24-XII-2020.
The 19th is st Nicholas, but we don't care. She made fish čorba, with pangasius fish again (no bones!) and fried three hakes. We were supposed to have a large one in the freezer, but even extensive diving into the top two geological layers in it yielded no results. We didn't get down to cenozoic, though. So she sent me to the supermarket on the corner, and they had a whole box of it - at least 30kg left when I got there. These days it's almost a reflex to put on the mask when entering a shop, even though it's mostly empty (or at least was at the time). There is some dispute whether this is a fasting slava or mrsna (ah, in serbian that's the opposite from fastful, another word missing in english), so since we aren't really doing it (staunch heathens both of us, stepping it up a notch as the orthodox jamahirya progresses), we did both. Actually the reason was to remember how our folks did it, and the other reason was that there would be fish available just about everywhere, so easy to find what we want. We also had pihtije, which she made the day before.
The batteries for eos70 are acting up. Once a charge holds for about 800 shots, then the next charge stops before 400. Both batteries look exactly the same, so I don't know which one was straight from Canon and which one was the extra from PixelFoto, or whatever was the name of the shop. So now I decided to memorize the start of a fresh charge by taking a picture of batteries - there's always a bunch of them under the left monitor.
On 20th I got an idea to iron my shirts. The ironing board is in our smokeroom, upstairs, so I had good music around, and as soon as I turned the iron on, my cell phone rang... It was Borko. I told him the old joke about a Bosnian in an ambulance, with both ears burned. "How did this happen?" "I was ironing my shirt when phone rang." "Ouch... wait, wait, what about the other ear?" "I called you right away". Anyway, the news is that we're finally sitting in tomorrow, his place. The long break is over.
On 21st we had another thing to do for Magi - I was to do a clear up with the Slupeks. To see the leftover money (they did get about 34000 rsd to pay aunt's accumulated utility bills, buy her diapers, food etc), to check the receipts, get the keys, get the rest of the money and whatever else they had. Was supposed to do that the day before, but they were away, they'd receive me today, between 12:00 and 14:00. Well, our lunch was over and I got there around 13:15. Their house is huge; the part with the boutique, facing the busy street just by the bridge, actually mostly obscured by it, is just big. There's twice as much behind it, with more and more rooms added as their estate grew. It's somewhere between neat and kitsch, modern and very traditional. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd see a smart home theatre gear, covered in crocheted lace.
They were consternated with the whole thing, "what have we deserved this with", "why did we even get into this, we don't need such hassle" etc etc. No mention was made of the word "apartment" nor "contract". Yeah, right. The lady Slupek was exactly as I had imagined her, the same hairdo as those six doctors on 12-VIII-2020., same glasses, and the accent and attitude similar to the daughter of the granny from whom we bought that house in Lalinski. I didn't bring the canon, shot the bills with my old nokla (turned out amazingly sharp - that phone is nearly 10 years old now). I said a few times "don't tell that to me, I'm only the courier".
So in the evening we took the usual gear to the 33rd frendz parti - 1,5 l of brandy (the sour cherry again, finally, enriched with this year's crop), two liters of tikveško roze, and the eos70. Nothing much - Dragana chose to sit with her again, fearing her back may get stuck again when the terrace door is opened for some air. We didn't even get properly drunk, just slightly, and nothing memorable happened. The baklava was good, just that the top layer got burned, which he removed. Oven acting up, thermostat recently demented. We split around two.
This close to winter solstice the days are too short (today was it, and the daylight was 8 hours 14 minutes). Allegedly the afternoon was half a minute longer than the morning...
Heard that Staša was actually worse than we thought. Tangled guts, OK, that happens, but they saddled him with a stoma, which by sound of it should be something about teeth, but no, it's a false asshole, he's basically shitting sideways, into a bag hanging on a tube which goes straight out of his lower belly. That doesn't sound good.
There was some trouble getting a cab, the usual two numbers having no vehicles, but the sure card was the one where Beštara used to work, and Grne still does (as we heard from the cabbie, who looked vaguely familiar, being close to our generation, slightly bald and gray bearded).
The next sitting is scheduled for 11th or 13th of january, as both Dragana and Borko have a string of other appointments - he's got a few birthdays (daughters, grandchildren), she still has to go see that new grandchild etc etc. So OK.
On 23rd we went to get supplies - i.e. to visit that butcher near ruža. I was a bit sleepy, so I took a nap on the couch. The twins usually let me go at it for some 15 minutes, and then Sanda comes, taps me on the cheek, and then climbs up and snuggles next to me. Not that she's sleeping, though, she shifts and turns at least twice a minute. This time I got completely confused when I saw it wasn't her, it was Linda. A first.
On 24th Nina had a dental again, so we brought some eggs and bacon to Lena. We're actually very thin on eggs at the moment, as with short days the hens don't catch enough time to eat, they sleep too long. Though, last year these 8 new hens were laying a considerable amount, this winter it's about ten eggs a week. Two of the older hens died last week, those from 2015. So we brought just one carton of eggs (10, not dozen, this is Europe!) while having bought 15 in Lidl yesterday (industrial, with pale yolks, but okay, still usable). While the traffic on the road was light - I once even passed two eighteenwheelers in one go - it was densely packed all the way from the bridge to the Bežanijsko cemetery (which is getting a huge pile of soil... they seem to be running out of space on other cemeteries). Most of the lights I passed only on 2nd or 3rd cycle. But I wasn't the least annoyed, just waiting for me to pass. We were late anyway, she had it scheduled for 15:30 but it was actually for 15:00 - which didn't matter, the next customer was just finishing when she got there, and she had only a tire change, i.e. one of those rubber pieces which would drag the teeth in given direction. Got the next set of rubbers to apply at home in two weeks (it would be the krismisi that day, anyway), so the next appointment is in four weeks.
I met Lena outside of the building, where she was throwing ball to Api. Some guy from the neighborhood was also there, with his black dog (nice legwarmer, by conviction). Just stood with them, talked, smoked until Nina finished with the dentist and walked to us. Then Api got slightly curious about the bag where the bacon was, and of course the carton with eggs fell out. Lena opened it to check, and he wanted to check too, and the carton now fell to the other side of the bench. Five eggs out. The carton was all messy, so she moved the five good eggs into her bag. Then we went up, and used the smaller elevator, because the big one (which can hold a bicycle) was out of sync, wasn't hitting the bottom floors right, stopped almost a meter below the floor sometimes. The small one is no larger than a phone booth, so the three of us and a huge dog somehow squeezed in... and the eggs in the bag suffered the wall. But they were only knocked, not punched, so salvageable.
On the way back we stopped somewhere in the area, Nina wanted to buy presents for the kids and the shop here is closer than at home (where it's all the way west, across town, at least 7km). We first went as per the address on the web, but that turned out to be their HQ, but the shop wasn't that far, so... well, in all this holiday mess I managed to park three times. Parking wasn't such of a problem until this year, at least on this side of the river. Now that they're building commercially left and right, the cars and gasoline being relatively cheap (cars are, gasoline is relative - it's been even more expensive a year or two ago - but now with this plague there's far less travel, so world prices dropped). And this time we got the burgers ordered by phone from about halfway, so when we got to the place, they were ready.
On 25th, not really knowing us for the last 20-some years, Magi greeted us krismissily. Got my usual "freedom to the people!" back, just like anyone would. Then she said they're both atheists too, just go for the public celebrations.
Around these days they held a year's remembrance for Silvija. There was some date shift, whether it was on 18th or 20th because 19th was the st Nikola, whatever, they somehow hit the date when most could come, and many did. On the cemetary, luckily, the priest didn't stretch it to full thirty minutes, so we didn't freeze too much. This time we came alone, no kids. We drove to Bečkerek, where the daća was held, and didn't even bother to use the native's advantage and get there first - the parking was already getting thick, so we parked across, at Fabrika station.
We were by the main table, with Dragan and his parents, Boba and Milena, and Silvija's closest friends. Milena appeared briefly, for barely an hour, had to go to work.
We didn't have the main hall, nor the adjoining one, but the third one in the back, with even worse echo, didn't know they had that. Somehow the conversation turned to Arpi and there she said how they weren't really close, we didn't visit much, didn't confide, until the recent years when it was sort of renewed. Mostly because of oma's policy of pitting them against each other and then ruling. She mentioned a few other things which didn't quite sit under their caps, so they started giving us bewildered looks and we didn't see them again. I somehow had more meaningful conversation with the younger folks at my end of the table, found more in common.
We managed to completely avoid the missus, not a word, so that passed too.
Mentions: 12-VIII-2020., Api, Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), Bečkerek, čorba, daća, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dragan Umljanić, eos70, Fabrika station, frendz parti, Grne, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Lalinski Konak, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Margita Gunaroši (Magi), Milena Požarić, Milovan Sebešćen (Beštara), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, oma, pihtije, ruža, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Silvija Umljanić, slava, Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), in serbian