25-X-2014.
On 21st Go contacted us from the new place. Stanley finally managed to sell his house, and now they moved to this apartment owned by a friend of his. They have most of the house, he's mostly not there, away on business or at his girlfriend's, whatever.
Stanley bought that house on one of them stupid interest-only loans, which was a huge risk, but could pay off if you sold it at the right time. For the last five or six years he was paying only the interest, not even denting the loan itself, and was now preparing to sell the house for almost a year. Changed tiles, repainted, fixed, mostly by himself. When the house was in ship shape, to his own satisfaction, he put it on sale and waited a month or two for it to get sold, to a vietnamese couple. It went for about 400K$, which was not as much as he expected or wanted, but he still made some 10% on it, and was out of debt. Along the way, the interest he paid was less than the rent would be.
Then, later, they just tore the house down and built a new one in its place. He whitewashed in vain*.
Went to Čankovo before lunch, just we two, only to check on stuff and to pick the last of cayennes and jalapeños, swiss chards, even green onions. At the same time, Nina took Violet to Zana, and the boys stayed home for a little nap.
In the afternoon, went to check out the new tavern, by Smilja who previously cooked for banatskakuća. Her solo project is called debelamačka and is situated in a small house near the brewery. Only two parking places (we parked across the street, it's 17:00 and the ink and toner shop is closed, their space is free for taking).
The lady got me as "deda Raja", instead of "Raja's deda", but no mistake, she always knew who I was and who's coming with me. The space is all yellow, the waitress is almost negro curly... well, twice the diameter of the curls and the hair is obviously heavy, but the color of it is somehow coppery, fits the overall color scheme. As interesting as she may be, we never saw her again. The beer is even more interesting, the czech Bernard, in bottles with ceramic corks, of which I barely had one. She was playing with the cork on my bottle and the spring jumped and toppled both the bottle and the glass. We ordered another, but then Violet got jittery before I could drink half of it, so we went off. Too bad, it was a very good beer. And we'll be seeing the fat lady repeatedly, she cooks well.
The Bernard beer, not in next seven years (writing this in august 2021).
On 27th I found somewhere the old coathanger that I made once, decided there was nothing wrong with it, even its hooks were still in the wall, so I just cleaned it up and hung it again. Just like it used to be. That piece of plank somehow connects to the beginnings, it was in the first batch of things bought for the future house.
A photo from Lena and Milan from Egypt. They offered him three camels for her. Old trick. Back in 1992. Grgi was getting ten camels for Višnja.
On 29th, I got pissed off (serbian: popizdeo, becunted) with the miserable speed of decomp, so I wiped off the old XP that it came with, and installed linux Mint. It not just flew, it started waking up from suspension not within minute and a half, but just four seconds. And the machine is six years old. Fuck m$.
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* the famous grafitto from Belgrade, which appeared on a freshly repainted wall: „you whitewashed in vain“.
Mentions: Atila Gereg (Grgi), banatskaKuća, Čankovo, debelaMačka, decomp, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Majkrosoft (m$), Milan Nastić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Ryu (Raja), Stanley Berger, Suzana Injački (Zana), Violet, Višnja Dubajić, in serbian