On 19th finally collected most of the bills to go and pay. All the utility bills used to come in sync by 15th, and they had the same due date. Now last fall they managed to fuck that away and now the electricity comes when the others are overdue. So I went and paid the first batch, and collected the 2000 from Micika, the next kiosk brzožder (v. house dictionary). She bought a new (gas) barbecue two weeks ago, and complained how they ask an arm and a leg for a new gas bottle, which they immediately exchange for an old full one. Well, I actually have one to sell. The same afternoon she called, saying the used bottles go 1500 to 2000. I offered two bottles at 3500, settled for one at 2000. And the next morning I delivered, promise is a promise, and then she didn't have any cash on hand, too early in the day and her daughter just went off to the serekeš to deposit the daily cash. So I let it lay until the bills day. Raja and Violet lost the liking for her ćevapčići, and I was amazed that they stayed with hers so long. I mean fuck the ćevapčići if she's roasting them in a heated plek and slobbers them all over with veggie oil. Can't be good. So yesterday we fired up the barbecue for our own selves' sake (and the sake liked it). The ćevapčići from Roda are huge, almost the size they were in Romania back in the day, so we halved about one third of them, to easier maneuver them around on the grille. The meat is heavily marinated, we took out one of the halves as a sample, she chopped it and it was dripping profusely. Today every piece of shit tries to sell water at the price of meat. We let them roast much longer, to lose the salty water. Well, salt remained, we were thirsty all day. They had no neck, so she took a larger shoulder, sliced it into steaks, excellent.
Last night Nina chatted with Fayes and Rein. I chimed in, briefly. They said I'm not changing at all, well, I said, I'm not the changeable type, the exchange rate for me is very low now, if she tried she'd get almost nothing for me, so here I am. They'll be visiting their daughter in Germany (not exactly Rammstein but one of those), she's there on the base with husband and kids. They may just drop by here for a couple of days.
Doing nothing most of the time, the rains keep coming and going. Finally yesterday managed to take the van, with švorceniger in it, to the old house, to cut down the jungle. Popino prase („priest's piglet“, a local grass quite resembling wheat) grew to the balls and higher. Also delivered a liter of tutifruti to the neighbor behind, as promised - he keeps mowing the whole space behind the corner. Uses that as a parking, both he and his wife are cabbies, but then the surface he maintains is enough for eight cars. Met Susjetka (v. house dictionary) briefly on my way out. Thin, not looking her best, but she moves.
Messing with Byo, surrounding the text where She's mentioned. The number of links to her already fell from 839 to 795... another month or two and ready to publish again. Just realized that if I remove all the pictures with her, there'll be a lot of them, so I'd better have two version of each, with her either cropped out or cruelly pixellated all over. And then to solve how to know which one to publish. The previous version would probably go into a subfolder. And then solve the sending of proper version to ftp in either case. More work ahead.
Mowed here today as well. Finally. Aleksa's son seems to be quite a decent neighbor, despite keeping some of the old habits, like hanging his terrace carpet over our fence to dry. At least no damage. We lost one hen, though, but not to his dog (which now has a bright red jacket), it was just sick for quite a while. There was a dead hen next to the coop, but we decided, after ten recounts, it wasn't ours, but rather the other neighbor's. Whether it somehow died up on the fence and just fell on our side (implausible, never saw them reach the fence top), or it was a prank, never mind, as long as it's not one of ours. We're getting about nine eggs a day on the average, and the eggs from new hens are getting bigger. We made noodles three times already, the big barrel is almost full.
Twentyfifth. Finally to the garden. Finished mowing the lawn, and made a victorious lap around the orchard. Bad year. Enough cherries for the starlings, but then even less cherries; plums and quince(!) wither on the stalk, it's all full of lice, perhaps some pears and apples may survive. There may be a batch or two of apricots, at least some of those are somehow resisting lice.
At Lidl we met Rile. He's also getting white in the beard. News... Željko was ill of some cancer. V., the last owner of CompuWiz, died about a month ago. Had epilepsy, died in sleep. Rile tried to gather the branch, i.e. the circle of thos who worked with CompuWiz the most, to post an obituary together. Everybody contributed, except Vanji, who started berating him in very harsh terms and bad language, what do you always want from me, I have nothing with you, don't want to see you, I don't care... „What's wrong with this guy?“ So he too didn't contact him anymore.
Other than that, Rile needs eight more years to retire, works in Temerin, commuting about 50km, decent salary, good team, likes it.
Lena is looking for a job again. Not that the money is bad on the current one - 150K$ isn't bad at all - it's that her boss is not a programmer, who is just keen on managing everything, giving her oddball jobs to fill her time and then on the review gave her a 5 out of 9 because she isn't working overtime. She actually is, she starts before their morning and then stays for various meetings, and she's actually on time with her projects (and as a retired programmer I know how rarely this happens). But no, he insists. Okay, so she already had a couple of interviews.
On twentyfourth we went to get new IDs and passports. I was on time, mine expires in a couple of days, but hers expired in 2015. While I even poked moderate fun at my clerk, she got into a shouting contest with hers, who immediately took the battle stance of a doctor always ready to berate the undisciplined patient. Instead of just saying „in that case you'll have this statement to fill and sign“, to which it amounts anyway. In the statement, as the reason she wrote „didn't care“. The clerk could just have admired her for going through life without an ID for eight years.
My dear's links here are reduced to below 200 by 27th. And there are 220+ photos with her which are moved into a subfolder for later, while in the official folder there are now copies on which she's pixelized, size 32. She's becoming a phantom here, but casts a shadow.