09-XI-2025.
Finally finished reading Reynolds. I'll return to him if he writes more. Moved on to his buddy, Stephen Baxter (and no, I didn't finish reading what they wrote together around Clarke's „Medusa“, it doesn't look like either of them, they emulated the oldster's style too well, which is nowadays boring). It turned out that what I had of the Xeelee saga was even worse than the once badly ocr'd text files, no matter that it's now in proper .epub format, it's still unreadable. Luckily, with Nicotine+ I got a very complete edition in a minute. Off we go.
(... 107 words...)
When we took off, I drove all the way down our street, to see what was built. Well, it's the tavern Bečkerek, they built another ballroom, so they can do two or three parties at the same time. In the process they crammed its parking to where our street's unpaved part goes... well, I'd gladly talk someone into driving a truck right there, to beat the path over those five meters of grass and weeds which separate the paved part of the street and their rear parking lot. They won't ever see me again, for their arrogant mother's cunt.
We arrived at Lena's early, miscalculated the timing, by arriving exactly when she told us to, but doesn't matter, at least we stayed an hour longer. The parking issue I solved by skill - the first slot at the long building looks, in arrival, as very screwy, between two poles (electric and traffic sign), but actually there's room enough and the curb isn't any taller than further away.
I slept only five hours the night before, because the night before that I slept almost ten, so this time I lied eventually at half three, when I finally felt like it. At least we had the time to chat at length before Tanja woke up. She even managed to ignore tha noise that Api raised when we arrived, barks like crazy, stairwell echoes insanely. We brought her the rubber boots worn by Linda and Sanda and she loved them on the spot, put them on and off, four times each pair, walked around the room. Then Milan brought her a xylophone (okay, a metallophone), excellent specimen, not a chinese junk lookalike, this one really has a good sound. Which made me inventory my memory and, well, this may be the eighth or ninth [one] in the family, and only second good one. The others either had flimsy sound or bars cut to wrong lengths, not the intervals you were looking for.
I cattednapped while we waited the grub to arrive from Valter, and did well, some fifty minutes in four parts. I'd wake up somewhat when Tanja would pass and grab my toes (I gave up on experimenting with socks and returned to clogs, much better that way) or would climb on the couch next to me, and then return to the nowhere land. The guys from Valter again charged for five meals and packed four, this is the second time already, but what they did deliver was good.
After the munch we, of course, went for a walk, partially so we two could smoke a couple, partly because it's already our regular sequence [of things]. She can barely wait to go anywhere, and knows all the places on the playground - not the one behind the long building, which is even somewhat neglected, but the one closer to Ušće, where these toys are in somewhat better condition and it's not a concrete floor but the soft stuff. She knows everything already and specially beelines for the carousel, where she wanted to joši (v. house dictionary, jošiti).
The return was quite fast again, bare 70 minutes from unparking to the gate. Did the shots from monday and thenceforth. This time I didn't put the after midnight shots from the frendz parti into the same date, as they were not the same party anymore, it's a birthday party, in its own day. Today's shots were excellent, the klinceza is photogenic... as all of them were so far. The line „there are no unphotogenic faces, there are only bad photographers“ was invented to approach chicks, implying „you think you aren't beautiful, but you will be on my shots“. Which may be right, but the existence of some who take some skill to shoot is also a fact. And then I slumbered for another 20 minutes, just the amount I was missing. Sat by the mac, absentmindedly played bejewelled2 and then Go called. Everything right on time. First hour and a half went on exchange of breadbaking knowledge, tips and tricks, plans to make a burek in Seattle again, different this time - with cheese, with meat, with spinach. It was a success, we saw the shots the next days. Then we switched to the usual banter, saw the kids a little, even the little neighbor who's now Anita's friend. Neša we saw by the very end, when he was waking up, and he did play a number even so. He's probably already taller than [his] mom, or missing just a bit, he's quite gangly. Stanley inspired me again, to compose „missisremember seriously outranks misremember“.
Go then remember the fake italian sentence they put together in the nineties - „par lavora, utricante dopo la leggia“ (par lavora - a couple of lavors*, u tri kante - into three buckets, do pola leđa - halfway down the back). I translated it in parts for Stanley and again had to explain what's a lavor, none of us knew the english word for it.
Around the second shot we remembered it's time for beans tomorrow, guess enough time passed since the last time, when we ate it for four days. There was enough for five days, but that fifth dose is in the freezer, waiting for some day when we run out of inspiration. And there I remembered how granma kept finding bad grains in the beans. Checking the beans before cooking was a necessity. She'd put the two handfuls on the table, pot in [her, not anyone else's!] lap, and any bad grains would be pushed aside. There'd be about a spoonful or two of rotten, half-eaten, coloured (why is „discoloured“ proper english?) grains, and a few nuggets of other organic matter. I asked whether it still requires checking, and yes she still does it just in case, but it's been a while since the last time she had to discard any. And in the morning, sure enough, she reported nothing discarded. And the beans are the cheaper ones from Mere. We found a different fault with Mere, the meat products (all shrinkwrapped), the manufacturer measures it and prints the weight on a sticker, then they measure it again and put their own sticker with the price... and often they miss so the the first number is visible, the manufacturer measured 372 grams, and they found 388. These stickers regularly weigh about 5% of the contents, despite all being the same size.
The beans came out excellent, boiled away but didn't fall apart, the meats she threw in (new ham from Mere, the old one already soaked the smells from the fridge, the cats had a swell party, the long fermented njeguška [sausage], bacon, the skin from old bacon) all excellent, two bolivian[ hot pepper]s just enough to make it almost hot, five drops of chili sause get it to the point.
In the afternoon, news - Dejran (v. 14-XII-1995.) died. The burundi was abuzz for half an hour, and oldwave for a day, the latter of course more so because we all met him at times, and knew him at length from sezam. I didn't really have much of memorable stuff on him. Back then when I bought Bitstream's fonts from them (v. 04-X-1989.), ZŽ was forthcoming and all proper, while Dejran pretended I wasn't there. And once later, probably in 1997, I dropped by their (second) company offices for something, and same [thing] again, this look from above, what are you from that Banat even looking for here, we're the Belgraders, bro. Guess with him that secret society feeling was missing, which I have met before in all such cases, from amateur movie makers, then later mathematicians and programmers, that of a some brotherhood. Guess it was him, because I can barely remember, off the top of [my] head, two or three such guys.
The Globaltel took 250 dinges from me to renew the second package, which I absolutely don't need. Well for your mother's cunt, five years ago you took 800 of my dinars because too much time has elapsed since the last payment, no matter that the payments didn't expire when I switched to you, and I don't care that everyone else does that, it's still no excuse... So I wasn't lazy and dialed them up. Got an operator amazingly fast, and I explained the matter, why would I take a new plan when I have the old one, and why did they offer this new plan last month exactly 15 minutes before the old one would be renewed automatically. Did that intentionally to think that they had a new team, new scheme of plans, that the old plans were discarded and replaced with all new, and then fifteen minutes later it turns I have the old plan on top of this. The kid said it was a welcome package, well nice send my greetings to your programmers and ask them why the nice was I listed if I'm already six years with you. And what do you mean welcome package for those who already have a number from you. Okay maybe for those who came on board yesterday, but that's not me. Whatever, they returned the money within ten minutes. So, there.
Go posted the first video from this year's series „how I used my quilting technique and three dee printing to make a tote“. The tote is, by the way, a small miracle of design, and technique is... well it didn't exist before. Yes, miracle. And the cinematograhic work is professional level, all is seen that needs to be seen, all the excess was snipped out, whatever anyone misses can be replayed or paused, sound is completely good. She knows how, all of it.
An email from, another miracle, Burt. And he mentioned that Beatrice did reply to his last email but forgot to copy me.
Wensday, 12th. Belobrk, Zelena 3.2 and 3.3, so we're down to five cats - Džimi, Rundek, Suši, Vafl, Zelena 3. Then Zelena 3.2 made a return appearance, which makes it six again.
And I finally moved my ass to start doing what's since long ago on my to-do list - on thursday I bent one rebar of 8mm (I chopped off the shorter edges of the bed frame of her once project, which she welded back in 1999 and then quit; it was in the garden, acting as a trellis for green beans) to act as a hook, and on friday I laid it over a beam in the garage, then took Linda's bike and pumped up its tyres (and on Nina's too) and hung it on this hook. Two more bikes and the winter is allowed to begin.
In the evening we sat to finish the last of the 20.3 tutifruti (what little was left) then switched to the big cask of the new pear. (... 24 words...)
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* I asked on burundi whether anyone knows what's lavor called in english. And there it was, it's a „theatre bowl“, which is great, because nobody knows the word. Out there they don't use them at all, they aren't sold anywhere, nobody knows what they are. So it has a proper translation and it's still untranslatable.
Mentions: 04-X-1989., 14-XII-1995., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, Beatrice Palmieri, Bečkerek, Bejewelled2, burek, burundi, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), klinceza, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), oldwave, Reginald Burton Cape (Burt), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sezam, Stanley Berger, Tanja Nastić, tutifruti, in serbian
10-XI-2025 - 7-IV-2026