, you got these six peesees here... Ummm no can do, there's no network. But you said you had one by the contract. There's cables, but Zbuljajić never made it work. So okay, Žorž puts the network together, writes the app, something in Clipper at the time, the kids came and leaned on the job seriously, the guy even arranged hot meals for them, in the hotel, of all places, the data were entered and the job was done neatly and on time. The Swedes came and checked and vetted the whole thing and approved the money for the next year. Though, at this moment this agency didn't have any cash to pay Žorž, but they made a deal that he's relieved of the rent for his office for two years. They actually shouldn't be charging the rent in the first place, the building never belonged to them, it was city's, but at that time (and many more years) the SPS pretended that anything that ever belonged or was used by the SKJ is now their property. Them being in power, there was nobody out there to tell them to check the fine print, or slam them over their coffers.
Few days later Zbuljajić came by, sat at one machine and saw that it wasn't his app, asked what was that, and got the whole story. To which he had a fit of rage, and on the spot took out his SPS membership card and tore it to pieces. Then went next floor down and enlisted with JUL.
We gossiped at length about the two guys from the school of dirty programming (10-IV-1989.) and no matter what bad things I previously had to say about them as programmers, what I heard in this sitting was much worse, on both the trade and human side. Seems that my hunch that we shouldn't deal with them at the time served me quite well.
We mentioned a bundle of names, from both the fox world and the IT around town. This was a five hour talk about life outside and about work and the colleagues and eventually about politics, where Željko was scepic about the students' revolution, because he was exposed to it onscreen only, while the rest of us were involved - Žorž through kids, and we two even directly (whereby I solemnly took the whistle from my pocket, one never knows when it may be needed). And Žorž topped it with „my son went through that station some half hour before the canopy fell, what if he was few minutes late and waiting for the next train...“.
Also said that his nearest beach is facing south, and there's never any big waves there because the prevailing wind is from Turkey, and there's also a british military base nearby. And suddenly one day there's a meter and a half waves, put the cafes on the boardwalk into chaos. What happened? There's a story that they practiced mining for the Nord stream there.
Even vfe was mentioned, and if I met its authors once, he met them more, and said that the guy is actually okay, it's the lady who's the repellant and arrogant one. There, an update after 23 years, never too late.
Last week I submitted jučetina and busodrom for some new serbian word competition, and they asked for explanation and expansion... I replied with pretty much the same story as the one in house dictionary, plus adding a link to the february 1975.. And lo and behold, as of today I got lucky, there were some 3200 visits this month so far, and by morning of 17th there were 6800. This guerilla marketing rarely works, but when it does, it's a wham.
Friday, 16th. We planned to visit the protest in town, so went to the garden earlier, there was lots of work to be done. She planted tomatoes, said she made two and a half rows, and I grabbed the švorceniger and hit the street. It got me going, I breathe easier and can do longer stretches in one go, at least twice more [than last time], I'm getting back into shape. I ran through the ditch from end to end and back, swinging it from the bottom to the left and practicing not to swing it with [my] hips but pull it with [my] left hand and hold the disco saw low to the ground, works easier and carries the biomass aside. In the third go I finished the street part and left the part at the shed for the fourth. There it got hard, the string grass laid down and entangled, hard to push aside when mowed. And with the momentum of the work, we stayed until 17:30, too late to go downtown, and were somewhat dead [tired], got to bed before one, and the work went lousy - my bejewelled2, her Spider solitaire, though we're doing good there generally, we're still above 16% of victtories. In the morning I calculated the average for the last 60 games, 26%, not bad at all.
I got up at 11, dreaming all the time about some legal conundrums, what with parking the Joda in front of the court[house] where they dug out half meter deep, didn't quite dream up how I got out, just that I had a plan. When I got up to have my coffee, read burundi, news in Danas, check on statcounter.prg and what else was a part of my daily routine - ah, yes, Rečko and Dečko (Wordle in serbian, the latter being a 1-2-4-8 tables combo, for which I just yesterday included their internal dictionary here in Byo, took me half an hour but at least I didn't have to write any code, just pasted it here and let all those words be scanned into my internal dictionary table, then deleted them from the artoicle; I have a few selects in the Beekeeper to give me possible solutions for the current game, though I often solve it without), when she came from grocery run with a bragging-rights-earned, „hey, I've seen... ćacis!“. And there she went with the story, just like when she went to buy tomatoes (v. 16-VIII-2010.), did that in ten minutes, and then had half an hour of text about the event.
I saw there behind the kiosk, ambulance side, a parked bus, and a score of them stood on the parking. The clerks and their customers just watch and banter among themselves, nobody talks to those guys. I gathered these must be those forcibly visiting Niš (where Vučić makes Ćacilend 2.0 today). At the newsstand the customer before me mocked the seller „why aren't you there with them, you're a waterworks' kid“, „nope that's not me, it's my husband, but he rescheduled, has field assignment today... and why aren't you there, you're related to the mayor“ „that was through my aunt, who divorced meanwhile, no more so I don't have to“.
Not a single flag in sight, no freshly printed shirts, nothin, going as anonymously as possible. They're all frowning and silent, any random people waiting for a bus talk more than these guys. Nobody talks to them, they don't talk among themselves. As if for a funeral... actually people talk much more at funerals.
The bus was spakning new, Lasta's, there's barely twenty of them, well we as a local community took up more space by gathering pretty much at random, by word of mouth, than these guys with all their organization and enforcement. And I saw sandwiches too, when I went back, couldn't ride the bike around the bus, you know how congested is it there on saturdays, so I pushed it through the little park by the ambulance, and there I saw someone carrying boxes from a car into the bus. One was open, saw sandwiches. The sponge bun, all cellophane wrapped, who knows when were these made and who made them, but must have earned a bundle on it.
The stuff she bought included chicken livers, there's tha Čikin King in a larger kiosk, because we'll carry the homemade pašteta to Lena, she liked it a lot and it fits swimmingly with her current diet. Said it wasn't a GMO this time, it was strictly one liver one heart. Few years ago it was often three hearts per liver. Of course, the explanation is that the clerk has some montagnari in her genetic makeup, so in the first years she'd give pure liver to her kin, but then gradually realized that her only customers are the regulars, she's not on any busodrom or main street, so she stopped. The hearts are okay for a soup, but this time the cats will get them. On that subject, two died so far, both Džimi's.
And then she made the pašteta. And the fish čorba, with rose petals (i.e. chopped pickled pepperoni, vintage '23). And fried hake, this time not whole in the oven (as she did last three times), but chopped, in a frying pan, the classic. And for the enth time I arrive at the conclusion that the „you can' overeat on fish“ is a fallacy. In the evening, Nina called. She tried to call on monday, but we were already out, and she gathered where. Among the news, she's handling her taxes, trying to strike a deal with the IRS to pay it in installments, but for that she'd have to bother with some bureaucrat for weeks. The alternative is to make her own payment plan online. The plan, however, costs a few hundred if the debt is above 50000$, or just 20$ if below. By the paperwork she got from them, she owes 56000, online it says 52... So she paid, eyeballingly, 7000$ to get below the bar, and now sits waiting for that payment to register in the system, for a whole week already. Eh, them computers, these things used to happen faster.
In other news, she went out with a guy and it was a pleasant evening, but no chemistry. On the Face she found another one, from the area, so they sat online watching the same thing and then stayed talking... until six in the morning. That's the candidate, fingers crossed.
Sunday, 18th. Visitning Lena, the deal is we'd go out for a lunch again. Somewhere before Čenta a young fazan (pheasant) flew in front of my wheels, and by the feeling in my feet I thought it got hit by the undercarriage or floor. Fuckit, there was no theory that I'd react in any way, the whole thing was quarter of a second long between the moment I spotted it (her, a female) and the thump. There wasn't much of a crowd, my parking spot was waiting, and Tanja woke up just when we came. She practiced taking baba's spectacles off, did that at least ten times.
Went to Valter again. From the next table I heard exactly myself as of fifty years ago, some locals and some foreingers, speaking the fluent radio speaker english, someone practiced it a lot. For lunch a čorba first, baba pieced the somun (quite good, when not dipped into that disgusting gravy) and fed Tanja, the little [one] has an appetite, eats, cleans it up. And the meat, having two teeth now, and the upper [ones] are almost in sight. On the cover of the menu, in the corner, a piglet icon, stricken over. Eh, strictly beef, halal. I took some young beef rags, which seems to be off ribs cut into stripes, more or less irregular, but roasted properly, and the rest that came with it was good. And, as per Orwells' axiom (from „Down and out in Paris and London“), knife was sharp so it looked soft.
I got lucky with photography, out of some ninety I shot, 74 remained as good enough. Milan didn't lunch with us again, he's on his own schedule, but at least I got a dozen good shots of him with Tanja or both girls.
We dropped by Mere again on the way back, running out of cat food. And a drizzle began, between Old quince and home we were under a dark thick cloud, was sunny theretofore.
Talked with our Seattleans in the evening, the good news is that there's not much news. The fat Toyota is finally getting out of the picture, the guy coughed up another five thou, just five left, expected to do that this week and then ciao it's yours and I won't have to look at it anymore. Won't charge him any holding fees, which would be due, he waited six months for the guy. Neša we didn't see, slept. Anita paraded in front of the lens a bit and that was it. And, ah, yes, a new threedea printer is being shopped for, the old one is not up to the task, needs special thread for some things, the current one is prone to curling up the bottom part as it cools while the top part is still printed, which is two hours wasted. And there's the problem with sticking the base of the print to the plate, which she can solve by hairspray on it, but then it's a problem to detach it. And now there's carbon fiber as well, can make helmets too, and Stanley often needs a sliding lid for the console between the front seat in several models of the beemer, it often breaks and creates a demand.
Monday morning, we were just sitting, she began to ready the squash mussaka, someone knocks. Vanji, happened to be in the area, meant to go see Branko („Is he alive?“ „That's what I also want to know“) so dropped by. Said „I see you nicely decorated your car's front“. I thought I got treated by a larger piece of shit on the windshieldd, but nope, said „and how was the hunt?“. Took a while until he understood that I didn't know I had a fazan in the front grille, „how did you not notice... must be because you parked ass backwards... and even if you parked straight, still not looking at it, going for the house door“. And later I saw, that fazan didn't fly under, it hit the grille and got knocked in, must have been driving around 90-100 km/h. And what could I do, went with a nylon bag later and yanked it out and dropped it in the trashcan. Luckily it's a bird and won't stink, one kitten stinks for three days when it snuffs somewhere in a corner, birds don't. One hen croaked too, six remain and the rooster, and two black kittens went too. Culling.
I also remembered the Aston Martion as of 22-IV-1969..
Weather is weird, clouds then sun, thunder then birds chirping... so we didn't go to the garden. At least our result on the Spider solitaire improved, it's now 16,26% of victories.
Twentieth, third time to garden. I mowed more, she planted. The cable grass is hip high, there in front of the shed, finally got its turn. It winds around the axle every now and then and then there's no other way but to kill the švorceniger's engine, and sit and untangle.
Twonyfirst. The visit counter on sGradlj.com for the last ten hours went crazy, its speed got up to 16000 a day. And this wasn't just the same gang of few days ago sharing links, that was all https (where the 25-X-2014. article had 50 visits already), it's the http now which got from 3400 to 6850 overnght. I finally installed Nicotine+ for the soulseek network, after Škrba's remark that it's stubbornly still working. I don't mean to download anything much, just to fill the spots where I'm thin, books for example. For three years in a row I kept watching but not reading at all. I either already read what I had, at least the stuff I cared about, and of the movies and serieses on Putlocker I somehow managed to watch a whole two movies this week, it's usually one movie stretched over ten days. And look at that, within the first ten hours I already found lots of it.
By sunset, checked email, and there's a message landed straight into the 'others' folder - I knew who that was, as only Melanija has that filter set. Says she retired, they're in Belgrade now, she found my letters, what [to do] with them? Whoaaaa... do I even want to see them, what bullshit I may have been spewing then, don't know which would be worse, to understand how different am I now from the kid who wrote them, or how not different. Well photo them up and post the shots somewhere, or discard or... proceed strictly by your own inclination.
After dinner I started putting the downloads in order - the books I put where they go, scattered the music by performers (though, some of it I bundled together into the 'punkica' folder, named after the chick from whom I got most of it), normalized the levels, then went on importing into mrz and edit the titles. Some are missing the šćđ, some Have Uppercase Letters, there's work to do. And I installed the fbReader to that old tablet, copied to it the new books that I downloaded, and started reading at where I left off with Reynolds. In the evening we entertained(... 32 words...).
Thursday, 22nd. To garden again, just like the previous three times. She plants tomatoes, and replants where the slugs and other vermin dined, I mow. This time, having forgotten to bring the sour [water], and there was only half a barrel of rainwater for watering, rains didn't refill it, let's reactivate the hidrofor. And look at the miracle, I just turned it on and it just plain worked, no spell casting requred. Now at least I know which fuses cover this back area. Wasps made a nest in the power meter's niche, so on our way out I first flipped all the fuses off, and then doused the honeycomb with dubyaforty, they say the wasps don't like that. If they're there next time, I'll buy a real insecticide.
Tried to call Carp from the garden, seeing how he tried to call me few days ago, didn't respond. Then in the evening I noticed he tried to call me, two minutes ago, aha, got you there, called him back. Big news, he's got a third grandson. Yeah, right, you already told me that and forgot, but never mind, as long as we have an excuse to talk. At least I remembered to ask about Nena, said she was fine but didn't expand the tale. Talked with Lena too, watched Tanja do her tricks (working title „three toothed monster“). I told about the fazan, and she said „Milan also told about seeing a hawk in someone's grille“. How come he didn't recognize the car? Hm, maybe he didn't even look, or was it that difference between the women's holistic visw on things, and the mens' concentrated (which is mine too, except when driving, then I see and do everything at once).
Went nowhere on friday, some rain fuckup was announced, which did arrive by the evening. It was quite a wave, we only got skirted by its edge, anything south of that line got quite a dose. Belgrade was, of course, flooded, had several streets with river of shit, because the rain and fecal sewers weren't separate. Again some school had to shoo its students away by 17:00 because the roof leaked a a lot and the rainwater could easily reach hot wires. All the usual shit there, because the building density is overboard, there's not enough soil surface to soak the water, but then the sewers weren't expanded for the extra buildings, weren't even scrubbed. Every decent rain causes a good chaos.
In the evening Daca called, says Jana died. Son found her in the shower. If she died so on a friday, the funeral can't be before monday, specially if they'll do an autopsy, which is usually not done for death at home, but is mandatory in a hospital. We'll see.
In the evening, when we sipped, we couldn't remember their wedding, it must be that dad went alone, which I don't remember at all. She does, and how dad wasn't happy with what he saw. With them we really had very little contact after 1979. Her brother, younger, seems to hold better, grew up into a huge chunk of a guy, and what Aleksandar's mom said that he married a gold digger, from the „you're the last flute in my hole“** joke, which turned out to be not so, the grumpy old woman guessed everyone else is to blame for her not being the grand chick she once was, they're stubbornly together and seem to be holding well. Which I keep saying every time I see them, while actually knowing nothing about them.
Uncle was always a director of something, the young and good looking economist, with address in an old house on one of the main streets, drove a tristać while we still had a fića, and then died somewhat young, and his older brother followed within a couple of months, both of heart. If their son somehow managed later, Jana did not fare too well, stayed a lowly paper pusher somewhere in the city hall or health, made ends meet, as Daca said „owing and blowing it“. What will the sons do now... One is huge, last time I saw them his footwear was violin case sied, and fifteen yers ago I saw one of them, and couldn' recognize which one was it.
Jana we mostly remembered after what she told us during a smoke break at the wedding (26-IX-2010.), how they often pee thin, run out of cash and then she cooks beans for the whole week, „and when they ask me how can you eat beans six days in a row, I say one has one can“. Which is now happening to us, not for the same reason, it just happens, my dear stuffs so much meat, regular and smoked, that we simply can't eat it any faster, and it would be a shame to go to waste. Actually, that's where I understood that monotonous diet, eating the same thing day to day, is not the problem, if it's something good, that you like. Becomes a problem when you don't. As the Chineses wouldsay, „rice again“.
The kittens are getting scarce. Of the first nine about four are still around, and one of the Mala Zelena's croaked too, and the black tomcat ate it, just the head remained.
The funeral will be on monday, Daca told us. During the daća they'll have another funeral, some Aleksandar's uncle died, or brother by fuck knows what, we'll meet afterwards.
The rush on sGradlj.com ended around 24th, at estimated total of 50000 for the month. Of course, it'll be less than that when it keeps declining, the projecion is based on the average so far, under the assumption that the average woudln't be changing.
Saturday, garden. She finishied the planting, there'll be four hundred stalks. I finished mowing the front yard (not the side to the summer kitchen, that's for later) and moved to the orchard, managed to swing a big circle around the front half, where the ditches were filled. Now the švorceniger starts on the first try, almost, and didn't get stuck with the wiregrass, didn't have to stop and clean. Previously I had to do that at least once, last time thrice. I got into švung (germ. Schwung, ie. swing), as her dad would say.
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* which ain't black, maybe was once, some sixty years ago. It's light gray now, just like any other road. There's no regular spraying it with tar as they often do in the US.
** a Montenegrin marries a hungarian girl, and to put her in her place, gives her the traditional proverb „you're the last hole on my flute“, which means the least important thing; the above quote is her reply
Mentions: 22-IV-1969., february 1975., 10-IV-1989., 28-X-1995., 16-VIII-2010., 26-IX-2010., 25-X-2014., 22-X-2023., Aleksandar Zarin, Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Bejewelled2, Branko Glumač, burundi, Byo (Byo), čorba, daća, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), fića, fox, frajer, frendz parti, gonk, Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), homemade, house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Klincaid, klinceza, komitet, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Melanija Tisarević, Milan Nastić, mrz pladžer, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Nevena Žaja (Nena), pašteta, rakija, sGradlj.com, Stanley Berger, statcounter.prg, špricer, švorceniger, Tanja Nastić, Tasa Radenkov (Carp), tristać, tutifruti, Vera Vraneš, VFE, Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), Željko Nikolović, in serbian
15-V-2025 - 5-VII-2026