30-XII-2025.
Shopping in the morning, around the community [centre]. Congestion, I parked as far away as Springfield (may they be mentioned again, didn't set foot in there [for] two years, still haven't forgotten the menu in english only, and don't have any foreign tourists to bring along), which actually isn't so far out. It will be even more crowded tomorrow, we actually got away easy.
Two fresh videos with Tanja, one on how dirty laundry is an underrated toy - she was putting it into the basket [for] minute and a half; the other of her riding in the new volvo, seems to like it. Milan likes it too - he went buzzing around, to buy a wee gift for the party, which they staged yesterday (as Lena told us this evening, during the regular chat), so he drove around to several places until he one where they were able to do what he wanted them to. He usually returns from such errands in bad mood, aka acute becuntitis, but nope this time, he came merry and relaxed, says the car almost drives itself, and parks, sheer joy.
And they did that party, one of those scripted, two hour events, which amazingly everybody liked and they keep coming and getting pleased with. One of the gimmicks was the two questions everyone had to answer - what was the best [thing] that happened to them this year, and what do they wish their answer to the first question to be next year. The winner was „the best of this year is this now, and for the next year I want to have a ready answer“.
And Lena is well under the weather with the pregnancy, avoids some tastes, pickled cucumbers often come to mind... We also agreed on the menu for overmorrow - domestic soup with noodles and Karađorđe's steak, the keto being on pause momentarily. They're also eager to take the car for a ride out of town. I counted on that itch, when I suggested it. And there's more - Velinka was also there at the party, and they'll be visiting her for the weekend, somewhere in Bačka.
Rundek ate the second mouse. He's as fat as a hog. Suši caught the third one the next day, it was as fat as Rundek. The mousetrap works.
This was probably our lightest doček. We opened the remaining beer, leftover from mid november, played on yoochoob first the „Professional“, then „Robbery of third Reich“, which ended exactly at midnight. The other movie was about two thirds shot on location in Zrenjanin, some twenty years ago, and we recognized many places - the Teplička street (Bursaćeva now), parts of the side alley near dispanzer, even the big blue fountain in downtown Subotica, which doubled as Berlin. What got in the frame looked plausible, but it was pretty noticeable how the camera didn't dare move even a bit, because of all the anachronous things that may come into view - a newer model of door handle, bell switch, power meter, gas pipes... It's getting harder and harder, or at least more expensive, to shoot historic pieces.
The neighbors hit it on the fireworks a bit, but not the all-evening cracker cannonade as they used to, it was rather quiet. On friday I commented on that at burundi, and lo it was the same in other cities as well. Someone said „they're saving the ammo for when that [guy] Dies“. Who that, Šešelj or his young padawan?
We exchanged congrats with the kids in the squad chat, Nina posted a whole deck of shots with the kids, from some restaurant, where they went for a dinner or dinner*, whichever. Lena signed out as early as 23:37, a „HNY yall, we're off to sleep“. I congratulated the rasejani too, got them on Telegram, didn't fire up the email nor the phone, which I disconnected a couple of days ago, because it'd wake up and light the screen every minute. I meant to turn it on later to see will it repeat that, but it seems I forgot. And now (1st of january, 8:20) I turned it on and no, I didn't miss anything.
It dawned with a whiff of snow, didn't even paint it white, this was less than what sugar powder we put on cakes. But we'll see, long is the day. Lena announced that they'll start around 11 and that Stojan will join them... Eh, I'm gone to buy beer then, just ran out. Doesn't matter if there's none, she said. Well no, he comes once in two years, off I go. A beauty of the ride, everything empty, not that I had the whole parking at the community [c,], had all the streets to myself, of course, the morning after doček. And only that kiosk was open there, everything else was shut. Took the Bavariah (not Bavarska, not Bayern, and it says it's a dutch beer, under licence), we tried it once and it wasn't bad. Of course, they arrived eventually around 13, and the soup wasn't cold yet, and neither did the Karađorđeva nor the pohovan'd. The mashed potato turned out weirdly similar to a mayonnaise, because she tried to mix it up with the stick blender, not the regular gnasher. It dragged behind the fork, you had to roll it up. And the taste was still the same, except... well this could be stuffed into tubes, spread on bread. We ate the rest of it the next day, as krompirača (potato patty). They weren't any different from the regular ones, mashed potatoes like mash potatoes.
Milan is incensed with the Volvo, said he wasn't driving it to here, just turned the autopilot on and watched it do everything right. There we went on about programming cars and how Europe is ahead in this area because its engineers look at what the drivers are doing and what would come handy, while Amers and far East look at what would sound good to push the sales. I remembered that Alero where you couldn't move the seat forth and back, there was no lever, there was a button for forward, a button for backward, and electric motor would move you, and it was slow. Wouldn't be good if it was fast either, it'd leave you in the wrong position. Give me a lever, that I know.
Tanja was not in the best mood until baba fed her, and then next she was everywhere. I completely forgot we'd have a visiting spacemaker, didn't clean anything off my desk, even left the active window on the computer be the english version of the article before this, so she inserted her line in it. She even turned the AC on, its remote was right there, even switched it to cooling, she was the life of the party. Her wee nose is still not properly passable, but now she's developed a technique to breathe around her chewing, and ate quite well. We had a nice long domestic chat, even Milan had his small catnap on the couch under the television set. As I told him, „every good programmer deserves a nap after a lunch at [his] mother-in-law's, I experienced that and am passing it on“.
At parting we took a brief look at the behemoth. The trunk is huge, just bend [your!] legs a little and we could both sleep in it. Within five minutes after their departure, a shot arrives: Tanja was asleep as soon as they were past the overpass.
Friday, we felt a bit chilled, agreed to stoke it the next day. At least we went to Lidl and the near Svetofor (no music today!) and got the groceries we neede, at least those we remembered to buy. Maybe we'll run short on sour [aka mineral, water] in a few days, by which time we can come again. In Lidl we found a nice light cleaver, for fruit and produce (not a bonecutter), german original from China. And the big pack of butt paper in the other, to not run out until at least summer, which is why there was no room for sour in the cart. Found no cat food, they had none in Mere last time either. For mongrels it's always there.
Two fundamental differences: In Lidl the heating works and we had to park at the far edge. Here they never installed any heating, even the cold storage's exhaust is outside, the staff are freezing, but we parked bare 15m from the entrance. When we were done, the space around me cleared, so I didn't have to reverse to the road, that street is becoming screwy now. And some drizzle began, visibility diminished, I even took the longer way home, avoiding the narrower streets, lest I scratch any parked cars.
Saturday, the third, dawned with snow. I sent „pleasand štamarenje to all who celebrate“ (v. house dictionary) I sent to all of squad meeting, rasejani and burundi... because it's been years since it was last properly white. Lena chimed in right on with a shot through the window, well then so could I, but then I still haven't returned the card from the reader, left there as I was processing the last deck the day before. Considering that the full cycle would take too long, mnyah, I took the kiddy tablet and took a shot with it, the Telegram on it has just detected that it has a camera too. Well great, but then it tried in every possible way to convince me to make that into a 'story', whatever it may mean in the context. Fuckov, I'm not the least interested in your algorithms, and you really shouldn't have turned my shot into vertical, I specifically shot it in landscape. I tried to upright it in the picture viewer it had, but it kept offering just fun features, to draw over it, apply funny filers and whatnot, no simple rotation at hand. So I sent it as-is, or else I'd have to replug the cable, transfer it to the PC, rotate it there, send. Repeated the operation with a video soon thereafter, and, avoiding the uphill battle, made it in upright frame, not even trying to go for normal. And it still managed to fuck up, I don't know what was it that I touched to stop the recording, well it didn't, went on for ten more seconds, my legs returning to the terrace taking the scene. Bad software, bad.
For the next frendz parti we had several plans, but in the end we decided to go with sarma, and to make them a day in advance. Well could go for two days, we had everything, but it was time to do a round of dough, long live our yeast, so we had a pizza today.
And we ate the sarma for sunday lunch, excellent. In the afternoon I killed myself of sleeping, hour and a half instead of two and a half of the day before, but just as deep and confused. A nice layer of snow outside, sheer idyll, we were štamaring it to the max. She reminded me to convene the frendz parti a bit earlier, not to disturb them if hey may be at the concert already. Ah, yeh, fuckit, it's today. But don't call too early either, Dragana may be asleep. So okay, called around half seven, Borče first, and he said okay with him, as he was just entering the gates of his kum... but see with the young lady, she said she was down with a flu, they already gave up on the concert. Dialed her, then, and she said she got a proper domestic [one], all inclusive - joints, muscles, nasal congestion...this is the first day with temperature down to regular, now let's give it a week for the rest of it to leave. Okay, then, we postpone. Now there's the question of sarma - shall we park them, they're upstairs anyway, not to take up the fridge space, or shall we think of something else, we'll see. We don't heat the upstaris, must be below ten. The other digital clock, which we used in the upstairs bedroom, showed +11 when I brought it down, and that was a few minutes after I brought it down, brushed and replaced the batteries.
And she said that she congratulated me the new year (in slang, novak, yup, though it's a different accent; as a noun short rising on o and long a, as Novak it's a short falling on o, short a)... um, didn't get anything. Well after that talk I checked something and then it reconnected properly into Žeks's system and the messages for the last three days came in. Fuckit.
With Go and hers we spoke briefly, they're leaving soon for some party, a family from the old neighborhood managed to sell the house and buy one twice larger in the same area, so it's a move-in celebration. That old end is now stuffed with rental houses - even the one where they lived for a decade is now renovated and gets a smaller house instead of the garage. The one next to it already got the smaller unit in the back yard, the front one being rented at 3500$ a month, the rear for a bit less despite being much smaller, because it comes with the swimming pool, which those from the front unit can't use.
Went out for a walk, in summer shoes though and without socks, still haven't picked a pair for this year, intending to walk to the corner and shoot my fill of photos. The snow was much deeper than I thought, so I went only as far as middle of the road, knitted a fisix eaches**, and walked slowly back, carefully retracing my steps. Even so, some snow got into my shoes, but okay, not too bad for the two minutes (checked, first shot was at 21:43:58, eighth at 21:44:52, plus the 15m walk).
Monday. The milk guy came much later than usual, and had to wade through the snow, probably in my last night's footprints. Then I went out to shovel the snow, been a while since I last did. One path from the terrace to the chicken coop, one from the main door to the road. Snow heavy, wet, and the shovel isn't exactly slippery. It also rained a little, but didn't look like it would be freezing.
Finished what apricot was left in the evening, then moved on to the third cask of pear, um, it seems somehow different. The first sip feels exactly like pear, but not the ripe soft william, more like still somewhat green. The sense vanishes at the second and then what remains is pure pleasure. She also had a good line of reasoning by which we are explicitly and clearly different from acoholics, and it sounded convincing and argumented, but now, in the morning of sixth, I can't remember what it was, and neither does she.
Now, a week later, while I was translating this into english, I remembered that it was, more or less, the difference in approach and intention: alkoses drink to get themselves done and would drink anything; we drink for the mood and the joy of good rakija. Also, we don't increase the dosage. An alkos goes for „gimme while there is“, and we know there is. There's everything - there's rakija, there's days, there's us.
If for the new years the shootout was absent, this evening they stepped on it to the metal, crackers, cannon slams, fireworks, and single shots from a semiautomatic pistol, echoing quite well, a shot from the street away echoes from the one to townside.
I nulled the statistics in solitaire, Jovo nanovo (anew, John). And it's obvious that, hehe, we got lucky in cards. This went up to 75% during the first twentysome games. Last year we got better and gradually ramped up our average to about 23%, then I accidentally misclicked and erased the statistics. On the new count, we ended the year with about 45% of victories, rounded up to 46 a couple of times. Nevertheless, I keep using fox's command window to calculate the percentage to four significant digits, because after a few hundred games, it's the third digit that changes, and the second only sometimes.
The 58 minutes game didn't really last so long, despite third restart, half of the time was our lunch. The sarma sixth day can't be eaten fast, it's a sacrilege. And we had an ohoho moment (v. house dictionary), when she poured the chili sauce, something got stuck in the nozzle, and then rushed out in quite an amount, I'd say quadruple. She ate it bravely, no complaints.
Seventh. The milk guy didn't deliver, we'll see. We can take coffee without milki, and the supermarket will open tomorrow, we'll manage. Our retirements grew by 12,2% (exact to the sixth digit, I checked yesterday, when mine arrived), but that's okay, it's not too far behind inflation. Got another email from Burt, one of his line of messages where he retypes something he read, stubbornly retypes a dozen paragraphs from somewhere, and sends it to a whole list, blind copy so nobody sees the other recipients. I tried to read those for a while, but after a few years I failed to notice any system, sense or even any commonality to those excerpts. Started deleting them on sight since about last year. Sometimes I may read his introduction and first paragraphs and then it's ciao gbye.
Of the dead cat in the basement we don't know whether it's Džimi or Zelena 3.2. The carcass dries too slowly, expecting some good freezing temperature to pack it in a bag and dump it in the trashcan. It's impossible to reach, it's on the pillow in the tunnel, which is behind the heap of twigs, from the old walnut and vine cuttings. Meanwhile it contracted dzindzure (same as house flies, but larger, aboout double when fully grown), still young and small when they find a way to get into the house. We have three or four at any time. Luckily, they're attracted to light, so we turn it off in the big room and light in the kitchen. That works, but when we swat them all, new ones come. And the mouse, just when we thought we were done with the last of them, another one caught in the mousetrap. Sweet little one, cats were happy to see it. The one before it was a good playmate, but too fast and got away. They aren't hungry enough.
While I was reemerging out of a catnap and she was drying [her!] hair, a bit after 15:00, Eržika called. Congratulated the new and crismas, and went on to complain how her leg got broken in three places and they put a flimsy cast on her and then replaced it with a stronger one, and now it's swelling and growing some knots and warts, they told her they'd have to cut it (cast or leg? unclear). I called my lady, as I didn't have the nerve to deliver a fuckoff personally. I heard her speaking then (in hungarian, but I still understand that much), „how would I know, it's been a while since I was a doctor, never really worked in healthness, don't know how they do it nowadays, what they have, what they prescribe, call the ambulance, if the hospital is due they'll take you straight there“. Asked about Magi, said she still has to work, clap trap. Ah c'mon (as commented later), she's over 65 now, she'll have the retirement from here as well, and if that's still being processed, they'd finish it faster if she was here, but no, she has to sit in France, pay the rent and for mom what, hang her on us? And she still has the half house here, and with what retirement she got so far, she could live here like a kidney in tallow. But no, she's fine there, even bought a burial lot for herself, wants to be buried there. Must be she's got somebody. And it's possible that she doesn't feel like returning while mom is alive, she's already hallucinating, said two women in black, with big spectacles, came and grabbed her by a leg each and broke it. Yeah, right, and the apartment is always locked, no problem.
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* i.e. lunch or supper... these english terms are so confusing.
** discussion of how to translate 'komad' as unit of measure is... elsewhere in the text.
Mentions: burundi, dispanzer, doček, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), fox, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), kum, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Margita Gunaroši (Magi), Milan Nastić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pohovano, rakija, rasejani, Reginald Burton Cape (Burt), sarma, Springfield, Stojan Nastić, Tanja Nastić, Velinka, in serbian
31-XII-2025 - 7-IV-2026