08-XI-2004.
My rhythm changed somewhat since a couple of weeks ago, earlier to bed and earlier up, mostly because I become sleepy around midnight, so I give up on trying to read and I hit the hay. In the morning my bladder gets me up, better than any alarm clock. The upstairs bathroom being still defunct, by the time I got down I do wake up :).
Dismantling the bathroom. The whole thing began when we noticed that the old fauced couldn't be completely closed. Then we bought a new one, and when I wanted to replace it, I saw I can't reach the tightening bolts, them being inside the wall, and the wall itself wasn't quite firm, it rocked. So I poked around to see what's up, and we noticed the tiles behind that plastic sheet. Then started taking the plastic off and in many places a tile or a piece of wall would come off with it. So one thing after another (and we couldn't find where's the vukašin (v. house dictionary) leaking, and where is the washbasin's sewer clogged), we decided to junk it all and make it anew as we like it.
The sink had a slat which was somehow glued over the tiles (!), to hide the fact that the previous sink cabinet was taller... Ended up taking off all of the tiles, there was no way to salvage this, and we didn't like them anyway. Just how obviously whiter are the soap and towel holder... it's all gray and krmkasto (v. house dictionary).
The piece of steel without a handle on the left is the vekšmajzl. So the handle didn't last more than two months, and it wasn't really necessary. The tool next to the hammer is the small vekšmajzl, which came handy when I needed to pry some piece from a narrow space, or one of smaller nails.
During the weekend I managed to take out everything from that bathroom - the tub, crapper, basin and the cabinet on which it was laid. The sewer pipes I temporarily closed with crumpled nylon bags to stop the smell from spreading. It's all in the patio now, and she intends to make a biiiig flowerpot of it, come spring... maybe we'd paint it a little, or build a wall around it to make it look somewhat decent. That would be outside the fence, not to take up the space inside.
Last evening I lifted the floor surface, more of that thin plywood with oilcloth glued on top of it. Luckily, this wasn't glued o the thick plywood floor, but rather screwed to it, so it was easier to dismantle.
We let it air for a few days. It having dripped in a few places and seeped behind the tub when showering, it smells a bit mildewy.
Took the TV and the digital thingy down and fiddled with the cables. The mess downstairs is sufficiently clear at the moment to have some sort of a not-too-dangerous path to the cable box (barely visible on the left wall, behind that piece of sheet rock). Trying out the channels... all the same that we already have, plus channels where I can watch ads for what basketball and other ball I could watch if I paid more.
So this was that digital thingy I was paying extra?
Went next day to cancel that part and to return the box as well. Stayed with the old 32 channels like before.
And, BTW, the box, aka digital signal adapter, is an unsung clunker. Inside it contains, I guess, some minimal computer (with a 286... nope, that's for traffic lights, say 386) with simplest linux on it and some converter card, with just one job - to communicate with the computer in the HQ. The contraption somehow managed to have six (!) BNC plugs in the back, which were near impossible to tighten, broke my fingers over it, where one'd expect just two - one for incoming from the wall box, other outgoing to the TV set. But no, all six outlets were taken - four of them by two lengths of cable which connected two and two (!). Couldn't you just have connected them inside the box? Which blind fool designed this?
On the matter of Lena's schoolbus, one parent filed a complaint, stating that that one extra stop makes the bus come late. And I think we know who that was. Lena says her bus is always among the first five-six out of forty buses, by the time of arrival at school. The driver let that station be omitted for one whole day, and then reinstated it the very next day - because, as she says, those two who wait at the other station not only live much closer (it's three corners for us, just like at home), but even for that much they take the car. The suspect guy is a limo driver - the long limousine like Tito once had, there's a lot of that here - which means a parade coach driver. May be posh, but still a coach driver.
She likes this school much better than any of previous ones. She used to come home with a frown, drag her feet before coming in, and now she just rushes in and tells us the news of the day. In much better mood than before.
I think the lecturers there enjoy it too, the kids are launching inteligent tricks. As far as I can see from her telling, they are having a good time. They waste no time on back and forth with fools,, and on stupid rules which are made because of such [ones]. She says they have about ten times fewer rules than they had in the beach schools, and that they enojy incredible amount of freedom, compared with them there.
How I hated finding myself in the UniJewel on a winter friday. In other times of year it's not so horrible, it darkens later and it isn't too cold either, and Newyork is a bit to the south from Zrenjanin and there's the mild warming from the ocean... but when it blows, it blows.
And then it just so happens that it's a friday, some time in december, which means split at 14:30, so they all get home to Noo Joizy or White Planes or wherever before the onset of shabbath („when three stars show in the sky“, until same time on saturday), because when it begins, they aren't allowed to use anyhting electric or motored. So everyone march out, and my room is already checked out, so it means dragging my feet corner to corner, bus home goes at 18:00. The mitigating circumstance whas when I got a laptop, warms my back when it's in the backpack.
And I managed to turn the game around sometimes. When on UA Maša or some other Jew (specially the newlybaked ones, the likes of her - just a few years ago she called from Lenjingrad, now she's a Marcia) posed some screwy problem on a friday, I would wait until the shabbhat begins and would reply only then, specially if I had a good solution to offer. If I had to get out on the street because of your shabhath, may this problem itch you a while longer... and if any of them broke shabbat for curiosity's sake, I wouldn't know because they wouldn't reply until sunday, lest they be caught by one of theirs... The faith cops are the screwy sort.
Mentions: 18-VIII-2004., house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Maša Bezuhovski, UbiquAgora (UA), UniJewel, vekšmajzl, in serbian