03-III-2021.
Finished reshooting the diaries. Took five-six more days to write the content here into Byo, including, in the end, the post festum two years after its end, and the holliday homework diary from 1965. Now I'm scribbling mostly at random, as memory crosses my mind. In the pythonski version there's still no webpage generator, and there are still a few bugs (the navigation grid loses focus so no search; the cases table keeps getting same records again; the edits to the cases are not saved automagically; I didn't set up an automatic backup of the database yet). I'm somehow too lazy to mess with the code, and even the insertion of old photos didn't get too far, that may be something to do next winter. I'm in no hurry.
Some time that week I went solo to Lidl, just to buy bulky stuff - water, mineral [water], Nutella (2kg, on action) and donuts (simply chocolate glazed, no icing no sprinkling). Met Stana and her husband, with a true double-take on the parking. Not a word of their son or of their carreer moves. Last I know she sued her partner in the vet lab (across the street from domaćin) and got her share paid out (and this would be third or fourth time she played that) and now has a nursing home somewhere by north end. Promised to call, to visit. Sure. Writing this down just to have a date when they said it. They didn't offer any of their phone numbers... not that I'm too sad about that. As we said in the early seventies, "without them I'm like crazy (and with them even crazier)".
We took the girls to Springfield on fourth, ninth, twelfth.
On fifth she made pohovano pancakes, which she never really made before, she just recollected having eaten them once, perhaps in the eighties. Didn't turn out bad at all, looks like a short Karađorđe steak, sized like a bit of a narrower sarma. And the taste? Like burek with meat but... a pancake.
On eighth the weather was at least nice, so we went shopping with the girls - to the butcher's shop near ruža, then to chinise shop in Lesnina so they bought more toys (they usually buy identical, and when they don't, then she has to go again, same day, and buy the matching). This time they got some jellyfish-like piece of soft plastic with tentacles and a blinking LED inside, triggered by shake or hit, and one animal in a carrying box (Sanda a puppy and Linda a kitty or vice versa).
In the evening we gave up on the attempts to talk with Go from the ground floor. Just like we did with Lena, as it goes. As soon as the kids notice that we're trying to talk over skype, raise such a noise, we keep cunting up... ah, no more. She found that on gugolj the skype still works (even though it still runs a windowses seven, 32 bit), we parked it on a chair upstairs in the smokeroom and at least we could smoke freely while we talk. Go is making weirder and weirder stuff on her 3d printer. Even a few small car parts - a peg for the hull plating, a wedge where the seat is screwed.
On ninth we gathered at Borko's, 42nd frendz parti. We arrived at 19:29 sharp just like last time, no matter how many last moment things the girls invented. Likewise, Dragana arrived two minutes after us, again. This time he had the beer for her, I stayed on brandy (our best apricot nee 2019). We were, as it were, good, in fine mood, no larger dispute but instead sang, especially Arsen. Dragana asked for some Dragan Stojnić at times. When you look at it, most of those we listen to are now dead. But then to those who like classical music it happens since the first day...
I snapped a few shots, and then parked the shooter on the empty chair next to her. Previously Dragana and I sat by the window and she by the vitrina (Borko is always at the head of the table, such is his habit), then Dragana moved to vitrina so the draft doesn't catch her in the back when we open the terrace door to air the room. Then she had trouble when two of them discussed something vigorously and all the noise went over her head, so we switched places thereafter.
At some point I caught myself singing "Po polje tanki grahatalji" by that sharpeyed soldier girl from that militaristic clip - it sure all is wrong, but the music is strong and excellent for drunk hour. That's about the time when she noticed eos70 by her side and started serial shooting, excellent series.
We split after three. Amazingly, I didn't have to call our cabbie, there was someone at the station in front of the Lesnina.
On tenth the graphical card for Raja's machine arrived, of course stronger than the old beast. There's a shortage now because the trick was revealed how it's easier to mine cryptocurrencies on graphic processors for less power than regular processors, which created a demand. The price, of course, went to the heavens, and nVidia wants her part, we won't cheat her*. Nina found that card for fifty-some thousand, and it arrived and everything was fine, it got mounted the same day and Raja stopped complaining about game lagging. Then when she wanted to leave kudos in the ad, she saw that the price is now eighty-some thousand dinars, about 800$. In the there**, the current price for that model is 1000$ and up.
Our terrrace door is... terrace type, so it has a handle and a mechanism of the window type and can't be opened from outside. Which then means it can't be closed from outside either, which was a problem long unsolved, but also unimportant as we didn't stay outside much. Now with grandchildren ofen in attendance over the last ten years, the door is more often used and became a passage for the mosquitos. To keep it from staying open when the handle is in unlocked position I added a kitchen cabinet type of magnetic latch, which wasn't enough. Then I hooked a bungee, which didn't last, then one spring from the old expander, which worked until now. Last weeks both Linda and Sanda took to frequently going out and in, enjoying the spring-powered slam of the door behind them. Sometimes they remember to stop and wait for the frame to close and hold it before it slams, but that's rare enough. So Nina found the mechanism and bought it. It arrived just before the weekend, but only now I found a quiet hour when to mount it. Of course, it's not an exact fit because in that dark corner I don't see well enough. Not too dark, though, just there's bright light right below it. And it may have been alright had I knew in advance how it will behave. The lever is lowered a millimeter or two when in middle position, and snags the door frame. I solved that with a strip of metal (namely a latch from the chain for dad's last pocket watch), works for now. Scratches a little, but not horribly and at least it neatly opens and closes.
Now we have a door like a supermarket [has].
Thirteenth in the morning Dragana calls - her other nephew now caught corona, and a serious one, and his wife a bit later. He was revaccinated already, with the Chinese (i.e. Sinofarm). Herself is okay, she got the vaccine (the AstroZeka***) ten days ago, but her sister now got it too, and she's been in contact with her frequently, so let's delay the next sitting for a couple of weeks. Or just one...
In the afternoon we started a radnaakcija. The cobbles, left over from 2012 when we made the driveway, are finally being put to use, to make a path from the terrace stairs to the garage back door. There's some path there, I laid the concrete half-covers I had covering the water meter pit and the sewer revision pit before we paved there. The rest I covered with planks, which are by now rotten or just to wet and slippery. Managed to extend that by almost a meter (in the couple of hours before sunset), then the next day started from the opposite direction using bricks. Laid a dozen of them before the rain started.
In the evening Carp called. Thick tongued, he managed to explain how T.D. from Užice, our regular customer from DBA years, wants to just chat with me. There, some nostalgia pulls him or what. That is he remembered us when Carp needed someone to help his son while in Užice (studying or doing some practice, fuckit if I understood that part), then word by word they got over old times, remembered the folks, this one died, that one died, came to me and, ah well, I got his number. I went to Užice only once, but he was here several times, and I'm sure we were many times on the phone. He's also in the famous internal proverb "kurac palac Dabac Pozerac" (dick, thumb, ...).
So I got his phone and he got mine - Carp called just to ask for my permission, as is the due order of things.
The next day the rain got even worse, temperature fell by 13 degrees, north wind, sleeping time. Granny Marta fucks to demolish.
Day 16th we went with girls to Springfield. I tried the billiard a bit, when I was alone. I was right, I would need about hundred hours until I gain the eye again. Then some kid made me company until she went to detelina to buy substrate for the saplings.
In the afternoon we finally made noodles again - the hens now make 7 to 9 eggs a day, in january it was 0 to 1. For a whole month now we eat the shop shit, even what kinda organic they had in Roda isn't as it used to be, the soup goes blurry, as if they found a substitute for egg substitute. What we make is the real thing, eight eggs per kilo of flour, can't fail. It didn't go the smoothest, the room is a bit warmer so it's drying fast and the edges go stiff and snag between the rollers, but doesn't matter, we routinely push all of it through the little hand machine.
These days I chat with Lajna a lot. She seems to have a lot of time on her hands. She moved to a coastal village in Istra, sold the house and apartment in Zagreb, went vegan... well, what with few of her other ailments, this seems to help her, as she's never been quite right after she fought her way out of her heroin years (eighties and nineties). But seems to be doing fine, notas confused and sleepy as she used to be.
On seventeenth I was a bit of a transporter - Magi ordered a new wheelchair for her mom, because the old one is a bit wide and the apartment is stuffed with furniture and rather cramped and it's hard for her to maneuver; it's also old and the tires gone soft but unequally so it leans to a side. She said I should take the euros from the heap that's in our custody, sure will just watch me go to the nearest exchange kiosk. I paid it with my card. The pharmacy where they had it was in the same house where she used to live as a baby, until about 1957 or so.
So I delivered it, and met there some chick (turned out she was sixty, which fits my definition of chick - my age times 0,85 to 1,1 - anyone above that age is a hag, anyone below is a kid), who's cooking for her about twice a week. Chatted with her a bit, she took a shot of her with me in the back, sent i to Magi via viber, then later she sent it to me via skype. Then I took the old wheelchair to Caritas... I know the street, she had a house there for a number of years, we passed that way a thousand times, but now finding house number 16 is a different matter, because this is an old street, where the numbers were assigned a hundred years ago, when the lots were larger and were then subdivided a few times, so 16 could be at a position where 46 in a new street would be, because there's a 8, 8a, 8b, 12, 12a... I felt a bit awkward entering a place owned by a religious institution, but then this is not anyone's sacred ground and they won't scream at a heathen stepping over it. What matters is that I've returned the wheelchair and that I'm done with it.
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* From "Marathon family" cult movie, the quote says "I want my share, you will not cheat me!", which is repeated a few times.
** "there" being used as a noun first on ppp then on burundi denotes mostly "over the puddle", except in burundi it may also mean "over there", i.e. the land of orific...origin, i.e. ppp (as we're mostly refugees from there). "U tamou" is literally "in the there", and sounds just as awkward, but it's in the usage for years now. Just like "a forever" is a noun, and means roughly about nine days, which is the average time between "forum, I'm gone forever" and "I'm back".
*** i.e. Astro Bunny - mocking the AstraZeneca, just like the Pfizer-Biontech is Fajzer-Bijonse
Mentions: 25-III-2014., 19-IV-2019., burek, burundi, Byo (Byo), DBA, detelina, domaćin, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), gugolj, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Lesnina, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Margita Gunaroši (Magi), Melanija Merćep (Lajna), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pohovano, ppp, radnaAkcija, ruža, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sarma, Springfield, Stana Čopanja, Tasa Radenkov (Carp), in serbian