20-I-2026.
The nanny took a week off to be with her husband in Germany, and Tanja's third tonsil is removed on wensday, so both of them will not work on that day, and the two days before and after need to be covered, at least in the afternoons. No problem until noon, as she manages alone, entertains herself, it's just the afternoon... Well, Stojan will take other days, we are dežurni today. She pohovan'd a hill of drumsticks, thighs and wings, made mashed potatoes (not the potato mayonnaise, used the classic gnasher). We gave up on Joda while it's freezing, probably the charger wouldn't even recognize the accumulator, we took the van, it being filled up and kept charged.
We departed normally, around noon, arrived before 14 and I even parked on one of my slots, it was waiting for me. A bit tight, but no problem to slip in. The rear door of the van wouldn't open, who knows why, the van was made in 2003 or so, already graduated, Expert model hehe, so I dived in through the side door and over the backrests of the third row, with a bit of acrobatics. Weather... felt like springtime, sunshine, blue sky, can see Avala, because it's below zero and all the humidity froze.
Tanja was in good mood, and had quite an appetite. She ate almost whole drumstick and bits of other, tore pieces of skin and stuffed in her mouth. We amused her for good four hours. Lena and Milan were at work, in their own workrooms, and didn't leave them much. Lena paid me the parking, but said the fuckup there is that it's three hours max, no daily ticket, well okay I'll move it around half five. Well there's a daily only if you overstep the hour without recharging on time, then they charge you the daily as a fine. So it happened, when the first hour was out, her notification was covered with some dialog, we got fined with the daily within three minutes... plus that one hour. At least didn't have to repark.
We went out for just one smoke break, she first. I stayed the fifteen minutes alone with Tanja, and just when I ran out of inspiration, what to invent to do next, she lay supine on the mat and waited for some massage like. So I lay next to her, prostrate, she clombed on my back, and then did horse ride at least five ways. Then we switched, I went down to smoke, even brought the shooter along, but weak session it was - I walked a hundred meters around, looking for a spot in a lee. The winter jacket is warm properly, but fingertips fall off, who knew how deep in minus it was. And I didn't shoot much, just the remnants of a snowman made by the neighboring building (they're all neighboring, it's a mass phenomenon). I had a plan to walk to that suplementarnica, but no need, they procured the taurin[e] for me, in larger capsules, triple the dose compared to the old one. It does help, the blot is now semitransparent and the lines bend differently.
Then baba invented to dance ringe ringe raja*. Tanja loved it, they had to do it at least eight times and she even turned around on her own and invented vertigo. Then had to show it to Lena when she finished with work.
Arrived at home by half eight. No more mice got caught, is it possible that the season is over. I was somewhat sleepy right after finishing the shots, soon after 21:30. Slept until seven, incredible. Maybe I just got tired from beeing too lucky - while the van was parked, a bird shat on the windshield, copiously (birdshit is a lucky omen here! but then you're just lucky that the cows don't fly), exactly on the spot where I look, so I had to bend my head up or right, which works but tires.
The surgery went well. Tanja cried for a whole hour after it, then fell asleep. The surgeon said the tonsil was quite large and that her ears were chock full with mucus. Now a couple of days for it to pass and she'll breathe normally.
The mice had a day off, two more got caught today, that's 25. We wait.
Early in the evening, landline rings. I pick it up, it's Lena, said Tanja played with her watch and managed to dial us through it. Ah, there, see the smart girl. I even spoke with her („deda!“).
In the evening we celebrated our 53rd anniversary. The conclusion, if there's a need [for it], is that we couldn't even dream a future like this. Didn't have enough imagination.
In other news, one more round of police batoning on the philosplhy [college] in Novi Sad.
Twonysecond of january. One mouse at 10:30, wonysixth. This time served to cats, Zelena 3 grabbed it. Twonyseventh, at 13:30, Vafl (Waffle).
The neighbor whom we watched tensome years ago as he was nailing shingles to the roof... that roof is our barometer now. The air was quite dry on twonyfirst, and his roof stayed red, nothing stuck to it. As soon as it's somewhat humid and there's a bit of frost, his northeast side (right, from here) is frosted white. It was quite humid today, almost viriginian style, and his whole roof was white. But by nine it was obviously not cold enough, he heats up the roof through those beams and thaws the frost. The next day we saw him put up some scaffolds beneath these two windows, and do something with the wall corners around the windows. We thought he was putting some decorative framing around the windows, but no, they were present on this picture already. Then we thought he was priming it for painting, but so far it all looks as gray as it always was. The only change was that he replaced the spot lights under the eaves with a string of leds, which he temporarily strung diagonally, as if ropes of a tent,, from the corners. He was always a light show.
Twonythird, remembering Elvis. I kept wondering which deaf fool thought that it should be read as Prisly. It's Prezli... and prezle, that's breadcrumbs, as a staple. That is, the unused bread she again left on a plate to dry, then ground it in walnut mill, which is actually a cylindrical grater. Took the finer one this time, the one two weeks ago was coarser, so the pohovan'd was a bit unwieldy for what teeth I still have. So, yet another homemade thing.
And then I got hit by the kebin fiver, aka cabin fever, when you can't wait for the winter to pass and to go somewhere, and then something comes to you. In my case, a slimer (mucus in lungs and larynx) and a nasty cought, of the kind with lung pain for a day (front side only!) while coughing, then a bit of tonsil trouble (but only on the right and two inches lower, by mid throat, who knows what it was and lasted only two hours), then a bit of a headache, only under the top plate, caused by pressure from cough, and by the time I got to sleep that was half gone, gone completely in the morning. And in the afternoon I slept fine, breathed cleanly, didn't feel the slight chill around the back like I did last few weeks, all comfortable, and slept through the night (we again postponed the entertainment, no use while I'm no good). Interestingly, cigarettes don't irritate me most of the day. There's times when I feel I'd begin coughing if I'd pull a smoke, and I just wait that out. Then I light and no, there's no itch to cough. Strange, that.
I plugged in the charger to Joda's battery, but it didn't react, guess it's lacking even the volt or two it needs for detecting polarity. But okay, it was like that once with the van and yet it got charged eventually. We'll see.
Twonyfifth. Joda didn't charge, as I expected it wouldn't. The dashboard does show some reaction, so it's not quite empty, but is still below charger's detection treshhold (yes!). Aaaalright, the next step is transfusion from the van, tomorrow. After a nap and supper (excellent pork fish čorba with rose petals of heat, i.e. one fresh habanero chopped in it, from the potted plant upstaris, goes nicely through the winter, and kvašenice - pohovano bread), called Dragana to see how's she doing. Well she is better, gradually recovring her strength and smell and taste („I can't imagine you having no taste“), but let's not play it too risky, keep it as we agreed, yet another week.
Stanley had to put aside an ear for the phone - the previous tennant's car lost its catalythic (catholic...) converter, which they don't unscrew, they chop it off. The trouble is the guys who do it are utterly clueless, they are the lowest ranks of junkies, they have battery powered grinderrs, crawl under the car and cut off any piece that looks alike. This car has two of them cats (converters) and they are up inside by the engine, not by the exhaust under the floor. Who knows what the guy chopped off. And their fences are mostly the same guys who survived and weaned themselves off the drugs, and then understood they know nothing usable except they know the guys of their own kind. So they employ them in the, ahem, procurement department. Who knows whether the guy recognized the part brought in...
Neša was up and about and in very good mood, we exchanged tricks - how to imitate the kreket (sound-alike word in serbian) of frogs, for one. He played out all the tricks that I also do when needed - wiggling the ears, nostrils flaring, bobbing the nose tip up and down. So there's a keeper of the flame, to take over when I'm gone. There's still a few tricks with fingers which I didn't show him, but at least he knows the main thing, the one hand clap. And he's inventing dad jokes:
-what would be the name of Crist's daughter, if he had one?
- Crisis.
We postponed the entertainment for yet another day, planned it initially for this evening but nope, I got saddled with cough and whatnot, such day. At least I was prepared for the situation so I readied a kilo of cherry [rakija], didn't try that one in quite a while. Considering that we started late, around half one, we didn't stay too long, just did ourselves as much as we needed.
Monday, 26th. Dreamed something complicated, one of those when in the dream I hear or learn something important, and want to write it down to have it when I wake up. And I did write it into Byo, but don't know under which date, and kept forgetting that I have the MRU (recently poked list), and instead kept passing level by level and getting closer, no need to memorize all that, it's written and it's in the database, just need to remember where... In the last iteration I dreamt of watching myself (played by that actor from the local theatre, who was my student) how the grandchild (the eighth, that we wait for) is sneaking behind my back, and when I turn it camouflages and I fail to notice it. But two twins notice it, and they're aged like our twins were when they came seven years ago, except they're spitten Tanja, obviouly of our stock. Eh, granddad... And then my lady asked whether I dreamt something nice, and I know she means whether there was any sex, but no... what's on my mind. I slept until almost ten, warm and cozy, even sweated a little (as per the theory that this wave, at least for me, is something akin to a book of impressions, each symptom drops by, does its thing, signs off and leaves, none hold for more than three hours). Outside it was well into plus, and inside as much as 22 - until a few days ago we held it at 19,8 to 20,4, more or less, and dialed the temperature in the pipes all the way up to 40, now we can't decrease it enough.
The neighbor is still messing around the house. None of yesterday's work is visible, everything is as gray as it was, but today at least we saw he began mounting gutters. That's the ticket, the gutter guards the house, screw the lightshow.
Didn't move the van closer to hook it for transfusion, a november drizzle is pressing on and I was not in any mood to peek [my] nose outside.
Tuesday, 27th. Talking with Lena, says she's got the third finder's fee for programmers she brough in as candidates, which now amounts to 40000€... Fckt I said, twenty years ago all five of us lived on that much a year. Yeah, right, „ten years ago I made that much... to disbelieve“. And, by the way, the new colleague is local, and there's already one with the same name in the company, from Slovenia. They quickly went from „what a strange name, it'll take us some time to get used to it“ to „now there are two“. And there's yet another leaf off our forest, from Chicago but sticking to the identity, and split with her Chinese. „What was it, he didn't understand rakija?“. Well, something like that, approximately, he didn't see any reason to cultivate the roots, to stick to [one's] original culture, what for? Ah, he wanted to be an Amer, that kind of comer, means he didn't understand sarma either. Well this girl, she said, keeps visiting the old end, keeps afloat with the language, even went to watch Đoković live. While „I'd never be seen in the arena, but there's more of a chance to meet him on the street, happened already, he's around here. To which Milan said „it's pointless to practice tennis here, because you know that you'll never, really never be the strongest player on the block“.
Wensday, 28th. Finally tried to transfuse the power from the van into Joda, and it went swimmingly, didn't burn anything and the van's battery came out of it in one piece. The clamps smoked, the cables heated up, I quickly pulled them all out, put the terminal back on in the van, starts, goes, okay. Drove to Optima and bought a new accumulator. I thought the accumulators nowadays last about seven years, which I may misremember from the corola, ahem, it's five years now. Joda is in my hands that long already, and I bet the battery wasn't new when I got it. At least now I know the symptoms - the remote may not unlock, the seedee may not be recognized. The kid came with the new battery, replaced it, all done within the hour, and I even had a long chat with their secretary. She was always progressive, regressive and narrowly expert**, I rested my eye on her each time, and she's still looking good, eh... And yes, the seedee worked on first try. It seems it didn't have enough čorba to spin it up right.
Thursday. This night I coughed out [my] soul, kidneys and whatnot, eyeballingly ten minutes at least. But not even close to the thunderous 40 minutes of three years ago. And went back to sleep. Outside, the winter went for a pee break somewhere else, so I fired up [my] bicycle and went to busodrome to recharge the phone. A beauty of a ride. On the way back, drove through Bečkerek's parking, between the tavern and the new wing (v. 12-XII-2024.) just to see... They lined up some broken blocks, a pallet, some debris on the wee stretch between our street and their parking-to-parking pass. Aha, you want to take up the street but may the street not accidentally disturb you. It'd be a pleasure to pay some machine to neatly clean it up and tamp some gravel, here now you have access from this side too, why would the whole end have to drive around when they want to visit you... your aunt's cunt.
On friday, Nina finally called and we talked at ease. Sanda kept inserting some picture book into the cadre, and it was in cyrillic (!), said she wanted to learn serbian. Well, that's what we were hoping [for?]. If you'd throw her out on the street among the kids, within three weeks she'd chatter like old. In other news, Nina finally has, well maybe not a boyfriend yet, but she's seeing the guy regularly. On sunday she posted a selection of shots for the last six months, including a few of him... a bearded guy, likable, and we don't know whether he's compatible, has a cap on each shot (Stanley and Milan shave their skulls).
Lena called too, Tanja got measles. Eh, the cabin fever. We all went through these, except she's so advanced that she didn't wait until the age of three or six, she just wants to tambour it all out and be done with it.
The sleeping was a flop this weekend. On friday she intentionally skirted the drink and went early to bed, insanely early, and I just sat and gazed at that chinese channel with funny videos and then went to sleep too, also rather early. Then she got up for a smoke, and so did I, seeing how neither of us is sleeping. But let's not do rakija, got no beer, okay wine it is. Didn't drink much, a glass or two, and slept well. On saturday finally went for groceries, and the plan is to carry a paprikaš on sunday, and found a nice lamb quarter in Roda, finally the wait paid off.
The neighbor (the one with the roof) kind of painted the frames around the windows, it seems like a sixth of ground brick was mixed in the mortar, it almost has color. The rest he covered with a primer, and it seems he's waiting for the weather to dry, as it keeps veering between neither rain nor dry, november like... The other neighbor, across, who bought Mrgud's house, finally moved in, there was a truck and a bunch of black cars (these may not be related to them, they parked closer to us). I hope they came to either Aleksa or Faik (some of sons or son-in-laws in presently in the house), that the new neighbor is not a ćaci mafia guy.
In the evening, of course, she was totally sleepy and went to bed even earlier. I gave up on those Chineses, watching them for weeks I realized I've literally seen everything they have, and that they managed to, even there, raise Sturgeon's percentage to three nines. Moved on to zap d'cokaïn, who may not have the quantity but have the quality, it's neatly edited and there's none of the amateur acting, sneaking and getting others in trouble, there's no fifteen versions of something that happened accidentally six(teen) yeara ago, there's no wild camera shake, all the chaff was cleaned up. Of course, these are Frenches, they keep up the style and don't produce chinese junk.
And then she woke up, well... there was just a little of rakija left in the bottle (the cherry), so she went for wine and the leftover was just enough for me. I bragged how I coured my heels with the white sandpaper she brought down from upstairs. Ah, I'd need to do that as well. Well let me do it, it's easier when it's not your own foot. And I polished her, to mutual satisfaction.
Fell asleep nicely, and I was woken up at four by... well everything, pee break, cough it all out break... I took two deci of hot milk with a coffee spoon of honey (finally we switched to the next jar, the old one lasted [for] years), smoked the leftover one, and went back to try to sleep... And it worked... for about half an hour, then it all came back, even worse. I even heard the gurgle from [my] larynx just like on 04-III-2019., and there was a minute or two when my chest felt heavy (had a period of that in 2021 or so, lasted two days), not letting me off the hook... until it eventually did. I slept, woke up around ten, waiting to see how will the day go, we carry the paprikaš to Belgrade.
The operation paprikaš was a flawless success, with only lack of music in Joda (except radio, but it's unsafe at any speed), even the road was ideal - dry, almost empty, and even somewhat sunny up to Čenta. Must be nobody's driving while Đoković plays, and the match began this morning. I was worried about parking, when the road is empty it means everyone stayed at home, but no, of my four favorite spots three were vacant.
The spot in the right eye... um, behaves strangely, and is obviously changing. Early this week it was still round, then turned into something resembling a short three-prong trimmer blade, then around thursday the side prongs of it wore out and it's pretty much egg-shaped now. But the geometry bending field around it has widened, or its center altogether moved closer to the yellow spot, and now when I read, in the right eye image the right half of the line I'm reading is bending upwards, overlapping with the preceding line. Sometime that's an obstacle, I misread, and it usually suffices to move my look elsewhere and look again, and then it aligns well and I can easily read. Just pretty much as it does as I write this. Driving was less of a problem, except one left curve, where the thick white stripe in the middle appeared twice - once where it should, and once a meter above (!). The only time it gave me trouble was the new roundabout between the Peekaybee and the borčan highway,, where they still haven't done the curbs and keep those concrete pieces and orange kegs, that's where I had to slow down a lot, because the distances didn't look clear, by width and depth alike. Still, we got there and back without error.
Lena called to check on our location just when the elevator was on eighth floor. I fumbled with the tote, camera and phone while we talked, short on hands there, held the phone upside down, and accidentally lowered the volume (or was it density?) of the sound, barely heard her, but she heard us. Api was less noisy than usual, instead tried to grab our attention so much that Milan yelled at him a couple of times, sharp and loud. Well trained, it calmed down quickly.
Tanja has them measles, which one doesn't notice much in person, but are really prominent on the photos. We saw to it to keep her occupied so not to scratch, which mostly worked, and even for that she reached for [her] chest than face, excellent - both mom and baba have a wee scar from that. During lunch we all fed her - she sat in her chair, the one hooked to the table's edge, then some at baba's, and somehow she mostly kept trying to sit in my lap. These barstools are as tall as they should be, and she climbed half the height twice... what can I do, I lifted her, put in [my] lap, started picking smaller pieces, now potato now meat, and then she discovered cabbage, can eat salad with just hands.
She stormed the eos70 again, knowing well which buttons do something even with the lens covered (raise mirror, open menu, info; she still didn't discover the blue button to view existing photos), and managed to shoot yet another black frame, and immediately after she was faster than me when I got the lid off the lens and made two shots of baba! This is when I remembered where the main switch was, haven't used it for years, and turned it completely off, but it was a bit late. She managed to open the menu, and get into some submenu (because the screen is a touchie) and maybe changed some value. I hope it's something I don't use att all, or that it may make things better. Though, I'd rather know what was it that she found.
Lena felt sleepy, said she'd need half an hour... and I missed some too, the slimer having woken me up prematurely. The pillow which smells like traces of „euphoria“ (which I assumed was left by one of the guests at the party, but no, that's Milan experimenting with fragrances) was not there, so I took a rag doll, a gray bull, for pillow. That toy is a favorite to both Tanja and Api. I fell asleep almost three or four times and was woken by Tanja - sometimes to do a bit of horseplay, once to complain for having taken the bull, so she brought me a teddy bear. I returned the bull, took the bear - still not good, that bear used to speak once, the speaker is in the way. So I returned the bear, still not good. Then I got it - the bull should be the pillow, and I should hug the bear. Okay, she let me sleep half and hour. And so did Lena, and Milan was out in the gym, so she was alone with baba. And they passed the time just fine. When Tanja woke me up, Lena was already awake, made us coffee, all in order. Leaving, we met Milan at the door. Arrived at home fine - with crowd on the other side of the road. Dropped by Mere, got the groceries (including čvarci and petty cakes, didn't have those in a while). The neighbor across seems to have completed the move, and nope, the black cars weren't at him.
At the regular time I called Dragana, and she was ready, fresh and in the mood, so we'll see us tomorrow, and I said I'll pick you up. My car troubles come from not driving enough, here I had to replace the battery. Borče I didn't catch at first, went for a walk and didn't carry. We agreed quickly, all okay. Turns out we skipped the whole six week cycle - one week on his behalf, when he postponed his turn in december, five now, exactly.
Neša had a new dad joke:
- in which room are you safe from zombies?
- in the living room.
----
* all join hands, walk in a circle, one or more sing „ringe ringe raja, došo čika Paja, i doneo jaja. Jedno jaje muć, a mi deco čuč“ - uncle Paja [Paul] came and brought the eggs; one egg rotten, and we kids crouch. All the kids here know it, I remember we did it in obdanište, and specially the twins loved it. The point is that on 'crouch' everyone is supposed to duck on the spot. As a kid I found that the lack of proper rhyme between muć and čuč (č and ć ARE different, we learn to distinguish them) was a serious flaw, something was wrong in the song.
** i.e. forward, backward - big boobs, hefty butt; struk = waist, struka = trade, occupation, stručan = expert, competent
Mentions: 04-III-2019., 12-XII-2024., Aleksa Pajkov, Api, Bečkerek, Byo (Byo), čorba, čvarci, dežurni, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, Faik Rizvani, homemade, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milan Nastić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Novi Sad, obdanište, pohovano, rakija, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), sarma, Stanley Berger, Stojan Nastić, Tanja Nastić, in serbian
21-I-2026 - 7-IV-2026