18-VIII-2021.
Too hot on 15th, even the kittens went belly up in the yard. Borko reports that his family invented a special schedule for his weekend, all the way to tuesday, so we delay for a week.
Lena and Milan reported en route to Istra, going for two weeks this time. Honey halfmoon.
Sixteenth, made 7,5l of tutifruti, mostly plum, apple, pear, at 52% (so it went, nothing we could do). And a handful of blackberries.
Seventeenth, went to Čankovo. I mowed a bit, then finally got out my spade/shovel and wheelbarrow to continue clearing up the once heap of hay, on which the majstors heaped more junk, which seems to stay around forever. It sprouts weeds really fast, and is really fucked up to mow because of all the strings from bales, which get into the blades. We also took two kittens from Siva. The healthy one ran away immediately, the rheumy-eyed stayed with us, kept us company.
On 18th Nina found a buyer for her platika fish, took sixteen of them. The same guy who sold her the aquarium. I was just buzzing around the yard and house all afternoon, waiting for her to tell me when do we go, messed with my SF stories. Turns out it was dark when we went.
On 19th took her to Belgrade, dental again, finally getting off her rails, braces and what she got. Well a rebirth. They took the mold of her current jaw config, so the plastic prosthesis which she should for a month will be ready for tomorrow. It should just keep the teeth in place, after two years when they got into habit of walking around. I sat in the "Arkadije" cafe, as usual, and got my coffee, mineral [water] and phone. Called Borko first to see about that Gudurica, to roughly plan the trip. No can do, he said, daughter's vacation begins on wednesday, so he still has the granddaughter for the two afternoons before that. Delay it then... but we can do monday your place, right. Sure, will do.
Called Dragana then to notify her of the plan change, said she's in Sokobanja with sister and brother-in-law at the moment, but she's back on sunday, so monday is fine, no problem. But, hey, Bilja is coming, her mom's got some problem... well at that age she's either very ill or dying or dead, what else could be a reason for her to fly from Boston. And for only two days... when was it that she's arriving? Well right now, she should land around four. Ummm...it's four thirty, and I'm at a spitting distance from the airport... can you send her a message to viber vuyber or whachamacallit to see when she lands, and if I'm still around at the time, may pick her up. Which is altogether a perfect triper, but costs nothing to try. As expected, nothing came of it - Bilja either didn't turn her phone on, or has no connection here, or her flight is mightily delayed*.
On 20th Nina and I went to her dentist again, just an hour-two later (past rush hour!), so she picked up that transparent prosthesis, called ritejner (retainer, as in lawyer whom you pay to be at hand, fuck your engrbian) and it's causing nausea, because it partially goes under the tongue and gives her a feeling like she may puke. But at least this was fast, there and back in less than three hours. I didn't even leave the car - sat in it for half a cigarette and then drove back.
On twentyfirst, in the morning I decided to move on to putting my SF stories in order, the serbian versions this time, and look at that - I have no text version of the first one. I have the shots of the pages of Sirius magazine where it was published, but... actually there's one zip file with some six stories, which includes that one, but that's in JUS I.B1.015 standard, with which we mucked about in 1993-94. That standard never took off, and a year later it was forgotten, but now I'm stuck with these files in that format... The cat ate the conversion routine, the web knows that the standard was mentioned in a few places, mostly in footnotes and compiled short reviews, not specs anywhere. But the search refreshed my memory, it had all the 30 characters lined up azbukaically, i.e. in their own order, starting from some round position, i.e. divisible by 16 or 32. Took the title of the first story and looked at it in hex, so yeah right, the uppercase starts at 129, lowercase at 225. Wrote a conversion routine and within the hour had all six texts in cyrillic - the routine would translate it into intermediate latin, and I'd then use the python version of Byo to convert that back into cyrillic, this time utf-8. Now to format that into proper html... will have fun until october.
In the afternoon we went for our annual bike trip with the girls, to kaštel. We got Linda and Sanda into their seats, and started pedaling - under the overpass, along the Bek's wall (the Chineses are inside now), down by the... carcass processing plant (which stank horrendously the whole last year, and only after lots of citizens' protests was shut down - it works since the 80s and everything was fine for decades, now it stinks because the current owner tried to operate it on the cheap). Then through the old industrial zone - by Luxol, Stil. The leathery canal still stinks, don't know what from, perhaps Beohemija (making detergents), along the bike path down the new industrial zone, of which a few hundred meters against the future chinese tyre factory. It's huge.
It was good, the girls played and ran a lot. We didn't sit in the restaurant, because it held someone's party with tambour band. Not too bad, but why, so early in the afternoon. She deduced that they must be Jews - look, all white shirts, it's not a wedding, there's no young couple with kums along, nobody sings, nobody dances, nobody's talking into a cell phone, and even their faces are somewhat... Took it as a temporary disposable conspiracy theory to pass the time.
On the way back the girls were very sleepy, but managed to stay upright. I had Sanda, and her head was bobbing, twice even headed towards the handlebars, but endured until home somehow. Then I also had a brief shut-eye, on the rug in their room. Just tripped my fuse within five seconds and went off-world for half an hour. When I got back to keyboard, I saw an email from Bilja sitting there since 15:03. I replied, but actually had communication problems - she doesn't have skype now, has viber/vajber but I don't have that (which she then remembered, see 24-I-2020.), her phone doesn't have a local number, we got no other way to talk but email, which is a 15 minute round trip, while our clients remember to check. After three rounds I conclude that she's given up the attempts to meet and wants just to pack her things, well okay but that's too bad, come better prepared next time. Then she emerges from the bathroom and asks whether Bilja sent anything. I told her how it was, she said we can't just leave her like that, go get her. Don't know where she stays, last time it was some bnb in Sarajlijina... Nina said "how about looking up their phone on the web and checking if she's there". Good thinking... but no, all I get are reservation aggregators, where they have all the info about getting a room - distance to city centre, has AC or no, smoking or not, picture of the room. Anything but the phone. By the time I was about to open the fifth site, I said "fuck this, could have gone there by now". And so we did, her hair still wet ("good effect, you made your hair look like wet, what did you use?" "water"). Got there, found the place... only their parking is there, no entrance, except one that looks like a garage door, opens on code only, not even a buzzer. But there's a phone number on the parking fence, so I called that, a voice responds, aha, sure, I'll call her and I'll call you back in three minutes. Good, we hit it on first try. In two minutes the girl calls again, says she's in Gavrilović street... aha, 200m from here, let's go.
When we got there, she came down in slippers again... no kissing, is corona, just elbow to elbow greeting. She went up to change footwear - it was some sneakers with soles two sizes larger, as were her hips. But other than that she's just the same.
We walked back towards main street, and when we were on the square at sdk, we could turn left to the parking where we left Joda, or right to the main street. "Say, did you get a bottle of brandy to take home last time?" "Nope" "Then lets go drink" I said, and led left. No complaints. When we got home, I filled one of (... 4 words...) bottles (of olive oil originally) and one of tikveško roze with tutifruti 2020.4 - one for her to take home, the other to drink now. I explained that we're not just drinking, this is a moba, we're making space in the cask, need it for this year's brandy.
We couldn't sit too long, she needs to pack and her transport arrives at 8:00, so just two and a half shots. She still isn't a grandmother, the older daughter has a boyfriend but they drag their feet, the younger one not even that. Did you ever find the time to explain the issue with bees and flowers? She switched jobs a couple of years ago, shut down the company they had, said running a business is a headache, gimme a nine to five so I can just shut it out when I get home. I thought she was doing some financial maths, but when she mentioned how she kept learning new stuff for a whole year, I was surprised to hear her mention all the programmers' tools - java, javascript, source control... well, well. The other news is that she's gone vegetarian since a year ago.
The girls, including Violet, went a bit wild, sensing there's a party on and all three strived to be in on it. We made a few shots, and they found a way to insert themselves into the frame. Tried to call Dragana to get her into our mood, but she didn't respond.
The cabbie got a bit lost, "yes I'm new here", didn't know the layout of house numbers here - had to call his HQ to tell them he's gone to the wrong end of the street.
On 22nd Dragana woke me around 10:20, I was deep asleep. Said they were on Bajaga's concert last night, no way to hear the phone, and when she saw I called it was already quite late. I told her the whole combination, she was instrumental (and vocal) at the beginning of it, it's order that she knows the rest. I asked whether she returned already, said she's en route as we speak, they're approaching Belgrade. Well I'll be fucked, that's a very silent car or her phone cancels noise too well, I couldn't have guessed.
Then I saw Bilja sent an email at midnight, thanked for the brandy (... 27 words...).
In the afternoon we ran out of ideas how to get the girls tired, so we put them on bicycles again and went downtown for yet another walk. The one who sells popcorn in front of Nama arrived few minutes after we came, it was really too early, there was almost nobody. But while we made a tour over the square, behind the museum (the garden pub there is refurbished, looks really good, but we didn't feel like sitting there), musical school, gimnazija, the street filled somewhat. We eventually sat at Prleski, had a coffee (us) and cake (girls) and then pedaled home. They got decently tired, day passed.
On vodotoranj saw obituaries posted, and out of curiosity checked whether I knew anyone. Guess what - S. from VIII2, who always tried to ruin or crash our parties or bully his way in. He's also the guy who bought kafeni when it got too old. There, I outlived him. Didn't feel bad about it.
In the evening talked with Go and Stanley - happy birthday to all who celebrate**. Anita had a slight face change again, looks very sweet and pretty again, as always. Neša was asleep during the talk, saw him just briefly.
Go told how Dražen strangles her with emails, how he never replies to her questions but keeps at length about his... thoughts, about some poets, some things that he would like to write (well why doesn't he), how he plans to retire... Huh? He never had five minutes of working staž, never nothing nowhere, and now with fourty plus change he wants a retirement? Or did he mean the support contract he made with the neighbors about his grandmother should somehow include himself? Such contracts cover the food clothing and cleaning for the lifetime, and then the contractor inherits the house. With his granny it would be regular, she can't take long, but he is not worn out at all, he could prove to be too much. I don't get it. So before sleep we rehashed Ruška's case again and... came to nothing. There is no explanation.
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* turns out the opposite - she landed two hours before that time, and had arranged transportation in advance
** one of very few phrases in the province of political correctness that I approve of, "happy ... to all who celebrate", so I can imagine it doesn't apply to me if it's a religious holiday. Of course, it's used in many other contexts, for fun. In our case, however, it may actually apply, when it's a tworthday.
Mentions: 16-V-2009., 24-I-2020., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Biljana Lajković (Bilja), Byo (Byo), Čankovo, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dražen, engrbian, gimnazija, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, kafeni, kaštel, kum, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Milan Nastić, moba, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Prleski, Ružica Bajin (Ruška), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sdk, SF stories, Stanley Berger, staž, triper kombinacija, VIII2, Violet, vodotoranj, in serbian