We went to the beach twice already - on monday and yesterday. We managed to talk Lena into coming, and not only that, she eventually liked it, despite being leery of water, being a bit of a frigoriphobe, and being pinced a little by a crab (which is the only case in all these seaside years that we know of - she just got lucky). We go there about six afternoon and return by dusk, which is a lot of time this time of the year. Eleese spends her summer vacation here; part of the time she stays with Rein and Fayes, part with us, and she's the reason to go to the beach more frequently, although we go separately. Yesterday we accidentally met at the beach, they took off half an hour earlier, thinking we wouldn't be coming; we just abruptly decided to go, and arrived there ten minutes before them, because they had a detour - Nina had to buy a swimsuit.
She picked the first cucumber. To differ from cucumbers which I remember from [my] youth, which were prone to be bitter if not watered enough, and which inevitably made you burp, these don't suffer from such faults (even though the seeds are sold by, wait for it, Burpee), and the peel is smooth, without those barblike points. And it ain't small either. I may eventually learn to love cucumbers, though never as much as she does, that would be aiming too far. The cayenne peppers are progressing nicely, they got the length, now for the color.
We barbecued a bit today, it seems we did it quickly before the sun was high. The shot makes me think it was about four pounds of pork neck, boneless as it seems. We're just lucky that they appreciate the beef much more, so the pork is cheaper... While I was firing it up, Nina drove to pick Lena from the yoga class. That's nearby, in the shopping mall, which spread over fivesix hectares. And 'close' is actualy a whole by. It's Americah, you can find everything except close.
The streetside garden is looking better and better. During the fifteen minutes, which is about as much time as we stay out there in a day, there's often a lady walking by who stops to praise its looks. Some 200m down the street there's a house with a real botanical garden in front, there's no room left for any weeds to sprout, but we don't pass by except by car, so I never have the time to look. One neighbor at the corner, some Floyd guy (the tags on his pink van read so, same color as the city bus back home, runs a carwash three blocks away on a bigger street), being in the end unit, has a yard by the side of the house, not only in front and in back. He's a real gardener - from afar we saw he made a trellis higher than two meters, and grew something on it. We first thought it was cucumbers, but when we walked by, we noticed it was beans. Peeked through the fence a bit, saw he got tomatoes and whatnot, almost a whole are of garden. On the outside nothing is visible but just grass.
American lawn is an ecological minus - kills all plants but grass. They can't stand even dandelions, there's special poisons for them.
Some majstors appeared in number two, to fix it for next tennants. They carried out a heap of rubble - even organic garbage. Luckily, they did it on wednesday, and thursday is the trashday here, so the flies congregated only for one afternoon. They piled up a tall heap of junk - a 30 year old TV, table with three legs (fourth missing), sides of some pieces of furniture, smaller rugs... someone seems to have reported to the previous tennants that this was thrown out, so they dropped by and picked a few pieces.
Their shop, by the way, keeps working, they still meet at times, in the back alley. Two vehicles stop there, someone walks from one car to the other, sits in it for two minutes and then they disperse. I'm not sure it's exactly them, the vehicles are unknown. Looks like same customers, well known place, perhaps a different supplier...
The doctor from Dedinje dropped by in Amsterdam with her team, David says she tortured both him and Jan for quite a while, demanding really, but they were impressed. And it's not the only clinic in Belgrade that visited their stall. And some Brazilian guys did too. We may need portuguese and spanish translations soon.
Dad wrote that my gang held the 35th maturski, so they emailed Bajlo to send them the IV5pp group photo, as they do know many, and were curious to see how many will they recognize. I also talked with Jasmina, said her pharmacy is not across Bangro's building, but closer to downtown, about the place where granddad's tavern was. My folks, in turn, spoke with Veca and Sneca, said Veca's husband is recovering, crisis is over.