07-IX-2024.
On sixth we went to Klincaid to clean up, as much as we gather the will to do it. As I got in the car I spotted Faik, he's visiting again (and went back the next day), at least this time I managed to get a shot of him. We ordered pljeska from Bob, didn't [do that] in a long while, guess since june.
First I activated the water mains, i.e. that temporary pump. Poured water in it some four times, doesn't need much and has a much better opening, an inch wide, much better than the 5mm on the old one. And then the water was running and I took out the Stigma and mowed, as far as I had the will. She cleaned - the kitchen, gonk, terrace, raised a formidable cloud of dust... new broom. The old one was stolen, meanwhile. The better knife from Lidl is also missing, a few spoons, forks, all the better coffee cups.
I hosed the terrace partly, to soak the dust. Spoke with Bajlo again, said he doesn't feel right to drive alone, he'd come in the morning to pick Dragana and me. I have my own set schedule for that morning, still have some grocery to pick, don't disturb that, I'll forget something. There I lied only two things: first, that one hour of the year is when Dragana and I sit and have one shot alone. Nothing ever happens, except in perhaps intention, but there, that's mine. The other thing is that we did the grocery on our way back, first at Svetofor and then at the butcher by the community [centre]. I won't have to go anywhere in the morning, not even to the bakery for salties, as she bought them frozen at the butcher's and did them in the frajer in the morning.
Finally had some rain that night. Don't know what put me to sleep better, the soft murmur or the smell of the freshly sprayed dust.
Drank nothing in the evening, and we're somewhat on a diet, she doesn't dine now, wants to lose some fisix kilos, said if she can't change the photographer, at least she can change the model. She was always able to take kilos down at a whim, and after each pregnancy she'd be back in shape and previous weight within a couple of months (just like now Lena did, two weeks ago she was only two kilos above previous). The heap of dry meat stuff in the fridge is now excess, as she dines not, they'll go stiff dry before I get to eat it all, so we didn't buy those at all, she sliced what she found fit of it.
So she woke me up as late as nine, and we loaded everything by the checklist I made last night. Went to pick Dragana at 9:55, and we timed it right so she didn't have to wait for me (I waited for her, by intentionally coming a few second late at the last traffic light, to give her the time to walk the last 20m), and we took off regularly, commenting all the popular sentiments around the death of Bora Čorba (yes, čorba), and as we were leaving town my phone rang. I keep it on the dashboard while driving, told her to see who it was, said „has only one letter“... aha, the one-lettered ones are very few, take the call. It was from home, she said I forgot the keys. Well yeah, they weren't on the checklist. We were just approaching the roundabout, so I did an about face and drove home. Being on the spot already, Dragana also went out to say hello, and then we showed her the latest video of Tanja stretching, blinking and smiling, the sweetie.
When we got there, saw a car parked across from my driveway, „look at this guy, how he parked, it'll be screwy to butt backwards in“, all the time thinking it was the neighbor from Leskovac having a guest, and she said „nope, bro, it's Bajlo“. Really didn't recognize him from profile, as he grew even more jowl. And so this year's hour didn't occur. At least this time we had someone to take a shot of us while we sip that one.
Having prepared almost everything in advance, we didn't have much work to do - took out the tables and chairs, washed the table oilcloths (rinsing it from the hose, yay!), laid out the salties and dry meats, poured ourselves a rakija each (Jasmina's last year's apricot) and then intended to take that easy and slow, but nope, every now and then I remembered one more thing to do, bring out... Just during the first cigarette I got up four times, and that one shot stretched, I guess, over a whole hour.
Turned on the fridge - we don't keep it permanently on anymore, what for when we need it for just this one hour in the year - and noticed that the door doesn't close properly, which I solved with a bungee from the car.
And then they came soon, one after another, Staša, Jasmina with husband, Mjedac with his wife, Mima, Sredljak, and around 12:30 Borče, whom I told to be intentionally late, he's the last minute supplier. Turned out he needed to bring only beer, that's what only he and Sredljak drink. Didn't turn out that way, Bajlo also had some, so the six cans may not be enough. He was actually late an extra thirty minutes, because there was a funeral in the village. It's a small village, less than a kilometer end to end, so the procession goes on foot, the old way, and the order of things is known - you don't overtake a funeral, drive slowly behind. And as far as I remember, the law says so as well.
Sredljak came well prepared - brough 3kg of the mix for ćevapčići, prepared in advance, as we said he would, and brought a special apron for himself, and a set of plates and a couple of salad bowls („when next time you get thieves in the house, not to be ashamed [of what you have]“). Of course, Bajlo had to make two trips to the shop - for juice, schweppes and the vegeta or something of the sort. The last item was actually on my list but didn't pack any, because it's not required by our recipe. Well, Sredljak differs in opinion on the subject, and one doesn't disagree with the barbecue majstor, at least until he's finished.
The logistical problem was to shape the ćevapčići, which was once done with a special zinc plated sheet metal funnel, dad used to have one, and nowadays it's any plastic bottle's neck. Which I made on the spot, just fucked up a bit by making it too long, so it didn't go easily. I made some thirty of them and got all sweaty, but then Jasmina and Mjedac's wife came to a rescue, eschewed the funnels and shaped them by hand. And the third kilo of it they used to make pljeske, just minced some onion to coat them. Then there was some complaint in several voices, specially Dragana, how you can't be sure you'll get a pljeska when you order one, in most of the places it's the same industrial mix as for a hamburger, they just call it what you order. Luckily, we didn't get into the dispute over the placement of onions - do they go in the mix or on the outside. That'd take at least ten minutes.
And then they also made a salad, too bad it was all bought at the grocer's, our crops are done for the year. We had tomatoes up to two weeks ago, and then the plants croaked. Forty seven days without rain.
Sredljak was in [his] element, both behind the barbecue and later at the table. He turned into a real old mocker. And that apron too...
And by 13:30 he was finished with barbieing and queueing, and then we just sat chattering for half an hour until he finally served that meat. It was all good, except the one neck steak that I picked had some screwy hard sinewy parts, which I would have handled easily had I had my teeth as of ten years ago... but eventually even that was good. Just when we were chewing the last bites, there came Jozda. So they had a representative too.
And then we exchanged the news at length. So I heard that Sofija died, the obituary was in the last week's issue. I remembered to report the one email I got from Bosa. Mima told a longer history of Zova, how he inherited from his father half of the house, his brother the other half, with mother having the right of lifelong stay. Then when she died, he sold his half to brother's wife (!) and kept on living in it. The money from the sale lasted while it lasted. Now that the brother also died, his children decided to sell the house, but what to do with the uncle... So they bought him a small house at the edge of the village, tiny but it has everything, just right for a solo guy. So he moved there. He used to drink for a while, then to drink a lot for another while, then stopped. Lives on social aid, because he never put together even those fifteen minimal years of work staž. Now how an all-A highschooler turned into such a failure, according to Dragana, the blame lies partly on the lady who first rented him a room when he was a freshman, who, ahem, gave to him, and then he started to love the sweet life. Then he lived with some artiste for a year or two... Literally let off the chain when he went to study, and studying itself was a rare afterthought.
Around this time the cajger (counter) on eos70 turned 50000.
Jasmina's husband had lots of fun with the flyswatter, the flies congregated in numbers, but he's slow, he waits for a fly to land on the half of square pedalj he cleared on the table, and when he flattens it, he picks it with two fingers, checks whether still alive, lifts it off the table and then drops under it. So much for technique... but there, I don't mind. He got bored with it later, so I took over, slapping them in various places, even on the opposite side of the table, and by table's legs, was even praised as the great hunter. Eh, after the great hunt in Hungry in 1995 and the one this fall after the wildfire, when we kept the house open for five days to lose the water the firemen poured, when it got full of flies, this now is onion and water [i.e. easy stuff, almost nothing]. Then I had to tell about the fire...
The last three hours passed just like that, chatting around the table. Then Mjedac was the first to raise anchor, they have to drive to Temerin. Then Sredljak eased his way out in such a manner that nobody thought he was actually leaving. Then Jozda left too and we rest stayed and put things back, I loaded the stuff into the car. Dragana drove back with Borče again, because it's just two blocks away for him. Yes, but I'm faster... saw nobody in the rear view mirror for a kilometer. And so this was the 50 year parastos.
Got home around seven. Later had another shower. Did the photos, posted them on Dropbox, sent away the email with the link. I dined some of that barbecue. For the poor man's entertainment we drank nothing, nor did we eat the funny cookies because she eats nothing in the evening, but she rather pulled out one tiny flower from the archive, so we shared one cigarette with it, just enough, had fine fun.
Interestingly, this time nobody watched the photos. Just when I invested some serious effort in the matter - added fresh photos and some sixty songs to nanovo. Of meat, in the end, remained... nothing, just a kilo of ćevapčići. If last week we ate the shoulder butt until friday, this time we'll eat these at least until wednesday.
The next day we distilled I guess the last batch of rakija, in which we threw any last fruit we had, even two pumpkins. Got some 3,7 liters, not too shabby. For lunch, a soup of two cubes (one homemade, one bought) and farina dumplings, firm, didn't even float, and them ćevapčići. For salad, she took bought horseradish from a jar, and I the cherry chutney, nicely picant.
Decided to go through the english Byo and rectify all the nonenglish names where it says kh and I know they're supposed to be read as aitch alone. And even those which were meant to be read as kays, who knows how they originally sounded. For one, the case of Sikhs (v. 20-VI-2001.), who knows how they pronounce themselves, the sound never came directly to us, only via english. And then it turned out there were no other cases, I never mentioned Harkov/Kharkov, nor Aga Khan/Kan/Han and other cases when they exported their aitched names with kh, hoping that the k would be taken as an instruction to read the h as an aitch and skip the kay. Of course, the effect was the opposite, they got hollow nose up to the eyes, these would always read it as k.
We eased up with drinking. After that night of fourth, when we drank a bit over the edge, we stayed dry for five days, and had henceforth drunk only twice, staying at the safe limit of just three shots. We got calibrated lower meanwhile, so that was just enough. It became a bit pointless, our capacity grew while the experience stayed the same, so what's the point. For this time, we didn't even prepare any of our own, but went for Jasmina's apricot. Not bad at all, but she had a bit of a headache in the morning, which almost never happens with ours.
The rain finally came on monday, then took a break, then resumed seriously on friday, and then the temperature fell by at least ten degrees, and I switched from shorts to jeans and jacket. On thursday I passed the van through inspection - this time taking it to carwash in the morning, cleaning below the windshield with a spatula first, all of them cherries and cherries which accumulated there. The guy at Starling's (the shop owner) said this spring he took a shot of me stretched on the sofa taking a nap when they did the Joda... Well, could do so today as well, but picked an afternoon slot and already took a nap after lunch. He brought almost a deci of rakija, said no please bro, I'm a nighter, we went to bed around four...
The ćevapčići lasted through wensday. On monday she even chopped a few into the čorba, just to add the smoke smack. Not bad at all. The greatest culinary inventions resulted from circumstances.
Speaking of rakija, it crossed my mind to see how many times I mentioned it here... the easiest way was to just create an article for it and insert links, see how many I get. Oh, holy fuck, threehundredeightysix times. Only our children have more mentions :). I spent whole friday inserting links (in english text only, no need in serbian) and adding text to the article as I remembered things.
On thursday Alphonse wrote that, as per my suggestion, he allowed Jan back to UA. I opened skype to pass the news to the „Trip to Serbia“ chat group (where members are he, me, Kees and Nina). Kees noticed, but he didn't.
Then it crossed our minds that we can do Lidl and Roda in the evening, didn't do that in a long time, memory lane revisited. Lidl is restocked on thursdays and mondays, so the crowd was sizable even so late. I don't know what are [people] finding there, a heap of things we used to buy early on has simply vanished. I got the parrot pliers (set of three, will come handy), she took some bras, 10kg of flour, four jars of instant coffee, 7200. Then in Roda just meat and nothing else, and that wasn't exactly meat, it was hearts, beef knee cut, pork liver and two calf tails for the soup, 3500. The soup turned out excellent the next day, and wasn't too greasy, surprise. The bare bone soup is much greasier, must be the marrow.
In the friday evening, then, we did drink some but didn't fill any bottles for it, drank what we had. The leftovers in the bottles - of our pear there was enough left for one shot. Of Jasmina's apricot I added into my elixir (100g of summer savory in 2l of rakija, drink one shot of it almost every evening, for the libido, seems to work, I'd say six years now), where it soaked too well so there was 2-3dl missing for the last bottle, left enough for a shot and a half. Then switched to Mima's, must be this year's, she said that of 60 liters less then ten remained, and something was not level in it. Not that it was bad, but that's not the proper apricot taste. Again I had no trouble, she had a weird aftertaste.
Mentions: 20-VI-2001., Alphonse D'Alchembert, Bosiljka Šain (Bosa), Byo (Byo), čorba, ćevapčići, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, Faik Rizvani, frajer, gonk, Gradivoj Sredljev (Sredljak), homemade, Jan Brenkelen, Jasmina Vlajin, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Jovan Zdanić (Jozda), Kees de Cock, Klincaid, majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), maturski parastos (parastos), Merima Tabarski (Mima), nanovo, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pedalj, pljeska, rakija, Sofija Letin, Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), staž, Tanja Nastić, UbiquAgora (UA), vegeta, Zdravko Smetovački (Zova), Živko Mjedenica (Mjedac), in serbian
8-IX-2024 - 25-III-2026