01-II-2021.
On 19th my driving glasses fell apart. Weren't abused, I really use them only when I drive and put them back into the scabbard unless just parked while shopping. The next day a trip to Belgrade was due, so quickly hop to town to have them fixed. Took the pair from upstairs, with scratched lenses, to make new reading ones. Dropped by the butcher next to ruža to get a good slab of bacon for Lena, a piece of švargla, domestic sausage and a pečenica (just a dried and smoked bit of best meat). Joys of winter.
Next day picked them along the way (parked in the underground, didn't go there by car since 1994) and we drove off to Belgrade. Then she called about "you forgot the bacon", so we turned back some 5km. She was outside with the twins, tote ready, the transfer took whole ten seconds. Arrived on time, no crowd on the road, few trucks, could step on it. This is still not the longest bacon detour, 24-IX-2018. was stronger. She made a few shots of the new chinese tire factory that's growing in the second industrial zone, surrounding the old dead one (where parts of kombinat used to be).
Milan had nose surgery, bandage already off. Still a bit swollen and sniffing at times, but says it's already better than before. He broke it some 3-4 times, he needed this, and as Lena says, he has the money so can indulge. We saw the engagement ring as well. Nina had another rubber change on her teeth (in serbian, rubber and tire are same word, so a pun is lost here), so things are coming to the planned locations.
On 23rd more grocery and other. (... 58 words...); these days I've finally switched to writing in serbian first then translating into english and seem to like it better so, though it's more fucked up to translate). We first tried at Idea on the lot of the former foundry, namely in the DIY shop next to it, across the street from the car repair where I fix my vehicles. They didn't have it but sent us to "Čelik plus", right across the former bager, where they did have it. Except I didn't see that the model I picked didn't come with any gas pod, so after Lidl (a corner away) drove back and took two.
Škrba made a phenomenal montage, inserted Bernie Sanders, the way he's inserted everywhere last ten days, into one of the shots from 13-VII-2019.. From left to right, Magi (sitting), J. and Zlotvor, M. (the host), Stinge, me, pLazić, Kunta (from behind, on stool). Why would we be the last to have one.
On 25th I reactivated the flash for the 36th frendz parti, because no matter how good and strong is the light at Borko's place, it's still a tad sharp and the relief* is on the ladies' faces (the geography, not making it easier). Bounced flash makes it softer. And I found why the batteries don't last - I set auto shutoff to 8 minutes from previous two, because it would switch off too soon when I played with the remote, if there's not a shot once in two minutes, it goes to sleep. So now it idled for eight minutes after each shot, and I got about 300 shots from a charge, instead of 800. And the reduction wasn't gradual, which was a clue to troubleshooting.
We didn't stay that long this time, and nothing big happened either. Dragana sat next to her again, because my side of the table is next to the terrace, where we periodically open the door to air out the smoke, and she's afraid that the draft may cause her back to stiffen up. She was thus caught in stereo loudness, when she and Borko start a dispute. He prepared gravče na tavče again, plus a bunch of things to nibble, crackers and whatnot, including half a kilo of peeled roasted sunflower seeds. We got the same cab driver as a month ago, he said he recognized the voice. Along the way we mentioned both Grne (still drives) and the late Beštara.
On 28th she made the czar beans for three days, this time with noodles, a bit stiffer, which I prefer. We usually use butkice (not as salted and smoked as they used to be, but still usable and just enough for taste), but this time it was ribs. The bones were short enough so we didn't have to employ the jigsaw. We ate it two days, but on third she decided to skip it and make spaghetti instead. We do usually skip the third day with beans, but this time we skipped fourth too and had the last plate today - because fourth day was a sunday, and she made a turkey drumstick soup and pilav (aka pilaff (I strongly detest anything that ends with ff in some languages when it ends in v in many others), and I don't feel like saying "rice pilav" because there are only a couple of recipes for pilav made from something else but rice).
The hens lay meagerly these days, we had perhaps 40-50 eggs all january, there were days with one or none, but nowadays three is the norm. The day lengthens. She makes pancakes often, so finally a jar of pekmez (strawberry, vintage 2016) will be eaten. Usually we eat a little over a half, and the rest acquires a culture. kvašenice are also frequently on the table. Violet is now capable of biting through the crust, but she still eats only the middle.
Yesterday had a brief but fundamental cuntout with Šime on burundi about... he didn't read what I wrote, just noticed that it's me and it's about meaning of words. Our dežurni dalmatian girl used -ception suffix to denote recursion, to which I objected, then she quoted some dictionary to back it up as valid. Sure it's now valid, the definition given in the movie was clearly what I said, but after 15 years the opinion of illiterate american teenager prevails. Didn't matter to him, he just went on about my trolling the whole forum bla bla. I replied that it's not about words, it's about concepts. And that he annoyed me a lot. The worse then, he said but then I just stopped reading there. If I can't write what I think without the dežurni commissar sitting on my neck, fuck that, it's no fun anymore. Boycott by silence ensues.
On 1st of february, this came up on the forum.
This morning, visited burundi (now almost a whole day in read only mode), and found this one. The plank he's sitting on is connecting the staircase of, freshly former, main railway station and the newly rebuilt square with the new monument of Stefan Nemanja on an acorn, squirrel not included. Apart from the monument itself, which is impressive if kitsch (and wrong, there's one freska of him and this doesn't resemble it at all, it looks more like a mongrel between Gandalf and Car Dušan after a weird party), they just had to make more pedestrian space and redirect the traffic around it even worse than before, plus they fucked up on every step, they can never lay stone tiles right, they're coming loose after just a week. On top of everything, they haven't thought of how this would connect to the building, so the edge next to it is now about half a meter above its former level, and all of a sudden you need to jump or climb... which they solved with this plank (!). Perfect place for a Bernie.
Today, 37th frendz parti. Served the 2016 tutifruti.
On third I exchanged a couple of emails with Melanija, just to explain how did she arrive on the single position of umentionable names. She replied promptly and shortly, announcing that she'll write in length, whenever she catches the time. By subject, too, and the third one was the "blueness of the hair" (in serbian blue also means blonde), which triggered some weird deja vu, which I couldn't place. Did I say that, what was that? We'll see, when it comes.
Really nice weather, up to +14, so we went to Springfield on 4th and 6th, with girls on bicycles. The waiter already knows "two warm neses". By the time we switch to cold ones, someone else will be in his place. We can't go into the backyard for smokes now, the owner locked it, says folks are leaving a bad mess there, so front terrace. A sofa-like seat outside, perfect. Second time there was some company, a girlie of practically the same age, six weeks older. She doesn't look small, in few respects she looks like Anita, and yet she's smaller than they. We think they are small just because we're used to the other four being largish at that age.
The rear right on the van goes flat regularly now. The metal of the wheel has gone porous, can't buy a fitting replacement, fuckit. Now it takes just two days to flatten out.
On eighth the girls insisted on climbing the staircase three more steps up, almost beyond the limit where we can catch them if they misstep on each other. Good photos.
In the evening the photos were crazy, the 38th frendz parti. Stayed at Dragana's until three, was really good. We brought last year's tutifruti from the second cask (didn't like the first one), tested it on saturday, is good. Three or four liters of roze also went. At some point Borko started playing music from his phone, so Dragana got into sevdah mood and turned off the light. Made a solid series of shots with just the anteroom light and the leds from her and my phone. And got the same cab driver third time in a row. We don't even have to say where to drive.
On ninth, around lunch, first Kees then Jan reported that Geoff died on sunday. Cancer, at age of 47. We did know he'll end like this, and yet it's still a surprise. He could have gone like before for any number of years.
Still not writing on burundi. If it can be said in a picture, okay, if not then nothing. In Byo came to the end of 1973, skipping march-september, either that notebook is lost or I just took the wrong one to reshoot. (checked a few days later, it's not among those I brought from the old house)(found it, it stuck to the rokovnik which I used as a universal notebook in fourth grade)
On 11th my nokla E5 was ten years old.
I'm still a regular at UA, for certain values of "regular". Not paying subscription for 2nd year in a row, because Alphonse stubbornly refuses to recognize it as a bug - and the it is when server has backup or whatever maintenance, it kicks me out. Which is okay, that's what any other forum does, it's that it marks all messages to that point as read, and doesn't log me back in automagically. This automatic login, with perservation of context, works perfectly on the fucking burundi, it even knows exactly which messages I read and which not. And Alphonse makes a living on this app, he even sold it as a business and kept the rights. So when it kicks me out, I can't be bothered to come back several times to see if it's done, I just close the page. And revisit it when I think of it, which means I closed it on 5th of january and reopened it on 2nd of february. Amazingly, kept me on for a dozen days now. Don't tell me he fixed it, it's still only about two years since I started complaining (and who knows when this started).
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* in two of the three primary meanings of the word - there's nobody coming to relieve them from the duty to sit, eat and drink
Mentions: 24-IX-2018., 13-VII-2019., Alphonse D'Alchembert, Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), bager, burundi, butkice, Byo (Byo), Čelik, dežurni, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dragojlo Kuntić (Kunta), frendz parti, Geoff Gearney, Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Grne, Jan Brenkelen, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Kees de Cock, kombinat, kvašenice, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Melanija Tisarević, Milan Nastić, Milovan Sebešćen (Beštara), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, pekmez, pLazić, rokovnik, ruža, Springfield, Stinge, UbiquAgora (UA), Violet, in serbian