08-VIII-2009.
Bait works, as far as rats are concerned... we saw one slowly ramble over the patio and drag itself to Juliška's, to hide in some corner under her deck and go to happy hunting grounds. It wasn't even fearing us.
They cleaned up the poison, just a few grains remained. There's tomato again which they could have reached, by climbing the bicycle tyre, the rest is too high or too narrow to balance, but for a whole week now not one was nicked.
Yesterday we picked the biggest tomato so far - 233 grams, from that champion stalk, which has already reached the roof of Juliška's shed. I measured its height again, 190cm. The ones on the street are also growing fast, there are a few really large ones. By the times the current crop passes, these will ripen.
The tiny peppers are nicely red, 20 of them (plus one we ate already). These we will dry, mince finely and then fill the pepper grinder with them (we have one for pepper, and one to grind crushed peppers)(thank Columbus for this confusion). The bell peppers so far made two edible ones, the rest of them are coming along only now. Guess the weather suits them only now, it's been rain after rain until now. As it's falling now, I haven't counted how many times in the last three days.
The plastic gadget which looks like crossbred between an ironing iron and a Matrix vehicle is a massaging vibrator. Uses two tiny bateries which somehow last quite a while, a miracle. And it's pleasant, specially between shoulder blades. The seedee visible behind it is some manual burn that Burt brought once, Pink Floyd, some gig they played in 1971, with Atom heart mother, sans orchestra but with a choir, what they could put together. Didn't go famously, as if they played it over the dick. Which was confirmed much later, playing that was too much trouble, required too many people.
Ender had found some job, to sell cars, but he cooled them off as soon as he heard the terms - that it's 12 hours a day and that's for nothing, you get a share of the margin. With them selling 4-5 cars a week, divided on five workers, not enough for bread and cold water, let alone normal rates. But then overyester he found two jobs - one being to spruce up car insides in a carwash, and the other to help a guy who revives the written off cars (where the engine croaked, or undercarriage broke) for resale. The upsprucing is actually quite in demand, as such polished cars are a must for shop display, weddings, funerals or anyone's whim. Sometimes a good tip lands. This involves polishing the leather seats, waxing the body, waxing the tyres with something which'll make them black and wet-like etc, american all the way. He actually likes doing that. He was supposed to start training for the job, but instead he did four vehicles by his own method, twice the regular speed. The other job is a semi-partnership, the guy set up a huge garage in his back yard, to fix the cars for resale there, but then had a couple of accidents last few months, where he fucked up his lower back and neck, a pinched nerve here and there, the hand disobeying, dropping tools. His son is off to serve in the army, so to keep the shop running, he hired Ender to work there when he has time.
About the army... most of the Philippinos from their circles feel obliged to american forces because through them they gained citizenship. And when Bush attacked Iraq, many of his friend volunteered, and few returned. He also wanted to, but had a list of ailments long enough to get a fuck off notice right away. Which probably saved his life.
My Corolla didn't pass inspection today, because I told them to check the power steering. They said it leaked a bit and thus can't pass the inspection, which they can fix, for mere 300$. Aw man this isn't anything dangerous, it would just have some leeway when it leaks out, and it leaks so little that with regular topping it consumes about 4$ of that oil annually. Told them to fail me and do nothing, until we decide what to do with it. Then it turned out to be a hole in some tube, which costs 30$ tops. Which Ender will replace when he finds a replacement.
Since I was without a car since friday, Nina took Lena to the yoga, except on the day when she was the instructor. We were waiting for it ever since she passed that course for instructors. That time Ender drove her, and Nina was one of the trainees for that lesson. Lena got an applause :). I drove her yesterday, with the tiny Mazda Miatta which Nina got as a trade-in. Whoa, how's that thing running, hat down. Too bad it rains so often so the roof stays on, it would really be treat to ride in a cabriolet. The only nit to pick is that the previous owner cut the shift stick so short, that it now looks like a cue ball perched on a 4cm of rod. Which makes it a bit stiff, but doesn't matter, it works. I got used to use no more than two fingers to shift in the Corolla, so this feels like the stick in the old lada, which required the same force... for a 40cm rod.
This year Lena has no chemistry at all, she already went through the strongest courses that the schools had. By the number of credits she could already be considered graduated and get the paper, but two mandatory ones are missing on that list. For this year her schedule is somewhat lighter, and for a couple of subjects she went opt out of the harder version (specially english, which is not harder at all, just requires more reading, on, of course, domestic authors). So she'll have some slack to learn whatever she wants on the side.
On thirteenth we treated her with a small laptop, so she can take it to school, Nina paid for it, same as hers just white. It was named decomp, possibly by its previous owner.
Mentions: decomp, Ender Aquila (Ender), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Juliška, lada, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Reginald Burton Cape (Burt), in serbian