07-III-2020.
Tasting the cherry, the eighth frendz parti. We went to Lidl first to buy the regular weekly groceries, and also a bombonjera (yeah I know it's bonboniere, but I don't care) because we're goint to Dragana's and it's 8th of march tomorrow. We didn't tell Nina, so she opened it - she loves the praline. I don't, too much sugar and caramel - the two cheapest things they can put, and which always taste the same.
So we walked by and bought another one, something with a name (which was recognized and much appreciated), and then when we were approaching Lesnina she went into the flower shop, to buy something potted. The shop still bears the name of our neighbor, who has a greenhouse at the end of our street, but I see a different owner's name. Ah, so he sold the retail but kept production. At some point he even had a cow, for manure.
I did bring the cherry last time to Borče's place, but he put it away and brought out his own old apricot (allegedly 30 years old), so Dragana never got around to try it, so we brought it again. She prepared a solid layout of canapes, cut delikatessen, olives etc, the usual, and even made coffee (he had one too, usually skips it). She doesn't drink it since the surgery, but still remembers how it's made.
For meze, she made the usual cuts, plus these silly canapes, which were great but... boy, how much work is that. Put something on each three or four times.
The discussion zigzagged... we parted at 3:30. Nobody even took a look at a clock, was not an option. I don't quite remember what we talked about in the last two hours. I remember some excerpts, like when I started singing "Ej uhnjem" and spoke a couple of sentences in russian, which was the most effective response I could give to something that was said - no idea what. Or when he started arguing for something outside the interval of birth and death, to which we, as mathematicians, agreed that there's no way to prove anything, neither a yes nor a no. But the argument was interesting, though I remember only the general shape of it, not words.
At some point I took out my phone and made a sound recording of what was spoken at the time, exactly because I knew that I won't be able to remember later. Haven't tried to listen to it yet. And that's the last specific thing that I remember.
Amazingly, nobody had problems with gravity, and the pictures I made were almost all good. As Dragana said later in an email, "the more you drink, the better the pics". We walked down the stairs as if nothing happened. Even the few shots I made while waiting for the cab, or during the ride, were sharp and clear and not badly composed either. Must be that the alcohol evaporated from all that discussion. I wish I knew what it was about.
Mentions: Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, Lesnina, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), meze, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), in serbian
17-III-2020 - 25-III-2026