15-II-2026.
Last evening we first exterminated the current [tekuće, in serbian, i.e. flowing aka liquid] reserves, whatever was left - she two beers (dark budvár), me one and two pears (that's 0,04l times two). And then eventually round it up with one more shot, I refilled the bottle, and then slept nicely. I made frequent pea breaks all evening - late coffee, čorba for dinner, see vitamin, beer... but resumed them at dawn, finally woke up to the fourth trip to the bathroom because the nose joined the party. She rushed to do everything before leaving - to bake mufljuzi (v. house dictionary), to cook big pot of beans for Lena, to make mushroom sauce and fry pohovan'd steaks for Milan (and for our lunch, to eat before leaving). I even had time to fry three seedees for the car, have a nap before takeoff, and visit bathroom two more times, in latent fear of rain inspired pee scenario. The wether was ugly, some boring cold soaker was drizzling, the Belgrades won't go anywhere, I may park faar and will be manic panic until I reach the bathroom there. But none of that, the rain eased up, and despite driving rather slow - various cracks on the road were promoted into potholes over the winter and are less visible, so full of water, which paired with some wind doesn't make driving any easier.
Milan was at the gym, was just getting there when we arrived, so Lena sent him a message that his pohovan'd just arrived, was on the parking lot, but he was brave and stayed there to the end. Why drive to the gym? Well, it's the same one from the old end, the best one, they had switched to nearer ones but one was too crammed in small space, the other was chilly, he'd catch some kind of flu there too often, and then they developed even some mildew, evil smells, ciao.
Tanja was in her best edition. Face cleared up, the last traces of measles barely visible, wouldn't even notice had I not known where to look. She ate two mufljuzes, and then ate beans. Lena first sniffed the box for a couple of minute, sighing, and then eventually took to eating, two plates. I resorted to my customary trick, pretended to want to take a nap, to which Tanja would come to climb over me, use me as a backrest, ride me... And then, like she does every time, she'd let me actually sleep for fifteen to twenty minutes, the real paor (qv.) nap, which just suits me and the short duration is of no consequence. Because then she appears a pedalj from my face, slaps the couch with both palms and eagerly awaits my reaction - I wake up immediately, see her and smile, both of us happy to see each other.
At some time I corrected Milan when he said „baby“, refering to Tanja. I said no, baby is Lena's tenant, this here is a child. Whoa, yeah, right, we have to update the terminology.
We haven't spoken with Nina this week, assuming she was busy about the birthdays, but she did speak with sisters. So, this latest candidate guy returned from that strummer cruise and stated that he had thought of it and that they aren't quite compatible souls. And he meant to take one of his exes to the cruise but she stiffed him out, and of course Nina couldn't take a whole week off her life to join him. Lena's impression is that it's a generational thing, he's four years older and it seems like there's a line drawn between, just like Go and Nina always had some quarrel going on, while she and Nina went along just fine, despite the age difference in the first case being only four years and nine in the oher. Bah, I said, your difference is two years, proven that day in Walmart.
It's so hard to find a male who'd endure more than a month-two, even to just regularly see each other. There Vera also bemoans the case, she found one and had to invest a lot of effort to get rid of him. The kind they manufacure these days.
Driving home, weather lousy and good for nothing, the sleet turned into snow. In silence, because it again didn't recognize the last seedee and instead kept reverting to Studio Beh, yeah right just watch me how I'll listen to that, that's not even to serve close to once Studio Beh, and it won't reach even Čenta, and then it'll switch me to who knows which shit, it's safer to just turn it off. What snow was falling in town lasted to about Pekabe, thin sleet henceforth, all wet, asphalt glittery. At exit from Čenta two guys passed me, and we kept some moderate speed, 70-80, and that's the straight leg where everyone does about hundred when it's dry and when the potholes are patched, and they've just multiplied. Just when we reached this cruising speed, all three of us get passed by some huge black thing, with I think kikindian tags, eyeballingly must have done 120-140, who knows.
Fifteen kilometers later we see him turned on the roof on the right shoulder of the road, and a white car on the left, facing opposite direction, the engine shoved far to its right. In both cases the cabins were intact. Six or seven people were standing by the road. That's as much as I had a time to see, I was driving and rather had to watch for pieces of debris on the pavement, but missus observes around. They were bending down to see if the guy in the black tank was alive, but he was invisible behind the blown airbags. Couple of cars stopped already to see if they can help. We saw incoming cops and ambulancet eventually by the „odmaralište“ at Ečka. (the word for 'restarea' is 'odmorište' and that's what he meant for his big restaurant and big outside tent; the word 'odmaralište' means 'resort', historically of the workers' dorm-and-mess-at-sea type)
Driving in a rainy night is tiresome, you don't see the roadside stripe, you dno't know how far right does the pavement go, specially when ten are coming to meet you. By Lingling it was surreal, everything's properly marked and visible, left and right stipe and the middle, but the vertical stripes of their reflections are criscrossing with them, it's a three dee conundrum to spin your head. The right turn to Mere was actually the only screwy moment, where I drove by literally dead reckoning, because a row was coming from town, and on my side of the road there was just one sign to denote the median triangle of the exit, and some grass around it. Well this is where I drove each time so far, so I guess I won't ride into the ditch... And memory served me well, I drove exactly where I should.
We got the groceries in Mere, got home, drizzle sleet showed no sign of stopping. Signed out to Lena that we arrived, then I took the nap. Parked the phone by [my!] head, and as I predicted, Dragana called at 19:40, we see us tomorrow.
Then I sat and did the photos, for the previous two weeks. Usually one week's crop is enough to merit being called a batch, but nothing to see this time. This was shot on Mere's parking while she was returning the cart, the light pattern of raindrops just happened as if posing, I liked the view.
With our Seattleians as usual, no big news. Neša had a new one, though:
- what do you call a dysfunctional language?
- inglitch
(likewise had excellent recceptrion on burundi)
Monday, 16th. For lunch, burrito of leftover (fill, not ready made, not nice when it nights already rolled) from saturday, turned out a bit too large, didn't finish it, and cats don't mind it hot.
For the frendz parti she decided to walk not, the weather being smudgy and we'd carry a load. This solved my footwear problem - it's too early for slippers, and I wear the clogs rarely enough for the upper leather to stiffen, I'd probably develop blisters or limp by the time we got there, so it'd have to be socks and shoes. Well, for this much the clogs will do, door to cab, cab to Dragana. Few hours before leaving, Nina called, the regular. We knew that the strummer fell off, and now she said it officially, and more or less just shrugged the matter off, had no high hopes anyway. Then Lena called, as Tanja spotted the phone and went on „Deda baba deda deda baba baba“. We added her to the conversation and ran that until almost seven. I showered quickly, takes me less than ten minutes, and by then the conversation ended.
The cab driver almost got lost, because someone on number 7 put up a number 33, as per the renumeration of four years ago, of which nobody knew and which was given up on meanwhile anyway. I understood what was up, so I turned on the phone light and waved, he noticed and came to us. Borče was right behind us when we got to the entrance, so we came in together. We delivered all the load - the Campari (the second bottle from Stojan, of the first one we had a shot and concluded it was not for us), ten eggs and a bone for the soup, largish, should make some fifteen plates.
Borče poured, unsparingly, and I just felt like accepting the challenge... For the second round he poured even more, and for the third I said only 4mm and he respected that, but I got myself done by then. She said it's been years since she last saw me drink so much and so fast, well, truth be told, I don't remember seeing myself either. I guess I didn't spew much bullshit, though I wasn't completely present either - e.g. I don't remember what she discussed with Borče because Dragana and I took that as a time to discuss something among ourselves (which I likewise don't remember, but that's normal, I usually don't remember any of it, and when I write it here it usually takes me two-three days to remember), that Dragana didn't eat any of the piglet roast she made (or ordered), nor that I heckled Borče several times with 'in reverse' whenever he'd say 'backwards'* (I remember the first time only). I didn't spill anything, didn't burn the tablecloth, didn't drop anything on the floor, and when I walked to the toilet I remember that I had no problem to renegotiate my contract with gravity. Didn't even have a fit of coughing like then, didn't forget to pack anything in the end, and even regularly called the cab. Even that piece of cake I smartly stretched over at least fifteen minutes, so I didn't notice what a dry fake it was, the industrial substitute for ersatz whipped cream. So I had no nasty burps and reflux, she did.
I wouldn't count this as a blackout, because I don't remember any period which I don't remember (ha!), though it may count as a near to it. I have no idea why I took the challenge, guess I was bored, and didn't do myself in in quite a long time, so revisited it to see how's it looking now. Later she said „you gave up on your principle of not dinking without a clear line to the bed“ - „no, the line stayed neat and clear and we arrived fine“. And I slept smoothly, no digestion problems. But was half asleep all day on tuesday, barely talked. In the evening I took for an hour and a half of nap, guess the popara for supper knocked me out.
Wensday, more or less nothing. Refreshed zmajček, they rarefied the updates around the new year and now they cropped up at large. My problem is reading news in Firefox, which became glutnnous, and as I open each article I want to read in a new tab, it eats so much memory to knock the machine down to [its] knees. I usually have the patience to wait for the system to notice my actions, close the Firefox and reopen it - it doesn't read all of it at once, just parks the tabs and reads them when I focus on them, one at a time. But that's not good enough, so starting tomorrow I'll retrain myself to read the news the way I read the forum - open one article, read it, navigate back to the list. True, in the news portals the list is longer than one page, and by the time I've read the third, what was the last article on it is already in the middle of the fourth, so I have to refresh more often, go to top of the page to see what's new etc, which is cumbersome but still better than getting the machine stuck. And I use Firefox for news because of the neat combination of filters - it still hides the ads, but shows the inline videos and shots form instagram and twitter, which are filtered out in Waterfox. I can see all of it in Chromium, there's no filter at all there, so there's video (!) ads for various turds between paragraphs of an article.
At least I went to pay off all the bills. This month, apart from the usual power, gas is also late, paid the rest. On return dropped by detelina, couldn't do on the way out, they had three vehicles delivering goods at the same time, the krkljanac (congestion, but 'krkljati' actually means to try to speak with something in the throat) unseen. No cash at the serekeš, the date is near the due date for the utilities, then it's empty, just like around eighth-ninth when the retirements land.
Tried to fix something about multiselect in Python i.e. Dabo, because Ed Leafe appeared on the Dabo mailing list, which is by some miracle still operational. Well, I thought this may be something I may fix myself... but nope, that's somewhere deep in the bowels of wx, which was written in see, so I just gave up on it. But there, I poked at Python a little, which I didn't touch for a month or two already, yet solved nothing this time. In mrz it sill skips some twenty titles below the place where I deleted something, or it fails to refresh the playlist after deletion... There are several catches which I'm like fixing a whole year now and still nothing.
We postponed the entertainment again, this time on account of beans... but sat and had a few shots instead. We didn't overdo it, what we had time for in those three hours, three and a half of our shots, just like three regulars. That's the way, I love this better, to do myself just enough to feel fine and fall asleep easily, and don't have to shout to be heard, nor to eat. Slept until noon, and then čorba and đuveč. Again, as with the beans, felt as if there was one slight unwanted component to the taste, which I was unable to isolate and recognize, it felt like a bit of an annoyance and then also didn't. Hmmm... still, far better than what she read is presently sold in the US, what they do with food there...
Slept until noon, then didn't in the afternoon, would be too much. Finished Baxter's „Raft“... well, there, it's noticeably his first, the time when you're full of ideas and the rest of the cycle is barely outlined in your head. At least he didn't mention too much of what he hadn't written yet, and managed to fit it all together smoothly later. But it's still hollow in places, no matter how much the physics is exotic, it still has inconsequent spots in it - on a 15m ball he gets underground and... what, goes down how many floors? Or, the Boneys are all alike - so, evolution already did its thing, in mere five centuries. Well, he put his style in order, got rid of many things he had here, which were actually good. Don't see why Reynolds is so fond of him, he's not the young talent anymore, he publishes for thirty yers now, and could clean Reynolds's shoes.
On thursday we finally entertained ourselves, and had only two shots after, just enough, and of course I woke up at five and then at six and then sleeping didn't work - ernafil makes the middle part of my nasal cavity swell, about that many hours after, and it's no use, it takes some twenty mintues to clear out and by then I'm awake. At least the čorba and đuveč were better reheated, perhaps that ingredient evaporated or fermented.
We made noodles again, but fixed the barrel first. The new one, of 120 liters, which we bought this fall when we ran out of space for pear mush. And now it smells of pear, and then so do the noodles which we stored in it for a while. We immediately remembered the tale of dad's soap brandy and the other story about the barrels from Luxol... So she put a tablet of something she procured last year, when she was trying to make chlorine dioxyde (which worked later, by different method, these tablets have a random concentration between 15 and 30%, very precise) into a liter yogurt bucket, and let the reaction work overnight. Then it was a bit of excitement when I took it out, her hand is a bit short to reach that deep, and even I would be in trouble if the wee bucket was 5cm shorter. Then we had to air the space for a few hours. And the small batch of noodles with slight smell of pear, well it ain't too bad, it's an acquirable taste, could declare it a specialty and charge dearly, as they did with that spoilt vinegar which then turned out to be good for balsaming, or the spoilt milk that they later called cheese.
On saturday, 21st, new video from Lena with Tanja bringing bathroom toys to Api and keeps saying „ne, ne, ne“ (no, no, no). On the webs, looking how the editorial policy in Danas and on N1, based in London I'd say, is still unchanged, despite them undergoing the management change, what with Brent Sedlar and Steve Miller in the saddle and finally managing to remove Aleksandra Subotić as CEO of United Media... And Radar's site is not under a DDOS attack (checking... well, frontpage comes fast, but the article about Danijela Maletić, from money laundering prevention authority, which I already read yesterday, takes half a minuta, but further articles came fine). Power and gas bills finally arrived, with the former being a specially low kind of cuntery - the december bill was the lowest of the whole year, never spent less, the thinnest ever, and now for january it's by a quarter larger than the second largest, despite not once having turned on the airconditioning. And the cooking was mostly for 3-4 days in advance, and I even unplugged that Playstattion, which we don't use at all, serves no purpose (and I wouldn't even know how to use it, screw me with those computers with no keyboard nor mouse).
Another postcard from Burt, but this time he's not in the frame, amazingly, it's a hodgepodge of tensome hens and two roosters. He dropped by his brother. The postman brough it to the door, too big for our mailbox. The postman is a good guy, just like the old one was, who resembled major Briggs from Twin Peaks.
Ongoing exchange of epistolary fire with the host of sGradlj.com, now after twenty years and then some more they got the bright idea to charge for email. It seems they have an investor infestation - I see they replaced the stats package couple of years ago, and the web mail interface too (which was a bit murky, and just now I got used to it, when a spam message gets the download stuck, I go there and block the sender and download the rest, happens twice a week this year) - now they expect that some earning will start dripping, it seems to be going on too slow. And the guy started mentioning some discount, to which I'll reply eventually on monday.
Laer in the day Nina called, and lo I took the call on zmajček, heard each other just fine. Situation regular, the only news is that Mark chimed in, after being fucked off by all other chicks, with one it almost came to lawyers, and she's some flower too, she spun (just like he did)) at least four other guys. So he remembered to unblock her wherever he had blocked her and she him didn't, tail between legs and asked to reheat the sarma. She said not in a million years. And in a million and one? Maybe. So there's hope. Yup, keep hoping.
Then Lena called so we added her to the chat. Of course, Tanja started with 'deda, baba!“ and kept pointing at us on the screen. I fished a few good screenshots (aka sievebullets) and look at that, on one [of them] she's the spitten image of baba from her first passport. These were actually the first shots I made this week. Eventually the next day I put the card back into the shooter, but here it's already monday and I still took not one shot, the weather being none at all. Drizzle one day, then two days with maybe some sun in the morning, but it all stays wet until the next drizzle, despite some breeze.
Sunday, talk with the Seattleians. Two interesting tales - one was how a buddy of Stanley's [his what?] dropped by, some altogether likable guy, to just shoot breeze with them. He blew maybe one joint, there was no booze (except wine, which didn't count), took maybe some mushroom, and around midnight lifted anchors to go home, and just fell on the stairs. They got him up, he had a few light scratches from the shrub, no trouble, off he goes and falls again. They dragged him in and let him sleep it off. The guy was awake for 40 hours, works sales and had to keep tabs on thing, make calls etc. Well, fuck. He woke up at five, and so did Stanley, „good that you're awake to lock behind me“.
The other story was how Anita started drawing on a computer, actually on a tablet first but Go thought it would be better to learn to do it for real, so she dug out an old graphic tablet and oops its pencil is broken. Missing the ring which affixes the tip. It got lost or fell apart, can't find it. So she started looking for a replacement and oops again, it's either 70$ for a new pencil, or seconhand everything for 40$, also available for 200. And he said „why not look it up on thingiverse?“. And there, they had the blueprint file. She printed it and in after 20 minutes altogether the pencil just worked.
Throughout the day (22nd february) it happened two-three times that the temperature, bottom right corner of the clock, was also 22.2°. Wish I took a shot of the display at 22:02, we'd have a chance of „look, someone's thinking of us“, but the clock was behind our backs at the time.
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* 'unazad' - backwards - is one weird loan, from russian language for once. The phrase in russian was „три года тому назад“ (tri goda tomu nazad) - three years to it back, or to the rear of it - which means „three years before [that]“, where 'that' is the matter from the first part of sentence, defaulting to now. How it came into serbian as „unazad“ is beyond me, and it's used regardless of the actual/previous meaning of the word. „Unazad“ is an adverb, meaning „in reverse“, applies to any motion in the direction opposite to forward. Now the only case when I approve the usage is „the buses on main station are starting their rides fifty years backwards“ (trying to say „it's already fifty years since they started“), because they do, they park with their noses to the curb and have to get in reverse to get out. But „people think for at least five years in reverse“ is unimaginable - I think my brain is capable of many things, but thinking in reverse I can't even imagine. I proposed to replace 'unazad' with 'unatrag' (same word, actually, can replace one with the other almost anywhere, except in these cases, but then why not) or 'unatraške' which is a colloquial form of the latter, mostly applies to walking or driving backwards.
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, burundi, čorba, detelina, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Mark Anderson, Milan Nastić, mrz pladžer, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pedalj, pohovano, Reginald Burton Cape (Burt), sarma, serekeš, sGradlj.com, Stanley Berger, Stojan Nastić, Tanja Nastić, Vera Vraneš, yogurt, zmajček, in serbian
15-II-2026 - 25-III-2026