22-V-2014.

The arrangements for saturday are on... from Škrba:

...chairs, burner to clean up the kettle, wire for barbecue, some meat for barbecue (we'll coordinate these days), bread to buy on the way, we can bring salty pastry, if anyone fancies it until lunch, for I said already the lunch won't be so fast; we'll try to organize smoked leafy cheese from Mokrin for meze, and if we can find radishes and I forgot what else already"

Um, yeah, meze, I intend to drop by The Fallen Cowboy, may he slice something, will be worthwile. This was a note to self, for of course these days I don't know where my ass where my head is - took the car to cram it up for inspection, need to drop at dad's to prop the apricot, we need to finish the hen coop, need to pick up some pics for maturski, have a meeting of the organizers' board, need to load the mower and take to Čankovo (I mowed last weekend with the švorceniger and of course the grass is already up to the balls) and there's regular work to 15:00 (don't know why I mention this, we all well know Murphy never fails)..."

"The Fallen Cowboy" is just a rough translation, it's literally "the fallen cattlegrower", i.e. the guy went to the dark side and became a butcher, that's the name of his shop in my old street. Only top quality, no soy no bullshit. Sausage has meat, bacon, gut, salt, black pepper and optionally paprika. Nothing else. Some of his dry meat is too tough for our cutter, I have to sharpen the big knife to slice it. Even he has to tell the apprentice which things not to slice on the smaller machine, it may smoke. It's a miracle how he survives, there are four other butchers along that stretch across the street from 25. maj and its extension, one of which is a big chain, and another is promes.

The "15:00" reference is to 3pm, which is shorthand for "tri pičke materine" (three mother's cunts).

"To the balls" is meant literally this time, usually it means "extremely good".

Around 19:00 got a skype call from Nina, whereby she just called to inform me that she's feeling like it may be... ahem, yup, check the battery on the camera - ok, full, bye, I'm going to give birth now, TTYL.

Around 20:30 I switched to Gugao talk or some other gadget, because that's what Škrba (and nobody else I know) uses, and we had to make the final arrangements for saturday (he'll bring some chairs and barbecue grill; I got the brandy; others will bring more booze). At around 21:50, Nina called again. I quickly kicked him off and switched back to skype.

She gave birth at 21:10 (15:10 local time).

It's a girl! And we got to see her right away! Welcome to this world, Violet! Of course I took dozens of snapshots (or call it screenshots - photography via skype is perhaps still crappy but it works and I don't even have to aim the lens). She took to the tit immediately, then got briefly unhooked when they moved to the bed, then rehooked and stayed so for half an hour.

So we're now grandpa and grandmom 3.0...

Of course, chatted with Lena as soon as Nina signed off. Go was sent an SMS, assuming she'll get it at work. Lena got a raise, with a promise of a bonus twice a year plus a percentage as the profit goes up.

(really don't know where to put this, so here, where at least the house is mentioned)

In our street there was the famous Kanzas. He lived in a small house (where until a few years ago there was "the fallen cattlegrower" butcher shop), and he was disturbed in the head by the war. He looked something like Tom Waits, just five sizes larger, all leg and arm, loud and always arguing with someone invisible, addressing anyone who'd encounter on the street, mostly with „širrrta, will you [have some of] mine [dick], širrta!“.

There's a known anecdote of how he carried three full bottles of gas. He'd carry two of them for some 50m, then would carry one back to give him balance while carrying the third.

Mentions: 25. maj, Čankovo, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Gugao, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), maturski parastos, meze, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), promes, švorceniger, Violet, in serbian