01-V-2021.
Weird weather last ten days. Frequently it was cold, not quite frost but close - they'd forecast one but change their minds to +4 as it approached. We even restarted the floor heating for a few days, the AC wasn't enough. The cherries and cherries kept blossoming on and on, and by the end of month the tiny fruits became visible.
On 22nd, with the new car, Nina and I went to Novi Beograd, she to the dentist and I to Vračar municipality, to pay the car tax so I can register it. It takes the highway south to Autokomanda, where it takes a 270 degree loop to reach a street which is parallel to it, but on the left side. Except I memorized the map and somehow got it into my head that it takes the rightmost lane... well, no. Third from the right, but there are only two. The third is formed on the spot after the light, which I realized when I passed the light for a dozen meters and saw the sign. Too late then, there was no way to switch. The Belgraders are notorious for traffic, but they would give a pass to someone out of town... except I had local tags, which was exactly the problem I was working on. On top of it, I was running out of fuel, so the gauge said. So I was nudged back to the highway for another 270 degrees and arrived at Novi Beograd. Smooth ride, though, the C4 is fun. Plan B is to somehow act psychophysically incapable of reaching Vračar and trying to see what offsite options they may have. They don't need me, they need some paperwork.
On 26th we went to Čankovo. The grass grew above the knees, even in cracks in the concrete. We mowed as much as we could. There are a few apricots here and there, not on every tree. Hit and miss.
This was the retarded winter when a tree could dodge the bullet, depending on which day it opened the petals, and which way the breeze blew that night. Three adjacent trees, one has fruit, the other two bust. It's quite possible we'd have more from the two trees at home than the fifteen here.
We mowed until we got bored. The mower took a lot of tries until it finally caught on and remembered how to fire the piston. My trimmer (the other one, from Lidl) started much faster, but that wasn't fast at all. When this grass dries, we'll have lining for hens' nests for two years in advance. We brought some thirty bricks in the picasso, to finish the path to the chicken coop (and a few will remain for the future plateau, aka plato).
That evening we had a frendz parti (45th) at Dragana's. According to he consensus we reached, I took some pictures along the way, but not there, didn't even pull it out. Because it's always more of the same, same us, same places, same poses. It's been a year already, we used it all up. And the texts started repeating too.
She sits in the yard. The space between us and the second neighbor is just first neighbor's orchard and chain link fences, one can see through (the apples still haven't grown much leaves) and hear as well. His granddaughters play, and the younger mocks the older with "Jana is a baba, Jana is a baba" (a grandmother). Jana promptly sings "Trla baba lan", tone perfect and to the word.
Drop dead, man, this song is from 28-I-1970..
The photo unofficially named "paće is watching you" (that's my handle there) has acquired a status of semiofficial meme on burundi. Lady Blitva is from Zadar, our dežurni Dalmatian. The context is always someone pulling a language trick, as if I did that. I told Vilmos Tehenészfiú (hungarian for William the cowboy - hungarian was a fad a couple of years ago and most of them never bothered to switch back to their old names) that "this sentence is not ever spoken or written. save the link".
Donald with a hat is still my avatar.
On thirtieth I was supposed to get the feed for cats and hens, but they were overcrowded at detelina. The guy was alone - the girl was nowhere - and they had a live chicken delivery. These deliveries are scheduled, a batch comes in crates, by truck, and they call anyone who subscribed, and the folks appear rapidly, you don't want the birds to stay in crates too long. Which creates a crowd, so I just left and decided to return a couple of hours later when it clears. Which I did, at 13:30, only to discover they were open only until noon. Fuck. Saw that they have the holiday schedule - yeah, now that the crowd dispersed I could see it - the mayday being on saturday, easter on sunday, and the state declared two more days off, they're reopening on fifth. Nice.
Tried other shops, as much as I could remember their locations, all closed. So we had the hen feed for half a day. She borrowed half a bucket from the neighbor, and cooked some potatoes and potato peels and old crummy industrial pastry from since at least two forevers - dredged the bottom of the bag/box, and added a spoonful of grease, and laid it out to cool down. Cats loved it. The hedgehogs didn't wake up yet, did so when this was over.
On first I finally completed the path to the chicken coop, and since she was in a grumpy mood, I decided to, contrary to best practices, stow away the leftover material (a dozen bricks and some stone pieces) and even the tools (a spatula, hammer, kids' sandbox shovel).
Haven't made a sinemaspatch like this in a while.
On third we were supposed to have a session at Borko's, but he claimed the daughters will have all kinds of programme for him, what with the holidays and grandchildrens' birthdays, so tenth of may it will be. It was about time to take a break, anyway.
On fourth we finally went somewhere all together (to Imperial puddle), with will and enthusiasm, except the story from previous attempts repeated. Sanda got into the bucket seat on her own, and clicked the lower seat belt on her own and proud that she knows how to, but then Nina insisted on clicking the upper one too, which is completely removing the freedom of movement. She screams as if being skinned, but this time it was becoming dangerous, she's right behind me and three times she kicked my right elbow, twice I swerved a bit. Then I performed what I almost did a dozen times over the previous years - pulled over, turned off the engine and waited for her to cool down. This was less than a kilometer before the end of the trip, but still. When we left the van, I played the scene to the end (and it seems that nobody heard what I said about the elbow), claimed danger and driver's responsibility, here's the keys I'll call a cab and go home, I can't keep calming myself forever, my nerves aren't getting younger... Which then caused comments like "it ends bad like this every time" (every time because it's the first time - I only once shouted at Violet last year), but the steam blew off after just 50m of walk.
Those bucket seats are too small already. That's for one year olds. It's time to replace them with just booster seats, which she also brought, they're upstairs.
On sixth I finally forced myself to call the Vračar municipality. The girl at the switchboard, oops, kol centar (yup, pure engrbian, centAr is serbian) said I need to call the tax authority which is completely unrelated to them, but here's three phones and two emails. The 2nd phone on that list worked, I got the guy there explain exactly what I need to send, snail mail. Nina printed the PPI-4 form, the next morning I filled it, and went to the post office at our community centre. It was quite a crowd there, some dole was on - perhaps the 3000 dinars covid aid or whatever, I was the eighth in line, but due to covid rules we all wait outside and there's only one customer inside. And the girl there knows her job and it all went quite quickly, I didn't even have the time to be sorry for forgetting to bring cigarettes.
Johan appeared on eighth. He was away for ten days. We already thought we're left with just four cats (the little fuzzy Rundek from Siva; Džimi had kittens, none survived; Zelena doesn't count as ours, had kittens elsewhere, brought them for a few days, took them away; Siva had kittens the other days, they're still at Schrödinger's; Darko is carrying and who knows when will she deliver them). And Johan looks better than when he left, save for a small limp in front right paw. We've seen him limp worse. Whether it's the combination of fucking and fasting that sits so well with him, or he just unpacked his eighth or seventh life so everything is spanking new... No wonder that christianity disapproves of cats - they don't have three, seven or twelve lives, it's nine.
Mentions: 28-I-1970., burundi, Čankovo, detelina, dežurni, Donald, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), engrbian, frendz parti, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Violet, Zadar, in serbian