12-I-2026.
OveryesterDragana called, landline. Ah, yes, I unhooked the mobile from the charger, for it annoyed me that it turns on [its] screen every half a minute, and then forgot to hook it back. Who knows how many days I didn't even look at it, maybe since my retirement came. I did mean to call her anyway, to see whether she'll be able to come - don't know how much snow is there around the building, they may be manacled in ice, we aren't going out the whole week, we procured what we needed and have everything. Not that, she said, it's that she had a contract with corona. It's all as told - horribly fatigued, from kitchen to bathroom she has to sit in a chair halfway to rest. Well, nothing then, we'll speak again and thence you're in a drivable condition.
Yesterday afternoon Nina sent shots from a restaurant, seems like they just went to pick what they ordered, there are vacant tables and they're in the lobby, looking out. Comment from here: „I know that sweater!“.
Talked with our Seattleans last night, everything's okay. The little neighbor is somewhat greedy pampered, when she finds a chocolate eats half of it, and now she had a wish to go for bobble tea again (which they tried to explain to me but I didn't memorize), which is 7$ a cup. This time it was Anita who didn't feel like going, and when the fine diplomacy was employed to persuade the girl the she can't ask for treats when being a guest, it was half one here so we concluded the talk.
During the talk the fifteenth mouse got caught, by eyeballing count, third one for the day. The mousetrap is now called „ski teleport“ - the mice get an express get-out-card for the street. The thirteenth she shook out on the snow across the street, and it run back and hid under the car, with incredible speed.
This morning Nina continued on the subject of sweaters, sending us a shot of Linda and Sanda sharing one of the known sweaters, probably a bit stretched out, seeing how both of them fit in it („I finally got the size right“). And this was the one time, a first in a long while, when we disagreed on which of them is which. We asked and waited for the verdict.
It arrived after lunch (egg čorba and burrito, third day), saying I was right.
The taurin (taurine, but...) which Milan takes because of the gym, my missus found would be beneficial to heal what I have in the right eye, dragging since september, I started taking regularly, sometimes two, mostly three times a day. And lo it started having effect. Yesterday the blot lost the color, which could be best described as the dirty water where the watercolor brushes were washed, the gray-purple. It's now semitransparent. Through it I can almost discern the features of what it covers. The lines are still curved, the middle stretched away, as if I had a bad lens or a screwy screen savior, but this is already better than it was. In a few days I'll empty the box, need to get more. Spoke with Lena in the evening, saw Tanja too. Merry, in good mood. The skin around the mouth a bit rough, she's salivating and going out in the wind. We agreed for sunday, we're coming and bringing the sarma for them, while we'll eat the pljeske at the brzožder (fastmunch), we promised that to ourselves. And Milan will get me more of that taurin, Lena said „no problem, there's a suplementarnica nearby“. The word didn't exist before this, now it does - by analogy, you can build those at will. There's carina - carinarnica (customs, customs office), novinarnica (novine - newspaper, ~ stand), starinarnica (starina - ancient times, starinarnica - antiques shop), biletarnica (bilet - ticket, biletarnica - box office).
Fifteenth. Called Dragana to see how's it going. Which, of course, didn't work right away, her regular siesta, so I sent a message to call me when she wakes up, but that also didn't work on first try. Once it did, I put her on speaker, so we three have [talked]. The fever is over, and she walks from living room to the bathroom in one go, she even dared to visit the grocery at the other end of the building. But she's still not fit for a dick yet, the slime endless, general fatigue, asleep most of the time. And no appetite, feels no taste nor smell, no luck there, she already lost the two kilos she found two months ago.
Sixteenth. The snow is melting, it's muddy and not nice at all just about everywhere, but okay, there's no mud on the pavement, the folks have paved where they park, this is not 1980. Finally went for groceries, barely managed to park at the butcher's, gave up on detelina. She went in (they finally had the bone for the soup, bought three - for us, Lena and Dragana; then Lena didn't want hers) while I went across to pay the bills (except electricity, ever since some ćaci company took over the meter reading, they're delayed just enough for the bill to arrive a day before or after its due date). I wanted to refill my phone at the post [office] but didn't wait long enough, she was finished already. Went to Mere, got some more stuff there, went home. Taking a break between the soup and pilav we had for three days, and tomorrow's sarma, the spaghetti (asAnita said couple of years ago, pazghetti). And I swung by detelina in the afternoon, now this is the way to do it, I had room to park like a boss. They had everything - hen fodder, cigarette shells, and both kinds of fish food, finally, the flakes were last seen in september. But to counter that, they had no cat food in Mere, so instead we got the cheapest chicken (machine deboned) baloney, may even be cheaper if calculated by amount of dry matter.
Afternoon, ahead of schedule, Lena called. We haven't heard her, just bits at times, perhaps our Telegram versions aren't in sync. Switched to phone, asked why now, says Tanja spotted the Telegram on her screen and started shouting „deda, deda“, so... Two news - the nanny took her to Kalemegdan, to see the turkish side of Belgrade a bit, and second, the surgery is scheduled for wensday, removing that third tonsil, to get rid of all the mucus and half-fever. Well, mom and baba had it done, better do it while it's still small and passes in two days.
Seventeenth. Comparing the Telegram versions. Lena is on the „latest version for ios, 12.3.2“. Me, on zmajček, 6.4.2. Hm, how do they compare these versions, really. In the afternoon Nina called and we had the same problem, tried this or that trick, no go. She suggested mac. And lo, it works. Her situation is regular, except it seems she found some guy from the end (i.e. from Virginia Beach, that end north towards airport), met five times already. He's divorced after 25 years of marriaga, has a daughter, gave up on drugs few years ago (blows a joint here and there, but I wouldn't count it for myself either). He's got a small business, does airconditioning for the offices and institutions, presently doing a museum. Father and grandfather were in the navy. This seems like something serious, with this amount of detail... holding our thumbs [in a loose fist, serbian for fingers crossed]. We did see the kids but then didn't, they were all asleep. She felt like eating sarma, did them once before but didn't like how they turned out, so recipes were exchanged and then there was another problem, there's no cabbage in leaves to be bought, only shredded. Back then she had them homemade, but it's late for this season... so they brainstormed to make something like a podvarak (shredded sour cabbage and rice, with a layer of steaks on top, roasted in a plek) but to have something like ćufte made out of the sarma filling, nested among the cabbage. That was immediately named „sarma balls“... well, we'll see how it turns out (did swimmingly, the taste was exactly right, could do with less rice). The plate and flatware on the shot are still from the batch brought by Burt in 1999.
Checked later, the version on mac, ergo ios, though an older one, is 6.4.1... Crazy the confused*. Tried later to see how to make flatpak (method of installation used by my Telegram) revert to a specific version, which shouldn't be much of a problem but there's too much to read. And our entertainment drew near, and just two shots of pear after it, slept like babies.
Eighteenth, all in order, she packed six sarma to take along, and 50 eggs, I brought the shooter, we got into the Joda and... a fuckit. Not enough power to start the engine. Um, yeah, in these four weeks I drove it only four times for groceries, kilometers in single digits each time. And yes, I have a charger but it would take several hours. So what will we do now? Nothing much, drive the van... Starts, goes. And we stopped by the brzožder in Stajićevo, ate a leskovačka [pljeska] each, excellent except I forgot to say not to dip the somun in the gravy, it spoils it every time. Arrived neatly, any my slot was waiting, a bit tight but free. I drove a bit slower, the košava was moderate, nothing special, but combined with the undulating pavement, better not to fuck around. The view left and right was incredible in places, the snow on the ploughs still hasn't thawed, and has gained an ice crust, there was some icy rain, so at times it felt like driving on a causeway through the shallows. White on one side, blasting shiny on the other. No shots, though, the windows were somewhat dirty, I even soaked three paper towels in the brzožder to at least clean the patch in front of me.
When we arrived, no tricks worked, Api barked loud and lot, guess to make up for not having done so for two months, was so happy to see us. And it looks like he lost a lot of weight, barely half left. It only seems so, because she shed a lot and little fur is still in place. Not that you can see to the skin, but he used to be like a white bear**. Even so, Tanja didn't wake up right away, waited some ten minutes more. She first gave us strange looks, then was happy to see us, and then we went for the usual programme of entertainment. Lena hit the sarma, which in turn just hit the spot. That's those first three months of pregnancy (some initial belly could be observed), when the tastes are strange, various causes for nausea are discovered, but sarma... never felt so good. She ate one, sighing at each bite. And one more. Then later, another half („just go ahead, you can't overdose“).
I've slept well and didn't feel like having a nap, just gave it a bona fide attempt. Which Tanja interrupted fisix times, by climbing on me, riding me just like each of our descendants did, the kid simply knows the proper ways. And by some unscheduled miracle, I actually slept, deep and sound, about five minutes.
At a certain moment I managed to perform what I intended a month or more ago, when Lena showed the new tablet she bought. The moment was when my dear was in the bathroom, so while I could have done this long ago, this was a way to make it a surprise. There was a tablet on the table, and I asked why the smallish screen. Lena said it was Milan's. „Got surplus?“ „I do“ „Could one...“ and pointed in the general direction of the bathroom, while holding the index [finger] of the other hand over [my!] mouth, to mean „so she doesn't know“. „Will be done“. While gugolj did really take off since last week, when I finally moved the long UTP cable from the blue room to the other side of the wall, so it's now wired instead of the slow wireless, the machine is still 16 years old, the browsers grow more demanding, the machine is falling behind, it's still visibly slow.
The daylight now lasted just long enough to drive home in the dusk. The evening's spoils, three more mice, 18 this season („after the eleventh, I implicitly trust her about the first ten“). Talked with our Seattleans, everything regular. Stanley keeps finding folks from the end and other yoochoobers who came to live in Serbia and are very happy about it. Said the work is growing less and less fruitful, but at least they settled the year's rent in advance, so they have the time to think... Neša was, amazingly, fully awake.
Nineteenth. We had the plan to extend a cable and shove a charger to give Joda the power, but nope, it's freezing, no bread from charging until at least +4. So we'll take the van tomorrow again, the agreed schedule is that ours are the tuesday and friday, Tanja is getting her middle tonsil removed (as if it were a cousin) on wensday.
A couple more sarma for lunch. Three more left, Lena called the dibs on them, so we'll take them along. And we may do another, larger batch on friday, take them all along.
One more mouse caught after lunch, which makes it 20 so far. By evening, 22. Make that 23... five in one day. The last one was particularly small. In the trashcan, the one outside by the gate (nope, still have no physical gate, it's the name of the place) there's already the whole family, hidden from wind, with food at hand.
On Telegram, the rasejani have a new amusement - Stinge appeared on someone's list, so he inserted him [into the group]. Then it turns out that his name is Maiya Vesyelova (or Vesyolova, never know), and the profile mugshot looks like a wee chinese bimbo. He chimed in personally, said his account was hacked, and he reported to Telegram, and it'll be settled, but as a non-payer he'll have to wait a week or so.
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* ellided version of the lyrical expression „the crazy fucked the confused“, which describes a complete chaos.
** we call it white bear. Some folks tried, back then on sezam, to call them polar, but were told to explain why they discriminate against cartesian bears, before proceeding.
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Api, čorba, ćufte, detelina, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), gugolj, homemade, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, košava, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), plek, pljeska, rasejani, Reginald Burton Cape (Burt), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sarma, sezam, Stanley Berger, Stinge, Tanja Nastić, zmajček, in serbian
12-I-2026 - 3-II-2026