15-VII-2018.

This year's meeting of rasejani. As usual, one of the two weekends pLazić has when he's here for the summer. This time we had some prehistory - he needed to raise a proper tombstone for his aunt or something, so asked me to look around. I started last october, thinking to just have dad's name and years engraved, and to perhaps fix the corner of the cover which began to crumble. Called one of the stonecutters then, and then again (and he remembered who called, at least) but then he said he's got a stuck back and can't sit outside with a hammer and chisel when it's cold. So delayed the whole thing until spring. It's summer now so, well, pLazić was my reminder. Tried one guy just across the street from where I take the car, and he wouldn't be expensive, but... several details I didn't like: he drives a silver Opel, speaks heavy ijekavian, looks at you in a slanted way... Obviously he was gauging how much to skin me. And when I got there he and his worker were just sitting, doing nothing. That was two days ago; yesterday I went to the big guy, on the other end of town, behind kinta. A completely different outset - big yard full of stone plates, several workers milling around, some machine cutting or grinding stone always heard. This guy may also be another war refugee from 25 years ago, but not from Hercegovina, rather Knin or thereabouts, and he's got everything done in polished stone - floors, staircase, even desks. So I went for broke, the initial 500€ turned into 1400, just because I didn't like the color of the cheaper stone. At least that cheaper stone is pressed and cemented ground stone, while what I got was the single slab of almost black stone, from somewhere in Spain or Africa (it's all imported now, domestic stone is not so good). Promised to finish before october. Will replace anything that's horizontal - both lids and the tombstone holder, because both were crumbling even worse than before, including corners which were still OK last time.

I took the old Kompako shoes, which are still whole after seven years, just shabby, walking in clogs being close to dangerous (had to take his worker there to take measurements and plan the work) because there are no paths in that area of the cemetery, the grave frames are sometimes less then 10cm from each other, and they are of different heights, not quite lined up, it's a mess. I forgot sandals in Čankovo the day before, when I took them for the same reason, assuming I'd have to take the first guy there. So this morning (well, 13:00 when we started walking from home) I took jeans and new Kompako shoes, as the new clogs that Kees brought are still too tight to even walk around the house and the old ones are just too shabby and one sole almost fell off (but I glued it back one of these days). The weather was fair, though a tad muggy, we're getting too much rain this summer.

We arrived at debelamačka at 13:30 sharp, which was too early. We even stopped by the old house to collect mail and check on the weed level - still not too bad. So we had a beer while we wait.

Smilja was even fatter than before, probably from the enforced rest after she broke her arm in two places (and, as the joke goes, "avoids those places"). At around 14:00, pretty much at schedule, the first couple appeared, I guess Zlotvor with wife, then another ajVar, Magi and pLazić, and Kunta too. Škrba and his wife were due to arrive around 15:30, but when I finally called them, they said they arrive at 14:45 and that was it.

We sat and chatted until almost 19, because there were two matches on tv - which wasn't there, no screens, specially no speakers, but someone had a tablet and there were several phones. So Đoković won a Wimbledon again, after a disastrous flirt with the special diet by that con artist Maja Volk. Croatia lost on WC from France, but it seems to have been an exciting match. Didn't watch it much, and when I did a bottle of mineral was blocking the middle half of the screen, which I didn't mind.

I was happy to share the revelation of the mysterious origin of the word karafindl.

Of course everyone wanted to know how's Nina doing and what the fuck happened there on the Philippines. The story was old by now, I've retold it a few times.

All in all it was a good afternoon. The young waitress was rather happy with the tip, and rushed away as soon as she got it, probably to get home, change makeup and rush into the night.

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Mentions: Čankovo, debelaMačka, Dragojlo Kuntić (Kunta), eos70, Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), karafindl, Kees de Cock, kinta, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pLazić, rasejani, in serbian