09-VII-2012.
On 3rd we got the AC, from that „Alo, alo“ shop. A generic one, seems they're more or less all the same. The guy also gave me a business card from his pal's maintenance shop, but I said I won't call him, I got a guy. Dad recommended the one who maintains his, so why not.
The guy came the same evening, with an assistant. They mounted everything by 23:00 - he was in a hurry, his wife should give birth by morning, so he rightly guessed he'd be too busy the next day. Chatting along we discovered that he was once Go's classmate, in the elementary.
The AC wouldn't work, though - it would start, and would then stop right away. Hmmm... and he did find the culprit: the chinese extension chord. Okay... I went and brought my new 30m chord, that I made. Now it worked, but we couldn't change the setttings, because now the remote wouldn't. Well okay, he'll send another guy tomorrow, to check that part.
And the guy did come, and all of a sudden the remote worked. How did you do it? Well, he said, I guessed, by the layout of the digits which work and which don't, that the printed board in the remote is cracked, so I twisted it to bend back and connect, just to check. Do you want to wait for the replacement remote to be delivered or would you go and fetch it? We selected the second option, and just went by the shop and picked it up. This remote and AC still work flawlessly ten years later. There were two minor glitches, though - once it got stuck in the cycle where it would go to the next programme every five seconds, so it would switch from cooling to just drying the air to heating to just blowing air then to cooling. Mića came and didn't quite know how to fix that, it's electronics, but he called a guy and eventually we decided to just cut off the stuck switch that turns the automatics on. The other one was also minor - it was a wet period, and some insect built a nest at the bottom of the condensate drainpipe. There was trouble finding that, as it's outside, in the neighbor's backyard, and night. But then it got solved by just poking the pipe with a twig, then the water just washed it out, done.
On sixth Gary came to visit. Went to Lena in Belgrade first, then they took a bus here. He graduated that MIT and then stuck to the american tradition and went for a trip to Europe to see the world a bit. Thanks to knowing us, he's above average and his Europe doesn't end right behind Vienna, he's aware there's countries further east. He's a bit rounder in face and body. Lena says he's always been like that, we just met him when he was in his thin phase by the end of high school.
We taught him to eat soup. He simply never had to acquire the skill, how to get the noodles into the spoon, how to scoop out the last three spoons from a plate. We take such skills for granted, I was actually stunned that I've lived to this age and never met anyone lacking them.
On seventh we visited dad. Gary ate apricots straight off a tree. We helped dad pick them. The fruit is crazy plentiful, he had to prop the branches in some twenty places.
On eighth she made a pekmez from apricots, we had just as much (or got them from dad?). Then we went to banatskakuća for lunch, so Gary would get a broader view on our cuisine. The special laugh was reserved for the bekendeks and hemendeks in the menu, when we explained that it's how „bacon and eggs“ and „ham and eggs“ got mangled in the language some hundred years ago. In the end we even had sweet noodles with poppy seeds, to complete the picture.
On ninth we decided to go for dinner, the joint near the busodrome works again. Truth be told, we didn't like the owner's surname, as it's the same as of that idiot from nearby village who somehow got filthy rich while being mostly illiterate, and is presently in prison for manufacturing brandy with lots of methanol, which killed some forty people. But okay, perhaps the surname is an accident and means nothing. The location isn't bad, it's actually ideal, it's on a main street which is over 50m wide there, the part of lawn between the tables and the curb would fit a basketball court with bleechers included, traffic isn't a bother. We drank black beer, good. The grub also wasn't bad, classic barbecue, all fine. When we ordered the third beer, the guy said he's running out, so Lena and Gary got the same, and we got some vršačko crveno (red from Vršac), never heard of, let's try that.
Around 22:30 I made a shot of the owner dozing off with his beer two tables away, as we were already the last guests. By the fourth beer the young already went home (not far, a kilometer and a half), and we didn't quite get the moment when the beers kicked in. Something's wrong here, we shouldn't get this done by just four beers on a good dinner. On an empty stomach, maybe, and even considering it's black and perhaps a tad stronger... I paid the guy off, I think the didn't cheat me more than 3-400 dinars, no matter how drunk I may be, I can still stand and calculate in my head. So he closed and left and we stayed to sit it out, he'll pick the glasses in the morning, unless someone else preempts him.
I tried to shoot bikers passing by, they pedal over the sidewalk, there are too many eighteen wheelers whizzing on the road, the bunch that won't go over Novi, this road is toll free. My lens cover rolled away under the hedge. There I encountered the balance problems. I bent down over the hedge to pick it up, and the rough green carpet met me halfway. The friction is so good that I seriously scraped my brow. I had to consciously counter my off kilter balance to get up. Then she fell, and I had to get her up very carefully, concentrated on staying up. Then she threw the iron*. What the fuck, we didn't throw irons since what, eighties, what is this now?
Somehow I called a cab, despite my eyes, fingers and tiny buttons on the nokla. The guy came and refused the ride, said what if she puked on the seats, he'd have to pay the wash and lose the rest of the night. Okay, I can understand that, we could promise we wouldn't but who'd trust a drunk fool, I know I wouldn't. Called Lena and she came on a bicycle. So we walked home, holding to the bike, that worked, and we were half sober by the time we got there.
Then she recalled that she saw the tavern owner pour cans of guarana into something. Who knows what he cooked up. Not that it didn't taste like beer, but... um, the poisoner.
And it didn't matter that we swore to never enter that joint again, nor visit his kiosk on magistrala. The joint was closed in a month or two, and didn't reopen for the next ten years at least.
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* i.e. puked
Mentions: banatskaKuća, Gary Dalton, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Mića the electrician, nokla, Novi Sad, pekmez, in serbian