It's getting nice in DC-99, there's no boss, no authority hanging over us, we're on our own. The better that I'm among the founders, which comes with an unwritten status of an elder, specially now that we're getting new members. Feels good. We're regularly meeting on sunday mornings, 10 to 12 or maybe longer, whenever the lunchtime of the current key holder
St Nikola, granma's slava. It was a big no-no for many years, dad toeing the party line and being a strict atheist, but this year (and maybe the previous, didn't write anything down) he relented. When I came home from DC-99, it was all over the house. Lunch for gods. Real soup with homemade noodles (granma would thin the dough bun with a rolling pin, then roll the big circle on it, slide it off and then chop the roll into noodles with a knife). The young beef cartilage, goose's stomach, from the soup. Homemade tomato juice (bottles were sealed thermically, with, I'd say, the gut which was mostly used for sausage; recently celophane, secured with a rubber ring; the press to squeeze them was mostly wooden, with a sheet metal strainer on a semicylindric bottom). Goose roast, whole, I get the drumstick. And then the ceremony of smoking the whole house with franincense - there'd be a couple of coal embers in a little... fumigator, which is like a ladle but with legs, with two or three pills of frankincense left to smother on the embers and emit the smoke. I liked the smell, but the whole ceremony was ridiculous to me. Saying the očenaš (father our, that's the name of the base prayer) in front of her icon of st Nikola, well preserved. The colors are already quite dim, could be the ages of smoke, but it's otherwise intact. Looks like either a good print or a work of an experienced painter who liked to do it smoothly, no visible brush strokes. After that she gives me a gift of a chocolate and a pair of socks. Then someone leaves the chocolate on the radio and it melts - the radio is on all day.
It turns out that it's also dad's slava, which he, as a communist, didn't do, but he actually knew the whole calendar, all those saints. Had to learn them as a kid, they had the veronauka (an oxymoron if you ask me, it originally meant "faith teaching" but nowadays "nauka" means science) in the school. Now he just let granma do it. I didn't care this way or other, and I do like the smell of frankincense.
In the afternoon played some chess with dad. Pulled out a remi (or whatever is the unresolved called), we went down to bare kings. I've learned the moves in the obdanište, somewhere around the age of 7 or 8, but never played much. When it was time to move to a higher level, to play a lot and get some sense of how to think several moves ahead, suddenly there were no opponents from whom I could learn, except a couple of them who were too strong and I couldn't understand how they got me. So I actually don't play chess, and neither does dad - he's probably some lower amateur level - which is what makes this one occasion notable.
Then Tejka came, then Duca a bit later, then Veca's parents - their TV died. So these two caught fog (i.e. were nowhere to be seen, which is an equally ridiculous phrase). Wish I knew in advance, could have gone with them.
There's a development in the bathroom - the water heater now has a ghost, called Jozo. We hear various sounds from it. He first lived in the washer, but didn't like the program. Then moved into the mixer, but mixer dropped its soul out (i.e. died). Moved to the TV but it had its own ghost already, then shifted through other machines around the house, eventually settled into the heater's safety valve. Makes several funny sounds from there.
The 22nd is the Army day, and it figures as the best replacement for guys' day - for symmetry with 8th of march, which is the girls' day. We all got kisses, twice from each girl, and a carnation. Too bad I arrived too late... so I got the flower and the kisses from Tejka only. Dinar fell from 15 to 17 for a dollar, which was actually a partial concession to croatian students. Typical, first you crack down on them, then fulfill some of their demands, just like they did in 1968.
On 26th I tested the waters of lecturing - held a shourt course in DC-99 on how to thread the tape into the camera, how to hold it etc.
On 27th, asked Sredljak about his doček, he just told me to cut the crap. So we had some kind of plan B, including Zova, for a day or two, but couldn't put anything together. That failed too. In the end, mom and dad went to Zmaj, as usual, and I sat with granma, watched TV.
Last year's gang has split; the class is not my gang, they're all from villages except Sredljak, but then we were never too close, he's into football and lives way out behind šećerana, almost the other side of the industrial zone. The city girls from the class are either not going out at all, or with older boys. So, nothing.
At least there was some atmosphere in the school on 31st. Beštara was simmering Bilja at the last moment. She was drunk, it seems. The company was merry but there was some air of doom, or was it just me.
Saw Duda in passing somewhere, hasn't changed.
28-XII-2020 - 6-II-2026