25-III-2022.
On 21st we finally mounted our bikes and took the girls to the archery playground, here by the overpass (where majstor Mile lives). They picked flowers, ran around and it was generally great, until they suddenly wanted to eat a pizza. Went on to the nearest one, which is almost at Lesnina, but when they noticed (Linda was with me at the moment) that we aren't taking a road they know, she said she was joking (Sanda wasn't, but regardless) we took a turn back to the community center playground, and she took a detour by the bakery. Excellent day, finally proper sunshine, the breeze was a bit chilly at times but it felt that the winter is definitely done. There was some frost by the ground, there was a thin ice crust on the water for the chicken and the cats.
In the evening we hosted the 72nd frendz parti. Everything great except that special brandy, the 21.3 tutifruti, was not on the table, it was 21.2 (but Bili will dig him out), but we served it with the assumed story that it was the one, and they took it and more than 0,7l was drunk. She prepared roast lamb, but only 2kg, they didn't have more than that in Lidl (not for the next three days, it's not that there's everything available all the time anymore), so she added some pohovano pork neck steaks. The girls, of course, tried to charm Dragana and Borko - Sanda with freshly shortened bangs. She first wanted to grow all of her hair long, like Linda, but then changed her mind. We shouted at Borko again when he wanted to play music on his phone, and he said „well how then?“ - well here's zmajček, the amplifier is on, find and play. I even switched the waterfox to latin, and then cunted out when I saw he searched for Ana Stefok. There is no Ana Stefok, if you meant ana Štefok, the Š key is this one here, learn the alphabet. I didn't quite shout but I got very loud. On your macine you do watever you wis to do, type wicever way you know, here one needs to know alpabet. He didn't oppose me much.
On tuesday finally Milena and Boba visited, just like that, didn't need anything, didn't come to invite us to anything, just came to see us. They are looking good, he's past all those small ills that he had. The house is still on sale („and then the guy says the old house could go for 25000€, and this one couldn't do more than 35000€ - which has a three times better location, four times bigger lot, and is in ship shape inside and out. Told him to consult himself first.“).
On wednesday Inge reported that she's leaving Firriver next wednesday. She gave two months' notice. „I have given up the illusion that the internal organisation will be improved within a reasonable time, to take away my frustrations... I am used to better organised companies and have given up on Firriver“.
Ran Joda to regular service and check the tires. Thursday, around noon, their upfront girl calls and says „the tires are a catastruophy... and there's some rubber rings and whatnot around the balans štangla“. Okay, do new tires, Tigar's will do fine, there's more difference between new and old than expensive and cheap tires. On friday it was all done, total almost 60000 RSD, but now with the corona inflation and specially the ukraine war, I'd rather pay now. I thought they were already done, but no, the wheel alignment was not finished, and I didn't bring cigarettes along. Never saw the alignment done, until now. Judging by the curses coming from the pit below, it'a sinewy and screwy, but he god it done. The van battery was found operational, they just recharged it from the 5,5V that it had to the nominal voltage. There - when I charged it, it didn't get above 1,1V. The temperature does it.
The guy who took over the saxo gave me one Dunhill... not even close, all these newfangled ones with this silky-nacreous paper are just the same to me. I asked him what did that kid do with the car, did he managed to crash it. „Third time is the charm, there's no way to revive it now“. The kid is fine, I guess, this was about the car. The kid has a carreer ahead, now that his beginner's year of staž is about done.
I keep leaving „Mulholland drive“ for later, reading critics and philosophy of it first. And I finally moved off square one with Dostojevski. The more I read, the more it seems to me that I read this first story of his, translated, and still can't figure out how could any translator transfer all those diminutives and terms of endearment without sounding inserious.
On thursday evening we put the remainders of the 21.1 and 21.2 bottles, and celebrated the death* of Medlin Olbrajt. I love it how the news article's caption says „...dies“. I hope she's still not finished with it, may it last.
The permanently fruiting strawberries's saplings came, ordered only the day before, and she already replanted them. She also moved out all the saplings from the smoking and bedroom.
On friday, just like I do each year on this day, I dropped by Paypal (which now followed suit and wanted to connect to my mobile, to stay in touch or whatever - sod off, scum) and sent 100$ to Raja for his birthday. And he specially came to thank me.
Day for small fixes. I took off the plate off the doorframe on the smokeroom, the pane sagged a millimeter or two, and I already know how, where and how much to file off. Closes smoothly now. The garage door - I took off the old handle, the italian soft yellow metal job, which holds by the ring safety around the handle and then you don't pull the door itself, you pull that plate, which is attached to the wood on its ends - and of course it bent and lost connection to the stick in the middle. Replaced it with some cheap chinese plastic job, 120 dinals, works like new. Holds to the other side's handle by means of a simple tack nail, and when you pull it's the handle on the other side which then pushes the door, plate around it being just a decoration. No material fatigue here. I don't know which fool thought that the ring safety is better than the classic little nail.
On twentysixth Lena and Milan came, with Api, because it had some allergies (so did his owner, starting with pollen and the rest of the spring batch). Did a round of barbecue, this time no neck steaks, just burgers, ćevapčići, ražnjići (skewers, including those with mushrooms) and some sausage. Most of the charcoal was the dust and small particles thingy I took from the supermarket on the corner, so I wasn't quite sure I'd have enough. Counting on it, when I went to Prleski to get the cake, I dropped by detelina and got a new tablecloth (mušema, the traditional impregnated thingy; we keep it on for a year, and by spring it cracks on the corners so we replace it then) for the outside table and another bag of charcoal. Now this coal was clean, no dust, and it was richer in energy, and though I didn't put much of it, I got a fierce fire, it held at 250° most of the time, so some of the ćevapčići got carbonated on one side. Fucket.
The cake was exactly right, no glitter, no glam, just a finely done chocolate rose on one end. We found out that we're short on candles, have nine need eleven, so we promoted Raja into a programmer on the spot, and made eleven out of four binary candles - firing up zeroeth, first and third, 1+2+8=11. The wind just got strong enough to kill the flames in seconds, so I spread a jacket to protect it, Nina was making a video with her phone and singing hepi brzdej really fast, I think this was the shortest candleblowing video ever.
Nina decided to treat Raja with a long UTP cable so he would be off the wireless connection. But it just wouldn't connect. After a while I remembered to check - of course, she's trying port 2 out of four, but Telekom keeps 2 and 3 for IP TV, which we don't use but still have only 1 and 4. Once when a lightning fried the router and I went to get a replacement (rather than waiting a day or two for them to bring me one), I asked the guy at the gate (who may be just a doorman, but still may know) how do I enable the other two ports, he said the hack can be found on the web. I expected something nasty, like flashing a firmware update or reinstalling the tiny linux in the box, there's just about a dozen things which may turn bad, so I gave up. But this time she searched and found that it's only the matter of logging into the router as admin, passwords provided, and then just do what you want, no hack at all. It connected in a microjiffy, and his game isn't lagging anymore, and he's using up less of the wireless bandwidth so maybe all of us will benefit from it.
On monday, 28th, I took Joda to the carwash (and despite 300 RSD of jet time, I can still discern the places on windshield which are beyond the wipers' reach), then to inspection. There they tortured it in many ways, hooked it on their computer and played with it some, they made it pump up the rear suspension (works on compressed air) then let it drop, basically they were passing the time as the inspection now has to last 40 minutes, while at doctor's you're done in two minutes. Of course, to kill the time I called Dragana and chatted with her some 20 minutes - she says she had one minute with the doctor on the subject of checkup, the rest of it was about makeup and fashions. „I do admire how you look“, the doctor said, and she's ten years younger. Then I heard a friend of her coming in, so I signed out, and meanwhile Joda was done, passed with flying colors, all ship shape, just drive and enjoy.
In the afternoon I put the battery back into the van, while she was in a walk with the twins. Starts, goes. I took it for a round, the 2km that I usually do for such first rides of the year, all fine except it's dirty. Didn't wash it since last summer.
In the evening she hosted the 73rd frendz parti. We ran out of the liter and a half bottles, so I took a liter one, and even this fourth try I didn't find that special tutifruti, which I thought was 21.3. Not that this one was bad, we drank about 0,7l of it, but Dragana killed us with food: after the standard cashews, walnuts, almonds and some small spinach rolls and other finger food, she got out a turkey drumstick roasted on a plek, in the oven, and a cup of mixed cherry, cherry, apple and pear compot, delicately spiced with cloves. No surrender, no prisoners... Borko took the roast with just potatoes, then ate the compot alone, says it deserves separate attention, it can't be just a sidedish while he concentrates on meat. Had another fresh theory, or rather a 2.0 of the old one, this time it was either „a cell splits, and then you have the young cell and the old cell dies“ (which makes embryonal development impossible) or „a cell splits and then you have two, ad infinitum“... ouch. We fucked holes in both, as we managed to get ourselves heard. Then she brought out some cakes, no larger than a finger, and I ate only one, but that's what tipped my scale. Had a lot of suspense in my stomach, and when I hit the hay (skipped the last cigarette before sleeping), I had to be careful of how I position myself for sleeping, because my belly was doing pushups. But it all ended well, I slept like a pigeon's suckling.
At (more than) one of these parties, he also recounted a story of a colleague from Trbnjevo, who graduated perhaps a few months before we did, so he rounded up the 40 years of staž (i.e. years of work) before his 65th birthday, when he'd be legally retired and duly shoved out of the local high school, where he worked all these 40 years. The regular thing to do would be to stay the two or three months of difference - most of it being the vacation anyway - but no, he retired immediately. He didn't want to work one day longer than required, and didn't mind that he'd lose some percentage on his retirement. No money can pay for the relief.
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* the word is „uginuti“ which means to die, but only in case of animals or, less often, plants
Mentions: 11-III-2024., Api, ćevapčići, detelina, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Firriver Fertility (Firriver), frendz parti, Inge Brandlicht, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Lesnina, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor Mile, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Milan Nastić, Milena Požarić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), plek, pohovano, Prleski, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), saxo, staž, Trbnjevo, zmajček, in serbian