01-VI-2026.
A kind of petty rain was in a making, it even got a bit chilly, so for the frendz parti she dug out some shirt that I never wore before, something light with long sleeves, just for the weather. She claims it's green, to me it looks dark blue with a, okay, slight green-pulling shade. It's this sector of spectrum where we often disagree - she claims that Tanja's eyes are green, me that they are gray, but here I could at least look at the photos - yep, green and blue are stronger than red, and the green outweighs the blue in a ratio of about 7:5, so let's call it green.
We started slowly, somewhat disused to walking, did none since winter. After the first kilometer my left calf began coming taut, but by the time we reached Roda, it passed. In Roda she took the wine and checked out whether they have maggi spice, and there was already another lady on the same task, and asked the clerk girl there, and got a reply „don't hold on your hopes“. I got my ernafil in the pharmacy and went out to wait for her. Roda is the spitten Walmart, the aircondition is there to make noise and keep the air stuffy. We didn't sit there to have a smoke, because the bench was taken. The mulberry at the next house bore nicely, the sidewalk was properly stained, ate a couple, small but right, just to feel the taste. Along the way we noticed that at Eva's the Chineses have closed the restaurant.. After so many years without any customers, why pick this moment...
We paused at the bus stop at špajiz, there's a bench. And she did drop by to see whether they have lovage, and almond flour. The former there's none (nobody has that for years now), and the latter they have but enriched with proteins, thank you very much. Arrived at Dragana's about on time, didn't check the clock, Borče was already there. And my jacket was waiting.
By mere slip I brought the 21.2 tutifruti, of which I thought as extinct long ago, but never mind, even better, we had three shots each. This is the second time with her new shot glasses, not her old ones of deci and change, with thick bottom, where nobody knew how much to pour. She made canapes, which she didn't do for years, and that tray saw many a hand reaching. Then there was some roast and a salad (with sweet red bell peppers, rightly), and eventually some cakes, something like fuzzies but juicy, and the classic domestic oblatna. I didn't go overboard with anything (except maybe canapes, to which I returned after cakes), and it didn't fall hard on me. Of wine... well, we started the third bottle.
The talk... well, there was a moment when Borče and I commented something, starting from the colleagues we met on thursday, then via that band „Болеро“ (bolero) and bosnian-russian lyricism („but next time we should talk her into reciting it in russian“) and then dived deeper into somewhat more professional waters, and were gently warned off, yeah, right, we don't need to shake that in this company. And nothing important anyway, by now (tuesday afternoon) I forgot what was it we went about. About the saturday meeting we agreed that it was a masturpiss (can't translate drkopiš better), though we heard that about a quarter of them stayed until eleven. Well let them, I didn't have a drinking company. I actually thanked Dragana for being my excuse to sneak out earlier.
Near the end the subject, imprecisely defined, of destruction of institutions came by, of enter the wild to run out the tame, so I remembered to finally tell him why I'm no more interested in the organization of any parastos - because the sanctity of agreement (actually, „dogovor“ - speak-until) was destroyed, by the very cancellation of what we agreed ('dogovorili se') between two meetings. And it turned out to be shit, the band didn't play any of the period songs, not one, and they were a cost. Borče said they were actually quite cheap. Doesn't matter, simply why for which dick we talk-to-agree if the agreement can be changed overnight? Then I'm passing the issue to these younger [ones[ (Dragana: „which younger when we're all the same year-of-birth?“), who have the initiative, it's yours now, carry it on. „So what should we have done?“. Stick to the agreement, no more, no less.
On tuesday I woke with cramps in the left calf and foot, didn't happen in quite a while. And a wee blister on the fourth toe, just when the one on the second almost healed. Well, I have the technique, so I just waited it out. Sweet (i.e. not sour) cabbage for lunch and the decision to put ouselves to a keto diet for the month, so no dough and no sugra. The five bites of sweets I routinely ate after supper... well can do, will be even easier than when I paused with smoking.
We picked the narrow cherry. It bore well and I managed to reach a lot of it. Maybe I could have extended the ladder more and reach for a few more branches, but didn't feel brave enough. It's good as it is. The cherry above the van is also almost ripe, which means we should see the garden tomorrow, the two around the driveway there are the same brand, ripen on the same day. The others will [come?] later.
Wensday, third. Visits to sGradlj.com suddenly went to insane 15000 a day in the first eight hours, but didn't go badly later either, here by afternoon it's still around an average of 6-7000 daily. When it doesn't go then it doesn't, then it moves. (lasted until eighth, even climbed to 8400 at times, and then fell to few hundred a day)
After lunch (who says that keto diet excludes sweets, here the sweet cabbage) straight to Klincaid. The cherry by the gate is ripe... rather, but still not completely, it's not falling off the stem. It has the taste, has the sugar, needs two-three more days. We picked one bucket, just to have not gone in vain. And the two young cherries bore well, but they also miss a few days. We'll probably storm it on saturday.
On thursday I moved the Joda across [the street] so we picked the branches overhanging the driveway, to mae them lighter so they wouldn't lie on its roof anymore.
On friday got up at 12:30, and did almostly nothing all day. The leisure as such. I kept thinking to go out and pick more cherries, here now I'll just get up and do it... and then the supper passed as well. Had hakes for both lunch and supper. The smell around the house, while they were roasted (in a plek, in the oven) isn't that nasty, and by lunchtime it aired out.
Found the source verse of Jesenjin (Yesenin or whatever they spelt him in english), and the translation done for „Bolero“, put them in an email and sent to them both, with recommendation to learn it, I want to hear it recited in russian next time. The translation is, by the way, correct, someone there knew both languages well.
Saturday. Another short powerout in the morning. Sudden silence woke me out, when the little pump on the aquarium stopped. It returned fast enough, not even zmajček consumed more than what the ups holds. Last time I hanged it (ok, suspended) and lo, when the power returned, it lifted itself by itself, didn't have to do anything, except it noticed that it has the television set on the aitchdyemeye cable, so I had to reconfigure - and of course the dialog was on the right monitor, unrotated, so I had to tilt [my] head to the right to be able to read it. Took a few tries until I guessed which monitor is which, ten minutes dance party. And the television set won't budge, eventually turned out its remote is probably kaputt.
Finally a decent rain. What we had the other day was barely a couple of liters.
We meant to go to the garden in the afternoon, but after that rain who knows how it's there, so let's better pick this huge cherry in front of the house, at least what's above the driveway. I moved the car across again, and we stormed it. The cherries were excellent, firm, sweet, tasty, maybe they used to be bigger but never had so many of them. We picked three buckets and it wasn't even noticeable on the tree.
Then Nina called, tried to get us while we were outside, and tried Lena but she went to get groceries. What's new - Rein and Fayes are here for a time being, putting their affairs settled before they join theri daughter on Florida, and the house here they'll sell to pay off the mortgage, or may just leave it to the bank, whichever pays off better. And they have some place in the Philippines...
On sunday, 7th, we first pinched the cherries and laid them in a barrel. The previous batch already foamed all the way to the lid, fermenting all in sixteen*. Then we lunched, I even rested the lunch - express, woke up on my own after 25 minutes - and hit the road. Of food we took just some cherries, which Tanja didn't really want to eat, she once bit into the pit and now won't touch them even when (un?)pitted.
The consensus on who she took after - she got baba's nose, my arches above the eyes, when she's serious she's same [as] father, whenever she makes a face she's same mother, and there's also something for the dedica (i.e. Stojan, with whom she didn't agree for a month, but they're pals again now, cause still unknown). It occured an other day that she saw someone, during a stroll, who was similar enough that she said „tata!“. Lena explained „that is not your dad“, and she asked „čiji tata?“ (whose dad). Whoah, buddy, an interrogative posessive pronoun before age of two. And, to top it off, she knows how to hold a pencil, the european way with three fingers tangentially, not with the whole hand as if it was a nail or chalk. They learn that in the kindergarten, but all the same, this is a first in the family, again, before age of two.
Just like the last time, we went to Maxi first, without sneaking this time. I was not lucky, again, with pretty women passing, but at least this cat with silly pattern on his face was posing. And, as is already a regular occurrence in blok 21, it's easy to frame it with traces of popular politics. Here „јбш снс“ (also available in english as „fck sns“), elsewhere „students are winning“, somewhere spray stenciled „aca šptr“ (Aca is a common nickname for an Aleksandar, and Šiptar [alb. Squipetar] is what the Albanians call themselves and their country, but when pronounced in serbian it's taken as seriously politically incorrect; in this case it's alluding to the possibility that AV's biological father is some albanian reporter from Kosovo... which is hard to disprove or prove without a deaenay analysis, and whether they look alike, well... this one looks like nothing, the epithet of the week is „cuntmouthed hydra“). And the attempt by some ćaci with too much time to scrape off the sticker was quarterhearted, over dick, they always leave enough of it to keep it fully legible.
In all other ways it was same and was okay like the last time, until that spot behind the school. There, in one of the passages through the building to the next street, she ran nine times to the street, and skid-braked on the bike/cart ramp every time. Then we walked down that street to the next passage and returned to the schoolside shade, and sat again for her (repeat) snack. This time she took sticks first, then smoki. And then she began trolling us, won't go home, keeps inventing places to go to, things to do. The closer to home, the more reasons to delay she made. Once it was a pebble in her (brand new) crocs, then invented that she should touch the top of each little pole by the sidewalk and lift the opposing leg behind (in which she was joined by baba), and the last 150 m she didn't even want to walk, and not to hang on our arms to swing, the way all the kids love (and [so did] she, until now), even that she did loosely, slipped and eventually sat. So baba carried her. I may be stronger, but made progress in recent couple of years. Once I was at „can do fast, strong, long - pick two“, now I advanced to one. To carry her so limp, sure can do, ten meters and then two minutes break, so I didn't even try. Even unburdened I sought a place to sit every 30m.
It lasted an hour and a quarter, same as the last time, but this time we turned the game around - instead of us tiring her, she tired us.
Milan we didn't even see - before the walk he was on grocery run, and by the time we returned he took Api to a pooch hotel, which is about a half an hour's drive away. Can't be closer, needs to have a sizable yard.
Likewise we didn't see Stanley nor Neša in the evening, they were both asleep. Stanley fucked up his hip, lying under a car on something which insinuated itself where it shouldn't. At least we had a decent long chat with Go.
Monday, 8th. I managed to sleep in two parts, and both times it started with my hand on the headside plank, and both times I felt a round thing under my thumb, and started pressing it just like when splitting cherries, and laughed at myself in [my!] sleep, this is wood... And the rest of it was probably interesting, for I kept on until after the noon. At least she woke me up easily. For lunch, a ćevap čorba (invention!) and sausages on some vegetables (recognized squash and carrots, the rest not) and cucumber and mileram salad. We're persisting on the keto diet.
And then straight to Klincaid, there's [fruit] to pick and to pick. Weather ideal, sunny but not frying yet, breeze just to cool you off slightly but not to swing the branches, a beauty. We picked four buckets of cherries and one (larger) of cherries, by staying there for three and a half hours instead of standard two. We did drop dead, but never mind, it'll pay off.
A photo was waiting, of Tanja watching the sea from a hotel terrace. And then in the morning, as Lena told, she began to take shots with her phone, of anything she sees, and the pattern on a pillow reminded her of my avatar on Telegram, she exclaimed „deda!“, and of course they called. Talked nicely at length and ease, made a bunch of screenshots, almost as if we were there but at least skipped the trouble of making reservations, packing, traveling.
Tuesday, meeting my destiny as scheduled with myself. Stepping on the scale after seven days of keto diet. Well, one kilogram went away, not too bad. In the morning we split all those cherries. They are really firm, I thought my fingers will tire and that I'll stare making mistakes, and that I'd have cramps in my palms later. But none of that happened. I even discovered that I can work with both hands in parallel, or not quite parallel, synchronous movement is not even necessary. That's where I got lucky and we finished that quickly.
On zmajček it seems that Nvidia and Linux have crosscunted again, so her old drivers don't work anymore, and Linux has its own, which I easily found how to swap (on first try, that is, as Firefox's so-called AI told me), but now the order of monitors changed and it keeps thinking that the right [one] is the main [one]. Which I somehow swapped, things got their proper positions, but the panels aka toolbars are still bonkers, I move one to the other monitor, but it stays where it was and the other panel moves instead. I played five hide-and-seeks with that and eventually looked for advice how to assign the left monitor main. Found that on first try too, except the next day fox under wine drew the window for api_posetu.prg on an invisible part of the desktop. Because wine understood the coordinates differently now... the (0,0) point is now on the right monitor again, and what it last memorized was (1916,0) which was now to the right of the right monitor. But okay, remembered how to fix that.
In the evening it was our dry day, but she got under mosquito raid, and her back hurt some, so we poured anyway, and it didn't matter that we started around one. She reported getting asleep without the hitch, no itch no pain.
Wensday, 10th, easing up on the diet, for she had to test the potatoes from one sack. She found lots of switchgrass in the soil, a whole bundle of roots, but also found good earthworms, and the potatoes were nice, shame to leave them like that. And it weighed 620 grams from one cottage, not bad at all. And the potato is excellent, she's finally satisfied with the outcome, on the inside its soft as soul, outside slightly crunchy, just the way granma routinely made them, finally matched that.
And the visits on sGradlj.com, after two three-digit days, rebounded to some 6-7000 a day. Could be the Doteasy's server, that the logging went to pee for that long.
In the afternoon we kept delaying the picking on the street until the sun went sufficiently down so the shade was there. Then we took out the ladders and went for it. Three and a half buckets in two-three hours. Easy, the only problem is to stand on a ladder for that long. Luckily, with clogs it's as if standing on flat... but that's not easy either. And the cherries, dream of dreams, I don't remember them ever being this good. And that's not a matter of luck, she watered them a couple of weeks ago, right when it was needed.
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* means „full steam“ or so; I looked up the possible origins of the expression, and it seems it's from football, where it meant „all players in the sixteen meter zone“.
Mentions: Api, api_posetu.prg, čorba, ćevapčići, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Eva, fox, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Klincaid, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), maturski parastos (parastos), Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), plek, Reinaldo Aquila (Rein), Rosanda Aquilla (Fayes), sGradlj.com, Stanley Berger, Stojan Nastić, špajiz, Tanja Nastić, tutifruti, zmajček, in serbian
2-VI-2026 - 5-VII-2026