27-XII-2021.
On friday (24th) finally nice weather, +14, so I mixed up the fuel for the new chainsaw, to cut the wallnut trunk while I still have daylight and she is with the girlies (both three) at Lidl. When they returned she recounted how she paid cash and got a two dinar change. So the question whether to take a cab back was not a question at all. Returned on foot, came nicely tired, beautiful.
The saw didn't really want to start at first. That is the engine starts, the chain stalls. At least I learned how to take it off, much easier than on any of the old ones. I even RTFMed, in turkish though, which is unintelligible to me, but I got what I needed from pictures, and found how to tighten the chain - the spanner is not on the body, it's part of the cover, and its screw is on my side, not in the corner behind the sword. Excellent. And I found the problem - the front cogwheel in the sword wasn't turning, was stuck with that fine mix of sawdust and oil, so I cleaned it all up, remounted, tightened the chain and cut all of it into about 25cm long chunks, to easily split them with an axe later.
Nina made a kind of a christmas. It was a bit of a dense dance to hit the right moment when all the kids are asleep, as they picked exactly this week to drag their diurnal cycles in all directions - Violet falls asleep in the afternoon and wakes up at some unruly hour, around 4; Raja rolled over and now lies in the evening - which was in the morning last week. The two are off by two hours from each other, so if Sanda wakes up at eight, Linda will at ten, and it's not unusual if they fall asleep at three in the morning. So she managed to sneak down the presents under that plastic spruce, by hair's breadth - just when she was finished and got up, Violet came from behind.
On sunday (26th) went to Susjed (v. house dictionary), i.e. his son, to open our gate so his majstor can do what it takes on our side of his walls, to install a gas heater. I thought they'd lead the gas pipes over the wall from the front part of the house, but no, it's only the heater's exhaust that's on our side, which is a horizontal tube of perhaps 70cm, just like the one we have sticking out of our garage wall. I sat with his wife, had a coffee, her son came in and out, majstors as well... and there was no junk, no dust around. Today they are pharmacists, compared with what the once were. Well, a cute abode he put together, he's gotten smarter, compared with the bumbling bum he was in youth. And he dragged down all the dead vines from our garage roof, so I don't have to go up at this age. Not that I wouldn't or couldn't do it, it's that I wouldn't pick december for the job, and when the weather is nicer I always have more important stuff to do, so it would never get done.
In the evening we talked with Go and Stanley. Neša and Anita look great, and always keep busy. He's becoming a real geek... keeps churning code (in roblox). Now at least he talks with us and greets us; until a couple of months ago he was hiding from the camera and saying „I'll never see you“. Stanley has to take out both cars from the garage to make room for the seats. He showed me the paperwork from a gearbox, says so-and-so company, Surčin. Go said we should stock up, we ask what, says noodles. I just bring the barrel of noodles we made this summer, it was at hand.
Amog the snail mail backlog from the old house we found a last warning before indictment, from a law office Aleksić from Novi, for the amount of twice 639 dinars, which dad alegedly owed for the phone. Called them this morning, and had to spell out the six digit (!) case number from the letter until I reached the person in charge of the case and authorized to access the database. And she asked which network... nice, so they do mass indictments based on the lists they get, and not from just Telekom but others too, who have hundreds of thousands of those. Took less than two minutes to clear it up that there's no case, I have a paper where the line is revoked, contract canceled, and if they kept sending bills afterwards is due only to their own chaos, they have no clue, no data... „How true, indeed, they are in chaos, you are not the only one, here I can't find it by its number...“.
They probably keep the contract data in one database, billing in another, and missed a few rivets when connecting them. Eh, programmers, programmers...
On 27th at Dragana's. The first time I saw her letting her hair down - she always raises it a bit and then sprays it... well now I see why she does that, looks a lot better. But the dinner was czarski. And the drink went smoothly - we each had three brandies (tutifruti 21.1) then two kilos of wine - tikveški roze, and some other Tikveš wine. Stayed exactly until 1:30. Our cabbie is off again, nobody takes the call, but 566 works.
On 28th we noticed Juliška. She was away for 2-3 months, her terrace light was off at night, the gate at Aleksa's was locked (by a bicycle lock, the regular lock is bullshit, wouldn't stay locked). We weren't sure it was really her, could be her sister checking on the house. So I grabbed my binoculars (finally have some decent one) and... yup it's her. Even fatter and slower than before, but definitely her. And we still don't speak, until she remembers she owes us 400 dinars. We've had enough of this loose attitude.
Twentyninth, we took the girls to Springfield, I don't mind starting up the Joda for one kilometer. I took a shot, with nokla, their house cat as it helped itself by the leftovers from someone's plate. The owner said that the cat's going to fly into an asylum, as soon as they get their hands on it. (a month later, the cat is still there)
Coming home, we find news on skype: Lena graduated. Though, she won't get any papers until she physically submits the work (nobody told her it was required), and the diploma itself is in next december, the promotion date is already over for 2021, three weeks past the deadline.
She can't say she'll treat us „out of the first salary“ (as it's customary... and a customary excuse to tone it down a little), but says she will out of the next one. They aren't standalong agencies anymore, now they are fulltime employees (by Reintür, outcast division Serbia), it turns out they get paid more for days off, because they get the average (which includes the warm meal and vacation funding) plus the add-ons for those days, so the add-ons are paid twice. Nice job if you can get it. For the new year's days off she'll make enough extra for one big dinner for us all.
On thirtieth she was melting lard and čvarci from the fat tissue she bought in Lidl. Of course, we took the girls for shopping, and I brought cigarettes to have a smoke break in front of Roda, while she buys the sweets, chips and cloilet paper.
When we came back I remembered to call Boća, haven't seen nor heard him for seven years now - not counting the correspondence over suština or oldwave. He's counting small change until retirement, should get there in june. Complains of overall dictatorship, and the raspašoj* here is actually a boon, nothing gets enforced here because people have the habit of catching a corner** en masse... there one of ours, already twenty years plus some in Australia, is packing to return home. Because it's getting unbearable there, at every second step it's ausweiss bitte [the words that german soldiers used when asking for ID].
On thirtyfirst buzzing around the house all day. She even managed to take the girls for a walk.
In the evening, of course, a doček. Of bottled brandy we had apricot and sweet cherry (half left from that evening), picked the latter. Watched Matrix 4, and amazingly the kids had the patience for that more than for „Tinkerbell“ they watched during the day. Food, modest, a bit of pohovano, some salties, a russian [salad, aka Olivier]. Enough of that, really, we eat all day, we've all gone fat [me 84kg again]. Close to midnight we fired up the sparklers, which the kids saw for the first time, and now also held in their hands - Linda first, then Violet, then Sanda and eventually Raja too. At midnight, of course, fireworks everywhere, the kids a bit scared, as it is quite noisy with explosions, but also enjoying it to the hilt. All in all, a good doček. Sent an SMS, with just „SNG!“ (hny!) to perhaps thirty people, and then the phone clucked in my pocket for the next hour, as each person replied (my message tone is the hens). I already have some 1000 minutes accrued, so why not use them.
A greeting card from Lajna. Literally „full*** of / health / happiness / love / dicks / thumbs / mothers' cunts / all the best“. And she also sent the picture from 23-XI-1974., when we hitched that guy and went to have a beer with him... I said come, let's make more of those. Er no, she said, I said that first. But she wouldn't poke her but for just travel... or for anything else.
To start the year, I chopped some wood when she took the girls for a walk. The notorious axe which once scared the Chinese works like a charm. It also helped that I finally, after so many years, took a simple metal file (no filename, no extension, strange) to sharpen it a bit.
The milk will be 80 dinars a liter next year.
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* raspasati - to untie a trouser belt; the -oj suffix makes it sound russian. Somewhere between chaos, lax atmosphere and utter abandon.
** catch a corner, or a curve - to avoid (usually a chore or task) by any trick available; applied first to service or work, now generally applies to the art of not being there when there's something to be done.
*** they never say what full - barrel?
Mentions: 23-XI-1974., Aleksa Pajkov, Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Božidar Sokolović (Boća), čvarci, doček, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Juliška, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, Melanija Merćep (Lajna), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, Novi Sad, oldwave, pohovano, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Springfield, Stanley Berger, suština, Violet, in serbian