10-VI-2014.
On 4th went downtown to extend the contract with Telekom. Not that I need one, nor would it change anything, it's that they offered a tablet as an incentive. Having grandchildren, I figured I should learn how to use the gadget, so I went on and signed for it. Took the larger one, with seven inch screen. I was also curious to see what OS does there and how does the UI work on them gadgets.
It didn't see much use, not in my hands, the curiosity passed quickly. But it would eventually find its way to Seattle and work off several years of staž. Cheap Xiaomi thingy, I guess, but sturdy and durable.
On 7th we finally put the roof on the chicken coop. There are no photos of how we made the slats, as we were both busy with it, nobody to hold the camera. All ended well, even the undulina (glorified tar paper, wavy like salonit boards) looked right.
In the evening Baki volunteered us to come to Springfield. I brought a bottle of plum, as he did praise the brandy that I brought ten days ago. We sat out, on the terrace, and he, the fool, let the bag with the bottle sit next to his chair, so when the waiter brought the second round of beers he kicked it, not seeing it in the dark below the plate, and the bottle broke. Oh how he chided the waiter, to the point where the guy offered to buy another one out of his pocket. But he abused the waiter even before that, asking him why don't they accept cards, here's the best card around - and went on to praise the card issued by that bosnian bank where he was a manager of something. She wasn't amused sitting with him, and frankly I wasn't either. He may be mine, a friend, but I'm not the least glad that he turned into an arrogant bankster. Luckily his pal came soon enough and drove him home, the street leads out straight to the road to their village.
Fresh pics of Violet, posing for Nina. Good light, angle, crop, everything.
She rode her bike to Klincaid, did whatever work there was to do at this time of the year. When I was finished with my work, I went to pick her. Stuffed her bike in the back, it mostly fits if you fold the rear seat's backrest and leave the bottom of the seat at home, so the front wheel fits into the space. Didn't do it this time, the bottom is there. The rear wheel juts out for maybe 20 cm, so the fifth door can't quite close, but isn't too far above its regular position. I kept a bungee cord in the trunk just for this, to keep the fifth door down while driving home.
Dropped by Lenka. Made this shot of storks on the roof and the milk bucket drying on the clothesline, and a few more, including one of the descendants of Johana's offspring we brought before. Had coffee with her and a longer chat.
Zeki is at the VMA now (military-medical academy, i.e. top notch hospital of military persuasion). He's acquired a bunch of ailments these few years. When we saw him in 2010 he was just slightly limping and walking with a stick. Now he's in a wheelchair, and lost half of use of his right hand. He had some serious puss on the backside of its palm, and they severed a couple of tendons while cleaning that out, so lost use of middle finger. He spent weeks at the local mud spa. He stuffed himself with corticosteroids to the point where the next doctor said „if there's a pack of this anywhere near you, it's not that you aren't allowed to take any of it, you shouldn't be allowed to even read the label“. During one of his hospital stays, he caught an infection which, allegedly, hits one in thousand cases. Then the rheumatologist said „why didn't you come straight to me“, but then he didn't do much either. Seems to be it's not healthy to be pals with so many doctors.
We got our 5l of milk after almost two months. The debt isn't changing much, it now stands at 590,8 liters. And the last time we saw him moving was when he drove the car to our place to borrow the cement mixer. He didn't leave the car, couldn't walk that much. Lenka and I loaded the mixer, my dear didn't want to get involved with that. We never saw that mixer again. Also, they borrowed the corn mill, which is just an electric motor with a rotating piece of steel, pretty much like a coffee grinder but larger, this rotating hammer is about 20cm in length, and is surrounded by a sieve, so you pour corn through a funnel on top, and a coarse corn meal drops through the sieve. That's pig fodder. We paid 30€ extra for that when we bought the place, and also never saw it again. So the total debt is now back at 500€ as it was three years ago.
Mentions: Branislav Rade (Baki), Johana, Jovan Dimijan (Zeki), Klincaid, Lenka Dimijan, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Springfield, staž, Violet, in serbian
26-V-2023 - 17-IV-2026