05-II-2024.
Evening of fourth Borko called, to announce tomorrow's frendz parti, all okay, see you then.
In the evening talked at length with Stanley and Go, pretty and merry. He showed us a shot of his dad's automobile - the old man agreed for him to help him clean the car to an extent. He took out two large bags of various junk, discarded plastic cups, flatware, all kinds of packaging. The shot was taken when one bag was already taken out, and it looks the same as fifty other such overstuffed cars. It's not that it's incomprehensible how he managed to drive like that, when the right half of the windshield is impossible to see, it's chock full up to the ceiling, it's how did he manage to sit in there at all. Weird guy.
Neša we managed to see briefly, he's into another one of his phases when he won't get in front of the lense, but at least we saw Anita, and her top left ace tooth swollen but still not poking out, and the right one just getting ready while its molar predecessor is already no good at all, darkened but still hanging in there.
Today our hens spread over the yard somewhat, some three or four of them went out through a tear. She was with the girls in Springfield until about lunch, and afterwards I had to hear thrice how two chewy pancakes cost 700 dinars, and only ten months ago I remember pLazić taking down the saints for being charged 400 somewhere, well fuckit how much does the material cost for a pair of pancakes, can't be more than five dinars. And this had the nutella applied extremely sparingly, just a mild hint of it. You can buy a jar of nutella for that much, the larger one.
In the afternoon we nailed two longer slats around the chicken coop, to tighten the lower edge of the chicken wire so they can't lift it, and added another stretch of the netting on the other side, where there was just the old one from 2014. May it hold as long as it can. We still have a couple of rolls of net left over at the garden, and not the thin chicken job but a real fence one, we'll nail it over this and be done with it. Had luck with the weather this time, it's almost spring, it's dry and there is no mud, we tread around in slippers. Was it anywhere near moist, that would be a losing proposition.
And then in the evening we went for that frendz parti. For the first time in these four years we caught up with Dragana at the very entrance. We managed to do that by taking a smoke break on some bench along the way, so we wouldn't have to wait at the entrance, counting on him going out to taxi her in. But this time she reverted back to walking, being in a more mobile phase these days.
And then the first half an hour, a very conservative estimate, we spent on the discussion of maturski matters, by way of turning its conception inside out. Borko, in his role of chairing this season, went to visit the theatre and gimnazija, to see what can be done with the theatre and the choir etc etc, and along the way he asked around for any local bands available which could play for us. Because he polled his class, he mentioned talking with J.J. and Paja (and I can't think of whom else could he have caught, the IV3, with three across the puddle and about ten underground, is the most thinned out) and they have unanimously stood for live music, we don't need no deejays.
All of a sudden neither he nor Dragana remembered that it was said that the bands won't even sit to talk below 1200€, but yes the band we had last time are somewhat famous and can charge, but the locals... and the discussion went in that direction. Three times I urged them to stop that line of talk, if there's anything to discuss, then summon an extraordinary session, not just the three of us, and specially with this turning into a we had a deal and went on to the next thing and now we don't have that deal anymore, let's reexamine... When we finally agreed to change the subject because we all sat here for anything else and not for wasting time on that, Borko had few more minutes of salt to pour on, where I think he said nothing that wasn't already said ten minutes ago.
About half an hour later, when he was at his third shot of apple already (I poured two more for him, and then he came and poured one more by himself, before we switched to wine), it came to me to allude to some story he told some time last year, counting on all of us knowing the story, so a mild en passant referrence to it will trigger everyone's memory, but no, he first didn't take it as a reference, took it as a cue to retell the whole thing, this just jogged his memory... oh, no, he can't be stopped, he went into retelling the whole thing, whatever it was (don't remember), despite of me telling him I referred to it exactly because he told it before. So he marched on. I took a sip from my second shot, and then I got inspired, as it went, to translate his talk into pretend sign language for the deafmutes. Not a new gag, I saw that done when dr Nele Karajlić held a parastos to the New Primitivism („because it was same as the old one“) with Đura doing the translation into sign language, the most frequent gesture being pulling the chain on a vukašin (v. house dictionary). The ladies were rolling with laughter, and, well, so did I. I have no idea at all what was the story about.
Around 22 the state of them arts was this: he peeled off the sixth apple, I the third, I guess, the ladies also three each and then we switched to wine, for which only Dragana joined us for a couple of glasses, and we boys went partially for the second bottle. The grub was excellent, original macedonian ajvar (but with label in latinic :facepalm:), and poppy foldups, and the roast he hit just right, but what the fuck is it worth, first an hour gets wasted on demolition of the agreed upon, and then the highlight of the evening happens in the next half an hour, and after that anything will be a letdown, killing the time. Not that it was boring, but also nothing to remember, nothing important was said.
And then next morning (around 11...) I reassembled what I saw. That last night's dispute was only the rewrapped old dispute between disco and tavern, in other words rockers against narodnjaci. I resolved that battle long ago, by means of a victory in my four walls (and everyone in his own four), I don't care whether anyone else listens to my music, just as long as nobody forces me to listen to what I don't like, that suffices. But this... at the sitting he agrees with the majority, we won't have a live band but a deejay, and then when left alone he starts asking around, collects local bands' phone numbers etc. And I turn out to be the only one but me heard the 1200€ mentioned, can't be that much, but what Trle said that renting the sound system would cost 550€ already sounds like too much. Okay, go ahead, do whatever you want, without me. There's nothing left that I'd put my shoulder under, no motivation, this is not my project. I can be a guest like everybody else.
The remaining thing was whom to report to. Borko is the chair, but the whole thing originated, or was channeled through, noone else but him, and he listens to himself only, and to him I already said what I had.
While I was considering all this, the girls' passports arrived.
Violet managed to fetch the adhesive tape from the shelf above my monitors. The girl has grown. Raja is finally playing with the three dee gear that Nina brought. She couldn't open an account for him yesterday on who knows which platform, because they insist on checking the generalia, and she gave the adress here to her bank, when she needed a replacement card. And on that platform Serbia doesn't exist, classic. When you live in a place which is half country half identity crisis. Today he started playing logged in as her.
Called Jozda and told him that I'm exiting. Tried to talk me into at least running the slideshow, but I refused, I come as a package, all or nothing. You don't like this part, you don't get the rest.
And then he called Dragana, and on wednesday she called me. Not in any attempt to calm the situation, nor to mediate in any way, but rather just to hear what happened. So I told her what I already told him, just a soomewhat extended version. Including how I always knew to leave a party before anyone threw the iron (i.e. puked), and how I don't regret what I invested in the cause (specially when the cause is subverted into something different), and how in this project I don't see a dent shaped for my shoulder. And she had one good news - the court verdict just came in and that guy bit the dust and she has nothing more to do with it.
On ninth Nina announced she bought the tickets. They take off on twonnyfirst.
Ouch. All of a sudden it is not in some indeterminate future, it's in a dozen days. What was it that we put on the list of things to do before that? C'mon, remember, ba, remember... And then in the evening it somehow didn't work, not even the drinks. That is, the drinks went on, but it was more a thoughtul remembrance (can't translate 'seta' better) than entertainmen. Can't avoid thinking of. At least I purged the parastos shit out of my head.
On tenth we even began some planning, for one which things in which order should we stop buying now. In the afternoon took the girls to Mere, this time I took the eos70 along and shot a nice series. Sanda wanted to spend the 1000 rsd she got for the first permanent tooth, we barely found a way to talk her out of it and save it for when we go downtown. And they did find one toy, the only one they had there, some plastic siren with a bath vat, shines when submerged, and it took them some ten minutes to pick the model and color - both took the same yellow in the end. Later, when they tried them out, it really shines when submerged, it seems there are exposed contacts and the circuit is closed by water. The batteries are three tiny buttons, of the hearing aid type, died the next day. No wonder, the declaration says these were imported in 2017.
The cash registers got congested, because some flour would not pass scanning, wrong barcode or database error, the floor manager came twice, the clerk spent fifteen minutes with mobile on her ear and hand on keyboard, I even went out for a smoke break (didn't bring any, but she did). Gavra the rower from dairy recognized me, was ahead of us in the queue, greeted each other god knows how. Though we did run into each other, because he was a guard (aka security) at the busodrome, at the time when we passed that way more often, not that we forgot each other's looks. He lost patience, the wait was more than twenty minutes already, went out for a walk, and eventually dragged his wife out and they left, leaving a full cart in the queue. Shortly after that the clerk switched to the third register (first ran fine, hers was stuck, two others were unoccupied) and then we were done in five minutes. The twins ran around, staged a show, acted in sync at times, almost pantomime... entertained the folks. The house should have treated some.
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Čedomir Spajin (Paja), Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, frendz parti, gimnazija, Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, IV3, Jovan Zdanić (Jozda), Mališa Borkovski (Borko), maturski parastos, narodnjaci, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pLazić, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Springfield, Stanley Berger, Trajko Kajganić (Trle), Violet, in serbian