23-VIII-2021.
The heat is still on. We drag and do almost nothing the whole day. Nobody is in the mood for a swim either, we all feel a change of weather coming. During the morning Bajlo called to congratulate me, and to report, along the way, that he did invite the whole class, the party is on in less than three weeks, said he doesn't expect much of surprises. Milica (and Savka with her, probably) will be in Greece, as usual, taking her husband too this time. He's under the shake of Alzheimer's for quite a while now, and seems to have promised to behave, during one of the occasions when his mind dropped by.
We're emptying the fourth cask of tutifruti, to make room for this year's production, which is delayed a lot. This time of year we should be closing the workshop, but we're at just 29 liters now, the plums are coming aboard only now. Guess they lacked water. I poured a liter and a half to take along, and one for upstairs (so we'd have some for nightcap, when we're in the mood). Took off as usual, and along the way it rings in my pocket - Boba calls to congratulate me and to report that his job is now permanent. On top of that, says the first impressions stayed, the job is still great. And announced that it's already time that he should treat us.
Though we stopped at Roda, as she bought wine, we arrived at Borko's full five minutes before due time for this 54th frendz parti; Dragana was that much late. Borko was still grilling the last of the meat on the terrace when we arrived (on electric barbecue or some such contraption). I handed over the bottle, and Dragana handed me the birthday present, book by judge Majić „Pelican island“, about which I heard some on burundi, though I don't remember what was it. I'll read it and I'll see, though it didn't turn out to be easy, it rained all week and I never had good light to read... I'm too much used to books with their own source of light, the monitor, so by sunday I read perhaps four pages). Finally a generational encounter, for the next two and a half months we're all 66.
Weather change was about, so even though I didn't arrive all sweaty from the walk, climbing the four storeys did me in. When we finished dinner, we simply went to the terrace again. Borko dug out a bottle of bubbly (under original name of „Spumante“), and I, miraculously, succeeded in opening it elegantly, launching the cork towards the parked cars behind me, no foam bursting, spilled nothing. The miracle it is, because it's been at least thirty, perhaps forty years since I last did it. Perhaps it's like riding a bicycle, learn once know how always.
Borko did himself in again, a lot less than last time. He agreed not to escort us down the stairs, or else we may then have to escort him up to the fourth floor again. When we were approaching Lesnina, I remembered what I wanted for my birthday - a stereo kiss. And I got it, from her on the left and Dragana on the right. We call the cab, and there comes... not our guy. This guy said he's the owner of this cab union, he just jumped in to fill the shift, Vlaja is not here, didn't want to pay some stupid fine so decided to do the time instead. The tarriff is one day of slammer for each 1000 dinars of fine, which is the pure damage to the state. It's damage to him too, that's three days off the streets, but he just refused to pay, out of spite.
Cold wind rose during the night. We got home warm from alcohol, but the next day it rained... well if the winter was late, the fall is early. The summer had to be extremely hot, so squeezed in the few days it had.
On twentyfifth we went, on bikes, to the butcher by ruža, then to the playground by Lesnina, enth time in a row. The sand was still humid, so Sanda and Linda couldn't play the usual, but instead they took baba to the chinese shop and she bought them umbrellas and pink rubber boots. Amazingly, nothing fell apart, they both learned to work the spring-loaded mechanism both ways, though Linda had to press the handle of hers to her belly. She almost has the force to do it by hand, but this is easier.
She usually makes a hummock between the couch and armchair, out of the old terry cloth blankets, and the girls love to play in it. This time it was Violet who fell asleep in it, and stayed so there whole night.
On twentyeighth it was still rainy, so we stuffed all four of them into the Joda and went to Springfield. It was interesting that most of the floodlights were off, except above billiard and ping pong tables, only the lines of led lights in the corners were on. Nice for shooting. Pizza was bad, no good at all, but the kids had a good time.
On thirtieth we were supposed to go to that Gudurica, and the forecast was good but we all decided not to trust it, and better this way - we just had a batch of brandy ready to distill. There was no rain and it wasn't too cold, and we got the job done - made ten liters at 50%.
Downtown it was Beer days again, but flopped into a masturpiss. They announced they'd admit only the vaccinated, which they had no chance to perform, there are too many ways to enter the center, and there's no chance a dozen of so-called „covid orderlies“ could check on few thousand people, let alone refuse to admit the not vaccinated. On top of that, it was raining three days out of four. On the concert of the city philharmony the local portals show the main square as ful as an eye, but the screen behind the stage proudly announces 33rd Beer days. Nice, it's 36th this time. By several accounts, the stage was better populated than the square.
On thirtyfirst I was checking the sGradlj.com visits in statcounter.prg, just to see how will the month end. By evening I mostly gave up, as it was not going far from average, which was about 4300 visits a month. But then the next day it turned out the daily crop was 340. Okaaaay... but then the trend continued in the following days.
Mentions: burundi, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, Joda, Lesnina, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Milica Erceški, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), ruža, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Savka Čajkanić, sGradlj.com, Springfield, statcounter.prg, Violet, in serbian