18-XII-2023.
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.
On twelfth Joksa the gipsadžija came, the same cop who did the ceilings upstairs the first time (v. 03-X-2013.), to do them second time and to smooth the salon and landing. Again with his son, who turned out huge now, not quite a twometer but not missing much to get there.
With them came the pickup from the lumberyard, with the material. This time they lifted the drywall boards straight, without ladder - the driver and son passing them from below, Joksa receiving them on the terrace and carrying them inside. They did a lot on the first day, mostly the slanted parts of the ceiling, and inserted lights in them. The lights are inline, leds, no thicker than the boards themselves. Turned out to be a tad stronger than we thought, he said nine but came down with twelve watts. No matter, the light is pleasant. Soon all this may be over.
On fifteenth all of it looked quite different - the ceiling in the salon almost done, left were just the screwy parts around the beams and in the corners. All the mineral wool that they didn't insert ten years ago has now found its place, the lights got inserted. On sixteenth he was already knaufing (k-now-fing), i.e. smoothing out the joins and reinforcing them with netty tapes. Knauf is the company which produces the smoothing paste, the joint paste, the tapes and a dozen other materials for drywallers, and somehow I have a hunch that „knaufing it out“ means at least two or three things, depending on what's the today's operation about. And yes, „kn“ is pronounced as in „acknowledge“. Paid him some advance 30000, not too much compared with the final amount, but still a substantial incentive.
On seventeenth they didn't work, not for it being a sunday, but for him doing the day shift, it's the election day, and he works in Belgrade, while the son was down with quite a temperature. Nina and I went to Lena and Milan in the afternoon, to bring them the eggs. Hundredseventy of them accumulated, we were running out of cartons. The young hens just don't know when the season ends.
Had a nice chat about just everything, she says she's just this weeny bit nauseaous, all the time. I made a few good shots - it's a rare occasion when I can shoot from 14th floor - and the matter of Nina's krismisi (v. house dictionary) shopping was resolved the simplest way - she just walked over to Ušće [shopping mall], while I took a nap. True, I just went cold turkey on afternoon naps, having already passed increased dosage and conditional reflex phases, but the occasion demanded it. Milan and Api were already asleep, the latter being tired like a dog after walking thirty circles around the kitchen island, and I had the drive back ahead of me, so not to collapse into daydreaming near Lukićevo. When I woke up, Nina soon returned, shopping successful, found the things she planned, except pants for herself. Lena made us coffee, took it slow. Then Dragana called, about the frendz parti tomorrow. By my count here, which I did a dozen days ago, this should be the hundredth, though that's off, it's probably 91st or thereabouts. It doesn't matter where I got my ducks misaligned.
Јоксин син примети да ја доста фоткам, па ме упита око тога... и дође дотле да му није јасно како то да тврдим да сам био саоснивач у *** нема ги падеж _цд13 овди ***, кад је оснивач *** нема ги падеж _сашаРац овди ***. Објасним му да је садашњи клуб отприлике трећи у граду, а ово где сам ја одиграо је други, пре педесетак година, и поздрави ми *** нема ги падеж _сашаРац:4 овди ***. И он то и уради, и следећи пут рече да ме овај поздравио.
Joksa's son noticed that I'm taking lots of shots, and asked me about that... and it came down to it being unclear how can I claim to be a co-founder of DC-99 when the guy who did that was Miško. Well, the current club is roughly the third one in he city, and that one is really his project; the second one had me onboard, fiftytwo years ago. And I told him to send my best to Miško, which he did and the next time he delivered the greetings back.
For three days we had the young beef bone soup, or rather of cow's knee, that I got the other day when I did the groceries, and they happened to have the one. The soup is dark brown, strong. In it there are dumplings (farina and eggs...*), because we can't catch the time to make more noodles. So the dumplings go into soups, tarana** into čorbe. But, soon...
On the eighteenth Joksa moved to the upper hall. It's all screwy, because part of the ceiling is above the stairwell, so a scaffold had to be invented. Last time he stuck a ladder but then no staircase was in the way. We maneuvered our big ladder, stretched to 4m, similarly, into a diagonal position, then a shorter fosna (see 01-XII-2023.) sideways to a stool on the ledge, then a longer one to another stool on the top of the landing. The resulting scaffold was about 60cm above the floor level, just high enough that he can reach the ceiling. He finished the drywall there, and now we don't have any of glass of mineral wool dangling anywhere, a breather for the soul [means you can finally sit down and relax].
He left a bit earlier, just to leave us some time to get ready for going out, but we were still late for it, because Linda and Sanda had some last minute demands - pancakes, čikine nogice (v. house dictionary). We came just twenty minutes behind schedule. The brandy of the day was this year's apple, which was received unexpectedly well - them two poured three times, and Dragana's new glasses (same trick as the old ones - twice as wide, twice as tall compared to regular shot glasses) still make you pour eyeballingly and for sure more than into classic ones. We didn't pistol it out, except Borko had another period when he tells the same thing several times in a row. Says „we have two heating plants, the big one and the small one, one on gas one on mazut [heating oil], one for regular heating and one when it doesn't pay to fire up the big one, so we have one which...“, and did that two or three times. I finally asked „why did we build eight heating plants?“ and made it worse, because he started from scratch, the same way. And I don't even remember if he reached the point at all.
At some point Bane was mentioned, Borko knows him from somewhere. Well, there's the odd name which comes up every few years. And ah yes, there was another moment when he mentioned Peter Jackson and the really neat video that he made to the suddenly unearthed Beatles song, which he made with them but without any of them (huh?). Yoko found the cassette when she was cleaning up her pantry, attic or some other garage. Big deal... but we, of course, had to listen to it and watch the clip. There are a few more songs on that tape, and I'm hoping to avoid this in the future. His phone is maybe a new one, doesn't sound much better than before.
And I didn't quite feel like drinking; I sipped, okay, who knows how much wine I drank (she beer), Dragana kept pouring by bits every now and then, but I was sleepy by midnight already. But the dispute calmed down on one side, he stopped using decibels as argument and I stopped trying to get a say before they run out of the same ammunition for the third time, and on the other hand new interesting moments came up so the get up was delayed a few times. We caught a cab around 2:00.
On twentieth and twentyfirst Joksa and son flattened almost whole salon twice, the hall once. Along the way he injected the purpen [polyuretane foam, the brand name from eighties is now the generic name] into the dripboard of the back terrace's roof, so the water won't pour periodically down the wall and flood the terrace anymore. We emptied the lower hall, specially under the staircase, so may that be done too. The bill will reach 900€ with all that. Had we taken him to do the tiles too, it may have taken a bit longer, but would surely be both better and cheaper. Well, fuckit now.
I did three errands during the day - once in the morning, on bicycle, to go pay the bills. Second time to Bob the brzožder, to bring pljeskavice (still called burgers internally) for Raja and Violet, and third time at eight in the evening, to meet the dealer about the tobacco. For nightcap, after the entertainment, we opened a viljamovka (william pear brandy) from Takovo, left over since who knows when and... not even lookalike, sister. We had three and went to sleep, but that's not it. It does have some taste, but you smell the pear when you bring the glass to nose, not when breathing out, when it smells more like a plum brandy, peasant style. Warms the chest but the mouth too, of which we lost the habit. This is going to be archived and then if we fuck someone up with it, we fucked him up, if we don't, it'll be redistilled next year. For next time I'm pulling out some heady tutifruti, play it safe, Sam.
In the evening Vera came by, with [her] daughter, the girls were of course enchanted, went to play immediately. She brought us a bag with two jars of honey and few other things, she got it as advertising stuff for the elections, to give away. Well fuckit she's the only specialist of that kind in the whole town, there was nobody else to replace the old lady when she retired, and still she had to become a member of the SNS to get the job. Who'd fill the position if she didn't? Some affiliated and unqualified moron?
On twentyfirst she set the tiles under the windows, where they weren't yet (or had to be redone, as they were broken when these guys were removing old windows), and these guys will have to smooth that up when it dries. One window yesterday, one in the afternoon, two in the evening. Meanwhile we went to Lidl with Linda and Sanda, and whom did we meet - Bane. I told his missus „you didn't recognize me... well three years ago... yup, I'm over sixtyfive“. When they heard that the girls are our fifth and sixth grandchild and that the seventh's on the way, they made faces like kudos, majstors. They're looking well, he's all white-haired but also larger (in the head!), while her age is visible only in her face, but doesn't look like a hag, it's more an expression of concentrated attention, and just moving the face takes five years off.
On twennythird the carpenter neighbor brought the replacement door for the salon, and the banister for the staircase. Mounted both, all ship shape.
On twonnyfourth Joksa and son came to finish smoothing - the spicks and specks and dark corners, wherever not done yet or missing second coat. Fayes appeared in video chat with the grandchildren, same as she always was. Luckily, her voice was giving her trouble so she cut the chat rather short. She had some throat surgery, because they saw something on some scan, which had to be removed. When they opened her up, found that they misread the scan, nothing there, but they kept poking around for two more hours, hoping to find something to operate on, found nothing, sewed her up. They charged her the hours and left her with a scar to remember. She attends church and doesn't believe, believes in doctors.
----
* „griz i jaja“ - i.e. grizi jaja, gnaw [yer] balls
** tarana is noodle granules made on the spot. A lump of dough is passed through a larger gauge grate straight into boiling soup, where it ends in granules. The medium gauge is not a rare occurrence either.
Mentions: 03-X-2013., 01-XII-2023., Api, auntie Janja, Bane Zelen, čorba, DC-99, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Kristina Birčanec /Lungur/, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Milan Nastić, Milica Erceški, Miško Lenđel, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Olivera Stojanović (Oli Boj), Rosanda Aquilla (Fayes), Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Savka Čajkanić, Vera Vraneš, Violet, in serbian