03-V-2026.
Anita's birthday was properly celebrated. We celebrated the first of may award worker style, guess we went on all the way to the fifth shot (ergo four regulars), and at midnight we used our advantage of being the easternmost of the whole family so congratulated her the first. Then the others did, even Sanda and Linda sang nicely the „hepi brzdej tu ju“, of which Nina sent a video. Then we got the pictures of the cake etc.
Green onion of 74cm, the new record. The previous one was 68, who knows which year.
Since we did more or less nothing since thursday, I had the time for Byo, and finally took to fix the 16-IV-2009.. In that pack I found a message from Sindie, so added her article too (and retroactively as well, wherever I managed to find her mentioned). Along the way I also emailed her, so if the adress still works, it works. For third day in the row I scraped the soil and grass (zubača, toothweed, no less) from the driveway, it got already some four fingers thick, sitting on the stool and doing it slowly, with small garden tools. I've already reached the front wheel of the car, which should be about one fifth. Now I got into the swing, two buckets of grass clumps and dust I collected in an hour. No mud, there was not a drop of rain whole april. I thought it would be an obstacle, but wasn't except the first day when it was somewhat windy.
In' the evening Borče called to say we're returning to the track, Dragana is, he said, in drivable condition, even dyed her [hair]. Talked with our Seattleians, Neša had a new dad joke (can't translate to serbian, too bad), which got some kudos on burundi the next day: „Fans of Grateful Dead are deadheads. Pot smokers are potheads. Fans of PKD are dickheads.“. The Telegram on linux and windowses again don't recognize video we send, so we switched to mac. At least Go also switched to her laptop so the image was horizontal and thus much larger, looked much better. She published a new video on her channel, how she made that incredible poncho for Anita, all with just a hook... okay, several hooks, two or three sizes. My comment: „I did fall asleep around twelfth minute, but that was caused by lunch... when I returned, I watched the rest in one piece. All kudos, not only for the technique (on both sides of the camera), but rather... where do you pull all those ideas from“. We split around midnight, and then drank a few, it's an odd day.
Of the serieses I tried to watch these days, the „Continuum“ was an interesting half idea, and Lexa Doig truly is a chick and a half, but I don't see how can they stretch it. Quit it after four episodes, when they started killing the grandfather clause. Yeah, right, what do you do with a time machine but play with the paradoxes. Just like they pull that rabbit out of a hat every time they run out of ideas, except these guys took that as starting point. Then I tried to watch „Torchwood“, the first episode on mute, to prevent my bias against the englishness, and it was sort of okay until, around third episode, I figured out what that was and why it won't get any better. Later I found out that it's just a sidefart from „DrHu“ (in serbian DrKo, which may be understood as „masturbated“ as well), ah there you are, now tiles fit in their places, don't like those places. Then found „Dollhouse“, well that's Joss Wheadon, okay can watch, even after having read the content of both seasons, still can.
The potatoes grow nicely in the backyard, the green beans sprout, and the salad of green onions and lettuce she now enriched with a few mint leaves - it sprouted between potatoes, maybe the seed got smuggled with the hay. Goes smoothly well with the pork curry (though beef curry would be a kick...).
Monday, got up at 11:30, the pork fish čorba was for lunch (well behotted, we had to jošiti to thin it out), the yesterday's curry and the salad with mint, and one more cherry roll from yesterday. The guy from Šummah Trahdeh called earlier in the morning, said he fixed the starter. I went to pick it in the afternoon, just 500 dinars (because otherwise I'd remember it long term if it was more, and had I remembered that I already did that myself before, he wouldn't have seen me), so I rode on to ruža, to the onceNuProm's supermarket, which is now a longstanding bicycle shop. Not that it's much of a building, it's an ordinary cube, but at least it was glass from three sides. This guy decidedly keeps it dark, all the glass is plastered over with opaque foil. While it's indeed free advertising, it also makes you look as if your customers don't want to be seen in your shop. Bought a rear view mirror (ser: retrovizor) for her bicycle, she already complained her lack of hundh how far is a vehicle behind her back, encountered surprises already. Riding back I passed the first electric vehicle, some postal semi-van, recognized it by sound, something like a scooter, just three sizes larger. I mounted the mirror surreptitiously, let her be surprised.
While we waited for Borče to call us out to the street, Lena called - but this time Tanja expected to see Nina, not us. She's blabbering more and more... And the cut will, it seems, leave a scar, they didn't pull the skin together to close nicely when they put the bandaid. No matter, we had such cases in the fmily and it all nicely smoothed out and is not noticeable. And then she went on how one morning Milan got up really early, what now, said „I'm off to Pešta to buy a guitar“. He did blurt to his pals that he'd go, and it all turned into a complicated organization, almost a whole triper, as they'd all want to go and had their separate agendas, so he quit the idea for a while. And now he just got up and went, bought it and returned for dinner. And he got the VAT return papers from the Hungarians, and our customs asked him if he was carrying anything, and he said „just my guitar“, okay go. Which means no customs either. And the guitar seems to be a really good one, some rare model.
I alone heard the last three sentences, because Borče was already at the door and she went to open it. Later I saw that he tried to call me, but the sound on my phone was down to two and we didn't hear it. Dragana did dye herself (i.e. hair), even besummered herself (i.e. was underdressed), with some pink jacket with a dark blue sash or some such, and performed as expected - drank just one shot of rakija and switched to sour [aka mineral, water]. For food, Borče ordered a box of something mixed from Domaćin, look at them, still kicking, I already wrote them off. And it wasn't bad, at least the ćevapčići, somun and gibanica weren't, but the rest was just chicken breast, masked this way or that - one was bits of it wrapped in filo dough then roasted in the oven, the oteher similar pieces just longer and irregular, as if they were trimmed off when the whole breast was shaped into steaks, and then pohovan'd, with extra sesame seeds stuck. Not that it was bad, but it's still just chicken breast. The good side of it was that we didn't overstuff ourselves :). He even served icecream (bourbon vanilla (!) which actually was just good) with strawberries, still somewhat sinewy and half frozen, but okay, did have smell and taste.
I made no shots, not even with the phone, to spite - until we get what Dragana shot us overlast time at our place, what Borče keeps consistently forgetting to forward and she doesn't know how to send without Viber. Ah, yes, since I don't have that Viber, I'm not updated on the org. committee for the small parastos, which'll be on thirtieth in Elmont, and that's where Dragana asked me to talk with Bajlo instead of her, he literally stranles her and I somehow manage to stave of his mentioning of relatives and who not, I fuck him off efficiently and friendly. And I did that right away and it worked. And all of that was because he started wiggling out, as if feeling uncertain when and whom to call, and we know he likes to call people, and now he only needs to get the head count, so we know the approximate number.
We split around one, and got a ride with the same cabbie as the last time, a student of mine. When we arrived, we drank one and a half more, because I still could, and she almost didn't drink - one rakija, one beer. It's almost a tradition, the evening when Dragana recovers from the last fit of medicine or whatever, it ends sooner and less is drunk. We two also didn't get far with wine, perhaps mid second bottle.
The next day in Klincaid she went off to clear the rows in the so-called plastenik (glass - staklo, so glasshouse is a staklenik, but covered with plastic foil it's plastenik), and I stayed to mount the starter on the švorceniger. I couldn't figure out how did I do it so easily the year before, and couldn't possibly do it now. The thin metal gasket wouldn't sit tight on its prongs, it kept falling off, I tried it at least six times and still couldn't keep it in place to screw it tight. She also came, and we tried this way or that several more times and it still wouldn't go. And then she said let's loosely screw one side first, the screws are long enough, so they'd hold the place while we adjust the other side. Hey, really, how didn't I think of that, but kept trying to repeat how I did it the last time, to have everything in place and then only insert the screws. We did as she said and we got it done in ten minutes. I poured out the old gasoline, they say that it may fuck up the engine if if it was mixed more than a month ago, so I mixed the remaining quarter liter of pure, and mowed what she asked - a wider path to her row („Kreni prema meni“ - start going my way, Partibrejkers), and then a three meter wide path around the plateau where we sit. To be continued tomorrow.
Came home, suppered, Lena called. Tanja has a new entertainment, calls the queen in one cartoon Tanja, and the king she persuaded to be Milan. And when they two are the scene, she's delighted, shouts „Tanja! tata!“. Also has a new toy, a two step staircase to climb the couch, which she didn't really need, she learned to climb even before she learned to walk. But this is sheer joy, to walk up step by step and then jump down.
And we saw the guitar, it cost some 5000€, and the VAT return should be 1500, send paperwork first. We didn't see him, went to town to buy a frekvencmetar (frequency gauge), because he becuntedly insisted on raising the keel by a millimeter and to restring it afresh, which made tuning it a two day job now and still no dice, so buy a gadget, can't do by ear. In june they go to Crete for two weeks, with an all inclusive arrangement and the most expensive airplane ticket, because that's the only one that's fully refundable if flight is canceled. Lena also wants to apply for hungarian citizenship, because she has the basic requirements - one grandfather a Hungarian, mom say she's one too, and at least one pair of grandgrandparents born in the K&K monarchy (caught the last train for that, being aged around seven when it fell apart, but regardless). And of course she needs to learn hungarian, because she remembers when she was a kid, how I was delighted with my learning of it. Well so it was, I had lots of fun with it. There we talked for at least ten minutes about how hungarian is harder to get started with, but then becomes much easier than english, because once you learn the ropes and all fifteen exceptions - there are no more new exceptions, it's all very regular. With all its tools you can say almost anything in fifteen grammatucally regular ways, and then they'll make you for an outsider because you'll say it in #14, which was en vogue when you learned it but it's out of fashion now, they use #8 now.
On wensday finally a rain, we went nowhere. Entertainment in the evening, and we fell asleep, and then I woke up because I dreamt that a brzožder treated something on the house but we shouldn't tell anyone about it. Well how will you know whether we did, what now, for one plate of barbecue you get the right to spy on us, scat there. By then my nose swole, so I got up and had a smoke or two, and so did she, had one. Then I dreamed that this brzožder is giving a share with something (probably a tract of soil they owned) and screwed up, having given one too many and thus being predominantly owned by their customers. Then they muddled around trying to talk someone to join them, to regain the majority. It got complicated fast, so I slept until half noon, and still haven't figured it completely out. So it goes when I dream engangled.
The retirement landed, I have one million hundredtwonythree thou on the account. Not bad. The retirement is really small and nothing to brag about, but considering how much I worked here, it's good I'm getting even that much, they poach less on this lower end. And as we keep spending less and less and having more and more homemade stuff, this is quite enough. Her retirement stands always at about 10% above mine, despite her having three years of staž less than I, because she retired four years before I [did]. These lowest retirements grow somewhat faster than the middle and high ones, so it turns out that it doesn't matter much how much you pour in, it's more that you start on time.
First we congratulated Lena on her birthday (trtifor!), from east to the west - first we two, then Nina and eventually Go. Nina called in the afternoon, while commuting to work. So we only heard each other, and she'd talk and drive, cameras off. It usually takes her twentyfive minutes, but it was fiftyfive this time, because there was a congestion. Though she never saw any cause for it, there wasn't even a fender bender, not even close to what occurred last month when an eighteenwheeler rolled over and stuck sideways, closing all three lanes north and the quick lane south. She had two actual news to tell, she fucked off her shrink lady, because she ran out of text and went on blowing „I already forgot that“ into fishing expedition, to dig out the suppressed childhood traumas. Well fuck off and g'bye, may your freudian trickery blow up your ass. The other is that she's got a boyfriend, finally. Thumbs held [in fists] (eng: fingers crossed).
Raja wants to plug his guitar into the computer, to be able to record what he did - to, on one hand, hear himself, how does it sound, and on the other to be able to combine what he did as a material for further. Violet, well, keeps drawing more and more, but doesn't show until she considers it finished, and erases a lot of it - she draws mostly on her phone, and nobody needs to see it and leaves no trace around the house, the mysterious lady.
Drove Joda to Optima to see what was up with the airconditioning, and they found a leaking hose. Told Sanja (Vanja, Tanja..) to shout me a cab, see you tomorrow afternoon. So the next trip to the garden is delayed for saturday. In the evening in the bottle there was, a rare occurrence, exactly as much as we meant to drink, so I didn't have to go refill.
Friday, 8th. Sanja called around three, said it was done and will cost 16000. Ow fuckit, that one piece of hose... Eh, she said, we wanted to buy the machine and make those ourselves, don't know why we didn't. Looking at the bill, seven thousand the hose, four to mount it, five the freon refill. The refill was three last time, and the whole cooler replacement 21000. Eh, the inflacion and the cost of overwhelming in-stallment [ugradnja, usually means installation or part replacement, but in Vučić's Serbia it's the cost of skimming by officials, to unbelievable degrees]. I meant to take the shooter and a kilo of rakija, didn't do it since I switched horses, but fuckit if it's like this. And the cabbie, „which way do you want to go, over yellow bridge?“. Oah man, we aren't crossing the river at all... And he's an older guy. Is it possible that he's so down on [his] luck that he's a retiree driving a cab and a rookie at that, not knowing the city by heart?
At least we went to garden on saturday. First to Bob brzožder for two medium [pljeske]. I stopped at Knez's gas station across to fill Joda and get the čorba and oil for švorceniger, and she walked over to order. The black dyed ćevap maker lady was pleased to see us, she was already wondering whether we were alive. She's working there for twelve years now and remembers us well.
And we did do some considerable work. I just mowed, making fewer and fewer pauses. On the street I mowed almost everything in four forays, I'm not bad at all, these forays got four times longer than what I did in the yard before that. There's no chance that I'd be able to mow everything I usually did, it grew too much, I'll rather cut corridors to the trees, in the order at which they will ripen. The cherries have specially gone crazy, the last year's crop got lost and found its way now. She planted more tomatoes, two into each second hole, found somewhere that it's better so, it loves company, and she's got half the work.
Of cats, we saw Jennifer again, now an adult and experienced cat. Made this shot to send to the girls.
She collected a hefty bale of hay, from bare ten squares, and wrapped into that landscapers plastic cloth that goes under the plants, when you want to prevent neighboring plants' roots to come up. Stuffed that into Joda's trunk and then when we went to Svetofor for the groceries, had to put them on the back seat, the trunk being completely full.
Email from V.G. The mathematicians are gathering on 28th of may in a čarda by Žabalj. Nice, two parties in three days.
Mentions: 16-IV-2009., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), burundi, Byo (Byo), Cindy Baumgarten (Sindie), čorba, ćevapčići, Domaćin, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Elmont, gibanica, Gorana Sredljević (Go), homemade, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Klincaid, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borče), maturski parastos (parastos), Milan Nastić, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), NuProm, pljeska, pohovano, rakija, ruža, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), staž, švorceniger, Tanja Nastić, triper kombinacija, Violet, in serbian
3-V-2026 - 5-VII-2026