30-VIII-2025.
Waiting for the great cloudburst. Since lunch it drags the Albania-Drina-Dunaújváros front slowly to an east. It even uprooted a few trees in Čačak, but by evening it dispersed and went back westward. Just when it got almost pleasantly fresh. We're supposed to see Lena the next day to keep her company, as Milan caught a plane in the morning, going to Switzerland for some four days, work fuckit. And the pears are expected to arrive. But never mind, we play dumb, if the guy with the crates comes, we just say we'll be back in the evening, and unloading is half an hour's work. And if it's a day or two later, well again, the september plans are loose anyway. The only fixed thing is the parastos in Klincaid on thirteenth, to run the van to inspection and to make brandy out of those pears. Everything else we can do whenever we want, including our vacation on the first weekend of fall, that can be later too.
Sunday morning I decided to sleep as long as I can, who knows when we hit the hay last night, felt so good I didn't bother to look at the clock. At some moment I hear her talking with someone, and I guessed the neighbor lady came to announce the arrival of pears. Couple of minutes later the landline rings, it's her, announcing it. Luckily no camera on that, I was naked, last night I discarded my last underpants of 22-I-2018.. Then there was a problem unpacking them, it's one of those bags with transparent reusable glue, haven't seen that in a while, don't see it now either, it's transparent. Finally found how to open it, then to remove the sticker from the first pair... And when I finally got out, she was nowhere and the station wagon was parked on the street, next to Joda, chock full of crates. Went to unlock the garage, saw lights on in Johan's room, aha, she went to get groceries, and where's the garage key? Luckily, she left it unlocked. And had she locked it, all the same - she came in three minutes, which was still less than the time it would have taken me to find my key - whenever we go somewhere, I drive and she locks.
The neighbor unloaded the half a ton in less then half an hour. She carried some, and I also carried some fisix crates, smaller ones. By the time I caught enough breath for the next one, he carries five. Fuckit, until it comes to some work like this, I don't even notice how old I am. The pears aren't exactly the same as the last time, they were rather green then, and this time it's random, there are even some dented ones, we'll have to start chopping them in the morning, and to spread the work over the days. Which automatically means that tomorrow's frendz parti is off, we'll spend the day in the yard. And for parastos who knows, I'll manage somehow, I'll surely mow less than I intended.
We arrived at Lena's with record speed, our side of the road almost empty. Through Zemun to Two Idiots* we were followed by a light drizzle, nothing horrible, we even had the time for the smoke by the building. Sat two benches further away, beyond its self-made wind's reach, shirt got chilly. The đuveč that we brought was great, Tanja ate 'all in sixteen' (never got the rhyme or reason why do we say so).
After lunch we, of course, took her for a stroll, but the drizzle returned, so we didn't go far, stuck to the façade of the building where I usually park, the ground floor is receded so the upper floors make an eave. While she was in the stroller, she played with the hanging toys, and of course she found the whistle there and blew it. Not yet strong enough to spin the little marble, but still quite audible. One bearded guy walked by, in fifties I'd say, and I caught on his face a tiny satisfied smile. Ten meters on, some woman stops by, „even you whistle, heart little“. There, she's learning the command of all the skills at once. Upon return we stopped by the playground, just where I parked, so I took the umbrella from the car. And I held the umbrella for a long half hour while Tanja ran all over the playground, from seesaw to a swing and back, pushing swings, swinging (baba held her, lifted the seesaw), the whole experience, including random corks and twigs she'd find on the ground. Baba took her to the trash can to discard those, and then had to lift her so she could see where it went. The playground's fence fiery red, Joda in the background, excellent photos.
Then we wanted to go up but decided to walk around them six corporals first. Later it turned out that Lena's kitchen terrace door was open, and she heard Tanja's voice, from fifteen floors height and about 60m sideways... and spotted us and made half a minute of video. This shot is from it.
Then we got up, and I grabbed my fisix minutes catnap, had a coffee. We heard of Milan's ordeal... his hotel was a kilometer from the airport, but on the other side of the highway. The nearest underpass is about 4km away, by some village, and the bus from the village goes to the other side and stops at the hotel. By the time he realized that he should have pressed the button to announce his intent to disembark, he was back at the airport. The Swisses, they always have some kink like that, which they don't divulge until specifically asked, and nobody knows that there's anything to ask about, nor what the question should be. Dozens of things require special instructions.
Before dusk I announced the sad news (no frendz parti this time), caused by good news (we'll make rakija), first to Borče. The absence is justified, of course, the priorities are clear. He, on the other hand, has found the house, and not in Čurda, but rather the first one he liked the best, where he was late as someone already paid down. Well, the guy gave up, and so he got lucky. Now to pass the paperwork both ways - the apartment, the house - then move. By the time his turn comes, it should be all ship shape, knock on wood. Presently he's emptying shelves and filling boxes.
Dragana asked for some shots of Tanja, she just loves to see her. I wasn't quite willing to share it but she insisted, so okay, I posted links to three of the shots on dropbox, counting on her not knowing how to keep them, and I'll surely erase them from there in two months. I got something wrong when inserting linked photos, but then just in case I added bare links, but she didn't understand what to do with them, as I didn't say „click these“. Guess she saw them on second try.
Talked with Go and Stanley in the evening, and seeing how they're curious about the pears, we walked the mac through Johan's room to the garage, to show them half a ton of pears. I held the camera, i.e. the mac, in front of and away from me, so I didn't see the screen, but she said that Stanley kept a satisfied smile all the time. Neša had another wordplay:
- what do you call a gun which was shot by another gun?
- a shotgun.
Stanley asked how's inflation here (it's fine, doesn't complain at all), how much do we feel it, and we both went at once into „this is piddly nothing, back in the day we had inflation this big“ and we spread hands like anglers describing yesterday's catch, synchronized within ten milliseconds. He continued for us „and you went to school in waist deep snow five kilometers uphill and returned five kilometers uphill“...
Then in the morning we started chopping the pears. I went to the shop on the corner and bought 16kg of sugar, she said should have [bought] 20... in the end it was okay, she went the next day (by bicycle) and bought 3kg more, when we were finished with the first batch. Seeing how much we have done and how many not yet ripe remained, there'll be at least 200kg left for the second batch, who knows how much did the neighbor add, how much did we really get. The measure is actually exact, this amount of pears cost those 35000 dinars, based on the price of 70 dinars per kilo and no use of any scales that we know of.
We feel slight pain in many parts, after having sat for some 15 hours in the same position over two days, with me sitting on a stool and she on that aluminium garden chair. I would too, but the armrests are not spread wide enough, when I'm sitting and doing something in my lap, I spread [my**] legs. And I keep them together when lying. Women do the opposite, she said. And we also run out of barrels - we brought the other blue 120l [one] from the garden, reactivated all that we had at home, except those upstairs where we keep noodles. The remainder will have to wait until we distill the first barrel.
Wensday, 3rd. After two long months we went to Lidl again. It seems they stopped the shouting from the PA system, seems to be I wasn't the only one annoyed with it. We bought lots of stuff, including rye bread, the northern kind, thin sliced; liver for pašteta (it's GMO again, every liver had two-three hearts), chicken (they're cheaper than Čikin king again), and some mortadela, we grew nostalgic for it, and in Svetofor they had it only first few months, and six jars of instant coffee, and 10kg more of sugar. Then I walked over to Roda to visit the pharmacy, ran out of ernafil, but didn't open it that evening, postponed a day. Instead I filled [the bottle with] tutifruti 21.2 (excellent, warms lungs) so we went on with that.
Lena didn't call at her regular time on tuesday, but eventually now. She was a bit down, Milan being in Switzerland, but said he had good time, they even had shepherding competition, split the attendees into groups and each had to drive their part of the flock down a given set of objectives, using only their own bodies and movements. A real programmers' task, get a completely unknown problem, learn how it behaves and find how to use that to get the job done. His team was the best, scored fifty, second team twetny, others far worse.
She's getting accustomed to the new nanny, the old one couldn't find an aparment, not even in Obrenovac, her[ folk]s sold the house to some developer (they'll have four apartments for that) and have moved to Ub while he builds. The new one can't sit still, she's bored while Tanja sleeps, so she turns into a maid, washes windows, scrubs the floor, does the laundry... They plan to pay her separately for that, not telling the agency. Tanja, on her part, was in her regular good mood, until she began to rub [her] eyes, there, sleeping time, good night.
Thursday, went to Aleksa in the morning, as promised, to help him with retirement paperwork, he became 65 this year. He filled the forms as much as he knew how to, wronged a few bits, I corrected what I knew how to, he put the ID serial number instead of the JMBG, because the latter is printed in the back, and I found his labor booklet number, and then disclaimed any knowledge of the rest, that's health, we don't do health. What do you mean, don't you get that when you retire? Yes but it's optional, and didn't want it, didn't ask for it and didn't take it, and in this form I don't even understand the questions. So.
We meant to go to the protest this evening, it's itching, I want to recharge my positive energy supply, specially it being dedicated to educators this time, who got fired en masse for taking part in, or just publicly supporting protests or strikes, for sheer solidarity with colleagues, but she convinced me not to go, what if the cops rush in, we aren't in any shape to run. That we aren't, here on monday when I brought that sugar, it's nothing, once 10 kg once six, and then sat down to chop the pears, got her worried how long it took me to catch [my] breath. It takes me two minutes of rest... but it would be a problem if I wouldn't get a chance to catch those two minutes on time, as happened this fall. And I wasn't running those 500m, just walked fast, and then it cost me three minutes of skullsplitting headache, really screwy. Can't imagine running.
And it's a real miracle, how the pears, so heaped up, smell like sea. As if standing on a dock. She said it must be the perfume that the neigbors apply copiously, it smells like Germans. Um, no, that's the smell I remember from 1961, when we went to Vodice, stood on the quay and waited for a ship.
Fifth. Last time we shopped at the Chineses, I bought a four-pack of ballpoints, to cut the annoyance with those old ones we got at the kiosk when we were still buying cigarettes by the carton - thirteen years ago - or the one from the dentist in 2020, which is the same kind. I parked one in the car, to have at hand to write down the kilometerage when I fill it up, and I keep one on the desk now, when it farts in my mind to write down something. And I liked it, they write nicely, easy flowing and precise. I thought my handwriting went to 15:00 but nope, my problem was that I kept trying to write at typing speed, which is impossible. When I go at it like I once did, it ain't bad at all, I can read it the next day. Now when I read at the table, under the airconditioning to prevent catnap, I succeeded in skipping it at least five times this week. By the tablet there's this pen and a sheet of paper, so whenever something comes to me mind, I write it down. So I remembered the story of the director of mašinska, and a few language tricks came to my mind - can't translate, it's three descriptive adjecives, derived from nonexistent nouns. Imagine „topsing and turving“, „backed and forthed“, „helting and skelting“ and the like, just more nuts.
In the evening, another Vučić's ingenious scenario to insert, into a peaceful blockade, his provocators, ćacis with gas masks in front lines, which will provoke reaction from the cops cordon at the Philosophy [faculty], and then the cops like pretend to defend their line all over town. We alternated watching KTV, Politički globus Srbije and blokada.info. Globus quit somewhat early, students mostly had two drones and didn't have any sneakers on the pavement, but Šarović somehow managed to be right where he should. We saw cops in really strange uniforms, camo armor on top, what with shield and helmet, and jeans and sneakers below, saw belgrade ambulance with ćaci in fantomka (headsock) sitting shotgun, two open transporters with about 25 turtled cops on them, driving slowly up the boulevard and stopping after each light, disembarking, spreading into a line full width of the boulevard, then beating anyone they can get. That lasted two or three minutes, then they retreat, jump on the wagon, drive a block further, repeat. We kept watching that for some three blocks, same each time.
Sixth. Reading more Reynolds. Took out and scrubbed the still, lighting up tomorrow, and then mean to stick to it for three more days, merriment ahead. Talked with Nina in the evening, she had a mishap when Linda made popcorn in the mirko - she did everything by the checklist, and when she was supposed to type 1:45, she went to take a leak after the four and came back to type 5 and enter. The machine timed out the previous typing and took the 5 ti mean minutes. The popcorn developed thick smoke, luckily bagged so they didn't light. She took it out, dipped it in water, aired the room. Still some smell of smoke but all in all a non-event.
Seventh. We began distilling the rakija, going well. Four stills on first day, and while it was done, we chopped enough pears to refill the barrel as soon as we emptied it. Theoretically, could have met with pLazić, it's the time of his annual tour of ancestors' graves here, but fuckit, circumstances.
Talked with Go and hers, everything fine just like before, the garden, cars, kids. Anita has a friend, a girl of her age, just across the fence, same layout just mirrored left-right and on a smaller lot. The guy they keep seeing is not her father but rather her mom's boyfriend, the father was a musician of sorts and croaked from overdose.
On day two only two stills, because, um, the fermentation wasn't really complete. The third day did the rest of that barrel, the next batch still being in the process. What we chopped on day one reacted so fiercely, that it kicked out the plastic sheet (trahsbag, actually) with which we covered it, even spilled some foam over. She poured some of it into the next barrel, and the bucket and a half which was left over from the previous one, no need to light up the still for so little.
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* Genex tower, nicknamed so because it's a twin tower, connected with a bridge near the top
** one of the occasions when the use of the possesive pronoun in english is almost justified; in serbian it's one's own unless specified, so no ambiguity
Mentions: 22-I-2018., Aleksa Pajkov, Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Čurda, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Klincaid, KTV, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borče), maturski parastos (parastos), Milan Nastić, mirko, MPSŠC (mašinska), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pašteta, pLazić, rakija, Stanley Berger, Tanja Nastić, tutifruti, in serbian
30-VIII-2025 - 25-III-2026