08-IV-2026.
Skipping tuesday, there was nothing. Wensday, 8th. We mean to buy some smaller švorceniger, battery powered, for here. Got into Joda and drove around - first to Miletićeva, then by Kapetanija, then the shop on Žitni (luckily, closed, so didn't have to trouble myself with parking), and eventually to Šuma Trejd, with that sweettalker cuntie. He swept out all the wares which weren't Stihl's, and for the švorceniger he'd most prefer not to do much himself, but rather to have me take just the starter off and mind the 8 screws and bring it to him. All in all, nobody's got much of anything but the sure sellers. There's the online, which is a cat in the sack. At least we got to the Mere and bought the sour and regular water (not making coffee with česmovača, fuck that off), more flowerpots and they finally had hake. Didn't have the pangasius, though, but never mind, it can wait.
In the afternoon we won the two third majority in Spider - out of 465 games this year, 310 victories. Once we considered 10% a success. In the evening, with pear, the wisdom tooth upped its act. I remembered that the clove is an anaesthetic, she dug up the wee bag, I bit one and parked it up behind the tooth. Not that the pain disappeared, but felt much lighter so we could stay another hour. And it got colder outside, so we turned the heating on again. Just when we put together a whole week heating by airconditioning. At least no frost, knock on wood.
I'm inserting this shot because it again lined up so that we have sunshine in the room, an hour before sunset. And these crescents she kneaded, she fumbled with the recipe, grew a new yeast culture, not with just water and flour, but with fruit solution and flour, guess it was apples or something. The yeast really grew faster and behaved differently in some ways. This was filled with something akin to pizza topping, excellent. Whenever it's something with layered dough, I must watch the amount I eat, and how fast, because I digest it slowly, so have to know my limits - three, four tops in one day. Of this I ate at least six, and had no trouble whatsoever.
A propose sunshine in the rooms, my solar alarm clock just broke. Last year, april-may, it regularly occurred that the position of the sun was such that it would beam right over my pillow in the morning. This year it happened once these days, not much, and after that not at all. The cherry grew extra branches, hid it.
Before evening Tanja wanted to see us, just about dinner, so we talked a litle. In the garten they had prepared something eastery, and Lena added some small toys (stickers, cutouts, whatever), but Tanja paid it no heed, went down to her changing seat, got off her inhouse footwear (patofne, whatever in english), put on her sneakers, donned her jacket (all on her own!) and was ready to go home. She's not veering off her path. They have a fake sunset in the apartment - the kitchen is facing south, but the skyscraper (under construction) across is already glassed up to the needed height, and shines a reflection straight at them. Doesn't look bad. We scheduled a paprikaš for sunday, not of lamb, that we'll do for ourselves some other time.
On friday I finished the ride through the blogue, concluding with 27-IV-2007. (ham from K-mart). I went bass ackwards there, because the exemelle with contents was written so, antipedagogically, from new to old. I found (and didn't insert here) another series of shots against the western navel gazing, on a SF writer from Dozois's collection, who made a whole story around hyperbolic geometry (which he wrapped upon an elliptic surface (!)), and got the whole gallery laid out... There's Gauss, and Bolyai, and Riemann, and above all Poincaré. He only forgot that none of these guys had the guts to publish their results, and Poincaré even didn't have anthing game-changing, he only built a successful model in which to draw that hyperbolic geometry (I should know, I had that on the exam), but the guy who first published it was Lobačevski, whom this cuntscribe doesn't even mention at all. Looking up the guy's name - look, ma, Stephen Baxter. Ah, so we're acquainted already. I quit reading the „Ring“ right there (was really waiting for an excuse, didn't feel like reading it further). I'm switching to Čina Mijevil (working title, until I read enough of his stuff and then read about the writer, including the proper pronunciation of the name). The first piece I read was solid mockery, but fuckit, does even that have to happen in London.
We drank nothing on thursday and friday, to rarefy it a little and do avoid activatiny my tooth. It does bug me still, but less in both strength and length (ah, avoided latin, intensity and duration came to mind and saw no reason to hang around in it), it sort of wakes me up but falls below treshhold (yes! always!) in a couple of minutes. Eventually before midnight I remembered and shortened [my] beard, it was becoming an obstacle. I didn't since, I guess, november. I got used to the length of 10-50mm, when it gets twice that it already requires attention.
It got rather chilly, so we turned the heating on again, but regardless, I keep getting the impression that the quilt thinned out. The t-shirt which I use as a pyjama when it's like this, seems to be microfiber, it warms you up a little but later I feel as if sweat is evaporating from my back, and at a larger surface at that, just as it felt with that microfiber blanket that mom gave us some fifteen years ago. Worm in the front, bumps my geese in the back. On friday I ditched it, and took the terry cloth blanket under the quilt, and was nicely warm and cozy, slept eight hours in one go, not even a pee break. By the time I got up, around ten, she's made a whole circuit already on bike, bought meat, vegetables and whatnot, even dropped by Rerso (Pepco) to buy wee t-shirts for Tanja. And it won't be just paprikaš, she's making Karađorđeve for Milan. A news: Springfield is now a supermarket, Aman's, what they had by the cemetery they closed and moved here.
In the evening, while we talked with Nina, Borče called, said that from his side we postpone for one week, because on wensday he had the cataract removed, so he's under special regime until it heals. And when he notified Dragana of that, it turns she also has also contracted medicine, she's in her annual medical checkups, magnetic bing bang, so we eyeball it to two weeks rather than one. Nina had no news, no news is the good news. She did meet the majstor (Zack, aka Zek aka zeka, ie bunny) who's fixing Go's house, on the premises, and made a video drive-through for her, to see how things are, what they are pouring money into and to see how to move on. We didn't see the kids much, the older two were busy at their computers and the two stayed online with Anita until six in a morning, and of course were still asleep.
So on sunday she took [her] time making the Karađorđeve, and the paprikaš as well, and we ate, and I even had time for my 15 minutes nap before the drive. The krishchenhood having a holiday, the road was rather empty, except from the other direction, where every few minutes we had a thick column of belgrAders coming here to lunch with their past. Found parking slots to choose from, all neat. Tanja went through her whole programme, from unpacking the new garments, playing with baba, and embraced me again just so (I even got a tiny kiss later!), but the highlight of the day was how seriosuly he leaned on the paprikaš and specially the cabbage (shredded, salad). She ate four chunks of meat (young beef with lots of tendon, excellent), and had three and a half eggs for breakfast. She doesn't mess with food at all, grows as if from water. And then baba took her for a walk, Milan took Api, and Lena and I napped, hour and then some.
Next week Lena is going, office related, to Iceland. Pass my greetings to Björk :).
Talked with our Seattleians in the evening. The first part I weakly remember, the girls were talking of garderning, the sped up composting and whichever related topics. Stanley finally got the check from his dad's savings, just to pay off the bunny. They could actually move there, they got enough reserves to do nothing for two years, and would save the 2700$ in rent every month that they pay now. But he wouldn't have a yard to keep the cars to sell, and she wouldn't have a garden...
Monday, well, nothing. The last day of the cold wave and we don't feel like doing anything (okay, she cooked lunch and planted green beans). At least we improved our solitaire score, 334 victories out of 501 games, 76,07%. In the evening, a clove for the tooth, pear. It worked, didn't wake me.
It does bother me this morning, but not horribly, a quarter of what it was capable of achieving. Annoys, but I'm not holding my head. After lunch, though, I hit a solid nap, counting on her to wake me up to make noodles. But she didn't, decided that there's enough space in the barrel with the wide noodles, and those she can make alone, so she let me sleep, almost to six. That's almost five hours, who knows when will I be able to sleep again. The bad weather was supposed to be over by now, as they put on the long term forecast, the worse should have been yesterday, but no, it was exactly the bird time (for owl or lark**).
Just when I sufficiently woke up to eat the rest of the čorbica, Lena called. Laptop on the table, Tanja in her chair they hang on the edge, eating. Among other stuff, she asked how was the ride back. Well by timestamps of photos before and after, less than 70 minutes, „Joda piči“ [sounds quite close to pička, but isn't, means doing something strongly or quickly]. Tanja heard that and shouted „jaja! pići!“ (eggs, [šta]pići), meaning she now wanted the salty sticks, one of the munchies, I think with peanut chunks inside. Said Tanja got such runs from the lot of paprikaš and cabbage, she overfilled the diaper. Twice.
The larking and crushing (as in mortar and pestle)... when we got the first Fest movies in 1971 into the movie theatres, the translator had to find some replacement for the verb to fuck, because without it often there wouldn't be a sentence. So they invented these two, and amazingly, they were accepted into the language exactly so, as verb which means fuck but doesn't say fuck. In a similar bout of nostalgia, on oldwave Fensi recalls watching „...a recent one, family kind, to watch not with half brain but without any, and in that series a guy, one Ricky enlisted with Marines and they make a sendoff for him. And there, in a corner, I notice a posterboard, rewinded and paused to see whether I spotted it right, and sure did, who'd a thunk, in 2020 someone remembers the line, from a song from the 70s...“. The poster said „Ricky, don't lose my number“. Got me right there... I replied with a link to 10-X-1977., „read the text with the middle photograph“. To that, Škrba said „I've seen many a mixup, but never saw Steely Dan being mistaken for 10cc, this is a first 😃“. You won't trick me, I remember exactly what the guy wrote on the cassette. And Fensi comes with „Whoaaaa where you got me!!! - I clicked the text and went on reading and then saw the picture of that Levi's ad - well I HAD THAT ALMOST 20 YEARS ABOVE MY BED 😱 ♥️ ... The room and the apartment are long gone 😒, at some point, mid nineties, I took down all the posters and I think there's just one photograph left to remind me of that collage... and this picture isn't on it because it was vertical, on the bridge above my head... Now I'll just download yours and print it in color, and I'll put it in my room just like I once did 😊“
On my to-do list for Byo, where I keep brief descriptions of things I recalled and mean to add, found the trange-frange [pronounce as trun-gheh frun-gheh]. Tied to find a photo of it, but it was a dead start, no go, I keep getting the exchange offices, I remember seeing one with that name. Added the word „toy“ to the search term, got toys... the search engines are so stupid. So I asked on burundi, thus:
How internet pees over the originals. I wanted to write something about how dad made trange-frange, which I then worked for two-three hours until I pianoed out the trick. Now to avoid lengthy explanations, decided to look for a picture on them interwebs.
None. I keep getting moneychangers. And I know why, I spotted it myself long ago, but to have the original vanish so fundamentally without a trace... The contraption has become a generic term for anything that goes forth and back a lot while operated, so it was taken as a title in at least five places, all of them visible better than the original. Original never existed.
Too bad, though, mathematically-topologically it's a brain gym of a problem. I wonder whether I'd be able to solve it today. Is there a photo anywhere, or at least a drawing?
To that tFikret said „Give descriptrion first, I didn't even know a tange frange exists and what exactly is a tange frange and nothing else, five+ other meanings I hunch I know. What is it and does it have any other name?“. I ignored the misspelling (but someone else had some ideas, as 'tange' in serbian is 'thongs'...). I replied like this:
Ough... A piece of belt with 12 holes (if I remember correctly. Through each hole a piece of wire (a string would do but works better with wire) of same length, roughly equal to the distance between holes. On each hole a ring (in my case, of 2-3mm thick steel wire, wound around a broom handle). The other part is of the same thicker wire, a stretched out ring, as if a racquet, long as the holes take plus about two holes, and narrow enough to easily pass through the rings.
You start in the position where the long piece is passing through all the rings. Goal is to end with it passing through all the rings but with the holding wires being also inside it, i.e. all the rings are down.
It's operated somewhat like a Rubik's cube, the key move being when you take a ring off the racquet, then pass it through the racquet, then lower it so you again pass the racquet through it. This is where my memory betrays me already, there was one more maneuver which I don't remember.
And then Konjski Nil [nilski konj - horse of the Nile - is a hippopotamus] posted this shot, so I wasn't imagining it :). I can't possibly remember when did dad produce it, maybe in the time when I was attending the mathematical sekcija. And she also remembers seeing it around the house, maybe in that old cabinet in the garage, and that dad was showing it to the girls, but failed to get them interested. I'm baffled with the amount of detail around it that I clearly remember.
Thursday, 16th. I've finally, overyester, mowed the yard - whici is less and less work, as she made two more wigwams for potato and green beans (I honestly warned her that the tents will let rain in.... she doesn't care). I need to take a breather sooner than before, I took breaks literally after each two square[ meter]s. Zelena.3 had kittens, seems early. But then they started early, by two thirds of january.
At least the lung slime is gone, I'm not starting my facewash in the morning by unloading it, and the tooth calmed down. In the evening I parked a clove on the tooth, and left it there to soften, not biting it until the third shot, and it seems I didn't need to. The lilac is blossoming like crazy, she cut some to put on the table. Sipping the pear, the clove letting some of its fragrance out, lilac on the table... And she's right when she says this is our best living so far :). And we did have good fun and I didn't mind delaying the entertainment and not drinking more - we had enough for about three and a half (which is almost three regulars), just right. I spit out the clove in the morning, wasn't bothered all night.
Saturday, 18th. Didn't go to the old house again, and gave up on buying a battery powered švorceniger, it's all pooch's dick, five kinds of batteries, one charge lasts fifteen minutes, it's all made to last two-three years, shove it. There, in detelina I saw they have a scythe handle, so if I don't manage to fix the trimmer myself, I'm going back to scythe. At least I slept in the afternoon, lilac smells in the room, a beauty. She started shredding our tobacco, just a handful a day, with scissors - why not, feels good, gives it a special smack.
Dragana called in the evening, to say we won't see each other, neither this nor next monday. I see you contracted medicine. Ouch, don't sit on my trouble, it's all so disgusting, specially the preparation for rectoscopy, eating nothing for two days, just that powder for emptying. Well you could space it out... So I did, this is on third year now. Okay, then we see us when we see us...
Sunday, dolce far niente. She replanted tomatoes, the wilma cultivar which grows low, bears fruit early and aplenty, into some flowerpots, and I wrote here. In my notes I found I wanted to add the history of what I was doing with radio antennas, so went down that path, peeking at the pictures to see when did we buy that fur rug, knowing we bough it together with the antenna. Found some forgotten shots from them mid eighties, so inserted them where they fit, here, there... And still haven't found that purchase.
There was a leftover middle of a sour cabbage head, so she made a podvarak. As we almost expected, it gave us the runs. I'm fortunate to be a retard, so I got mine half an hour later, so I didn't have to run upstairs to the small bathroom, where the toilet seat lid is falling off. We bought a new one in Mere, this just reminded me to put it on the to-do list, to replace it. The only other item on the list is the rear view mirror (called retrovizor here), as she sometimes has problem hearing cars approaching from behind when she needs to take a left turn into our street. I meant to take the one from that moped, which is still there under the birch, as a monument to itself. Its holder is rusty, and I dubyadeefortied it copiously, but then even if I managed to unscrew it, I wouldn't be able to transfer it, as it goes through a hole in the brake handle holder. So I quit that, made a note to buy a new one.
She asked later „did it give you runs too?“. Sure did. „Podvarak helped you?“. „So helped me podvarak, amen“... because it did sound like the orthodoxxers' greeting. Which was then funny the whole day. Make that three days.
Regular chat with our Seattleians in the evening. Neša's dad joke for today: „why does mirko spin its tray? It's having fun“. Stanley's boss, the Žolt, is still bitching about taxes to pay, while the business is almost dead, there's only one major customer, and even for that he managed to type the wrong engine when ordering a part... Which doesn't matter, he just decided he needs a three week vacation, to lower his stress levels. And to think whether to close the shop and find a job. Yeah, right, they're waiting for exactly you.
We didn't push it far with drinks, went to bed before three, I didn't need to bite the clove, spat it out whole in the morning. Then the nice weather was over until further, so again we postponed the trip to the old house. It felt good that I left the wipers on the Joda in upright position (Stanley didn't know the trick, but confessed that he too does artyefemme* at times), which is an option to avoid ice. I'm doing that because of the cherry, I picked two handfulls of petals beneath them last time, the blossoming is over and petals are everywhere, some even get under the front door. At least the rain will wash out some of that saharan sand which accumulated around the wipers.
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* the classic programmers' „when nothing else helps, RTFM“ (read the fucking manual), became a verb long ago
** to owl - soviti - to sleep; to lark - ševiti - translators' euphemism for fuck, see the next paragraph
Mentions: 10-X-1977., 27-IV-2007., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, blogue, burundi, Byo (Byo), čorba, detelina, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milan Nastić, mirko, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), oldwave, sekcija, Springfield, Stanley Berger, švorceniger, Tanja Nastić, Žitni, in serbian
9-IV-2026 - 5-VII-2026