Đuđa (Đurđa Rođanović)
(Person, Yugoslavia)
Allegedly fought in the partisans, at least a bit in the end, though she should have been too young. Didn't bother her to use the status to get a job at the kombinat's post office, even though she was semiliterate at best. They had a house right across the street from my parents', a half of it - the other half belonged to her husband's sister('s family). She was funny in her own way, not much to laugh with but rather about. Illiteracy, mountaneer manners from Lika and deeply rooted nepotism made her into a know-nothing-but-know-all-and-everybody, including everything about everybody in the neighborhood. She'd just barge in and start poking her nose into your house, with about -1 concerns about anyone's privacy (but her own). A veritable radiomileva, if I ever saw one.
Dad would usually pretend to listen while actually reading newspaper during her claptrap, and would then insert an innocuous little question, just to show that he's attentive (even though just anybody could notice that the question was about something from the intro and that he skipped the last megabyte), which would cause her to start explaining everything from scratch. Everybody happy and satisfied, dad can return to his newspaper zone, she can talk for many more minutes, only mom and granma have to the listen to the same story all over again.
I skipped that rite for many a year, and when I'd drop there she was looking for an excuse to make herself scarce, „let you be on heap, I don't want to be in your way“. Eh, wish she was like that in previous decades, I'd find no fault, but she had the habit to nose through the whole house, and only if she'd hear there was anyone around, would start calling for anybody in there. I caught her a couple of times... and she didn't even pretend to be ashamed.
She died in 2010, after a few months in a private nursing home.
Her husband was a Montenegrin, half bald, and came across as quiet, at least while she was around. His sister had, in her half of the house, from the corner to the gate, a booze shop by „Oplenac“ and also worked there. He worked somewhere in the river transport, of which I knew only where their building was, he never talked about work. To counter that, he had phenomenal comments on what she did or said...
„The Ličans wash feet for every chrismas, needed or not“
(when there's a heap of cards on the table and it's her turn) „it's all yours, like lunatic's is the field“
Her son turned about right, probably just to spite her. Daughter and son-in-law... no comment. Met them a couple of times around 2019, thankfully just briefly.
They moved into a tall ceiling house across from our old house. During the winter she was skimping on electricity, so she'd keep the heaters in the TA furnace off but kept it plugged in, thermostat on zero. She'd complain that „the termostas is broken, there it's on zero yet it still blows“. Of course it does, silly, the room is below zero and it's trying to heat it up to zero. She also complained that it has some „bakalit which dries the air“. That'd be bakelit[e].
Her water pipes would freeze, and she heard that heating them up would help. Then she came to complain that it didn't work, „my husband poured two buckets of hot water into the toilet, and nothing".
She wore glasses, but they were always dirty. Once while they were playing cards I stole them, washed, put back. Next time she put them on she said „these aren't my glasses!“. There were even breadcrumbs stuck on the lens. So when she once ground the black pepper in the coffee grinder, she cleaned it afterwards until she saw it clean. Accidentally, I also went with my parents when she invited us for a coffee. The miraculous coffee which won't cool down.
About a girl from the neighborhood, who was in some sect and had a child with each passing member, and was a vegetarian: „ah she's one of those who don't eat... I mean they eat, but they don't eat“.
Once she was supposed to „go at ginegola“. This requires some translation - it was a gynecologist (ser. ginekolog), and she remembered that she'd have to be naked (gola) there.
When they played cards (with my parents - she with dad against mom with her husband), the invitation code was „let the phone ring twice, then hang up, so not to run up the impulses“. They played at least three evenings a week. She kept complaining about always being dealt „six empty cards“ (i.e. 2 to 9, which don't score in the tablić game), „we're stangating!“, and „had they not having them tablas they'd never have won“ (with „tabala“ instead of „tabli“ for genitive plural, which is neutral gender instead of feminine, one of her speech habits from Lika, where she may have lived until age of 10 or 16).
Once they agreed to decent up and use no curse words. Which lasted about half an hour, when she remembered about the small rain ditch around their side of the house, don't know what was wrong with it, but she went on and on about it, and when it was her turn to play, she just kept on, completely ignoring the game. Her husband berated her with „c'mon play for once, may yer ditch fuck you“. She immediately changed tack to „have you heard how he fucked my ditch, have you heard?“.
Daughter, then. Somehow graduated law school. Returns once by bus and walks the two corners with Banga's stepson, and asks where he works. The guy just says „well, militia...“. „Ah, I noticed that's some kind of uniform“.
Her other pearl occurred when she was writing the regulation on work safety for the firm where she worked (guess the preschools of the city or some such) and did not have the case as it happened in some agricultural one, where the last articles state that “dumping garbage into the sea is strictly forbidden“, nope, she had the full title of the firm whose regulation she copied, in half a dozen places.
Mentions: june 1960., 1961, june 1964., june 1965., july 1966., july 1967., 06-I-1968., 25-VI-1969., 01-IX-1970., and the rest of the week, 01-XII-1972., july 1974., february 1975., 17-VI-1976., 17-III-1979., We're married, 06-V-1980., 08-V-1980., june 1980., 30-VIII-1980., 10-XII-1980., october 1981., october 1982., 16-VI-1983., 30-VIII-1983., january 1984., may 1988., 08-IX-1999., 01-XII-2000., 29-III-2001., 22-VII-2001., 28-VII-2001., 11-VIII-2001., 08-VII-2002., 16-V-2004., 27-V-2004., 02-VI-2004., 23-VII-2004., 14-III-2005., 03-VIII-2005., 04-VI-2006., 01-III-2010., 30-XI-2011., 20-VIII-2014., 26-VII-2021., 22-III-2023., 14-X-2025., bager, Juliška, kombinat, loza, radiomileva, Sejini, šećerana, tablić, in serbian
12-II-2013 - 14-VII-2026