The two weeks they promised to deliver the passports expired last week. Nina also said the guy sounded too optimistic when he estimated the time. Other things arrive. This time she ordered some rollers with tiny needles to stimulate the skin, thousand negligible wounds to cause regeneration. Works for her, she's looking nice, even Dragana commended her looks last time, now we'll see whether it'll help us too. Allegedly regrows hair where it once grew. My brow does end three fingers higher than it once did, so what, dad and granddad and even the other granddad, judging by the few photos left, ended up at pretty much the same frontline. At least I blow dry my hair in just two minutes.
On twentyseventh some snow fell, she even managed to make a snowman for the girls, less than a meter tall but at least cute, with a bow tie. It all thawed by 29th, only the snowman's trunk held for two more days, and somehow stayed white. Which really confused me, didn't recognize it - old snow is always dirty. Perhaps because it wasn't by the road, but rather on Aleksa's lawn.
On 31st landline rang. Just when we expected the delivery for... whatever comes first, the rollers or the passports, turned out to be Magi's mom. Her radio broke, just buzzes, can't turn it off, and can't pull the plug, it's behind. Well okay, we didn't visit in a while, and this is a good chance to take the girls out somewhere, to run out a little.
The radio wasn't much, it's the alarm radio, and the power cord runs through a hole in the back of her regal. The outlet is near the edge, I can reach it, but can't pull the cable out, the regal is pressed against it. Wait a minute, it's exactly the same model as the one we have, so we can pull out the lower left section, the upper covers it and the next two. And it's hardwood floor, slides nicely. We were done in five minutes. And there was nothing wrong with the radio, but it's also an alarm clock, and she must have activated the buzzer somehow, and the interface on these is almost as confusing as on the VCRs, buttons with multiple roles, tiny lamps with small and abbr. captions... easier to pull the plug than to try to figure out which button does what, not to even mention the theoretical plan where we teach the aunt to operate it herself.
She's actually fine, quite lucid, no delusions this time. Magi doesn't plan to return here, needs to work 2-3 more years to make her own retirement, on top of inherited husband's retirement, and she's also qualified to get one here as well, which she means to transfer over there. Said she'd come by early march. Yeah, that's progress, it was january, then february. And her mom, let her manage...
At least Sanda and Linda had good good time. They jumped all over her couch, then ran to me, jumped into my arms one by one. Nice feeling, arms full of happy children.
Yesterday there was a lot of talk on burundi about gulaš, and I just thought it'd be a great idea, when she asks me what next to cook I'd say that. For once I'd have a ready answer, without thinking, which comes hard for me - she always asks that just after lunch, when my bloodstream has more important work to do - digestion - than to keep the brain up and ready. In the evening, however, she just said „why don't you hop to Roda and buy some hearts, I want to make gulaš tomorrow“. Great, my ready answer is forfeited, but I don't care, we'll have a gulaš.
The passports finally came today, half an hour after the rollers. Now it remains to see whether there'll be a vaccine check at layovers. We aren't any kind of staunch antivaccers, just the same as with smoking - don't recommend it to anyone who didn't start, and those who did would better check their supplier. It's incomprehensible to me, why is the pharmafia, which was always among top ten forms of organized crime, always weighing profit vs cost of fines to pay for lives lost and generally profit prevailing, all of a sudden geting a free pass and blind trust. What can billions invested in advertising campaign do... There aren't any facts left, it's all murky. Whichever, we didn't get vaccinated, nor intend to, we're fine. There, I attended a concert with seven hundred people and nothing again.
A propose the concert, I sensed that perfume once in Lidl, and she confirmed that that's the one. So when I sensed it the second time, I just had to ask the woman which one was it. „Euphoria“ by Kelvin Klajn or some such name. Well screw that, my dear said, must cost at least double because of the name. What she bought at the spa (both of them) will be enough for many years.
Third. Dragana called to adjourn the sitting for another week. Last weekend her sister's husband died, suddenly, within two hours. He had diabetes for years, was amputated, but he lasted like that for years and now wham. They'll sit the six day daća on monday, so having a party in the evening is out of the question, and even if it wasn't, she wouldn't be fit for it. The sister is the problem now, also bedridden for years, because the woman who kept them had quit now, probably scared that she may be present when this one dies. We discussed this for a while, mentioned Eva and Slavica, but couldn't help much, don't have their phones. The latter changed her mobile, and the former has no landline, and next two neighbors also don't.
More bad news - our tobacco dealer said he stopped working a while ago. Not that he wouldn't, it's that the supply has dried out. What good stuff they had is sold out, and now what they have is just bad and not worth the trouble. Well, it's been almost ten years, a good run while it lasted. What now...
Nina is building a community site for midwives and homebirths, for her there 'hood. Here and there she employs ChatJeepytea to build pieces of code, which mostly works for standard stuff, but as soon as it got serious, she came to tell me that „we ain't getting out of work anytime soon“. How did she get that?
On fourth, she decided she needs the came-from field to track referrers, and decided it has to be unique and not nullable. Fine and easy, except what to do with the existing records. Can't have a default value, as it would be the same for all of the old records, therefore not unique. The regular way would be to create the field as nullable and not unique first, then populate it with random values for the old records, then add the constraints.
She decided to let ChatGPT solve that problem for her. Here's what it said:
„To resolve this issue, you need to provide a default value for the new "fs_uniquifier" column in the user table. You can do this by updating the existing records with some default value before running the ALTER TABLE statement to add the new column“.
On sixth, Lena writes on Telegram, in platoon meeting, „I was in Novi today, to shoot informational clips for some local startup. I earned 150€ per clip, and we shot 4 in 2 hours. Thanks mom and dad that I speak american english which pays well“.
Seventh. Last cigarettes from the old tobacco... In Byo I finally added a fake stevka (v. house dictionary) for photos, so I can share a photo from a date article with a place article. The first is the shot of vodotoranj, which came from 08-VIII-2005..
Tried a website where they sell „exotic seeds“, to order some škija, but nope, they require membership, no cash on delivery, can't order by phone, just stop short of rectinal scan. She found some other place, no škija, though, but got kentucky and virginian cultivars, wathed a few videos on ewechoob on how to grow, ferment and cut tobacco. We'll manage somehow until ours grow, and then adio market, fuck the republic of thieves.
Eighth. Rode my bike to the community center, bought, after eleven years, a carton of cigarettes (and 0,5kg of ćevapčići for Raja and Violet, which we now do about twice a week). The „LM“, same as Dragana smokes, but longer. Tried with shorts, she bought them at the grocery on the corner, but these feel too small. The long ones turned out to be better. The plan is to, just like before, try out a few kinds and settle for the cheapest we can stand. So I also asked for „Filter 57“, which I remember last seeing in 2015 or so, but no, the girl said they don't have them for years now. Look, my supplier retired, so after ten years I'm back... like when I was a fresh returnee gastarbajter, I know nothing. Well there's a new version of it, „ want blue or black?“. „It was always green... well, if I started smoking with Opatija, which said all black tobacco on the label, so gimme black“. What I got wasn't 57, it was a „P&S“, which sounded like we were playing dumb phones, „pe es“ vs „pedeset sedam“ (57)... And that was even longer than the LM but also not much thinner, and we liked it better, and it cost the same, 310 dinars. Now the cost of what we made with tobacco previously was 2,51*20=52 dinars per box... Well, whatever, once we grow our own, it will be 0,51 per cigarette.
On eleventh, during a smoke break up in the salon (which is how we sometimes poke fun at our smokeroom), we heard a diesel engine stop nearby outside. She said „must be Aleksa ordered some firewood“. Got up to take a look, and bingo. Not exactly firewood, more like old beams and palettes and other paprikaš, which I noticed when I took the bike to do the second round of grocery - things we missed when we went to Lidl and Roda in the afternoon, namely kajmak, candles for the cake and beer to have if Stojan comes. Made quite a round, about 4km, first to Mrkšić at our community center (got none all week, Carp's ex said), then to Kuč dairy shop near 25. maj (also had none), then to the other Mrkšić there (had only 250g altogether, give what you give), then the little bookstore was already closed, yeh its saturday afternoon, but then I found both the candles and the beer in a nondescript, hole-in-the-wall tiny supermarket.
Nina picked exactly this afternoon to clean up the PS4 (or 2 or 3, I'm bad with names - turns out we have two of them here, plus a Nintendo switch), which requires a special tool to open. Each manufacturer scum wants to make extra money on servicing. In this case it was a special screwdriver, which she found, ordered, and it arrived as a value letter to pick at the post office. Now with a value status it requires an ID to pick up, which she didn't have - new passports didn't arrive yet at the time, and they didn't accept american drivers', so no unouthorized person can have the precious 5$ screwdriver. Well, the guy who sold it said „have a drink on me, and I'll never use post office again“. Nina somehow unscrewed the last stubborn screw with her modeler's pliers, and she blew out the dust the best she could - not completely, just hopefully enough.
She still managed to roast the goose, make the two cakes and generally get everything ready for the tworthday, even though the table was occupied all afternoon. This is not the first time that Nina does something like this exactly when she needs all the space and no distractions.