Spoke with Draginja(1) last night, at length and width. I can't possibly remember what, but mostly it came down to her convincing me that it's better here and how she's not sure she'd know how to live in the old end.
It got cloudy in the last hour, not much, and the wind strengthened a bit.
Treated myself yesterday. Bought a foot pump for the tyres. Each gas station does have a compressor, but here they are all coin operated - in A-burg they were free almost everywhere. Since I never have change in my pockets (Lena sees to that), I decided to declare independence, and to have a reason to be outside at times. Along that line, we plan to buy bikes, and this pump has them adapters(2). I even think we can pump up that ball we take to the pool. We keep it limp, so it doesn't slip out of our hands, but now it's too limp.
The „interview“ I did for Go was excellent, she's asking for more now :). Said to record those stories and send her, and she'll use that in the movie (or whatever she makes). It should be about an actor who gets roles all the time and they get edited out, so his career is rich but nothing to show of it.
Off to keep working while we still have electricity.
The last supplies before the storm. We bought a gas rešo, with an extra cartridge of gas and a light that's screwed instead of the burner. Here's to Go:
They're already boarding the shop windows with plywood, starting with the hotels on the coast. Over here it's only sevn eelevn that's boarding up so far. We're on a bit higher ground here, so the front wave would have to zigzag around to reach us. For now, Izabela seems to be intent on hitting west from us, we're sort of eastern edge of it. The flooding would be more of a problem, as far as I can see, but then there's these lakes around, that should swallow it. Only if they order evacuation, see you tomorrow evening.
The electricty went off before lunch today, they turned it off in advance, just in case. After lunch it started blowing in full swing. From the apartment it didn't look too horrible, strong wind, branches swinging wildly, thinner ones breaking off, leaves everywhere, all decks wet. Passed around midnight and then it all calmed. Only in the morning we saw the extent of the damage. The sound was horrible, though, the siding on these buildings is ribbed, our apartment is in the corner, there's no door to the staircase, it's all open, which makes for very interesting sound effects on any stronger wind, and this time we had the full orchestra of it.
well, finally you got power. Now it's seen how America is a „great“ country. What is piddling 17 hours, for how long the city Zrenjanin was without power after that bad storm of 31st august compared with 268 hours in VBeach !?! May it be seen who is great, to be great this way too.
Exactly. Though, we were the last ones who got power, the others got it n three to five days, mostly. And even that is to laugh about. I hear now how Germans mock them - they had dug the cables in the last village a decade or two ago, above grounds there are only long transmission cables.
If nothing else could be done so promptly, we at least got water within few hours, power in 17 hours. Life could go on, and the rest of the damage was restored in the following days.
I keep trying to remember - when they bombed our big transformers with those graphite fibers, how many hours was it that it took the system to get restored again - less than 12 or less than 24? Now it comes clear to me how could they make such a fuckup - knowing themselves, they counted on the whole country being paralysed for at least a week, and since we're on the technically retarded Balkan, then two weeks at least. One nice thing about american media isolation, forthcoming to the big business, is that the people have no clue how is it in other countries, they think it's the same or worse as they have it, so they don't even complain.
As for informing, we didn't need any, you saw around yourselves what was going on, and without power one could listen only to radio who had one.
We didn't see god knows what much, because we drove around only to get the groceries, and by the time we bought bicycles, the most of it was already removed. Interestingly, not one traffic light fell, even though they hang on rods hanging sideways over the intersections, spanning three lanes - very heavy and far reaching, but done horse strong. The electric poles with lights over the highway were the funniest - about one in six was turned by the wind, to lighten the shoulder.
Yesterday they finally swept the layers of pine needles from our parking. The color of asphalt can already be seen. The path around the swimming pool, I don't know when they will - the concrete can't be seen from twigs, needles and pine cones.
Our media reported to us that even the brave president Dz. W. Buš removed himself from the white house on time, because probably his advisers warned him of the dangerous Izabell(3). What is safe, is safe, and small spitting fish may stay in their places and wait for the monster.
He must be the role model to armed forces. And here these flying ships (which look like airplanes, but they fly out of a naval base, they must be ships) buzzed off two days in advance, and returned bare three days after the lady whooshed this way. At least we had a few days of silence. I heard the war ships sailed out several days in advance. Nothing may surprise them :) (4)
Tomorrow or overmorrow Toza and I should begin to cook the quinces and Toza should lay the tiles which were whacked off the roof on 31st of august. Yesterday Prletić visited, so among the rest we agreed that, while the weather is still fair we should replace the few tiles on your house, First I must sniff around to see if you have reserve of tiles or should I acquire new.
I don't know whether I have any left - my reserves of tile were mostly consumed when it was falling of Aleksa's roof. If fivesix pieces remained.
I asked in the previous our message whether you got the medications from Draginja and Janči, and you did not answer to us. Maybe it is good that they didn't send it during the visit of Izabell(3).
Every time I forget to say - I found Draginja's number on the letter she attached to the package. It arrived as early as back then - now I don't know anymore how many days before Izabela, my calendar is under a heap of pinecones :).
Many were interested in you after this unweather: aunt Milica, Živana i Stojan from Zajač, Stojanoviči: Stanka and Sneca and others.
If I only had time to write a longish article about how crisis is managed here and how censorship is put on information - Sloba is cat's cough - so you'd cross yourself on just how much more it's liberal back home. That would be really a text to retell and pass on. Since friday we completely stopped listening to the radio, because there's nothing to hear on it. When I only think how Đoko Vještica came up with his emisija listening to american radio... but that was probably i Newyork, where they'd have a riot on the streets within ten minutes of trying something like this. Here, on the other hand, nobody gives a hick about nobody knowing nothing. One station (from North Carolina - close and good reception) tried to send a reporter to the worst affected places - those islands where we went for summer vacation three years ago - but the FEMA (federal agency for emergencies, power above powers) wouldn't let him. He did have the prerequisite authorizations, but they asked for a few more he never even heard about. Nobody was reporting which areas got the power, which not, we only heard the two tunnels in Norfolk were still under water(5), and that the return to the islands is allowed only to those who have a document proving they live or work there.
[this is when it got scary - there's a storm, and suddenly some guys with guns, in black uniforms, force you out of your homes, or if you manage to persuade them that you'll stay, you know you can shot as a looter for no good reason and without witnesses, even if you were trying to actually catch a looter]
Few days ago Vanji came by. He's presently home for vacation(6). I was in the vineyard. With mom he talked how Joja canceled on him, so now there's nobody to maintain the apps you still have in use at customers'. He suggested to mom that, considering he's got a few computers, of newer make than ours, he could replace ours with one of those. Of course mom agreed. Today I reminded him of that, because he dropped by for some cask of his. Said he didn't forget, but only next week, their time is sold for this week. Said theta ...we'll come to reassemble... . I asked who's coming with him, knowing that he's now alone in Avai, said his younger son is with him.
And there we complained in DBA for Sale turning it into a family business. Book fell to two letters.
And Taho screwed him right - Vanji counted on tying him with a contract, so under that contract he left him to maintain the remaining customers. He now just canceled the contract and went solo. And sueing anyone back home is... here I read that DBA is sueing Blaža and Brata for stealing all the software and selling even the apps which they know nothing about. That should be under urgent process, so the sued wouldn't have the time to remove evidence - and that urgent process took nine months before the charges were actually filed.
Write to us how ours in Richmond fared with Izabell(3) ? Did they have more damange than you ? At them it was probably shorter time without power, as you wrote as early as saturday they have it.
We were actually at them on saturday. We refilled their fridge again, and I also took the chance to reload stuff on nebojša - brought it along and hooked into their network. Then we looked into Nina's machine and found that something burned on her motherboard, so we ordered a new one, and processor and memory, and also the new power supply (the box with a fan - doubles as rectifier), and ordered tobacco and cigarettes for ourselves.
Didn't notice any damage in Richmond, but we drive through just a few more important downtown streets, with almost no trees, or drive raound on the highway, where it was all already cleaned up and order restored, grass mowed.
What was that wireless phone from which you called. Is that some apparat stronger than a mobile. We heard quite well.
The wireless is our old one - it's the two piece apparat, one hangs on the wall and plugs in, the other part communicates with it via antenna and can be carried around. The new one we bought for pittance, incomplete and without a box, but it's a classic one part phone, which can work without mains power.
On 29th we finally got power. This I wrote to Go:
I didn't believe I'd be making Elektrovojvodina of mud. I thought they were the worst muckers on the eartly ball (after Autobanda and a few worse), but Dumminyan Vurginya Power surpassed them by ten lengths!
The problem were the couple of poles which were poked into that sleeve of the puddle which stretches behind us, well they toppled into water with the wires. And there as early as tuesday they sent a prospector to decide the cause why our blocks didn't get the power eight days ago like others did... some firm, kick me until dawn. Even this now wasn't fixed by them, it was a team from North Carolina.
While we were without it, we bought bicycles. At least to ride around while there's nothing to do. Orion paid mine, 80$, from the recreation budget; the other two were 60$ each, from pocket. Took them in Walmart, no clue how we got them home. Whether they all rode them, or did I pack mine in, it being heavier, or... can't remember.
Among other things we bought for the occasion, we bought a little transistor radio with some puny sound boxes, each speaker sized as a two R20 batteries stacked. We tried to get any news - see above - but no. The one thing I remember from it was some right wing talk radio, where some guy called Michael Savage went overboard with staying true to his name. He was so rude, never allowed his guest to finish a sentence, just shouted as soon as the guy muttered three words, that I got an instant urge to get there into the studio and beat the god out of him. The whole unforgettable experience lasted perhaps three minutes, thanks for raising my blood pressure, if it ever drops again, I'll call you.
About the fourth day, dying of boredom, I remembered my SF stories and that I have recently printed the last one, so I got into writing additional pieces on the blank sides of the paper, as they were coming into my mind. Turned out to be a lot of it, change of head tasted sweet, thinking with a pen and not keyboard. And the pen was the black gel (they don't have blue ones here), slides nicely and doesn't blot. I wrote parts into a notebook too, when there wasn't enought room on the corresponding page. I got into the swing, and that's where it also ended. I never wrote another one, and didn't finish any of the unfinished ones.
The neighbors from the next block got power in three days. They charged the less lucky neighbors 5$ per shower.
On eighth day I took nebojša to the reception desk, brought my own cables, mouse, pad, and worked from a desk just outside. It wasn't nice, though, the mousepad in the wrong place, bad chair, just earbuds so I heard all the airplanes as they were returning to base. But I did get a few hours of work logged in, and stayed abreast of the event on the job, even managed to talk with some guys there - well, did that anyway, had the office mobile phone.
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(1) ***_GININI:Ć*** daughter of Danka Sejina, see summer 1966. Lives in Chicago.
(2) wrong - no adapters needed, the tyres on bicycles now have the same kind of valve as those on cars; I should have known, did have a bike three years ago. Perhaps that one didn't stay long enough to need pumping.
(3) the spirit of engrbian went so far, that dad didn't write it in serbian, Izabela, nor in english, Isabel, but the proper half-half mix.
(4) „Ništa nas ne sme iznenaditi“, somehow abbreviated as just NNNI (where's the S?) - nothing is allowed to surprise us - was a series of maneuvers for the reserve and territorial units, since mid seventies and into eighties, and was the source of endless mockery, since one such got canceled because of rain.
(5) big deal, these two tunnels get underwater whenever there's a good rain, at least twice a year.
