08-VI-2025.
Elections in Zaječar and Kosjerić, regular municipal, but since these are the first elections since the protests began, and the regime is scared that their whole house of cards will just flatten if the least card slips, they deployed all their forces there. The news buzz more or less all days, only burundi is silent. By evening it was obvious that it was the server, around 19:10 or thereabouts it went into „maintenance underway“ and stopped altogether.
The visits at sGradlj.com ceased, until friday it was two-three thousands a day, now a few hundred. Specially the https protocol stopped, just a thimbleful per hour.
Around 19:00 I reset the phone just in case, couple of days ago it gave me attitude and booted eventually on fifth [try]. And it coincided with, despite my thinking that I did that on time, before her call around 19:30, her actual call: Dragana tried just then, got „not online“ and then called me on the landline a bit later. Said she's got a triple whammy problem, something like sneeze flu or whatever, but she dare not sneeze as she's got the runs, and running to the bathroom is a problem because the leg is fucking her to imbecility. So the frendz parti is delayed to the next monday.
By 22 it was Kosjerić celebrating, all of it, the people won their freedom, the next municipal president announced „we skinned them“. That lasted two hours. As far as I remember the nineties, it seems the technology then was that every polling station counted its own, and faxes the logs to the city/municipal committee, and also each part to its own headquarters, and it all had to fit, and did fit. There were mobile phones already, so the results were also dictated over the phone to each central. Now not, all the ballots are taken to the central committee to be counted there. Which was changed with the explicit intention of messing it up on the way, so what was sent and what was delivered is not necessarily identical.
And then by midnight it turned out that what they lost in vote and counting, they made up later. Vučić declared victory, thin though but regardless, he thinks he stole just enough. We becunted intensely, and comforted ourselves somewhat with that cherry. For the second time we took out the old candle from 2000, which we sent home from Americah, some 15cm in diameter and about 18 in height, with three thick wicks. They had powerouts here a lot, so we sent it. They parked it on the cupboard and forgot about it. So we finally put it to use...
There the mrz brought the collected works of Duško Radović, including „start beating your children as soon as they begin resembling you“, and the „who doesn't know what's [wrong] with him / may first look for his / if he doesn't find it / that's with him“ (v. 06-IX-1995.), which improved our mood. We swore to not veer from our path, to not pay to the state anyhing we can avoid. Blessed be the limiter button in the Joda which keeps my speed to 50 km/h within places (inhabited or not*), I'm not paying any speeding ticket. Not the vat, not the excise, tobacco we buy from a dealer, the booze we make our own, only the čorba for the car. And I'll sell the van, why would I treat them the insurance and fees, may they go to a hell of their own choice.
By tuesday we saw all our daughters and almost all grandchildren via Telegram. The girls are getting promoted - Nina's in the process and a raise is also due; Lena already got hers (finally a senior, so far was a medior, i.e. middler), with some 10000€ annual raise. While Nina's office aims for the third quartile, so to be in the average above 75% of them, Lena's aim for the 90%, because the firm now achieved that rank, they passed the level. Go got her new 3d printer, much better and faster than the old one. For starters she redid a few things from the old one, just to compare, and they do look much better. The cookie cutter shaped for poop emoji is much firmer and the piece that should cut out the mouth doesn't look like cracking anytime soon. Neša, after the success of chocolate, now printed a strawberry icecream what with cone, the color and size hit exactly right, looks like real.
On tuesday (10th) we went to detelina first to buy hose ends, as we seriously mean to water the tomatoes this year, and again after two more shops, out of four bits we found only two right and two wrong - the male bits fit on a tap, not on a hose. I still somehow put it together and made it work, using poor man's teflon tape - a thinner nylon bag. I dismantled the starter off the švorceniger. The pull string I bought is too thick, should be shoelace sized. I made the old one shorter where it broke, right by the handle, it's just 3cm off, but the end was too frayed to go through the hole in the handle. Took it home and I'll take it to the shop tomorrow.
The next day the guy in the shop looked at that starter like a cow at a dead calf, said „it's screwy, it the spring jumps out, it's very hard to put back, it must be a strong one bla bla bla“ and sold me a meter of string for 100 dinars (yesterday 2m was 66 dinars across the street at Tišma's, and that was twice as thick) and then urgently had to go somewhere. Yeah, right, shitter, when you're selling your claptrap works half an hour. But okay, at least he knows his wares, that's where he's good.
After evening entertainment we didn't mean to drink, „but since it's an alcohol free evening, can do that whiskey“, two shots. And it was all fine, felt nice and fell asleep just fine, except I woke up at dawn, after a dream where the roof was collapsing because the wind was toppling some swaths over it, heavy and causing cracks when they fall, the roof was above the yard in the old house (!), so to avoid all of that, including some concrete pieces, falling on our heads, I woke up. Then I slept again, sort of, until half eight. Hey, we said we'll go downtown to see the students on their way to Novi Bečej (and not the short way, but all around, vie Njujork, Torda, Bašaid and Milošveo) if we happen to wake up early enough. Close enough... the coffee took its time to reach the mark. But anyway, there was a number of things we meant to buy, so we went downtown. In no particular order, just meant to get to the old market where the neighbor has a shop (v. 01-IX-2021.), to buy me underpants, those from the december of 2018 were running out.
We passed the procession on the pedestrian bridge. The cops were already waiting on the taxi station on the Žitni, to drive before and behind them once they reach the street. Bon walk, kids. I saw them carrying that death sign, been seeing it on cemeteries, and they had a guy in black uniform with them, some monk's idea of PR. Why doesn't he slap his patriarch and his goons first, and why do they always insinuate themselves into front lines, as if they were in it from the beginning.
I mean, children, I root for you and I've already lost count of how many times have I joined you already, but if you mean to dial turning Serbia into an orthodox jamahirya to eleven, as soon as you win you'll see me there against you.
We first stopped by a perfumery on main street (now that Luksol doesn't have a shop or itself for decades), to see about some fragrances, and nope, whatever the girl sampled out as floral, it smelled fruity to me, „as if I was simmering pekmez all night“, but then we found nail clippers, some larger one, with a longer handle, and acetone. The cutter I bought back in 19-I-1995. are already dull, and as the toenails grow thicker over the years, it becomes a problem. The acetone was a good find - while she doesn't polish her fingernails, but does toenails at times, the dark cherry hue becomes her well. Then we walked to the neighbor's shop, met him on the street when we mowed, to buy me underpants, so I wouldn't go to the market just for that. His wife asked about the girls, specially Lena, remembers her well.
Then to main street, to Nama, the Chineses had those hose plugs that nobody else had. Actually the male end for the hose is not made anymore, nobody sane needs the hose to be in detachable pieces, the hose is supposed to be in one piece. Eh, that bit was widely available ten years ago. But they had a simple double male, which will get the job done and is ridiculously cheap, about half the price at Tišma. It not being subject to much of wear and abuse, it's just hooked and left, may it last as long as it does. Walking on, at about Prleski we stumble upon Đenđi. I said „magyarül, kérem“ right away, and hungarian was indeed spoken to the last. She did most of the speaking, spreading her heavy reek, of which my dear later said „and she was so loaded with garlic“... well, garlic may have been the origin, but there's some fermentation there, not fresh at all. Empty talk mostly, she said they moved to 25. maj, in Čurda everything's too far, and here she's got hundred shops just across the street. I know the area, I said, that's where I grew up. So at least I greased my hungarian a bit, to compensate for lack of content. In the glassbox I raised some cash, didn't do so last month, and we walked on to that shop founded by the old hands from Čelik, to buy the kitchen sink fauce, because the old one is now prone to some weird vibrations when closed. So two repairs are ahead of me for the weekend, the starter change on švorceniger and his faucet, there's entertainment. Walking to the car on Žitni, crossed paths with Grne, sprinting on bike. She said „how thin his hair got, but he doesn't give up“. Well, I said, he looked exactly the same twenty years ago, neither sewn nor unravelled.
Small graphitto on the rear of the glassbox: what if the cats were real?
A shot from Lena: „finished packing for the travel“ - Tanja went into the bag. To Kopenhagen on monday...
In the evening, apricot 22, good, smooth, slowly. Removed the big candle, isn't wieldy, now that we bought the regular ones in those thin metal cups... At 0:02 I remembered to congratulate Dragana and Bajlo on their birthday, just message, „today is to us a lovely day...“, a much better song than the copied and wrighted american poop.
Friday, thirteenth, to all who celebrate [it]. Deep in reading Reynolds, Absolution gap third time. Up to the middle of it I read only what happens on Ararat, until about the takeoff from it, and then read the rest of it regularly. Until 3:20, got up by half noon. Okay, coffee, lunch (sweeeet cabbage, mmm, with so much meat that one doesn't need to joši (v. house dictionary), one piece of that [thing] with cherries, skip the catnap, take the švorceniger's starter, replace the rope. No matter how much that airfuck from Šuma Trahdeh tried to scare me with the replacement being a screwed up job, it turned out to be trivial. The hard part was to take out the old one, the knot was in a tight nook under the spring while keeping the spring from jumping out all the time, and then tried to tie the new rope to the old so to thread it through the same hole... which didn't work, the tie broke and we ended up with both ropes outside. Then, what can we do, we tried blank, thread afresh through the same hole, and it just went through. There, and I put myself to sleep thinking how could we possibly do that. The final step was also hard, how to cram the end knots into their tiny cubbyholes - the inner [one] into that slot under the spring, the outer [one] into the cork in the pull handle.
Then we went to Klincaid, put the hose together (and again I bought one wrong piece, instead of female threequarter I got a connector from threquarter to half, but still had enough anyway), and we let the tomatoes be watered. Then she went to pick cherries, and I took to put the švorceniger together. Which I managed, in less than half an hour. Of course, one of the longer screws I replaced with a shorter, which worked but then the longer one wouldn't fit in the other's hole, so I had to unscrew all four to find it. I ended up with no extra parts, starts, goes. I mowed some, starting from where I left off last week, not much. She picked a bucketfull. I see more cake in the foreseeable future, just not right away. We just finished the previous batch.
Sunday, going to Belgrade. Drove Joda to carwash first, lots of drip from the big cherry. Then, being in the hood, we dropped by the old house, to pick up the bills. Ouch, the garage is invisible, the weeds went wild.
Arrived high on time, driving moderately at times (specially when that one truck stuck ahead of me most of the way to Čenta - on sundays there are no trucks on sundays, except these for more important construction sites, those may be exempt or belong to someone untouchable by cops), and at others I stepped on it as far as I eyeballed as safe. On the bit of highway between Borča and Zemun I ran it by ear, in the left lane - the road is ten years old now and middle lane would need flattening - and peeked at the meter, it was 129 km/h, maybe I could do better. The 'by the ear' is 'any solid travel speed before I feel vibrations and noise'. Joda is quite good after the last fix. And my parking slot was waiting for me. That part is the last to fill because nobody likes a tall curb, sixties style. Tanja just woke. Lena is in the swing of packing, travels to Kopenhagen tomorrow (and not to Stokholm to a build-a-burger meeting, as Go thought, mixed them up again, „eh, marseljeza“**). A heap of things on the counter...
The grub was hindu stuff from Divali, and amazingly arrived on time; Milan went to his training not waiting for it, „they're prone to two hours late“. Succeeded in taking a shot of Tanja standing, it now regularly happens that she forgets that she doesn't know how to stand, for two-three seconds at a time. After lunch took her for a stroll and to have a couple of smokes. She got her face thoroughly smeared with icecream, loved it. Actually eats everything, ran into maybe two or three items she didn't like. Didn't even bother her that this hindu food was mildly hot. I recorded a video of her climbing into the lower compartment of the stroller, quite skilfully. True, when she reached the end, what now, it's a dead end, get me out of here, and she cried loudly for a few seconds, but stopped as soon as her mom got her out.
We put together good four hours - lunch, stroll, my catnap, coffee - and made it home on time, what with dropping by Mere for cat food. No cans, though, but there's always that cheapest baloney and šklj sardines to sweeten the granules from the bag. Of thirteen kittens, three survived - two by Zelena (the green one), one by Mala Zelena (the little green one), none from Džimi.
At 19:33 lo, my phone works as it should, I heard the mortar ringing, Dragana announces tomorrow's evening.
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* for some reason there's an official euphemism for „village“ - „inhabited place“, used in legal texts, primarily in the traffic law, and still in use in the daily announcements by utilities. The implied lack of inhabitants in the cities never stopped anyone.
** her childhood habit to mix up similar sounding words, in this case marseljeza (marseillaise, fuck the Frenches) with Šeherezada
Mentions: 19-I-1995., 06-IX-1995., 01-IX-2021., 25. maj, burundi, Čelik, čorba, Čurda, detelina, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Đenđi Todorov, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Grne, house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Klincaid, Milan Nastić, mrz pladžer, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Njujork, pekmez, Prleski, sGradlj.com, švorceniger, Tanja Nastić, Žitni, in serbian
8-VI-2025 - 25-III-2026