29-V-2022.
On 16th, 21st, 24th and 27th we went to Čankovo to first finish mowing, as far as I felt like mowing, and then to pick cherries. The early ones bore lots of fruit, even the starlings didn't swipe too much (and the cats at home caught and ate one starling, for which she promised to... keep feeding them like before). Even the neighbor didn't bother, even though they are 300 dinars a kilo.
The middle two times we brought Sanda and Linda. As for toys... a bucket of water, dish washing sponges, refill when they use up the water.
I noticed the two old garden hoses missing - one that I chopped with the old mower, used to be hanging on the apricot, and the other transparent one, which dad used to take the overfill water from the still far enough from the site. This one was in the grass, overgrown, barely visible, below the level of the mower's blades. Gone, all of a sudden.
The neighbor's girl asked if she may pick cherries from the street (not cherries, these are inside, but rather cherries). Well that prompted a shouting fit from me - said no because they are breaking off branches, two are gone already, and she immediately went into „wasn't me“ mode. I said I don't want to know who did and who didn't, if I see her I'll think it was her, I've had enough of damage and theft, things keep disappearing, ah may everything go into mother's cunt. Of course, they'll pick cherries like before, but at least I let it be known I'm not any big friend of hers.
The tomatoes in the yard at home are growing well, and should need some support. We thought of various types of trellis, iron, wood - but then for that we'd need slats, not planks, and what we have is too short, so... we thought of going to Senća's lumberyard and have some cut by measure. And then, returning from Čankovo, we saw an old woman selling bundles of bamboo sticks, 2,5m tall. A bundle of 40 is just 1000 dinars, problem solved. We tied them in threes using duck tape, and I keep thinking of wigwams.
The 2nd and 3rd time we picked a couple of kilos of cherries, but it was still too early. The girls loved them, though, specially Linda (but baba had to pit them for her), and then Violet, when she acquired the skill to separate the pit in her mouth and spit it out. They ate so much that we expected belly trouble, but nothing happened. I remembered the aged american joke about a kid who devours a bag of cherries, which must have cost some, and his mother chides him „hey ease off a little, you think these grow on trees?“.
The fourth time we brought 23kg, and she made compot of them, which we eat as a salad, and in the evening (28th) she made filo rolls with them, which is a nIrvana* that one feels when among the dry leafy dough a bunch of hot, slightly sweet fruit hits you.
On 20th we finally painted the terrace wall, so when we once assemble those shelves they don't stand against a dirty gray field. I wanted to apply second coat, but she won't have it, says enough. Even this much was enough for me to scrape a bit of skin of my middle finger, as it went against the line on the brush handle where the mold halves met. I didn't remember to smooth that, and after just 3-4 hours of work, I have a nick.
On 22nd was Violet's birthday, and she made the cake (because Prleski said he can't take any orders until at least wednesday, he's got an unexplainable rush, doesn't have time to breathe). The cake was the mudpie, all chocolate, with strawberries on top. She found a different recipe, more compact, as the previous one had the dough crumbling. This is not so dry, and a slice can be held in hand, with a sip of coffee it melts in mouth, excellent. Another nIrvana.
Vera also came, with her daughter, and with five kids in the yard it was a real party. The shots were excellent, the light was just right. The whole yard is lit differently now, with the big walnut gone.
I blurred the letters on her shirt, because it's an advertising... for Zvezdana. Her company printed these shirts for all the kids in the street. Nice, but I won't spread your glory. Advertising is evil.
On twentythird we had a frendz parti. The girls took Dragana through some serious exercise, pulling to either side. I brought her a small stool from the bathroom, for her loopy leg, we already know that she can sit for up to two hours without lifting the leg. We drank apricot, had it in a bottle from the day before.
We actually started in the yard, because I fired up the barbecue (and got into the swing of it, everything turned out splendid, I was even praised). The current dispute was mostly about Dylan, Krleža and Andrić and their Nobel prizes, who got it who didn't and why. The initial spark was the „da da dadada, dadada da dadada“, which appears as lyrics when Strawberry plays Dylan's „Wigwam“. If he got a Nobel for that... And then why Krleža didn't get it and Andrić did? Because Krleža was and remained a communist, while Andrić was neutral during and after the war, but until then was in diplomacy of the Kingdom, he was actually there when the Tripartite pact was signed in Berlin, as the ambassador, though not in the room, they told him to wait outside. And we eventually agreed that it's not up to the three's merits, but to the politics of Nobel committee. Well if Kissinger got one for peace, or Obama for that matter, it's not worth half a dick of cold water.
The next maturski was also mentioned, on other friday, and we counted those who surely won't come - from Borko's IV3 there's 8 or more dead already, plus four in diaspora (G. and D. in Toronto, Strle in NYC, D.K. in Australia). We at least stopped at three, as far as we know we didn't lose anyone for almost ten years, and in diaspora there's only Bilja and Bosa, with whom the last contact was about eight years ago. There I remembered that I once saw her on the same picture with Veca, and he sent me her new mobile number, and I called her the next day. She was pleasantly surprised when she heard me, we did talk a lot, I even switched to speaker so she could join.
And then she came up with a plan to get the girls on the bikes, the photos Veca managed to lose (again), and just drive there (should be about 5km). But oops, out of three thumb drives I found only one, and it's unusable, because of some recent bug when making a bootable drive, it becomes read only and can't even be reformatted. Which I sort of did last time, though, so there's a filesystem on it saying it's a linux mint bootable, and another that Windowses say contains movies. So instead I decided to use the little bike/dive camera as a disk, it's got a 32G micro SD card. So I went on copying photos, and found that there isn't that much of them - about 500 all together, majority of which is 1971-1973. Starting with august 1973 they practically vanished from the horizon.
The next day she got an email address from Bosa's once neighbor, and it turned to be the same dead end address of her son, to which nobody replies anymore.
What I put on the barbecue didn't seem too much - usually when we clean up we say „so what will we have on wednesday“, assuming that we'll eat jučetina (v. house dictionary) on tuesday. This time we had meat until thursday. She did make a fish čorba** on wednesday, but of the same bone that the butcher cleaned off the neck and made steaks. Only on friday we ate something else.
On 25th we had the last meeting of G55, aka the org committee for the maturski, again on Žitni at noon. I had invented a triper to avoid cabs - I'd take Joda to the shop to have its AC fixed, walk to the meeting, and by the time we finish they'd get it done. The meeting passed as expected, with fewer people than last time but still a sizable quorum. We counted up the expected number of people - some classes would be thickly represented with around dozen people, some not at all, but out of 540 enlisted at a time, after 48 years, for a small celebration for which we don't expect any of folks from neihgboring cities, not to mention the diaspora, the turnout looks good, 110 coming and another 10 maybe. Which is almost half the number from three years ago. Gavra kept me company to the car shop, said he's already late cooking the lunch, but needs a walk anyway. When I got there, Joda was still where I left it, the guy had a long job on some folcika***, will do for tomorrow.
When I picked it up the next day, I specifically remembered to visit a shop where we buy larger garden supplies, and bought a 230l plastic vat, which we then filled half with water so the girls can waddle in it. Raja was on the verge of joining in. May it serve a few more times, and then when Peskara opens, we'll go there.
In the afternoon we made more noodles. We've completely closed the cycle - what we made last summer was exactly enough. We just emptied one 60l barrel when we started filling the next one. This winter we had almost three months when the hens laid no eggs at all - they're getting old, in previous winters we had at least one or two a day, now nothing. We're down to a dozen, and that seems to be enough. From time to time we give Lena between 80 and 120, make pohovano meat, pancakes, scrambled, anything, and still end up with having too many, because in the season they make about 8 eggs a day. So we make noodles. We did that for years, and do again. We're quite in the swing, saving a second here and second there, Taylor would be proud of us. The whole 14 egg batch takes about three hours - hour and a half for her to knead the dough and let it sit a while, and then as much for both of us to spread the cut pieces into thinner and thinner sheets, fourth time shredding it into thin noodles for the soup (or the wider ones for gulaš, šlingeraj (v. house dictionary) or špageti).
On 28th Dragana called, said she talked with Borko and his daughters made him quite a schedule (his birthday is on monday), so we won't postpone it to tuesday, as he said he'd then have a party on saturday, monday, tuesday and then friday, a bit too much, so next monday it is.
We saw Lena in the evening. Api is a guest at some kind of dog pansion, almost out of town, a huge house. Wasn't too sad in parting. Today they travel with the office, team building, for which they may already have too much staž in the firm, but they need to get to know the newer members of the team, so Italy it is. They took off this morning, and after lunch she remembered to congratulate Nina's birthday... which Go did the evening before, but after midnight, so it's kind of not two days in advance. We all have trouble memorizing numbers which end in 7, 8 or 9.
In the evening we talked with Go and Stanley. His dad was on camera a few seconds, he brought food for the cat. Anita is permanently wearing a cat eared hat, and to prevent her hair matting, she wears braids. Neša finally took to some jacket which he initially refused to wear, and now doesn't take it off. He's looking good, growing into a cute guy.
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* traditionally we also pronounce it as nirvAna, which is IMO wrong, that's south Morava accent, which is not literary and we don't speak like that - we don't say božAna, we say bOžana. Likewise, for french words I try to get out of the traditional imitative pattern, and do as the Frenches do - treat all foreign words as native, imposing their own accent on them. Apply the method, don't ape the effect.
** house special, a pork fish čorba. Around 2007 we wanted to have a fish čorba, and there's all the fish you may want, but we didn't know which is river which is sea fish... so we came to the bright idea to substitute it with pork. Liked it, and still do it.
*** folksvagen, which is proper pronunciation of volkswagen
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, Biljana Lajković (Bilja), Bosiljka Šain (Bosa), Čankovo, čorba, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dušan Starkić (Strle), Gavrilo Taroški (Gavra), Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, IV3, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borko), maturski parastos, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pohovano, Prleski, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Stanley Berger, staž, triper kombinacija, Vera Stojanović (Veca), Vera Vraneš, Violet, Zvezdana, in serbian