27-I-2022.
On 15th, the usual round with the girls, to Lidl and Roda. Violet tagged along, roundaboutly hinting to be taken with her to Roda, to gently nudge her into buying a coke. We managed to convince that it's not good, actualy hurts and creates a (mental) addiction, and she succeeded in going cold turkey and staying off the vile stuff for more than a year, didn't even mention the brown sugar water*. And now she's back to it, keeps inventing transparent excuses to justify her habit, e.g. „I'm not energized enough“ (sounds even dumber when translated). Baba tricked her into accompanying her for no good reason - she already bought it in the morning, in the supermarket on the corner. So she came with us for nothing.
On seventeenth Linda tricked my spectacles like this, the little rascal. Of course I played it up, pretending to be very angry and (not pretending to be) loud, and within a minute she brought me a fresh drawing of „this is deda shouting“, too bad that she went to mom to show off and I never saw it again.
These stickers are their favorite toy these months, a tripak of sheets is bought and they stick them everywhere. It's a drop of transparent plastic, with a printed paper glued in the back, with a somewhat weaker glue on its back, so it can be stuck and unstuck almost anywhere a few times. Took it easily from the left lens, smudged the right, clumsy with freshly trimmed fingernails, and it took some time with methanol and the other 'pecial spray, but it's clean now, no scratches. I was wandering whether the methanol would hurt it - it does dissolve wood resins - for this is not glass, the lenses are plastic.
In the afternoon Nina and I went to Lena - almost done with the dentists. This time they scanned her jaw, with some handheld ultrasound, while the app made a threedee model of the jaw with exact measurements, and onscreen she could see the model being completed. From it they will calculate the exact size of the two crowns (both lower #4s), and by friday these should be ready, so she'd come only to have them screwed in and the screws plastered over. Talked with Lena at length while she was there, and she said they have a problem with the house in Medulin, there's a leak into the apartment below. Probably the terrace only, but all the same, Milan has to go there and have it fixed, before they owe any damages. With some luck, he may be able to find a majstor even before he goes there, so to have everything ready on wednesday, and with some luck return by friday.
I somehow felt the need to carry the shooter, and really, it treated me with a bloody red sunset. By the end of the week it grew into an article for suština. Here's the 2nd half of it, the first half is a rehash of stuff I wrote elsewhere in Byo, on the subject of winter sunsets here.
The geography has the habit to not move much, and the accompanying local clime with it, so if one winter there was a week with three good sunsets, there must be more of those in the following years. And really, they did come up almost every winter, but that's not enough. First, one had to have the wherewithal - which meant waiting until a good camera is in hand, and until a good color materiel comes, capable of catching the tones, your youth passes.
And then, once those, spoken in parlance of the previous century now, material-technical prerequisites were met, some other ones imposed themselves - during the time I would walk to the position from which I'd have a good scene, it would be gone, it changes by minute. So if the shooter is already in hand and I'm already out of my backyard and wouldn't shoot through always the same branches, just pick a frame and shoot. Specially handy in this case is the street, pointing to west by southwest, exactly to where the sunset is now. I made three shots, and like both three of them. On the first one, in very dark tones, the lawn is seen under spotty snow, and some traffic. On second I caught the reflection of the sunset and street lights on the icy sidewalk below the lower golden section, unfocused buildings and sunset above the upper, and only unfocused lights in the middle. Luckily, this is Novi Beograd and nobody sweeps the sidewalks, only roads and parking lots. The walked-over snow was half thawed and refrozen three or four times already.
This is the last one in this short series. When I was over the curb (the car being on the other side of the street), I spotted this array of street lights reflected in windshields... even less thinking, the frame drew itself, all done in two seconds. Here, as I write this, it's full sized on the left monitor, and even the oldest granddaughter likes it. I somehow knew when to bring the shooter along, and the somehow was right.
I wasn't dressed up for longer stay outside, perhaps I'd have shot more had I had a thicker jacket, instead I just proceeded to the car and hibernated next two kilometers, until the cabin got warm enough so my fingers, including the rear ones*** thawed enough to move. Even in the case of better jacket, I doubt I'd have shot more. This one made the day, enough.
I had in mind to write something about the clumsy composition, how everything is in the middle half and just a barely discernible half-darkness on the sides, how this turned into a photo where everything drags the eye into depths. I concluded there is no conclusion there. If there once was one, it happened during those two seconds and vanished into the sunset.
We returned just on time for me to relax a bit before the walk - that eveningthe 64th frendz parti was at Dragana's. It was kind of okay, except she made excellent pastry and the rest of it, which I just couldn't resist, specially the liver sausage from Čurda, well everything. I don't even remember what we talked all evening, it evaporates when I hit the hay; if there's anything left in the morning, it goes away if I don't write down before lunch. After that, if I remember something we said, I don't remember when it was.
On nineteenth we took the girls downtown, to blow it out a bit, buy some toys (the tempera colors this time) at the chinese shop in the glass bank (the bank is still there, using less than quarter of the building), and to buy some cake at Prleski to take home. I didn't shoot much, because the battery in the eos70 was the weak second one, capacity down to 200 shots, and it was at allegedly 50% in the morning, and died after 20 shots.
In the afternoon I found the time to rake the rest of the walnut branches, at least from the diagonal and the nearer side of it; the farther half, around the stump, is still not done. But this is the path for the sled, in case there's snow. Last time it went all the way to the other corner of the yard (at least Violet as heavier, though with Sanda and Linda together... I'm not sure), and would have done even better without the branches. We'll see.
On 21st Nina and I went again to her dentist, to have the teeth placed - well, half success. The dentist and the prosthetist were arranging details over the phone, and there was some noise and the guy got incomplete instructions, so he made the teeth for identical fittings. Nope, the left one is larger. So he'll make another one, see you next time on 27th. Milan is still in Medulin because, er, there are two breaks. One is the faucet, which broke (and about which he couldn't understand the majstor, who spoke Istrian dialect, with lots of italian and perhaps some german, so „he must have thought me a stupid Serb“), which is an easy deal, even I can replace a faucet in 30 minutes, it's that he didn't even notice it broke. When he got there, he turned the water on, and didn't notice a perfect needle jet coming out of the faucet, it was noiseless and near invisible. He went on to get groceries and found some 2cm of water on the floor. The other problem is the terrace where the gotter got clogged with various biomass. That'd be easy. The current problem is that the stove is erratic from all the humidity - one hotplate works but can't turn it off, the other one breaks the fuse. And there's no heating, the place is not in use in winter. And he did find a guy for the tiles on the terrace - needs regrouting, it's old and cracked and leaks - but everything is so wet that new grout doesn't set, it peels off. Remains to be done on monday. Robinson weekend...
That day we clocked 49 whole years, we did ourselves humanely in the evening, finished off the remains of the hare trišnja, then the treacherous 2018 tutifruti, which everyone considers weaker, and it regularly measures 48%. So here we are together in our fiftieth year.
On twentysecond we finally had some decent snow. Started in the morning, finished after lunch. Of course, sled was activated immediately. The next day, a sled trip to the supermarket, with me pulling the cord on return and she taking pictures (so to record my presence), which I later posted on burundi and got a lot of blink-blink and heart smileys for that...
These days I'm reading the whole history around the „Dictionary of technology“ - which was published in 2014 but someone just now posted a link on the forum. In it I found the background of all the events from 1981. and the next year, which then reached me in shape of third and fourth echoes, more through music and some retells of some points, than as any whole. The immoderately forceful reaction of the Party has just shown its weakness - „at a little poke, they start to rot“ as the old surrealistic proverb had it. They shat their pants over a series of texts which could easily be taken as sheer mockery. Finished reading on 26th.
(... 2 words...)
At Borko's on 24th, the 65th frendz parti. She put on her old fur coat, to see whether the moths have dived in (what if they moved to my hair...). Borko didn't hear the bell, he was waiting for the front door buzzer, where we passed for free, someone left it unlocked. This ceremonial shot with the fur coat was made while waiting for him to open. After four tries, progressively longer each time, we gave up and I pulled out the nokla and called him. „Yes?“ „Open the door“. And he did and there I watched him talking to me on the phone :).
I thought Dragana will also wear her fur coat, so to have them both on a shot, but no, she wore her winterest jacket, bandaged up to her chin like a sausage, and had a long skirt. She almost always wears trousers, but says on a weather like this this skirt is warmer. We drank apple, because it wasn't on the menu for quite a while, and though it seemed strong at the first sip, it went fine. The girls had three and then switched to just water; Borko and I had, I think, four and then switched to wine... a bottle and a half. Not portugizer, though.
The dispute was exceptionally good, on science and whatnot, with emphasis on geometries, where he took to elaborate the differences between Rieman's, Euclidean and Lobačevski's, and just when he was gathering momentum to foray into another ten minutes of broad explanation (with teacherly repetitions, he makes each point between three and five times, so the kids memorize it), I said the same thing in exactly five words. He stopped cold in his tracks and said „well you did neatly compress it into just five words... and really, you said it all... in these five words“. Wish I remembered which words were these...
Caught a cab at 1:45, not Vlaja's gang (no response), no 544 (their guy last time said they reorganized and he's on night duty), but 566 had one. Walking wouldn't be a big deal either, we walked to here.
On 25th, Lena says, Milan returned, all done except the stove, but it may just take a while for the condensation to evaporate. It may work fine once it's dried, unless galvanic oxydation screwed some contacts.
On twentysixth I remembered to move the van, give it a whirl to recharge the battery. Too late. It seems to have some residual power, the cold start gadget seems to show some digits on its tiny LCD (which is the weakest consumer), though not enough to unlock the doors. I can't reach anything, not even any wire which wouldn't be connected through a switch (as all of them would be off). The guy from the garage said to charge the battery from another battery for at least three hours, until it gathers enough voltage to be recognized by the charger. In first instance, enough to open the doors, that is. Why did I lock it in the first place... Though, the central lock would consume power in either position.
On 27th Nina completed her jaw - got the second tooth, and they made the mold for the retainer. We were supposed to pick it up next evening, but we didn't feel like going again, so they mailed it, arrived on saturday. I had used up the windshield washer liquid in the Joda, so I made up new one, consuming it generously. I love to have a good view of where I drive.
While I was waiting for her, I had the last coffee at Arkadije, and went through my usual phone call. I got 1000 unused minutes on the phone and they keep piling up... Dragana is not responding, aunt Milica either... eh, Joška, have seen him perhaps once briefly after the last sitting in 2013. He also had time to waste, so we talked at length. His son is in Maribor, specializing anaesthesiology and receiving money overload, the pay is already good but all those covid system shifts pay double. Has more money than time to spend it. His wife is still wobbly on her legs, after that incident in... 1995 or so, and it will never cure, probably feels better like this. She's no thinner than before, we saw her on Peskara in 2020. He's in photography and I think makes some money online, seems they're doing fine. The mother-in-law is ill but moving; father-in-law, however, is a heavy Alzheimer case, fully unglued, they put him into a nursery home two weeks ago, somewhere in our 'hood, same street as the guy who smoked and cured those ribs and bacon few winters ago.
On 28th I managed to open the van - the side window slides. It was stuck, but I managed to wiggle it a bit, and then inserted my ever ready tool (a flat screwdriver/10mm wrench from the first chainsaw) and pried it open, then took the parrot pliers to reach to the front door to open it. On 30th I pulled Joda as close as I could (it does have the front proximity detectors, this was the first time they reacted), and then hooked the transfusion. After one hour I measured 1,1V. After three hours, the charger still didn't recognize the battery. I'll probably have to buy the fourth battery come spring, but then unhook the plus terminal when not using it.
Writing Byo these days I mostly go backwards... Year and a half ago I went through my old diaries, then through the rest of seventies and eighties and got stuck in february 1995. That period is quite thin, sourcewise, and there's a lot of scouring through the documentation to be done... Fatigued, I switched to current day, working my way backwards into the past. That's easier, the english text is mostly written already and I'm already back in the US. So yesterday I ran into 30-XII-2009. and what I wrote there (the very next day) about all those movies depicting the natives as incompetent, mexican police never solved a case, some guy from the west has to come (not a white man in general, the Slavs are also, in that context, incompetent). So I got an idea how neat it would be to write a script whereby a Poirot is made into a fool because the local cops let him play his game, gather all the suspects into a big room, and when he points out the guilty one, the local inspector Žap takes over and debunks each of his points, proving that the actual killer is the guy who was first taken off the list of suspects.
(... 277 words...)
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* fuck english, in serbian it's clearly „brown (sugar water)“ and definitely not „(brown sugar) water“. In english one has to dance around the ambiguity, and so the other one has to too.**
** the above footnote, sans first two words, is now my english tagline on burundi.
*** there's no word for toes in serbian, it's leg fingers.
Mentions: 30-XII-2009., aunt Milica, burundi, Byo (Byo), Čurda, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, frendz parti, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Joška Apro, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Milan Nastić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, Prleski, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), suština, Violet, in serbian