10-VII-2021.: The wedding
I woke up at 6:20 because on that clock from Prague the short hand is off so it could have easily been 7:20. Had half a coffee, smoked out a couple of eaches*, and at 7:48 showed up at Optima to refill the freon in the van. Let it endure one day.
The whole morning went for the preparations - four kids need to be dressed, ourselves then too, have a quick shower, an extraordinary** shave was also due... lots of things to do. Boba and Milena came at expected time (he borrowed mom's car), and believe it or not, we took off at noon. The AC was hitting it, but insufficient for the swelter. Still, combined with somewhat open windows it managed somehow. An incredible number of tractors (or individual agricultural tractors, as the political correctnes of late selfmanagement years would have it) made most of the trip quite slow, and we still got there on time. What on time, we came first. Milan's dad was next, then the bride and groom, then the kuma (the female kum; the male one was actually the 2nd witness), then two ladies from Varaždin, some neighbors and... altogether not too many people.
In the city hall it went quickly, we exited at 14:13. The wedding hall was perhaps moderately nice in the seventies, when the building was erected, but then they got fire hydrants and other installations, but at least the lights were done right, someone had the skills to lay them correctly, so the couple and the witnesses and the matricular officer (front side only) were properly lit, while the rest was noticeably darker.
Outside, exactly at the corner where we'd have to pass to get to the cars, a gypsy brass band had a checkpoint, with their usual repertoir of two and a half songs but then very loud and in-your-face, but we summarily fucked them off.
Then an hour and a half of a break, while they take Api for a walk... well, what do we do, I drove to the splav where the party will be. We sat around in one area, while the staff laid out the tables for the party in the other one. Then around 15:00 they were finished, pretty much everyone arrived, and we moved to our area. We took the double table in the downstream riverside corner, Dragan, Boba and Milena in the middle, the couple with kumovi middle upstream, Milan's dad and the two girls from Varaždin by the entrance, the band in the downstream bankside corner (IOW next to us) and the rest spread around. About thirty people altogether.
The band was quite interesting, two guitars, drum bass and violin, two or three of them sing, laying out their voices in interesting ways at times. Specially the solo guitar guy did some interesting things with his voice, going up or down an octave, acting this or that voice... They started with instrumentals, I even recognized "Samba pa ti" despite heavy rearrangement. The first vocal number was, no more no less, "Always look at the bright side of live" from "Life of Brian" by Pythons. To which Lena came to me and sang one stanza with me, after which I took out my nokla and recorded the end of it.
Linda and Sanda enjoyed themselves, crawled under the table, watched the ducks in the water, fed the sparrows, and around, posed for pictures. Milan brought Api, for whom Lena sewn a necktie in the morning :). Raja was cunting it out because his phone was empty (I have an USB charger in the van, but his phone has USB-C, incompatible), then we plugged it into the band's power strip and he cunted out for the wireless signal being weak and dropping every few minutes, then he was just annoyed in general because he wanted to go home. At least he understood that he can't just ask to go home, there's nine of us to the van. Then Nina cheered him up and he was quite happy the rest of the time, but then Violet started cunting up at the music being too loud. So were you, in your time...
My moment of silent joy was when the band played "Russia" from Idoli... so I told kum (the 2nd) "the moment when you understand that you're the oldest guy on the party". True, she is a bit older than I, but nobody knows that.
The party was a bit strange altogether, a sitting with little mingling between the tables. The couple did walk around and sit with everybody, the kums also did some, and I also walked to this or that table. There wasn't much dance, just the two from Varaždin did a bit by their table - there was no dance floor provided, there was no singing, just a sitting with quite a good band.
The liter and a half of apricot that I brought was, as it turned out, prohibited. The same waitress who told Lena the day before that it's okay was adamant today that they must not allow that, so we agreed to take it up to the quay and drink there. Had no shot glasses, though, and everyone already came so we couldn't just call up a straggler to buy plastic ones somewhere en route.
Around 19 she took Sanda and Violet up to the quay, to get some air and run around and get away from the band. Violet returned quickly, but Linda took her place. Then Lena appeared barefoot, she just went a few dozen meters upstream to some beach to cool her feet - the new sandals were a bit loose and chafed in a few places. This prompted both girls to unshoe themselves and start running up and down the gangplank, screaming and enjoying themselves to the hilt. The combined oxygen, adrenalin and sheer joy built up into some kind of frenzy. A storm seemed to be approaching, a strong wind started blowing. We feared one of them may fall - which did happen, but luckily on the lower, flat part of the gangplank, so nothing happened. We saw that they'd run out of steam really soon but can't stop by themselves, so we declared we're done for today and packed rapidly. I went to leave the eos70 in the rucksack, only to discover it was wet - the wind tipped the vase and some water splashed on its bottom. I still had half of the cigarette I lit before declaring closing time when I carried Sanda over the dyke, and was dead tired when we got to the van. We took off at 19:37. Much faster on the way back, no tractors, no anybody. Rain here and there, even got a "can that AC do a bit less" - "nope, it's an onoff, but can slow down the fan".
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* komad - a piece, a one of - is the word sorely missing in english; in grocery, when fruit or vegetables are sold by komad, the price says "/each", so an each must be it.
** take "extraordinary" literally here - it was out of order. Orderly would be in the evening. Okay, had to ask on burundi (because „out of order“ means malfunctioning, and an „orderly“ is a person) - should have said extra or additional shave. Um... in october I revisited this, the correct expression should be „unscheduled“.
Mentions: Api, burundi, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Dragan Umljanić, eos70, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), kum, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Milan Nastić, Milena Požarić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), splav, Violet, in serbian