09-XI-2020.
Dragan and Boba visited on 7th. Dragan is packing, gradually quitting the old job, his notice period ending next weekend. Until then they're roommates. He's got a new job back home, to be the director of a customs terminal, of which his kum is the (prime?) owner. Never liked that guy, something weird about his face, and the way his dad got rich trading electricity with the state is just sheer theft, if you ask me. And now they're branching out.
Boba is getting nowhere. There were at least four things he decided to do but didn't (learn hungarian to pass the citizen exam and then go into EU with hungarian passport; Đenđi would give him lessons but he didn't even call her; he quit the job in Bečej because they said he won't get promoted unless he becomes a member of SNS - without securing the next job; he wanted to learn programming, we provided the learning tools and left the help lines open, didn't call; now he wants to pass a three months course in Novi Sad to be a code tester, which would be fine except that it's the story we heard in march, he could have finished that twice meanwhile). Dragan said "All kinds of people come to me for advice, and get it - he's the only one where I had nothing smart to say". Milena quit her electronic cigarette delivery job - it pays well but it's always in a car, no working hours, and dealing with all kinds of idiots all day - and went to her sister in Vienna. She may stay there for a year, perhaps manage to get the paperwork to stay and work there. It seems they are ready to call it quits as there's no future on the horizon. Of course, what they told him at DA's office, about a job, has gotten nowhere. And local lawyers aren't taking apprentices either, they're all full.
We visited the two on the new cemetery on 20th, when we were attending the neighbor's funeral; now on 27th we took the girls and went to the catholic cemetery (not quite on kinta but that side of town) to visit oma, opa, and tanti. The girls were having lots of fun, the weather was perfect - the fourth miholjsko summer in full blast - they climbed on the graves, entered the little fenced-in areas, walked through the little gatess... I know, that's not a thing to do, the kids should understand the sacredness of the ground, the seriousness of the matter, the... what the fuck, their father is dead, what about it? Actually, if I died tomorrow, I wouldn't mind if kids danced on my grave.
Then we went to the other cemetery (actually there are at least two more around, but we got nobody there), to visit granma, dad and mom. Same script, she planting flowers around, girls playing. By the time we got home, they were exhausted and just went for a nap.
The drinking nights - on 27th of october at Borko's (31st frendz parti), where he was actually adventurous with cooking, made a meat roll on potato cubes, which worked swimmingly, specially with the ajvar and some hot chinese thing to mix with. He usually orders something from a pečenjara or from domaćin (just like Dragana did last time). She remarked about seeing too many of those same old photos in fes, so I moved all of them, except those taken here, specially with kids in the frame, into hidden subfolders. fes skips such folders, I took care of that long ago.
In the afternoon, though, we took the girls to the tour of the cemeteries. We visited the two on the new cemetery on 21st
On 2nd it was our place, with her going the extra mile with cooking - did the pineapple ribs and some lo mein, just like we did in the there. Since we reconstructed our cuisine quite extensively while we were there, it's about time we did the reverse from time to time. Though we do often have those chinese things (lo mein and stir fry), we don't do much of the rest, as they mostly require special ingredients.
Today my first retirement SMS arrived from the bank. Just last week I found an announcement from the hungarian social security that they have taken up my case and will be working on it. The net result is about 175€ a month, which is rather funny, considering how much I was making for most of the last twenty years. The amount doesn't matter much - it's the count that will matter. The unit of measure is, in english parlance, an each.
View from Roda to Lidl's parking.
Today's evening at Dragana's - the usual (32nd). I downed three brandies (two of her klekovača, aka plum brandy with juniper, that she bought in Bajina Bašta this september, then one quince) before switching to wine; the others did that after just two. It was quite foggy outside, which made for excellent pictures along the way. Instead of one of (... 2 words...) totes, I took my old backpack, which I bought at least 17 years ago (I remember having it in Taos, but maybe I had it previously on that Houston trip - who'd remember that), so I'd have free hands and nimble fingers. Temperatures are around 5 in the evenings now (not raining, amazingly calm november so far), so my fingers would be stiff. The backpack was heavy - the 1,5l of brandy as usual (plum this time), two liters of wine (again Tikveško roze from Roda, and another lighter because she forgot to bring hers again) and half of a big pumpkin, about 5kg cleaned. Because we remembered she wanted to make ludajnača (filo dough rolls with shredded pumpkin).
Didn't take much pictures during the dinner, as it's the same faces in the same place under the same light for so many times, but did some in the end, between 1:00 and 2:30, when the spirits were up. Dragana had the honour of taking a couple of pictures of the two of us, and on saturday the camera still has some of her perfume - whether it's from her hands or from her face, it stayed. She always wears some makeup, always did. Once she said she has to do it as a sign of respect towards the people she will meet - so it's not the shabby version that's good enough for them. Though shabby she never was, except that summer 2017 when she lost 4kg out of her 48... which was a lot and all taken from highly visible places. She's back in shape now. Borko was just fine this evening, not better nor worse than usual - Miljka is taking care of their common grandchild in the mornings, he takes over in the afternoon, then returns home.
The first drink was on the account of my first retirement check (well there's no check, no paperwork, I get the SMS and that's it).
Mentions: Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), domaćin, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dragan Umljanić, Đenđi Todorov, fes, frendz parti, kinta, kum, Mališa Borkovski (Borko), Milena Požarić, oma, pečenjara, Smiljka Grajin (Miljka), tanti, in serbian