18-V-2026.
Just one little news for the day - Zelena.3 led out its litter, one kitten. At least the curfew is over, when Rundek and Waffle were oncunted if they come anywhere close. Though, it's possible that there were more than one, which were strangled by other males - the gray [one] was seen visiting, and the neighbor's white [one].
She prepared everything during the day, slowly, and in parallel with that lasagna, salad and the rest, she put that veal bone to simmer slowly, on two, for twonyfour hours. And the new frajer from Stojan was put to work, she fried two batches of 12 žužu (joujou, type of pogačice). I filled a liter of that tutifruti 24.2, which is a bit of a ludovača*, a grated pumpkin was mixed into the mush. I sat into Joda, picked up Dragana (waited for her 2-3 minutes, but okay, nobody was honking behind my back). Said helos, and I had to ask „is that the lily of the valley?“. Yup, is. I sniffed again... yes, it is, but it's not the one which would make me all fairytale mellow, this was watered down with something greener, just like the one I bought for the car and which faded out in three days. Nothing then. We picked Borče as well, he was sitting by the gate with daughter and grandson, and then drove home, it's a frendz parti.
(the stool is there, of course, each time, because if she sits for two-three hours, her ankle swells, which lifting the leg prevents; I was aiming for a shot like this several times, and finally did it the way I wanted to)
I don't quite remember how he and I came to discuss the Jethro Tull on one side, and Stones on the other, the latter because they are equally untearable as a band (in original lineup, to differ from Jethro Tull which is defined as „any gang of musicians led by Ian Anderson“), maybe because my dear mentioned how Lena sent me the info (third time, knew it from burundi and oldwave already) that they're playing somewhere in Belgrade this summer. Well I had practically everything they ever published, which ended with his solo works being deleted from my disks, and the band's works everything later than mid nineties, and the decade before that cut down to one fifth. The period before that is inviolate.
Borče doesn't mind that Ian never does any encores, there's nothing to it, I played what you paid for and what's in my contract, ciao gbye, is there an encore mentioned in the contract, there's none, there. Well yes, I said, it stopped being rocknroll long ago, it's a plant for production of that music and that show, nothing spontaneous left. And that concert in 2000 I later saw performed elsewhere, second by second it's all identical, which I felt right there on the spot. I remember that about forty minutes in I wished for something to happen, at least have a spotlight fall, anything, just so there's a grain of spontaneity. And on the other side the Stones are making an album again (!) despite all of them treading through ninth bank, and the one before was as if in 1976 they sent the producer to 15:00 (v. house dictionary) over „what, yagonnatellme what and how to play and what to record, well you won't, we gonna do this one the way we want“.
The organizational part we finished quickly - for the mathematicians' meeting we only need to schedule the gathering point, as there'll be exactly one van full. And it begins at 13:00... eh, when yer gang gets old and don't feel like driving at night. Then we differed in conception, he'd like a tambour band, well fuck that, we sit once a year to talk with people and then can't hear them. And this other thing, two days later, it's also beginning earlier in the afternoon, guess around four. No more real parties.
The ladies had similar shirts, not even close to same, just that their authors thought along the same theme, so I had to take a shot of them together.
About 4 deci of tutifruti went down, and almost a liter and a half of wine (Dragana gave up after the first bottle), and one beer. We split around one, and then she had one more shot, and I finished the leftover wine, not to go to waste.
Tuesday, finally went to Klincaid to finally start the picking. The one early cherry which survived, bore fruit really well. We collected some fourteen kilos. Not perfect, but for an early sort this is okay. Now I expect various spots in my back to hurt, this was a good stretchout. Then cherries will be next. On the way back, in Svetofor we met Zorica. I recognized her immediately, she after some delay, as the hair wasn't dyed now, it's full shiny white. They're expecting the fourth grandchild, from the other son, in Canada, who finally decided so, they're four banks plus change. Seems to have come to his senses during the last visit, he had heart trouble, second valve in a row, and they patched him here. The health system is just as fucked up there as it's here, but here you at least have private practice, you pay and get. Over there he'd have to wait some months, but for euthanasia there's no problem, you're next. Their vikendica (garden house, to visit on weekends) is nearby, fifth house from the next roundabout, she came here by bike, just like they pedaled last year several times with the students wherever they went. Here, we're nearby, drop anytime. Sure, how yes no, just like we exchanged phone numbers, how many years ago, and neither you ever called us nor we you, can do that again.
Chat at regular time. Tanja learned how to jump on the couch, there's a child's joy. Milan bought another guiter, black, online. Has three now. Tanja is learning how to pluck the strings... Lena asked what's the trick with the order of words in a sentence in hungarian. Well, the answer is... no. They may do the verbs-in-the-end thing, can insert a truckload in the middle of the sentence and you only need to catch what was that tied with, or can... can do a lot, and you can easily pass without knowing how to use most of it, the first year. Also, there's barely any intonation, as the stress is always on the first syllable and the others often need to have lengths in various places, which makes it sound rather flat altogether. So told her how at the border we'd listen to some hotshot from Pest grinding about something and then stopping abruptly - and I had no clue whether he just needed to breathe, or the interview was finished, or he reached a comma or an end of a sentence. Depending on the length of pause and what would come next, could be any of those.
Thursday. We have more than hundred eggs again. Lena told us to bring only thirty (and paprikaš, and a jar of that bone stock), so there's no other way out, boil and pickle them. When I got up, around ten, she boiled them and prepared everything, „here, I'm cooling off eggs“** :). As I'm writing this, the whole big room smells of vinegar, but not the strong and sharp kind, this is nothing when I remember how the salads once were, or when windows were washed, eh the childhood stresses.
Friday. We all congratulated Violet on her birthday, in an orderly manner, from east to the west, as we wake up in our respectacled timezones. Before midnight saw Nina and kids briefly, while she made pohovan'd chicken breast („flat chicken“, as the girls called it while they were here). She's going out again with some other guy, not giving up. She took a day off to just sleep, and the monday is off too, the memorability day. The manufacturers of disks, motherboards and processors still don't have their days.
Saturday. Lunched a bit earlier and went straight to Klincaid. The neigbor is pouring concrete, a larger slab behind the house. Don't remember what he said, will he build more or was this to support the swimming pool. The mixer came to his driveway, so his son parked on ours, but no matter.
The cherry was properly ripe now, but thieves (probably the children of the neigbor on the other side) swept what they could. Don't believe it was starlings, they wouldn't go for low branches and leave the pits grouped on the concrete, they tear half of the fruit and leave the other half and the pit on the stem. At least no branches were broken. So instead of bucket and a half we picked only the and a half, but okay, we got into the swing of it, the cherries by the driveway are coming along already, and the big cherry by the driveway at home is near it, we'll drop dead of work when that occurs.
Returned home as early as around four, just on time to catch who's feeding live - the standard four again - blockade.info, white bomber, 1 of 11 million and KTV. The gathering was magnificent, just like the ones before. The turd of the police chief craps again about some 34.200. Archive of public gatherings put up a disclaimer right away, „above hundred thousand it can't be counted so fast, wait for a day or two and don't trust the regime's numbers“. The speeches were interesting - nobody was anywhere near righthanded, but they had a guy from trade unions, an openly religious university professor, a high school teacher and a few more impressive characters, and it was becoming obvious that they aren't just disassembling the regime's misdeeds, but rahter painting the system as they plan to make it. Half the speeches were in future tense, this will be like this, that will be like that. Sounds like a program.
Of course, the regime had to set up some entertainment for it blatoids fblato = mud], as early as plausible, so within 29 minutes after the official dispersal of the gathering at 20:00 I have a screenshot of cops arrinving on the already empty Slavija square, and some dozen minutes before that a cordon is pushing off... more or less nobody, except a dozen ćacis, tasked with upending the dumpsters, setting fire to the trash, throwing water bottles at the police, and it seems also pieces of siporeks (which is rather light, but looks like a stone on camera). The fakery was obvious by the very police procedure - when the cordon puts one of those beefy guys on the ground, they just walk on. When they do that to students, at least five of them start applying boot soles and truncheons, to see if the ribs will break. Within the first hour at least sixty people commented it just like that, saying this whole show was a sceneplay, annonced and played out by the script.
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* ludaja is a banatian word for pumpkin; ludovača is a mock name, made to look like names of other rakijas, but „lud“ actually means crazy.
** eggs can always be taken to mean balls, keep that in mind at all times
Mentions: blockade, burundi, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frajer, frendz parti, house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Jethro Tull, Joda, Klincaid, KTV, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milan Nastić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), oldwave, pogačice, pohovano, rakija, siporeks, Stojan Nastić, Tanja Nastić, tutifruti, Violet, Zorica Škanata, in serbian
19-V-2026 - 5-VII-2026