08-VIII-2023.
This morning, just as I was charging the phone (and turned it off to speed up the process, may take hours otherwise), Dragana called. On the landline, knows the ropes. Finally scheduled the visit to Staša. Took her just a month and a bit, but she managed, to differ from the other guy who took year and a half and still didn't.
Though, the moment was tough. I just started my slime cycle, much lighter than before (the one 2018/19 was the worst, didn't know the drill). Didn't have another one until late winter this year, and now this one is truly light, I can function almost completely okay, just that I may get into a fit of a cough when trying to talk, exactly what happened when she called, though not much, I stopped quickly. She, on the other hand, is in a much worse čorba, her sister is in very bad shape, so we'll cut the visit short and take her to her sister, as they should take her to Kamenica in the morning, to try a few more tricks. Implied „go see her while she's still there“, as many who go to Kamenica don't return.
I drew myself up at 17:20 as scheduled, parked the usual 100m before, in the area where parking is still free, and walked to her place, of course she needs some support before leaving, she even leaned on my shoulders at some point, her leg is fucking her seriously, but by the time we left (I walked the 100m and picked the car, she was waiting in front of Lesnina) she relaxed and didn't complain anymore.
I've never been to Staša, and while she was once, that was a decade ago and she doesn't remember. I knew the street, but we had to call ahead so to know whether to turn right or left. He said „left, then after the transformer, I'll be on the street“. Well, her eyes are worse than mine, I spotted both transformer and him way ahead of her.
Haven't seen his wife since the mathematicians' meeting ten years ago, and she hasn't changed much, just her hair got striped, black and white. Gave up on dyeing, got to redo every three weeks, and even so it looks good only a few days. Dragana is just as unsatisfied with the dyes, they even wash away, endure only one wash and then fade out. Well, what she showed as grown undyed isn't gray at all, I don't know for which pretty is she dyeing it. Speaking of cosmetics, she didn't overdo the fragrances this time the way she used to, and even so, from just greeting her I had it on my hands the whole day, and in Joda the next day.
Staša looks well, even better than last fall, it's just that he speaks more quietly, perhaps because he doesn't have to be loud anymore, classroom is bye bye. His wife said she also wasn't teaching all the time - they used to work together in the carpet factory, back when Radoje was their boss, and then she worked a number of places, including klaanca in the late nineties... which is where we started reminiscing all the folks there, Nj and Sabahudin („our eggs, your pleasure“). The software they had at the tame was by some guy Arpad from Alibunar, well well... we did have customers there, and it's quite possible that the guy was doing derivative work, or that the genetics of his app may be traced back to here. And thus I remembered Paki, the fastest operater in town. That story is with Presprom.
As for brandy, I brought the cherry (not cherry) of 2022, and a flowerpot of bolivian hot pepper. Both of them stopped eating hot - he since the surgery, she after overdosing once (ate five lara at one meal, wasn't well until next day). Doesn't matter, the female children's parents (and we mathematicians are mostly those) have sons-in-law, it's for them.
I delivered Dragana on the spot and on time, and drove to nearby Špajz (or is it Špaiz this month?) to get the lovage leaves I forgot the last time. Well, as if I didn't - they don't have it now, didn't have it then, don't have it for months now. At least I bought the jelly confection for the girls, they loved it last time. But when I got home, they didn't hit that bag, they went for Staša's grapes, a miracle. So far they couldn't be talked into eating fruit, and for grapes it was „peal it for me“. These have thinner rind and smaller seeds, so it goes, and they hit the bag seriously, specially Violet did.
By the evening my slime went full swing, I slept it over completely confused, dreaming the same script all over and over, all night, where it was an epidemic of sorts but there are some guys (the Chineses from the tire factory?) who silently, by nudges, put things up where needed, and the people somehow, all by themselves, direct themselves where they should go, without anyone even pointing a finger to a direction, burundi comments it as either a supreme conspiracy or a bout of spontaneity, sponted properly all the way, and I was waiting to wake up and find out how much of it was real and how much a dream built around that reality. Of course, when I finally woke up (not counting the three times I was getting up and going back to continue the dreaming) it was clear that it had no real base. But I got better just as well. Did take two more naps in the day, but we also got to Čankovo as well, she gathered apples and I mowed, at least the part we look at from where we sit.
And then it went quiet for the next few days. The kids got well, they took it easier, only Raja was delayed with it. The slimer held me (and it's a clear one, not tobacco influenced, I actually kept smoking regularly, didn't incite cough), and on saturday morning I realized that I slept 8 hours in one go, didn't wake up to cough out the slimer. She, though, got hit by it on thursday evening... so I guess this means we won't be taking the kids to the beer days, having two of us in not the best shape. At least during that time she did one thing which will keep us at least two winters, and promises more of it - she crushed in the blender those tiny bolivian chili peppers, which she first dehydrated upstairs in that Gorenje's dryer. The stuff is so strong that knifetipfull, of the narrow tipped knife, is too much, it's hot like crazy. I'm actually using a fork, what fits on its tines, about 3-4 times, is enough. [writing this in march of 2024, and we calibrated upwards meanwhile, three knifetips is now the norm for a plate of sarma... still got the other jar unopened]
At least I used this quiet period to finish the tough part of the generator for sGradlj.com, the jokes, because there's more than 1600 of them and it's impossible to organize in any way where there wouldn't be too many of them on the same page, and too many links to others. So I shortened the header - not every page is linked, only the main pages for each topic, and all the pages for the current topic. Of course, all the links are still there, it's just that most are invisible. The code isn't too complicated, I've done tricks like that before, it was that this has a two level grouping - not just plain list, or a plain list for all the entries beginning with the same character, this is grouped by topics, and each topic has pages of 2048 characters of source text each. Now I had to keep the page number with each entry... well, tough, but done now.
Could make it look better, but at least I got it working and... wow, this python is fast.
And so Lena reports on saturday morning that she's now officially not working for that outfit from Califates, and that the apartment is paid off in full. Freedom plus freedom, what more.
In the afternoon we managed to get to the Days of beer downtown, somehow. Raja wasn't in best shape, but didn't want to miss this. Sanda, on the other hand, exclaimed in advance that this is „the best day ever“. We got them all in the van, parked the same place as before, short walk to Žitni... and the only good thing this time was that the band was playing „Crna dama“ (black lady) of Smak, vigorously and with guitar work seriously emulating the hand of R.M. Točak, though the singer took it a bit too high - but then, so did the original. And that was it, the last song of the batch, and then the next band was getting ready. Amazingly, the southeast corner of Žitni was empty, i.e. there were at least three lots unsold, bad sign.
Beer being advertised at 300 and 350 dinars (Štajger), didn't even check others. That's steep, it was 150 just a couple of years ago. The kids wanted a burger, Raja and Violet that is, but we skipped the first stall, they were too far away from the events, outliers and probably lower quality. The next one, put up on the slot where usually the taxis park, had the t-shirts and wrappers from tavern „Moskva“, though it wasn't their usual spot, and didn't quite look like them. I'd recognize the staff in this case, because the last year's shot of them was my wallpaper then. The identity of the stall remained a mystery - the plate said it was „Pilot-S“ from Sopot, and one worker had their t-shirt; three others advertised Vranješ, a different joint, and the remaining shirts and wrappers showed Moskva. That was a red flag already, but by the time I noticed, we already took a couple of burgers, and sat at the nearby tent, to wait while they eat.
thirty minutes later
The burgers didn't go well, Raja was obviously in a bad way, and he gave up after eating six bites. Violet likewise didn't like hers. We both tried afew bites... ouch. The bun (not a proper somun!) was the spongy starchy bullshit, even worse than expected, perhaps comparable with that PoS of 01-VII-2018.. But the meat wasn't any better. Yes it's meat, yes it's fresh off the charcoal, no it isn't something stale covered up with spice. It's just the same spongy thing without any taste, it doesn't have the juices, it's just entertainment for teeth - elastic it was, but why would I want my pljeskavica to be elastic? - there's no pleasure. We left the leftovers, which was way more than halves, on the stall's spare grill, and it stayed there for a while. The staff didn't notice, but I hope the passers by did. And it cost 450 - the most expensive in regular joints is 350, and that's pure meat there.
We didn't get too far - the kids got their cotton candy (twice!), a glass (plastic glass, ahem) of slushie (ground ice with artificial taste of... sour cherry, because it was labeled as blackberry), I went off to the near side of the bridge to get some ćeten alva (prepackaged this time, but from the same lady - and, ahem, too much sugar, the texture is somewhat wrong this year) and then we all agreed to go home, because Raja was really unwell. But then everybody had what they came for, no need to cross the bridge and walk the whole main street, just Žitni was enough... and it was still „the best day ever!“. Linda was likewise happy. Even I was, considering the number of good shots I made in 50 minutes.
Then on sunday, as the weather allowed for it, I drove the van (with švorceniger in it) to the old house and mowed it. Had a nice chat with a few people - first Susjed's son (v. house dictionary), who's tearing down the garage (more below), and had to park one car on the lawn to let the majstor drive the truck in, and immediately there's someone from žardinjerija with the same old - you can't park on a public green surface, it belongs to the town, ah yeah so why doesn't the town maintain it then, ah no that's your duty... bla bla bla, heard that story from him before, seems his history wasn't forgotten and they keep an eye on him, just as a reminder. Then there was Zina's father, with another few interesting stories - as in „why does my boss own four driving schools? Well it was one school, but the way they give out slots for the exam, it's allotted per school, so candidates from smaller schools, with just three instructors, they get queued for just two weeks, and he has a dozen, so his candidates wait for two months... so he split it into four schools, same name but 01, 02, 03, 04 - and now has to pay rent for three extra classrooms that he never uses“.
These garages... illegal, as it were, back in 1971 (same time as we built ours), there was this ruling that no new construction was allowed in our zone, so the solution, after someone snitched on both, was to deem them temporary, aka nonexistent in the cadaster, but still taxable... and we're still both paying some amount for the existence of them. Now that his half of the house is in the back, the garage is taking up half the space in his part of the yard, is used for nothing - the cars don't rust like they did fifty years ago - and incurs cost, so down it goes. Boy, how did our fathers build that, it's rock solid, concrete full of rebar, you could bear a bear* until you get that down.
Among the mail I gathered at the old house we found two same notices of undelivered registered mail, one for her and one for me. So the next day I went to the little post office by Lesnina to pick them, but the girl there said this is still her pause, for six more minutes, so if I have some errand - well, I actually do. Went to „Demetra“, same kind of shop as the Špaiz, and no, they also don't have the lovage leaves, nobody saw those for half a year, the supplier went mum. And the mail, ah, the same notice as before, that the bank would gladly see us both about identity check, ah yeah, we know, where have you been three years ago when our IDs expired? And amazingly I got both, the girl didn't make it a problem that I'm picking it for both of us, because I played nice, respected her pause without a word. Usually the post folks are the worst stricklers, they even check expiry dates on your IDs, the utter cuntfleas.
On 17th the whole burundi was abuzz with events in the ancient homeland - the ppp's server was gone, offline. Took half a day to find out that the nominal owner of the server got into a cuntfight with one of the moderators, and was consequently banned for two months. Then he flipped the switch, shut down the server. And the initial spark was his request that someone else should be the owner now. It all got resolved before evening, and we didn't actually have to let crocodiles in the moat and raise the bridges, there was no wave of refugees. Just a few of those who already had dormant accounts here suddenly activated them.
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* „da rodiš mečku“ - to give birth to an adult female bear, i.e. it's a big effort.
Mentions: 01-VII-2018., 24-III-2024., burundi, Čankovo, čorba, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, klaanca, Lesnina, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, ppp, Presprom, Radoje Maletin, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sarma, sGradlj.com, Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), švorceniger, Violet, Zina, žardinjerija, in serbian