04-XII-2015.
Višnja is the chief of the retirees association in their local community, which means mostly two kinds of activities - getting cheap (no retail tax, I guess, or wholesale prices) supplies for members (we got some green peas and flour this way) and organizing parties for them. This party turned out to be quite in our neck of the woods, the tavern on the little market behind ruža. So okay, let's see how that retirement looks (she is retired already, I still have five years to plow on).
So she was the organizer and Arpi was in charge of selling the tombola tickets (a variant of bingo, but quite simplified, you just buy a bunch of numbers and then some of them get some prize, generally worth less than what you pay, but it's fun) and keeping an eye on the waiters. He saw how they steal beer but couldn't be sure where they hid it, it would disappear behind the counter. They'd put, say, six bottles on it, lay them on the tray, open them and all five would leave on a tray - the sixth wasn't opened and has vanished in the process. Couldn't exactly put a finger on it, but c'mon you nogood egg thieves, stealing from the pensioners? Only the unemployed are worse off.
We bought a bunch of tombola chits, at perhaps 20 dinars apiece, and the prizes were sheer fun - a strainer, a grater, kids sunshades, straw hat and other silly rubbish which barely cost 100 dinars on the average. What matters is that the prize and the winner look ridiculously, pure mockery. We also won some eggbeater, which we returned to Višnja, let her have it ready for the next party. Arpi later told us how she mostly buys them herself, shops a lot of trinkets for which she then finds no use, so they end up as prizes.
Dragan's dad was sitting with us; his mom stayed in the apartment with Jagoda, while Dragan and Silvija took the opportinuty to go out themselves.
Smoking was supposedly forbidden inside except at Arpi's bench by the door, where Arpi held his office, selling chits. We went outside a few times. The weather was marvelously foggy, made some great photos. I shot a few good ones along the way, from Lesnina on, but only here on the little market I could affix the eos40 to a car roof or a sign pole and shoot at ease. A good photo safari, the big one above merited its own article on suština.
There was a TV hung high there by the door, so a group of males watched some basketball, standing all the time. The penzoses had a good time, drank, danced, and there were a few obvious couples which will continue into a night of their own. One couple actually asked for a shot, and they weren't looking bad for their age, and I sent it to them the next day (well to her, and don't know whether she was glad to have it, as she never answered).
On the way home I honestly wanted to have a walk, but didn't take one extra leak just before leaving, so by the time we passed the two blocks' walk, at Lesnina, just had to take a cab. Or pee somewhere by a wall... which is still a possibility, easier with this fog, but nah, there's too much light and not enough leaves. The chances of finding a good place were slim, and the cab was already waiting.
On the business front, these days Nina hooked up all of the running portals of Feds into Alertra, which is a checker website, which will check each of them, in regular intervals, and alert her (or whoever is dežurni at Firriver) if any of them stops working. Nice.
Mentions: 12-III-2018., Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), dežurni, Dragan Umljanić, eos40, Feds, Firriver Fertility (Firriver), Jagoda Umljanić, Lesnina, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), ruža, Silvija Umljanić, suština, Višnja, in serbian