Announced on burundi „saint twonyninth, to all who celebrate... specially [those] in whose yard [it] squealed this morning and now already a burner whooshes, and to those who figured out a way to not work yesterday, and won't work on monday and tuesday either“. Eh, yeah, the happy times when the holliday falls exactly on weekend so two following days are off too.
First snow fell, only in Belgrade and thereabouts though, here just some drizzle, no weather at all, didn't feel like peeking out. Lena sent a video, Tanja walking on snow [for] the first time. Found a larger twig, Api took over, being a dog he knows all abou it, knows his job. The snow, though, barely pswdered the ground, just to say it was white a bit. And she likes it in the mangers [what we call the youngest grade of kindergarten, up to 2 years of age]. During the walk she recognized its entrance and led mom straight there.
Our count of cats was reduced again. Džimi is not appearing third day in the row, and neither is Zelena 3.2. Remain Rundek, Vafl, Suši and Zelena 3.1. So this fall we got five cats shorter, if we count Zelena 2 (who was old already and greatly emigrated to epistolary membership, lived at neighbor's and just added herself to the lunch list). It's possible that the dog catchers simply stopped operations, or don't cover the area anymore, and people managa like in the villages, leave poison from time to time, and cats find it. I can even imagine who that could be, as cats are territorial, don't go beyound third house, and we don't have too many neighbors.
And we finished this month's batch of sarma - we had them on monday and tuesday, then a cauliflower musaka (aka moussaka) [for] two days, then again sarma two days. There was enough musaka for three days, but she just had enough, so instead the made a nice čorbica and made pohovan'd drumsticks, thighs and wings, and nirvana again. And lo, I finally had a kilo off, at 84. And sunday afternoon nap didn't go, I lied half an hour, relaxed nicely, but wouldn't come to eyes. No mind, sat back at the machine and watched all day how are the local elections passing in two small towns and the fucken Trbnjevo. The whole Ćacilend was rescheduled to jobs and work tasks of threatening and beating anyone who'd oppose the electoral will of the power, the observers from Crta had 40 tyres cut on 12 vehicles (but they still had a reserve plan and got to their polling stations, even though two larger trees were felled on their way to more remote villages and blocked the road). After dinner I sank really deep onto sleep, seriously, but expiriencedly held the phone in [my!] hand, counting on Dragana waking me up in thirty minutes. It was more like 50, but I neatly woke up as soon as it rang (I keep the sound of that mortar, the mortar being gone in the theft from the old house), see us tomorrow.
Then Nina called, and we talked at length. She's seeing some guy from Brazil, who's here on aitchwanbee which just expired. He filed the paperwork two weeks ahead of expiry, counting on them to handle it in a week, but nope, now it's a month and is topped with five weeks of the state apparatus being on apparatus, i.e. unfinanced while the tug of budget was on. So, fuckit, he'll have to go back to Brazil until that is settled. And she said why not, if that Scotsman was her guest, she may go to Brazil a bit. Linda and Sanda are making some bead bracelets. She has to tie the knot on the rubber thread for Sanda, while Linda can tie her own. The girls were a bit sad to hear that Džimi was gone, but then okay, we still have Rundek and Vafl (waffle), whom they know. In other news, Raja installed Kubuntu.
Go and Stanley woke up delayedly, so they also called later, said they celebrated some the evening before. The story was, in good part, on finance and politics, because we asked what to do with the reserve of dinars they hold here, should we buy euros, dollars or gold. Because the dinar is artificially pegged to euro, and stands att 117,17 (today, though, 117,38), and now it's even in some semiofficial channels a flea released that it should go to at least 180. burundi has its own experts, who said at least two years ago that it should be, realistically, around 300. And then we, of course, meandrated the talk to Vučić and his falanga ant the rest of the cartel, starting with the latest landslide in Kragujevac, over the collapse of the ceiling in the Pinki sports hall, to today's elections. Around 0:20 Stanley was out of the frame, they two talked about some bag sewing tricks (how to insert the piping into the handle) and I practically fell asleep. They shooed me to bed and continued for a bit more.
Monday. Aleksa's wife came to borrow the wheelbarrow, said they bought [fire]wood, to haul it in. Don't see where to, there's only the terrace to pile them on. A more important new[s]: Džimi returned! Somewhat worse for a wear, tail somewhat tangled, but just the same. We have a matriarch again. She got the drumstick bone to gnaw at, and she heartily leaned on the job.
For the frendz parti at Dragana we prepared the same pear, this year's, which we already verified, so not to take the cask off the stool. I meant to bring the shooter, because I made maybe three shots since last trip to Belgrae, fucken november is no inspiration at all. I forgot it at the last second, sheer damage, it was foggy like it wasn't in a while. I even put on the socks, what could I do, and the deeper shoes, the black work [ones] which I wear fifteenth year in the row, just shone them and went. I wheezed a bit, couldn't catch my regular breathing rhythmh, and yet it wasn't such a problem that I'd ask for a breather break. At the exchange by Lidl she took 1000€, won't go to waste, and while she was at it I caught [my!] breath and walked the rest of it regularly. There was another break, when she went into the third Svetofor, by once bager, to buy butter (now that we have proper bread to spread it on). I went in as well, just to see what's it like, wasn't crowded. There's a fence but only in the tunnel leading to the back hangar, where it is not. But she later told me that in there it's a real labyringh, when leaving the cold storage she had to ask for directions - I wouldn't know, because just as we were at the hangar, they amped up some nasty narodnjaci, to which I said (also to the cashier, while exiting) that I don't have to listen to ćaci music. So I waited outside.
And despite two breaks (couldn't make it three, Roda is closed, inventory, though we didn't need Roda but rather the serekeš and pharmacy in its lobby), we arrived ahead of Borče, who came on foot too. I ran to the bahroom first, because it got to me psychologically, didn't matter that I decanted twice before starting, and because my face was all wet, the fog condensed on [my!] beard, not proper for the greeting kiss. I relieved [my...] feet of shoes and socks, no screw me no more.
The rakija went well, we even postponed the dinner twice and poured more rakija, it all in those chrom[e plat]ed pots anyways and won't cool just like that. And for dinner there was, as promised, almost per bet, the poultry* soup, boiled meat from the soup and the cherry sauce. Really sorry that I didn't bring the shooter, just because of the fog and the sauce, both look good. I shot a handful with the phone, at the table, same as they ever are. I did eat a sauce like that in Hungary, in that teaching school's mess hall, but it was white with whole cherries; thse were pitted and it was all dark teget** crimson red, and we ate our lot. And she reported that she did cook the curry as per the recipe we provided, and it came out exactly as it was at our place.
The discussion was fierce, fast and I remember practically none of it (but as usual, will insert here if I remember any of it). Eh, yes, the time in 1980, when she was recovering from the shattered ankle, they went to her aunt in Dubrovnik, and she had no other company and was itching to go out, and so her dad made her company. They just went out on Stradun, sat out, had at least a coffee, and she just heard the local squire bums commenting „look at the old fart walking such a hot chick“.
Don't remember how many bottles of wine we opened. This was the first time she didn't bring out the wine glasses, just reused the brandy shots, and hers are of about deci and a half, no fault. There was some cake, from the [green] market, nice small and not too sweet, just properly whelmed, and I didn't go overboard with anything, maybe a little with the wine, but didn't have a problem trying to sleep afterwards. We switched the cabbies, not calling 566 anymore, since they were bought by someone, along with the 588 guys, but rather 611, who are still no private enterprise but a proper independent cabbies' cooperative. I checked their site in the afternoon, by surnames they all sound rather Lala, almost all of them except maybe one highlandre at the end of the list. And he wasn't driving by the geepyess, but by memory mostly, and the regular „the light blue one on the left side“ sufficed, as usual, he spotted Joda and stopped by it. Borče's cab was due a few minutes after, and when we embarked he remembered the jacket that Dragana unarchived, too small for her now and may suit his granddaughter soon - he forgot to bring it along, so rushed back to fetch it. Well he could have called her to throw it from her terrace...
Tuesday, 2nd. And Zelena 3.2 also returned, we're back at six cats. My sleeping is almost as if back to normal, from 21:30 until 4:30, then 16:05 to 18:30... On wensday evening we talked with Lena (she skipped the regular call the day before, because Stojan came by), and this time not from the phone but rather from the new tablet, the picture being nicely horizontal and Tanja would like to touch it, and she did manage to move the Telegram offscreen, so we saw them but they us didn't. So we had to break and call them back, resume. She now also knows how to don Lena's knit cap, and dad's too, and Api's collar, no, two collars. And knows how to remove... one collar, needs help when there are two. She was in somewhat bad mood the day before, the nanny was away, but today it was a song, we had a relly good time with her.
Lena now lifts 105 kg, dead.
On thursday we quit the tap water. On one side Dragana's boiler croaked (I gave up on calling them their commercial name 'water heater', as Stanley told me they're also colloquially called boilers; the word was reserved for the big kettles in central heating, and that was just equally wrong in both cases, they never boil the water), which is no big deal, it was 53 years old, but they're croaking around town en masse since the day this new white water was introduced. And the yeast culture in the jar croaked when it fed it, no bubbles, doesn't raise. Luckily, we bought three 6l bottles just in case, and now make coffee with it. Not that I'm clumsy with the cask, don't know how many times I filled kids' bottles from such and that without a funnel, the old laboratory rat still knows even how to pour patoka [the last weak brandy that gets passed into the next still] staight from the bowl also without a funnel. But this comes somehow strange.
In the evening the tobacco run, priced still at 3400 per kilo. May Vučistan go fuck itself and shove the excise tax where it pleases it the most.
The rasejani chimed in, on the account of the congratulation of saint twonyninth (of two or three years ago, just continued the thread), and if finally became clear why did the software on which old sezam ran was something no-stink-no-smell for a week or two (v. 14-XII-1995.) and then replaced with something tenth.
Mrgud [curmudgeon] neighbor seems to have sold the house. We saw a truck, and someone in coverall peeking around the façade, and don't see his car anymore (though the car wasn't always on the lawn, he may be the only guy in the street who uses the garage as a garage), the shades were rolled down for two-three days, are up now but no curtains. I'm neither sad nor glad, he was a strange character but wasn't a bad neihgbor.
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* not chicken soup, adult hen, for proper taste
** teget is the (german? austrohungarian) word for very dark blue, as in tuxedo or winter coat
29-XI-2025 - 25-III-2026