14-X-2025.
Had a lengthier dance party with Neša's machine yesterday. It's time to retire gugolj, it's over fifteen years old.
The only advantage was that it was already where it should be, i.e. „don't bring it here, let it stay where it is“, i.e. under the table in the kids' (aka blue) room. The first snag was the power cables - turned out I exhausted the reserve in the drawer, had one there and needed two. Um... actually, the monitor did have its own cable, but it was the american grounded [one], with ground line on the third prick above the two european-like ones. I remembered I had an adapter for that somewhere... um, yes, gugolj is using it. Found a normal one upstairs in the storage (aka yarn room :), stayed with the shell of Raja's machine, solved that... Okay, put all the cables where they go, including esdee card reader, keyboard, and my old mouse (which was still good, except of fits of doubleclick instead of single), connected the disk as well... Pressed the power button, it starts for a second or two and then stops. Ten times so. Ahem... She reminded me that Go said the onboard battery croaked and it loses power as soon as it unpowered for a while, so until it refills. Okay, took me a dozen tries to get to the point when it stopped running the fan as soon as I released the button, but now I saw some letters on the monitor (a good Asus one, didn't know we had it)... which means the board started working, let's seee... It reports no disk. Aha, no disk on zeroeth adapter, then no disk on the first. What it has is poked into the second.
The disk I pierced into it is the 640G I bought, guess, back in the you ess, before going home. Actually have two of those, the other one is in the eweessbee adapter, but that one developed some shit, and this one used to be in dad's machine, which I then reworked to Ubuntu and gave to Boba (who's quiet like shit in the grass, haven't seen him a year and a half, just message happy birthdays in messages, that's his phone remembering), and since neither he nor Dragan don't speak linux, he returned it. And lo, it tries to boot the Ubuntu, but doesn't manage, needs to fix something on the disk but requires authorization, which must be run as root, for which I need to log in and can't until it boots, so fuck that business.
Then I saw it doesn't see the eweesbee card as a disk, not even after two or three meddlings with the bios. But it offers optical disk. Found the old esdee card from which I installed Mint back then on the late cimet (though, it's a 21.3, then it was 19 something, so I possibly refreshed it... or did I fry this for the gugolj perhaps), but can't boot from it, bios can't see it. Okay, took it upstairs to fry a bootable seedee on nanovo. And revealed myself as a limepit [calcified brain, that is], took me three tries to remember that it's not that the seedees are bad, it's that you can't fry a 3G image on it, it's capacity is about 0,7G. Found my stash of writable deeveedees, fried one, installed from it, and it just worked. For a total of one afternoon, despite the cable and disks confusion. And it's on cable, the long eweteepee which had to be there, had to have fast web for Raja and then Neša was still there, so it brought all the updates with neckbreaking speed. I even installed Telegram, and for logging in I opted to use the phone number. Which doesn't exist anymore, but never mind, no calls needed, it's just an ID within Telegram, so I got the six digit code on the tablet, retyped from it and... here, it all works. Doesn't matter that the disk is 16 years old, starts, goes (v. house dictionary). And yes, linux does see the eweesbee card as a disk.
And then Borče called, said G.M. is still here and will go to Klek, so he'll pick her and Dragana... Okay, I said if anyone offers transportation, so okay deal. Then later I didn't feel like going, and so I said when we were planning tomorrow's lunch (after sarma, sweet cabbage), so we're not postponing it for a day but will do right away, and I'll call him to cancel.
In the morning she changed her mind, said you promised you go, and she'll cook the cabbage anyway, I'll eat it eventually on wensday, cabbage is always better reheated. I packed a kilo of [sweet] cherry, batteries in the flash and shooter were already recharged, green photo bag, and Borče arrived around noon, the chicks already embarked. I sad back with Dragana, she in one of her better editions, still knows how to do the looks, and then I navigated him through the streets, this end is clear to nobody. Eventually when he spotted Springfield, he knew where he was, then was lost a bit when we went on down Šumadijska, then recollected when we spotted the oilery. And in Klek he missed the turn for hunter's lodge, but didn't stray too far.
It was said we'll be sitting inside and not under the roof, but the weather was wonderful, so the gang just carried the tables outside it and we sat so, in the sun. Just in case, I held the flash turned on, and [it's] good [thing] that I did so, because, on the few shots where I didn't, the shadows were deeper, the light sharper.
It was quite a gathering, all kudos. Of my IV5pp gang it was Dragana, Bajlo and Staša; of IV3 G.M. and Borče; of the hosting IV4 almost all - Popaj, Bajlo's brother-by-uncle, Jozda, Čarga with missus, J.P., Vlada, Gavra, the silent L.Ć. (whom I never spotted talking with anyone), the musician J.V. (former, he said, he sold all those instruments of torture, what was I fucking with for forty years, dial any channel and you'll hear perfect performance, not what we did), Žuca, Ildika, Ksenija, V.M., Milica, V.P. and J.B. Qute a congregation, missing just a handful of chick who have names here, plus the one who has eight grandchildren.
It turned out that, until the lunch table was laid, I sat and talked with Milica, mostly remembering the gang from VIII2, which faces and names we remember, and how there's more of them dead than of the gang from gimnazija. And I meant to ask about a few of them, and she did know some, and asked some of her own. The most were unseen by both by twenty to forty years, and of a couple we both couldn't remember who exactly they were.
Of rakija there were two good apricots, luckily nobody brought a loza (which is the common fuckup there, it gets open first, and by the time the second bottle arrives, I already poured), and our cherry. Of cherry not much left the bottle, but those who were at my end of the table have all tried and all praised it. And, accordingly, there was a lot of talk about distilling the rakija, who does what. I came out as almost an expert.
When the roast arrived (excellent, all kudos to the majstor, meat soft and the skin baked exactly crunchy and still my teeth sufficed for it), we leaned on it earnestly. Bajlo made a bunch of shots. Then the cake came, with two candles, 7 and 0, this is like a jubilary party, we collectively round seven banks this year.
And then their book, an almanach where they paste shots from such gatherings, and all attendees sign the page, and by the time it reached me, the ballpoint vanished, the book slipped in my hand and I caught it but the pen vanished. Took us five minutes of bending under the table, where could it have vanished, there are no dark corners, light galore, ballpoint white... and I found it in my jacket's inner pocket. How did it land there while falling, will forever remain unclear. As one said „try again“, well no chance. And then I didn't know where my reading glasses were. I know I pocketed them, though it was first into the outer right pocket of the jacket, which I didn't like, it's small and they may just drop out, so I moved them into the shirt pocket... And maybe I needed them for one more thing and left it by the keyboard automatically, as I do at least ten times a day for the last 25 years. But no, Gavra was adamant that he saw me with the glasses before we moved the tables. So we searched everything along the path of the tables, just in case they were on the table and slipped during transport. Well fuck the glasses, they're at least six years old, time to get new [ones].
They were on the desk, by the keyboard. The shots I did after supper, put them on dropbox, all within an hour. It went fast because there were few differently lit scenes, mostly two types (with flash and without), and I had to correct very little, just to cover the motion of the sun. And then I added a few more bits to that machine (installed twocommander, closed the box, pushed it deeper under the table), and then we switched to... well, apricot again. These shot glasses seem kind of smaller, there should be 20 in a liter and I estimated this to be about 23. And eventually we weren't lazy, she got up and brought a funnel, and I the little cask, and we poured the remaining half liter. No more 2019 apricot, except what's left in the bottle.
She tried the new machine in the morning. Wow the speed - the web being so much faster, it's on the wire, and the machine being so much younger (ten years tops) and has 12G of ram, and running linux so consuming less.
Thin week. Only 24 babies born, usually it's 28-30. But then the number of married couples doubled the usual number of two. Borče did once, in one of those disputes over immaturity, pulled this as evidence or unexplainable phenomenon, don't remember which. Eh, they live unmarried, or the kids are monuments to the unknown runaway hero, and there's even those who don't marry again when having a second baby, imagine that.
Thursday, 16th. My sleeping, after entertainment, veered away again - I think I slept just four hours, and the rest of it neither here nor there, got up around six, eventually the third try at catnap succeeded, after supper. And the supper was only half a success, some alpska [alp salami, nee tyrolian] from Mere (was it that Štrbac brand?) was okay so far, now it contains much more bacon, in larger chunks and of wrong kind, the cats will welcome it... when it gets its turn. We barely saw them for two days, the neigbor was slaughtering the chicken. He does that some three-four times a year, about fifty of them in a batch, there's innards and offal for the cats. And then there's old meat queued, what she dug out of the freezer's cenozoic, something five years old, which she simmers pihtije style and pours into liter buckets from the greek yogurt.
Neša's machine is getting stuck, must be the fans are congested, needs sweeping (EKV). And zmajček had a weird moment, when it lost net connection, didn't see the router. Could be a power glitch, last night I had to reboot it just to restart the oops, which was powered and yet blinking red and beeping.
It gnawed at me and I decided to check... took the rakija shot, put a vessel on the scale, poured ten shots of water, 402 grams. Ha! Now I'm revising my opinion of how much do we really drink.
So on friday we took it more lightly. The apricot was gone, the last half a liter, from 2019. Poured quince, and had just a 0,4 of it each, just that much was missing for a nice sleep.
Saturday, 18th. Playing the solitaire (the Spider, we're at 45% victory rate, had it even rounding up to 46% briefly today), when the landline startled me, it's by my elbow. We keep it loud, in case we're elsewhere in the house or she's away and I'm asleep, so it surprised me. It was auntie Janja. Said she was glad to see us building it there, she saw from a bus. Where? Well... and then something, of course I'm clueless of the location, don't know the names of landmarks in Zajač. And she saw a blue car, thought I came to check the progress, but there from a bus... Well must be someone saw it's nobody's lot and gambled. If I get bored enough, I could take him to court and shake him out of his pants a little... She said she had heart surgery, they gave her such a diagnose that she was rushed urgently, skipping the queues, and the doctors were amazed that someone with such a diagnose (one valve completely out) is so lively and nimble. But that passed and she's okay now. I asked about the other two, are they alive, nope she said, Lune threw the spoon two years ago, and uncle Staja in march of this [year]. Forgot to ask her about the new surname...
Retelling this conversation, and my dear said it must have been uncle Staja selling the plots as if they were all his, for he was indeed cunty keen to do that while dad was dying, an egger he was an egger he died. He was good to dad as a carpenter and general majstor, did finish a bunch of things around the house, even did the garage door, but then more than made it all up in the amount he drank guesting in the last years. Well, regardless, I don't know whether we care at all of enforcing our ownership over all those lots there. The black on white from cadaster still doesn't mean I'd be able to do anything with it, it's a Zajač out there, dad couldn't sell anything there and he knew them, the kin undermined each deal. Maybe if Lena once hired some bloodthirsty shyster to fuck their dear mothers at large and run the matters clear, but in this country I wouldn't count on that. It's easier to just forget about it, it's not that I need any of it. But then it's possible that he just sold his part, it was large enough for two houses. In that case, he just raised the value of our part.
Neša's machine gets stuck, every time now. It wasn't dirty at all, must be Stanley swept it last time. Maybe, who knows, the disk is bad, seeing how it came back to me. Maybe boot from deeveedee and run some serious test on that disk. [did that few days later, and it got worse, didn't even boot, and the video is a mess in almost each mode]
The salami burst lengthwise, the gut, plastic, broke all the way. There I also replaced the shower hose, the one from Lidl was too stiff, you turn it where you want it to point, it turns back. Doesn't even have the helicoidal sheath, it's a pretend, printed (!) on the hose, a fake done over the disk. But we kept the nozzle, it's good. Whoa the difference, now this is a real shower, does what you tell it.
Called Z.H., said he was informed, has viber and is included in the group. With I.Z. bad luck again, I have only her landline and on it there's the rewinding secretary, leave a message. I'll have to call once more to do the due, but who knows whether anyone ever listens to those messages, and whether she'll email me - dictating the address into a message is an unreliable job.
Felt strongly sleepy as early as 22, eh, such a day. And I did sleep well in the afternoon. Woke up at half three, as I expected. Now to push over the day with just an hour or two of nap, and to tip my hat, thundered nicely through the weekend.
Nina called in the afternoon, her guest from Scotland is there again, said he tried our pear, it's excellent, we could organize delivery to his end... The kids are preparing for the halloween, Linda and Sanda mean to dress like the posessed dolls, their costumes arrived already - luckily, it's some dresses which fit them nicely and will be usable later, and the mary jane shoes, likewise. Once they go trick'n'treating, the plan is to play cute dolls for a dozen seconds, do something sweet and pleasing, and the burst into something eerie, which is the original idea behind the posessed dolls in the horror genre. They look cute in those.
Then we talked with Go and Stanley again, and he said he managed to sell three cars in 24 hours, one at 500$, one at „you'll pay when you can“, third for 11000$ (through a dealer). But okay, the inventory is getting reduced. Neša and Anita are fighting less, he became a tad more tolerant, and she's getting im into the machine less often, now that she noticed the lack of reaction. Then we switched to quince, and got really merry, I managed to get a few good laughs out of her. I switched from slippers to clogs, and inserted a paper towel doused with methanol over the right foot. The alcohol softens the leather and it bends around the foot. Felt palpably better the next day.
Along the way we tried, as per my note from the last sitting (two notes, actually, the first one being illegible because my handwriting didn't resemble itself because I tried to write legibly in near dark), about when was it that Lena had her third tonsil removed. Who was when with whom at the hospital, whom we met, which year was it. The one fact we agreed on was that she stayed the dežurni at her bed until some time, then went home to sleep it off, and when she woke up I already drove her home. We agree here because there's no my version, I don't remember it at all. That is, now I do, but not before she told it. Software is no problem, writing is no problem, the sources are. Hard is the work on the Byo.
Monday. The first egg from young hens, promise of a good future. The payment from auntie Janja arrived, so I got on my bike and went to lift it, 4660, not much of an amount but, there, „it's yours and you should get it“. I paid into my phone too, since they whored out 250 dinars from me, by a very dirty trick. They offered me some plan, 2G plus 30 minutes, and I see my regular plan (300 dinars a month, unlimited messages and calls) is expiring today. Um, what about my regular plan, which is automatically extended, I'm on it for at least three years now, could it be they simply changed the scheme and forgotten everything? So okay, I bought it, to see what happens, and then less than fifteen minutes later, the automatic kicks in... so I paid this for no good reason, because they keep quiet like arses and you need to guess what each message means. Drilling us... But this way from the 750 dinars I had there now less than 200 remain, so refill and keep this trick in mind. In the kiosk across from the post office I bought six Bic's lighters, they are the best, despite (or probably exactly because) being exactly the same as they were sixty years ago, not changing nor trying to fix the model. Tried to call I.Z. again, got the rewinder again, didn't leave any more messages. If she didn't react at the first one, why would she now.
The catnap wasn't much of a success, tried twice after lunch, relaxed to the point where dreams are coming to me, and yet I hear everything, recognize what mrz plays... Third charm, tried around five and relaxed just the same and it also seemed like a no go, but at some point heard her making cigarettes to bring along, and sank right there. She woke me at 18:00, get ready to go. Turns out I slept less than half an hour, a real paor* nap. Dropped by Roda along the way - she to visit her serekeš, me to replenish the stock of ernafil at the pharmacy, and some 200m later, by the hardware store, I saw a lady pushing an empty cart back from her car. Why a cart at a hardware store... I followed her trail and saw she was pushing it toward, look at that, new Svetofor - that's the third one, near Roda, facing former bager and the car salon owned by Đuđa's son-in-law. We almost failed to spot it, it's extending over the hardware store's driveway and then behind it, as we saw when we took a peek. Okay, we'll check it out, it's near enough and good to visit by bike, the parking space being rather thin. The carwash by the railway crossing now has a first add on after at least twenty years of operation, at the farthest end of it there's now the drive-through with rotating brushes, a cottage with machinery and glitzy color leds and whatnot. That's if I ever decide to wash the van's roof, when I went upstairs I saw I didn't quite reach it with the hose.
When we arrived at Dragana, Borče was already there. This was the first time I brought no brandy, the deal being we'll try what her son-in-law (sister's son, actually) brought from Macedonia. Well, nice smell, good wood, and the most fun was when Borče read the label third time, once in macedonian once in serbian. And it wasn't anything much, and we didn't take too many seconds, of the two liters, off two fingers was left.
Borče said he already checked that Svetofor, it's really crowded, he had to park all the way away at the corner, by the furniture salon. There'll be more chaos, this bit of a street just became dangerous.
He and I also planned the thursday trip - should I take the van like last year, or should we take two cars for the six of us (Momir won't come, his mom finally died, stepped deep into nineties, and his lady said „now we can, let's go“ and they went to Spain). We already talked before going, and she said it's no game that the transportation be my treat each time, let them stretch a little, recover me fuel. I cut the chat by saying, on the spot, at the table, that I take the van, my čorba in it, they just pay what I eat and drink there - the water, as I won't be drinking, be driving. Deal reached in two minutes, so the mandatory part was over, could have been done in two minutes, but he insisted on reading the menu from his phone. There's two versions, barbecue or fish. Fish, of course, the barbecue is more or less always the same, and while I had fish at home even more, it's always pangasius and hake, let's try something else.
All in all an ordinary frendz parti, nothing special, no excesses nor any extraordinary gag to remember it by. The piglet roast she ordered from someone on the market was excellent, kudos where due.
Being still not entierly sure of clogs, this pair being a bit stiffer than the previous [one], exactly the same, I decided to go in shoes. It felt really strange, this was perhaps the fourth day this year to wear socks on my feet, and by the time we called our cabs (two this time, called them independently, he now has perhaps 200m less than we do) I already felt everything below mid-calfes to mid-foot hurting. When I got home, it was obvious that the pressure was strong. Should have taken them off when we arrived.
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* play on 'power nap'. A paor [puh-or] is a peasant's word for peasant, in Vojvodina. Comes from german Bauer, or dutch boor.
Mentions: 29-IX-1996., 19-XII-2025., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), auntie Janja, bager, Byo (Byo), cimet, čorba, dežurni, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dragan Umljanić, Đurđa Rođanović (Đuđa), frendz parti, Gavrilo Taroški (Gavra), gimnazija, Gorana Sredljević (Go), gugolj, house dictionary, Ildika , IV3, IV4, IV5pp, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Jovan Zdanić (Jozda), Ksenija, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), loza, majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milica Zubatović, Momir Hadžipopov, mrz pladžer, nanovo, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pihtije, rakija, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sarma, serekeš, Springfield, Stanley Berger, Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), uncle Staja, Velemir Prokin (Čarga), VIII2, Vlada Markanić, yogurt, Zajač, zmajček, Živana Armatović (Žuca), in serbian
15-X-2025 - 17-VII-2026