03-VI-2022.: 48th prom anniversary
On 30th we went to Čankovo to pick cherries*. Turns out I managed to hit one with the new švorceniger in the beginning, but it wasn't noticed until the storm a few days ago. It toppled and... I picked it off the ground**, the fruit was firm and succulent and quite ripe. Then went on picking the older one (which we planted in 2011) and then this one didn't look so ripe.
And then there were a few drops of rain, and then on 31st there was more. We went nowhere, did almost nothing, except she was making compot in jars from those, and pitted some and put them in the dryer. It takes more than 24h to dry them properly. Also made some cake, with farina, phenomenal. I'm still varying between 80 and 82kg, much better than last year's 82 to 84. The interval in my academic days was 79-80.
On 1st I uploaded the english version of Byo to sGradlj.com for testing. The photos are already there. In the afternoon we went for more cherries, from the leftmost tree in the rear. That's 45kg so far.
On 2nd I was writing something here when zmajček got stuck. I took it to Medeja, where they put the last motherboard (aka „Mom's LP“, by means of bad translation through hungarian) anyway. The kid there looks smart (and resembles both Željko and his wife), said he'll take a look and call me.
In the afternoon we went to Lidl and Roda for groceries, finally on our own after quite a while - the girls lost interest, they're glued to Minecraft and Roblox on their tablets, don't feel like going anywhere. When we came back, it didn't look like much of a rain coming, perhaps somewhere out in the granny's corner (the low western sky). The sky got quite dark in the north soon after, „how it frowns as if shit will be falling“. And then it slammed down, a real summer downpour with some hail, pea to bean sized, done in 20 minutes. Later Dragana told me she got exactly six raindrops. So at least it wasn't muggy when it was over, as the surrounding air stayed dry.
Today the guy called, said the box is okay, but the OS can't find some piece of boot sector. Whatever, went and picked it up. He said he got a cat out of it while cleaning, there was so much dust and fiber. And he reversed the cooler fans, to blow up not down, better flow. Bought two flash drives, to reinstall tomorrow.
Had a bath, light shave, changed trousers (wearing knee-lows presently, with few white paint stains from last week), packed the flash and eos70 and called a cab at 15:10. By 15:25 I was already at Dragana's, thinking we'd catch another cab (though it's only 500m from her, but leg fucks her), but no, Bajlo called, he's coming as transportation. Okay, we had a brandy and a half (ours, of course) while we waited - because around 15:40 he reported he's gotten into the car. Great - he came about 16:05, we're already late but who cares. We own this party.
So we did the extraordinary/out-of-order maturski („vanredni“ can also mean unscheduled, which this was not - we make the schedule - or even irregular, which this was even less - there's no proper word in english for this). The initial plan to do this halfway between 45th and 50th maturski were canceled because of the corona scare, the restrictions then in place and the bad feeling we'd all have if anyone caught it there. We did it at Elmont, and I thought they'd put us under the front awning, but no, they made a huge roof behind the building, just like many other restaurants did, so we had room enough and the roof was tall enough so it was aired well (and there's one wall missing, so it would count as a terrace), a beauty. The fourth one from IV5pp was Mima; Borko's IV3 had Radoje, Paja and J.J. (who is still looking quite good) and IV4 outnumbered us all - Žuca, Ksenija, Miljka, Jozda, Gavra, Vlada, Milica, Pasa, Čarga and a bunch of girls having no names here. The fourth one had a separate table as they reported a dozen people coming, but only four came. At least I heard that Višnja is alive and still beautiful and absolutely not interested in coming for things like this.
Though there was no music (i.e. perhaps there was some from the PA but couldn't hear it over the din), so at least the first three hours it was like the once disco - near your ear if you want to understand what she said. I got it into my head to pay my compliments to as many girls to whom I once should have (or think so today), so I had separate chats with Miljka and Mima; somwhat different tone with Pasa, because she is kind of nuts and running with her own image, but she never really was a candidate. She appeared in a stark black... sack, more or less, can't see a thing, and that's intentional, she gained 10kg since the new therapy and not smoking. Not that it's looking bad, specially the face, but let's wait until she ungains it again, as she promised to herself.
While we said nothing about inviting professors, and so didn't, some did - and there she was, Cvetana, slightly hunched and stiff, but still in good mood, same as she ever was.
from left: I, Mima, Dragana, Paja, J.J., Borko
I met a couple of characters from Zmaj, actually VIII2 (even VIII1), heard who died meanwhile (none of those named here). Specially happy to see me was A.G. from the latter. Her hair is now shorter and she lost some wait, and is just as merry as three years ago.
At our table Paja held the floor, telling mostly known jokes but in experienced performer's manner, with very Banat accent and long syllables, unless it was a bosnian joke, when he'd switch appropriately. Dragana said she had cramps in her belly muscles afterwards, from too much laughter. I recorded a few and then next day added them to sGradlj.com. And I did something I generally avoid - asked him, as a cardiologist, whether it's okay that my double beat is gone. It used to appear at least two or three times per meter of ECG, none now (no graph, but I can take my own pulse). Said it's quite normal, happens frequently. He's actually inventory at Elmont, so he knew about the „Sila“ („force“) wine, from some guy Simeau Lazić, which is excellent. They don't offer that unless you ask for it, you need to know about it in advance.
And so the peasants come to their mullah, and ask...
Dragana, of course, had leg trouble, so I offered that we'd sit at the corner so that I'd cross my legs under the table and then she could park hers on top - I could stay like that a quarter of each hour. And then we sort of tried it, but then the waiter came and she asked for some stool - he brought a beer crate and put it under the table, even better. All the same, by 21:30 she couldn't sit anymore so she left (probably Bajlo), and I stayed until the end... was home before 23:00. The company is out of it, definitely. My ride was Vlada, who also took Žuca. We almost lost each other, because I remembered to pee on my way out, but then she called me (at 22:23)... and I saw her when my nokla rang. I wouldn't mind walking, the distance is the same as to other frendz parties. The funny part was when Bajlo asked who's taking Borko - he can walk, for him it's two blocks.
The party not being till dawn, I got plenty of sleep and woke up quite early. Made a bootable flash on gugolj with the new Mint (not Ulyana anymore, Una now) and went on installing. It offered to erase or leave the old one, I picked to preserve it, and the installer made a new partition on the small SSD (the 120G) and install there. Okay, why not. In an hour and a half I had a usable system.
She had an idea, and I suggested it openly during lunch, that Violet should make me a new avatar for burundi. She put it together in an hour, and by 14:00 I already resized and posted it. burundi was quite happy to see it, she got a lot of praise.
The next two days I messed with linux, fine tuning what I wanted. I installed with XFCE first, but then didn't like it, a launcher toolbar is missing, and I didn't have luck with what it had, so I switched to Cinnamon, which I had before - and it found everything where I left it in Ulyana. Then I suffered some lengthy reading, trying to drag the database from the old system, and just when I found that it is simply a matter of copying a folder with everything,... I left it to sleep. In the morning I got a much better way - hey, Ulyana is actually bootable now, so I booted it, created a backup, restored it in Una (from the command line, no pgadmin) and voila, everything's in place, even Byo in python shows exactly the last article I was working on, excellent.
On fourth Nina had her own, 20 year maturski, in zanatlija. We sat with the kids, and amazingly the two had no trouble getting to sleep without tit connection. Around 2:30 they tossed a bit, so she took them one by one to the toilet, and back to sleep. Then we had two shots of apricot, just waiting, and it won't go, soul sleeps - by 3:30 I went up to bed, while she stayed until 4 to meet Nina. Said she had good time and was even offered a job. She may have taken it, if the guy wasn't such a staunch m$ believer, she just couldn't stomach it. There are a thousand places that pay better and do python.
On 5th talked with Lena. How was it in Italy? Shit, we lived four days on vegan food, disaster. And got corona. When they got home, it was mostly OK except Api had the runs, and they were still under the pressure from the enforced diet. So to recuperate and to celebrate being free of all that shit, they make a gorgeous gulaš - and then comes the kicker, they don't feel the smell, the taste. Total frust.
On sixth, in the morning I decided it was about time to deal with frequent freezes of zmajček. And found it - the touchpad driver would, at times, panic for not being able to find the touchpad, and would search everywhere, taking up available resources. Turned it off, and for good measure selected a newer video driver. I've added this paragraph on 18th, and this is in the same session, still haven't rebooted.
the frendz parti at Dragana's, standard. I took the 2019 tutifruti, but no, we drank a quince from Bajlo, in one of our 1,5l bottles - at least he took that part as standard. Not bad at all, not as good as ours, but above average for sure, we each had three. After dinner she went on with it, while I paused one and then switched to wine, and then we smoothly stretched it until 2. One of the subjects which held our interest a bit longer (or because Borko often said the same thing three times) was Momir, or how the only son had an only son, a good and absolutely useless creature, who never finished anything (four years a junior on maths, then likewise on PE), a guy whose life is a ten year party.
On seventh, due to disturbance in schedule (announced for 8th, but change of plan), Vasa came and made the gas pipe to end in a valve behind the garage. He stopped drinking and smoking, which I sort of guessed last time, looks even merrier than before, somehow more lively. And he did the job in the simplest possible manner, clean and quick, was done in an hour. The burner now hangs on the wall, I can run it whenever I want, and the flame is nearly invisible, which should translate into no soot. Now we're gonna cook on gas... We already have half a barrel of cherries and also some cherries.
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* I once tried a couple of online translators, and they all translate višnje and trešnje as cherry, though these are separate species(es?) and can't cross-pollinate. Once it said "cherries and sour cherries", got them switched around, but when I switched the source to „trešnje i višnje“, it still translated the same. So I'll use the word cherry wherever it's needed. As Mark Twain said: „Mind rules over matter: if you don't mind, it doesn't matter“.
** „picked it“ as in „I picked the fruit off it“
Mentions: Api, burundi, Byo (Byo), Cvetana Mladović, Čankovo, Čedomir Spajin (Paja), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Elmont, eos70, Gavrilo Taroški (Gavra), gugolj, IV3, IV4, IV5pp, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Jovan Zdanić (Jozda), Ksenija, Majkrosoft (m$), Mališa Borkovski (Borko), maturski parastos, Merima Tabarski (Mima), Milica Zubatović, Momir Hadžipopov, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, Radoje Stević, sGradlj.com, Smiljka Grajin (Miljka), Spasenija Višnjić (Pasa), švorceniger, Vasa Lakatoš, Velemir Prokin (Čarga), VIII1, VIII2, Violet, Višnja Lazin, Vlada Markanić, zanatlija, Zmaj, zmajček, Željko Popov, Živana Armatović (Žuca), in serbian