01-VIII-2005.
Day of 31st .
Took this shot of a peglica (little hot iron) in oma's street, which was the Fiat 126, made by Polski Fiat. Zastava did brisk business exchanging cars with the Poles in the eighties, supplying them with stojadins and yugos, while importing these and the 125 model, which wasn't smaller - the fashion at Fiat at the time was to name them after project numbers. It was the next notch up from tristać, somewhat bigger engine. While we're at it, lada was once a Fiat 124.
The peglica was also called vupi - vozilo usamljenih pičaka - vehicle of lonely cunts, because it was the cheapest you could get, next to the fića, yet still smaller than it, it had a 500ccm engine, while fića had a whopping 750. Even Eči drove one for a while - when he was still a student and always in need of transportation.
The exemplar on the shot was someone's attempt to make do with minimal resources. The color mismatch is a nice touch.
We took bikes, she pumped up her old yellow one, Lena got the even older red one, and I guess I managed with dad's contraption. It's only 2km. We made a radnaakcija at our house, taking out the rose bushes, which have gone wild these six years. Most of the fence was practically inaccessible, thorns everywhere.
The gate was still standing as we left it. Well, not exactly, we didn't succeed in welding the hinges, and dad's friends from vineyard weren't too lucky with it either. They got it right on the third try. But hey, this gate we made ourselves, welding and wood and everything.
The terrace was already scraped, so we took to the roses. Did about half, and just couldn't do more, it was getting dark.
Today, went with dad to the vineyard in the morning, just to take a bunch of shots of the place, because I never did much of that - it was always the people and what they were doing, never the landscape. This time I had a nice frog posing for me on the water pump. Made four good shots of it.
Met a blast from the past, met the former director of 13., who first hired me in 1980. One of his friends is a neighbor. Arpi was also a neighbor, bought the next lot over, but somehow it didn't work out, and after about two or three years they sold it. The money oma loaned them for the purchase, well, cat ate it.
The buyer was, wait for it, Čarga and his 2nd wife, who was the younger daughter of a maths professor to once IV6.73, and I guess the sister of Go's classmaster. Small town indeed, specially the educational circles.
Čarga also didn't have much luck, held that strip of land for a few years and then came to bad terms with this wife. Divorced her eventually and later married for the third time.
Dad's still. Now that we've also made a few hundred liters of brandy on our own, I'm amazed at the distance between the kettle and tabarka. Perhaps it was still early, being prepared for the season, which should begin in a couple of weeks. Actually, the season could begin earlier, but dad didn't touch the early fruit, like cherries or cherries. The metal sheet beneath the kettle is missing a circle... well, some time in summer 1997 or later, the fireplace in the kettle just dropped the grating. It's cheap iron there, lasts until it rusts out. But we had this huge sheet, which used to be the boat bottom. It sprouted holes at the edges, so it was replaced, and then I cut the circle to make for the new fireplace bottom. Took me almost an hour with an electric grinder, because I didn't have any cutter disks, had only grinder, and these are much thicker and eat a lot of metal. And this was at least 2mm thick.
Dad's best pal there took me aside at some point, to express his worry that dad's still driving the trabant. Said „he's somewhat deaf, has to wear glasses, and he's a leadfoot, he steps on it and keeps it down. I'm seriously worried.“ Judging by the state of the car, and looking how dad drove (he had a habit to start the turn signal well in advance; now it got a lot worse, he'd start it waaay ahead of time, often at the time where he'd have a couple of possible turns before the one he meant to take, and by the time he got there, everyone who'd see him would think he turned it on half an hour ago and forgot about it), I got worred too.
Well, we got lucky, nothing ever happened.
Went downtown with Lena in the afternoon. Told her how I expect to, within the first 100m of Žitni, meet anyone I knew, and that it will be ciao ciao howyadoin whatsup, as if we haven't seen each other for two weeks, never mind that it's at least six years. And right there, some 100m before the Žitni, we run into Zaka. And it goes exactly as I predicted.
Then right on the near corner of Žitni, we meet panta. Rather drunk, holding onto his bike. Chatted for a few minutes, and then I tell Lena that she actually knows the guy. Huh? This is the guy who wrote „Kukuruz bluz“ (corn blues). Jaw to the pavement. She knew the song by heart, and it never crossed her mind that she'd meet the author.
Then we met at the dentist's, and with anesthetised mouths went to have a nesulja (nes[tle's instant] coffee) outside at zelenozvono. „Look here, did I put the cigarette correctly into my mouth?“
Mentions: 13. april, Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), Endre Felbab (Eči), fića, Gorana Sredljević (Go), IV6.73, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), lada, oma, panta, radnaAkcija, Radoslav Kajganić (Zaka), trabant, tristać, Velemir Prokin (Čarga), yugo, zelenoZvono, in serbian