19-VIII-2020.
On 13th, another hot day, we took the twins, on bikes, to kaštel, just like we did last year. Took the eos70 and made a bunch of good shots. Linda decided it's good time to poop, so we had to use a bunch of wet wipes to clean her, and luckily had enough packaging to wrap the shitty underpants, and we also had clean ones. Experienced grandparents...
Got a pic of Anita posing in a trunk of one of the beemers - as Stanley put it, "Buy a brand new used bmw from her quality pre owned b-m-trouble-U's".
On 14th, went to Čankovo again to pick fruit and mow. Found more traces of neighbor's visits. Over the last year, not only the still went missing, but also various small things - three fangla, watering bucket, 60 tomato saplings, and, on top of all of it, two plastic asthrays, absolutely worthless but then costly - it will take time and effort to remember, buy new ones, bring them here, and then remember to put it back in the house, under lock, every fucking time. And now they also started picking tomatoes. We found footprints on the foil.
The pumpkins will be huge. The plum aplenty, and also the vineyard peaches, the small white ones. They multiply at random, sprout just anywhere, then grow to a full tree in a couple of years, bear fruit perhaps 3-4 times and then they bear too much fruit and the branches split, sometimes all the way to the root, and the tree dies. By that time there's another one to take its place. It's a walking forest.
In the afternoon we chopped the fruit - the rind has to be broken somewhere, for the bacteria to gain access to the pulp and begin fermentation. Also the pectolytic enzime that we started appllying (some time mid season last year) has to wet the pulp. For apples and the few pears, I used this light cleaver, which is chinese junk and already half of the shiny plating fell off, but it still works for this. That is, used it until now - she switched to kitchen knife, making the resulting bits more irregular and thus mixing better. The previous batch was almost ready.
On 15th it was ready, and it took all day to distill it. We got 7,5 l of the usual tutifruti from it, not bad at all.
Next day, Go finished the tapestry and made pillow of it. It's a one knot per pixel image of Neša and Anita. I did something like that, as a gobelin (now the terminology is weird here - it says it's called tapestry in french... and we use a different french word for it), back in 1979, did about a half and quit when I started working.
On 17th, we took the girls for the regular afternoon ride, this time the playground at Lesnina. The weather was perfect, took a lot of good shots, including the bunch of cab drivers in yellow t-shirts having a chat in the background. One guy was walking and milling around, sitting on a bench, walking that way and back, looking unnaturally sick and holding his loose jeans by his fingertips - they hung rather low, I guess they'd fall if he ran. Maybe waiting for his man.
Lena called in the evening, to show her new skirt and t-shirt. One of those she bought and redid to fit her, the other is fully her own work. The sewing machine she got from Milan for birthday is becoming productive. They're looking to take another vacation in the apartment he inherited from his mom, somewhere on istrian coast, and this time it's a bit of a triper because they need a PCR test no older than 48 hours, and also some paperwork for Api. I told her not to cheat on the test if she doesn't exactly know everything, and not to copy anyone's results, you never know from which moron you may be copying.
On 18th we went to Čankovo again, got more fruit. Nothing to mow (finally), so I took the wheelbarrow and moved some nine batches of old compost, mostly from the rotten hay and the remnants from the still, to fill the ditches in the orchard. I did almost none of that last year, and very little this year.
On 19th, Lena and Milan and Api drove to Istra. Got a picture from the car, then one from the beach, much later. And a video of Api almost falling asleep. Then, a few days later, pictures from the walls - Milan as a toddler, then of his grandfather smuggling weapons to a liberation movement to some colony in Africa (probably as a secret help from the army of SFRY), then of Stojan interviewing Vuk Drašković, probably in 1990 or so. We took the twins to 25. maj this time (next to the building where the widow of Števa should live, but she never appears and the phone numbers I had are not valid anymore). Specifically took the slightly roundabout route, so we wouldn't pass the shop where we bought them dresses last time, as they seem to have taken that as part of the routine for that street. Did so on the way back, and had to convince Linda that it's "not this time".
In the evening, had my four beers and dinner with Marinko at debelamačka (works again!). To my big surprise, the waitress was, no less, Zina! The initial deal was that we'll have Grgi at the table too, but he had "his time planned by his wife", and for the next evening some plumbers in the house. Talked a bit with him on the phone, and he mentioned something about a second bathroom. debelamačka is under strict eye of the inspections, not allowed to sell anything after 21:00, the fine is 150000 rsd (also for staff not wearing masks properly over the nose, for which Zina somehow had a hunch and saved them the fine, she put it up just a few seconds before the inspection entered), so we sat until about 23:00 (they were cleaning, washing dishes and doing other make work meanwhile). Then we walked up the street to see if we could get another beer, which was interesting for me, don't remember doing that ever, specially not in my old area. In the first joint they were closed already, the next one didn't take any orders and kept mentioning some 150000 fine. There I recognized Simče, an old acquaintance of mine (and hers, I'd say from kinta, though he says he's from Šumica, which isn't far), whose job it seems to be to know people and places. He also recognized Marinko (by cobination of face, name, address and nearest neighbors) so we went on across 25. maj to ruža, where he had a late beer a few nights ago, but the place was closed now, must be because of football match (ok, something's played on wednesdays, but in the summer? and why would that matter? I got no clue). So we went to Lesnina and there I rode my bike one block to check Šanta, closed. Found a place on the other side, a hole-in-the-wall next to the park on the same square, where we had one beer. Tried to get another one, but 150000 fine was mentioned in case they're caught open overtime, and we didn't want to get the nice girl and boy, who kept it open, into trouble. Simče kept asking about people and addresses, partially bragging about how much of those he knows, partially being obnoxiously curious. I openly asked him who is he working for, but he didn't get it.
Mentions: 25. maj, Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, Atila Gereg (Grgi), Čankovo, debelaMačka, eos70, fangla, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), kaštel, kinta, Lesnina, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Marinko Protić, Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), ruža, Stanley Berger, Stevan Garaj (Števa), Stojan Nastić, Šanta, triper kombinacija, Zina, in serbian