Went to see Arpi and keep him company for a bit, because Silvija is in Belgrade, being diagnosed with some alleged cancer on the lower brain, or rather neck. They're supposed to get her into surgery this friday, with all the speed that connections of Dragan's kum can provide. However, the surgeon who should do it is off to some convention or other gathering, and they don't have the beds to keep her that long, so she's back home.
We brought the usual, well, almost - not the best and only apricot brandy, but the next interesting thing, the hare trišnja - 75% višnja (sour cherry) and 25% trešnja (sweet cherry). Sour cherry doesn't have much of a taste, it's almost as bland as votka (vodka), but the sweet cherry (which doesn't really have much sugar so nobody makes brandy out of it) gives it some weird taste. Not bad, just unusual and interesting enough that we (three) went through three shots, at fourth she took the beer.
He invented a new way of curing the meat - almost the classical salt-smoke-dry cycle, which was traditionally done in winter and took a few weeks, but he does it in three days. He brought out a saucer with slices of krmenadla (the big muscles along the spine) and bacon and oh man, the fragrance. Gave as a cut of bacon to take home, and we'd just bring our fingertips to the nose several times in the hour after dinner.
It was raining, and the cab driver gave me a tip how to get the green on the last light when coming home from the north - drive either 35 or 70 from the last light. Tried it next weekend and it works. The lower setting, of course, that street has so many manholes at wrong height that it would be hard even for saxo's absorbers. The next street is actually worse. The whole area is too near the river, and no matter how they pave the streets, the classical recipe says to put sand below and tamp it with vibrators and big roller trucks. Well, it works for a while, but then the underground waters limn the sand away and you get dips around the manholes, or even sinkholes. Should underlay the roads with thick layers of stone, then smaller stone, then gravel, like they did in my old street. But that was while kombinat had a weigh station and all the heavy tractors and trucks were supposed to drive that way. Which they did for the next 20-30 years and the pavement held.
Some day around this I got into motion to do a proper tombstone on my ancestors' grave. The old one was crumbling already, so I went to the guy who made it, in one of those backstreets around main, where the yards exit into that no man's land behind the post office. Found the shop open - they use a lot of water so airing is recommended at all times - but nobody there. Accidentally, a guy from IV6.73 lives there, actually a couple, they were both in that class. And they have a print shop. I did drop by some time in 2011, when Lena needed something for her classes, perhaps a sheet of special cardboard, or cut it to specific size. The guy is a serious audiophile, though not hyphilistic - he's listening to music, not equipment, even though the total volume of his speaker boxes is over a hundred liters (well he's got several pairs). Just met them both in the yard as I was leaving, because Kid was leaving at the same time. He's just as nuts and confused as he ever was. He actually came by to see about printing something for the church - the church in case being the serbian orthodox. I knew he switched and even changed his name. But being so actively religious... ouch. He left and I stayed to finish my cigarette, and this printer guy just commented - "see? He's always been like this.".
The next day Jeanie started working at Firriver.