15-VII-2017.

The almost annual (well, for us, first after 2013) meeting of rasejani. This year someone suggested our town and I suggested Debela mačka. There was some confusion about the location, because Smilja left the kantina (too big, too costly) so she moved back to Eva's place - three blocks closer to town. It's a bit crazy, sitting in a nice restaurant in the street where I grew up and not feeling like being on my old stomping grounds.

Accidentally, as it occurred to me just two days ago, today would be the "traditional" day to commemorate six months since dad died (last saturday before the actual day). The other two occasions are 40 days and a year. The former we didn't uphold at all, the only tradition that I stick to is that whoever the house remains on is the one who decides what tradition is. Dad wore a beard five years after granma died (though he later claimed that it was just one year, but we got pics from 2004) but didn't do any of these commemorations; for mom he wore it one year but did all three and sent me to post an obituary in the local newspaper for five years. Just like all those who reinvent tradition from the old times, he wasn't consistent. The other reason is that this wouldn't be a funeral, so I wouldn't be phased out and would actually hear what the priest chants - which is almost 100% propaganda for his house and his imaginary boss. The margin of error is that he'd have a few places with "insert name here" where the actual deceased's name would be mentioned. So I told all both uncle Staja and auntie Janja this february that I won't organize anything and that nobody is invited to anything.

Still, they decided to come. He actually called last evening and mentioned that he had taken out dad's official list of possesions in the municipality of Obrenovac, which I'll need for the inheritance process (which he needs me to go through so we can sell those bits of land which aren't big enough to sell separately), and that he'd bring that. Could he leave it with neighbors? Or just drop it in the postbox in the old house? Sure, but... many, I'm a host to something most of the day; we'll visit the cemetary earlier in the morning and then I'm out. But you're free to come, cemetery is a public space.

So in the morning we went to the cemetery, placed flowers (a cellophane wrapped bundle of something long-stemmed, artificial (or else it would wither by noon in this swelter), with some thinner bundles of greenery on the side, and lit one of those candles in plastic cups with tin lid). And then went to buy a few things, then walked to Debela mačka. Of course, as the path led us around the old house, we came upon uncle Staja just as he was trying to stuff six sheets of paper into the postbox.

So she went with him to sit with auntie Janja and her daughter, in front of a café 50m beyond the railway, and I sat with rasejani (Škrba with Kunta, pLazić and a two more guys, one with a wife, the other with wife and kid) just this side of the railway. Save for the trees, we could see each other.

The lunch went just as those things go, lots of chat, reminiscing other events, inserting jokes, enjoying good czech beer, good food (except tomatoes, which I didn't even try, and she did when she came back hour an a half later, says plastic industrial shit, ours are from a much better universe). One of the wives wanted pancakes after the main course, which Smilja dismissed curtly and brought a plate of štrudle (half with poppy seeds, half with sour cherries), which had to be photoed quickly before they vanished.

Zlotvor's kid was so eager to hear the story of karafindl, which was the current mystery, where the fuck did we get such a word? Sounds german and turkish at the same time.

Kunta and Škrba drove us home, as they wanted to try that fantabulous sour cherry brandy (the brandy is not sour, and neither are the cherries, it's just how they're called). They got a liter to take home.

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Mentions: 20-VIII-2014., auntie Janja, Debela mačka, Dragojlo Kuntić (Kunta), Eva, Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Kantina, karafindl, pLazić, rasejani, uncle Staja, in serbian

6-VIII-2017 - 27-III-2026