Sunday, 26th. Sarma the fifth day. Nirvana. Afternoon, cleaning upstairs. We tore the tent-like clothesracks from Lidl, they go to junk, it's good that they lasted four years. The shelf with winter preserves we moved into the bathroom to be, so the wall behind the place where it all stood is now accessible, to scrub the soot off it. She meant to put a coat of blocker over it, but it took too long and she was already tired by the time she finished scrubbing. During all that I kept vacuuming and vacuuming, and every now and then I'd remember some piece of tools which I can't find anymore, now that the majstors have left. The list, for now, has blue-gray Unior combine pliers, the knife with triangular edge and silvery handle, the red dustpan with brush (the blue one stayed), wire brush, blue broom with green handle, little blue minus* screwdriver, short led light (the other one and the long one are here), small spatila, classic nail extractor pliers...
[we found the broom above the ceiling later, Mića's guy forgot it there, used it to push away the insulation]
On 27th she got quite angry at Aziri for not even calling, and said if he doesn't call by friday he's off the list. And the brothers also didn't call, forgot the taburet and still didn't notice how much of our tools they have. So now there's the question of who'll do the landing, those walls are still covered in soot, as we don't quite trust our sense of balance above the stairwell, no purchase there. A scaffold could be improvised. There I remembered that I saw an electric wall sander in Lidl, and she said why didn't you buy it. Because it's a 6000 dinar toy, and because we were almost finished by then, too late. But she liked the idea and, of course, started looking at the ads, on buying-selling site she found something, called the guy, and was smart enough to ask the seller how did that particular model fare in practice. Not too well, it's not the original Makita (whose drill we had in the there, was excellent), it's some chinese knockoff, better take this russian, which is even slightly cheaper. She bought that, 16000, and it arrived on 28th. And as the ad sellers' custom is, it's not exactly what it says on the box - of vacuum cleaner it has a hose that you attach to one, and it's lacking the advertised adapters which we'd need for our cleaner. But then it's not bound to hold two bars of pressure, this can be done by four rounds of duck tape.
In the evening I shortened the bathroom door, because they hung too low now that there's tiles below. Slowly, by hand saw, the taller one which won't twist, and the cut turned out quite straight, perhaps half a millimeter lower in the middle. As I said at least ten times in the last two weeks, „who runs doesn't see, who sees thinks it's how it should be“.
On twentyninth we took the girls to Lidl and Roda, which we now manage to do barely twice a month. This time they really needed to go out and air a bit, because Sanda has her fits of jitters when she gets stuck in a game, then picks a fight with Linda or becomes quite loud, or whatever comes across. They managed to find some black gloves without fingertips, and Linda donned some baseball cap and a sort of denim jacket, machine faded, and when she put that all together and started taking poses for shots... too bad my eos70 was upstair, so I took a shot with the phone. A real little rocker :).
On thirtieth the g55 gathered for the first meeting. Dragana, Borko, Bora, Jozda, Žuca, Vlada and ten more people from previous meetings. I picked Dragana along the way, had to wait for her a couple of minutes at Lesnina, even saw her turn the kitchen light off. There wasn't much to discuss at the meeting, we know pretty much everything by rote. The hotel offers 26th of may, because they sold out for 25th. The reservation that we have from five years ago, with their signature, is forgotten or they just had someone come up with down payment. Everything is sold out anyway („now they reserve both the restaurant and the band a whole year in advance, and if the wedding is held, it is held“). By now we don't really care whether it's sunday or saturday, we're all retired. The handful who still work, well, they can blame themselves. For the vast majority even a wednesday would be fine, „now there's nothing that we must“.
Some had coffee, some coke, some beer, whoever wanted what, I nothing. Told the waitress „I can't, didn't bring my reading glasses, I don't see that digital lock of yours to type the code“ (meaning the 09-V-2019.). When she served the drinks, she said „the toilet key is on the bar, so you don't have to type the code“. There. Not the first time that I caused a change of internal rules somewhere... Still didn't order anything, we didn't see her until pay time, she's alone and serves downstairs as well. Maybe in january, next gathering.
We all being a bit weak in the rejuvenation department, we agreed to move the whole show to one hour earlier, and to not hire a band. A band now costs a bit too much, around 1200€ per night, which is some 6€ per capita, somewhat steep and the majority had the complaint last time on having a live music at all. They are too loud and they couldn't properly talk to each other. We'd rather invent some deejay, or what L. said, take my playlist. Thank you very much, I'm not only the photographer, running the slideshow, now if I'm to be in charge of the sound... I may bring the music but someone else should play it. Some names were tossed, why not just get Trle or his apprentice who played just the right stuff last time at the cafe where we sat until dawn. Or I could just dig up Sleš if need be. Borko suggested we hire them Stones, they know the period stuff, and would probably be cheap enough, working by retirement fee schedule. Well yeah, I said, here they just put out an album which sounds as if it was made in 1976. To that I.B. shouted „yeah, rightly so, they exactly hit the spot!“. Bora took a couple of shots with his phone while doing a bit of his own show, giving instructions to himself and to us in english, he must have veered off somewhere. My lady later commented on that „well he can afford it, he's retired, let him live his own movie if he wants to“.
On the way back Dragana and I made a wide arc around the vodotoranj, because it makes its own wind.
Having heard that morning that that wee piece of turd Kissinger threw the spoon, an appropriate farewell ensued, with the quince from Vršac (an educated guess, don't know who else could have brought that). Somewhat milder and less aromatic than ours, stuns well and reaches far. We didn't mention the deceased much, not to spoil the impression. We likewise sent off both evil grannies (Madlenka, the all so bright, and the british queen). We bade the worms and earthworms good appetite.
sGradlj.com completed the month with 107000 visits. That used to be a decent annual number.
Went to Svetofor today to restock on various items. Met the couple from Lalinski, they sent their best to Lena and an invitation to us all. They made a decent home by now, everything's great. Then we went to the brzožder (fastdevour) to buy pljeska for Raja, Violet and Nina, and while waiting for it to be made (we could have ordered ahead, but we didn't know how long will the groceries take), suddenly I felt a sharp tang of that euphoria perfume, which was so interesting a year ago. I turned sharply and right, there was some wee girl right behind me, haven't heard her coming. Wishing to smooth my sudden move, I asked „is that euphoria, that fragance?“. Yes, it is, she said. Then my dear returns from the kiosk, having bought nothing, and remembered there are two cigarettes in a box in her tote, so let's have them while we wait... and we keep looking at this girl, yes she is, nope she aint... Eventually I asked „are you Vesna?“. „Yes... how are the girls? Already so big? When they frequented Springfield they barely walked...“. Then I understood why I didn't recognize her at first - her hair was under the hood, and she looked some five years younger.
In the evening majstor Mile called about that beam, I said no, we'll do that ourselves, I've just cut the fosne**, we'll reinforce the beams with that, but the walls need replastering where the fire damaged the old layer. And he called in the morning, about how do we do this, because it's a bit awkward to bring half a cubic [metre] of sand for just a few square[ meter]s, and yet to buy a ready mix is expensive work, one sack makes just about one bucket of plaster, comes to about 1000 dinars per square, which may be okay for apartments, but here... Said he'll just load that half a cubic on his trailer and they won't even unload. So when do you plan to do this? In about half an hour...
While I was waiting, Safet Aziri called, he'd like to come here. Don't come, I said, you don't even call for eight days, I can't wait that much... And your brothers too.. Yes, he said, they noticed some pliers, give me a list of what's missing. I'm giving you no list, let them do the inventory and find out what's not theirs. I don't consider this a theft, but that they lost concentration, I saw them stumbling the last day and a half, one on meds, other one wasn't there from day one and didn't know what was already there what they brought... But they could at least report. Well they're on a gig in Novi, doing a batch of apartments. The mobile works everywhere, that's no excuse. Okay, I owe nothing for those six work hours of his, and that's it.
And majstor Mile and his right hand showed up right after that, and went on to work. By our lunch they finished more than half of it. He even managed to remember the name of the guy who did our ceilings ten years ago, and found his cell number in his notebook, and we exchanged the numbers shortly. Well, the list of things to be done came down to a rather short list - I should tailor those planks and screw them, we should sand the landing walls, this guy needs to do the ceilings, Đole the windower should do the cabin, the crapper, basin and faucets need to be bought and mounted... and done, that's all. May even be finished before the new year.
On third the Joksa gipsadžija [the gypsum guy, the -džija is the typical turkish suffix for any kind of specialist] came, looked at the job ahead, calculated it at 600€ without painting. We changed our mind later - not that we couldn't paint it ourselves, it's that we have gotten slow, wouldn't finish that in five weeks. In the evening we chatted with Go and Stanley, saw Anita too... who just decided she'd want to paint by using some onscreen image as a model, starting with some classical paintings first. While we talked, she finished one and so fuck you god, it's some color combination... Don't know what was it supposed to be; what I saw was three ships far out on the sea, on a pale thinly cloudy day, thick smoke billowing from them all the way to the sky. We finished around one, and I fell firmly asleep like a suckling pigeon. Was woken up by conversation, the carpenter neighbor came to see about that door and the bannister. She finished with him by the time I was up and awake.
On fourth we ran a new round, convened a new frendz parti, the 99th time. We played up the complete scenario, what with circumstantial guiding of the story to some minor detail which is now absent because... we had a fire. And we recount the event offhandedly, poking fun at details, and it didn't look much until an hour later I showed the photos. The other big news was received even better, that Lena is carrying for six weeks now.
And a news also arrived - Đ. died, the younger Smetovački sister, the one who wasn't married into Čestić clan.
Linda and Sanda have, of course, occupied Dragana - her tozna doubles as a mirror, they'd wave away her cigarette smoke, they'd sit in her lap (but please not both at a time, this leg hurts). Borko was, amazingly, good - didn't hold a lecture, didn't have a silly thesis to discuss, didn't get done, and what he started telling the second time he didn't push headlessly through, stopped right there. Our proposal to go on every two weeks from now was accepted without discussion. I'm getting an impression that they'd accept just the same if we said five weeks or three days.
We dispersed around 1:30, everything normal and as if we didn't have a pause.
On fifth I finally put those two planks, which will take a part of the burden from the charred beam. It didn't turn quite as I imagined it. It all looks straight and the geometry is allegedly correct, but when you start fastening them in place, it veers a couple of millimeters this way or other. So the carpenter, so the masonry.
On sixth, at five in the morning I was woken up by congested nose, not snotty, just swollen, as the blue pill uses to do to me, it swells while I'm lying. It passes in a dozen minutes if I sit up. Took some twenty this time, so I was fully awake, and thus went down to make a coffee... Had two by lunch, almost made a third, but that one was delayed by lunch and the afternoon catnap of full two hours.
Before lunch some money arrived. The new postman, a kid but investing effort and learning the ropes, and I saw that those 4660 dinars are from auntie Janja. No message, and the surname is the old one. I thought to call her to see what was this about, but I guessed it's my share of leasing out some piece of land, same as a couple of years ago, and then if I called I couldn't avoid asking her about the surname. It's possible that her postman typed it by habit, the post office is in spitting range from her, they know each other for years. So I didn't call. She could also have called, and didn't.
We didn't do much, just moved away the tools we don't need upstairs anymore. Around 17 Bajlo called, said Oli Boj's husband died. The guy was 18 years older, though, shaken by Alzheimer for at least ten years, now already in aggressive phase. Said Kristina's husband isn't in any better shape, bone cancer. And he heard all this over the fays group where Milica and Savka are too, both with ill husbands. Then we distributed duties, he'll call further, and I'll call Dragana.
Then it turned out that I went to sleep before midnight, couldn't keep my head up, the eyes collapsible... And I slept like a suckling pigeon. Where do I fit all that.
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* someone misread the icons somewhere and voila, the flat one is minus, the Phillips is plus.
** a 50mm thick plank (not quite two inch, that'd be 50,8mm), name sounds german but that's not an etymological clue, any majstor's language may have english or even turkish words made to conform to german-sounding rest of the vocabulary. I've even seen a t-shirt with „u srcu Bosna, u glavi fosna“ (in heart Bosnia, in head fosna).