25-II-2026.

We rotated the mattress. I thought I'd do it on one of my own, but couldn't grab its ends, unless maybe my hand span would grow to two meters. The reason for rotation is its age, it's twelve or fifteen years old, and we feel the wire under our joints more and more often, which hurts in the morning until after half coffee. The crucial spot being under the hips, that's where it got the thinnest, so we rotated it half circle around its vertical axis. It would have been better if it was exactly square, then we'd turn it quarter circle and the thinned out line would come between us, but this'll do. That is, we'll see.

The faucets in the bathroom we need to replace. The one in the kitchen we replaced last year, now it's these two's turn. We have two untouched [faucets] in Klincaid, but they're also ten years old, just didn't see much use. I guess they're just fine, it's steel and ceramics, but we simply don't feel like going there yet, that is she doesn't, I'd go anywhere.

She continued washing the walls, it's kitchen today. It's really obvious, that's ten years of smoke, the layers accruing by bits. Actually only five years, while the children were here we smoked upstairs or outside.

I gave up on Baxter's „Flux“, after first eighth. Okay the exotic physics, okay the few characters who have at least some life in them, but Writing so Many Things in Title Case is just unpalatable. Went on to read the critics, and found they were scarce. But found the plot laid out on grokpedia and... well fuckit, its nineteen hundred some century, in a society of engineered, nano-sized people , who live on a neutron star, which novel social development occurs... indented slavery (!). Well kudos to total and utter originality, go fuck with Heinlein and a dozen others. I've already taken a break from him and (re)read two Richard Morgans, just as a respite, simply because I saw that I have it in translation, and the translation was excellent. Found on the second book that it's by Skrobonja. Well, majstor, what's your drink.

In he evening a news came in that the Singing Piglet (mentioned by some as minister of interior affairs, and by others as minister of police, nobody knows how's it called this week) got stuck in the KBC (clinic-hostpital centre), on respirator. We poured one, hoping for the best.

As burundi said, „we said Šešelj, but give what you may“.

On thursday Tanja asked mom o call us again... She's now in a phase when she's capable of pronouncing lots of things, she's rapidly learning words, we expect soon those to be the words we'll understand. The nanny said she's gaining speed with this after the surgery, she probably didn't hear well with all that mucus in the ears. And there was even one whole sentence, „de je deda?“ (where's deda?). What can I say, I just enjoy the attention. Lena's belly is now noticeable, just two weeks ago it was something you had to watch from profile. The plan for sunday is sarma again, with probably a later start, until the peasants finish their blockade for the day.

On friday (28th) we finally moved our butts out of the house - went to that shop in Miletićeva to buy them two faucets for the bathroom. What we had actually endured just fine, the originals from 2010 and replaced valves from 2017 - first time that I saw the replacement to outlast the original, so there. One of them started vibrating, water hammering, the other was hard to close and the nickel plating on the plastic has blistered, so replace. Went to Lidl as well (coffee, smoked ribs for the sarma) and Roda, where she bought some springtime clothing for Tanja. Of course for most of the items she couldn't find her size. She's a movable demand trendseter, same as baba.

On saturday nothing, she poked around the garden, after lunch we mounted them faucets - the installation went faster than purchase. These should last longer, there are fewer ingredients in the water. At least they slide nicely, as the singlehandled [ones] should, the old ones would snag and sometimes hammer.

For lunch, as prearranged, we had sarma. This time I was satisfied with the shot, so this goes with the article itself too. In english only - anyone who speaks serbian needs no explanation nor illustration on the subject.

On sunday the weather was really nice, felt like first day of spring. Roads were empty, amazingly (the peasants' blockades are on pause as of today, but not everybody knew?), and the Joda seems to have reverted to factory settings, all three slowpokes turned off the road - some to Stajićevo, some to Perlez - and i didn't have to pass them, the jedi tricks work. This repeated on the trip back. It was a bit weird that with such a nice weather all of my slots were taken, found one behind the corner, across from Hyatt, that's the reserve location. One slot is enough to fill my needs.

Along with sarme, she also made bečkerečka tajna (bečkerekian secret) and baked mufljuzi (muffins), and Lena hit that right away, can do sarma the day after, it'll be even better. Tanja was of good mood and appetite, and after lunch we went across to buy her some sneakers (and give Lena a chance to sleep a little). We went to Ušće (called Usce on the brown signs...) which is about two corners away - across between the six corporals, and the intersection. We avoided the place successfully since 2012 (and the chick in red dress wasn't there, and the agents Smiths were shabby and somewhat worn out). The one thing which did not change at all, still the genuine article, is the oppressive lousy atmosphere, the airconditioning is producing much noise and yet it's muggy everywhere. I left sweater in the apartment, end of season, see you next winter, and the girls took of their jackets, and we were sweating all three, regardless.

The nice side of the walk is that tenth time already (okay, ninth, the twins we took together) we see beautiful happy smiles on the people as we pass. Both children and grandchildren are sweet, which you see on the incoming faces. We didn't take her on the escalator, who knows how will she react, but there's an elevator, that she knows. We did the purchase the fastest possible way, first shop we managed to find, the cheapest sneakers, and scram outside. In the elevator, going down, I felt a pair of eyes on [my] nape [of my! head... though it's actually covering the neck too, hmmm], turned briefly and glimpsed the pilafed out smile of a young beauty. The maternal instinct being triggered by shortcircuit, I guess, I was enamored on the spot for about three seconds. Enough to remember (the event and outline of the face, sorry no details). Then before going for the underpass I had to sit and pummel out the cramp from my right calf, so we had a smoke there. Then on the other side, after emerging, I got the complement in the left, but weaker so I just limped it out.

Had to swing by the swing, tobogan, horsey and eventually the carousel. And lo, I have a shot where Tanja is pushing baba, who is sitting on it (!). A 19 month brat. All kudos. And then the remaining walk - at some point I took a different branch of the path, comes handy when I want to go ahead and make a shot from front. But Tanja noticed that she was with baba and moved to me. Warms up the soul.

Tried to fake taking a nap, and Tanja disagreed... we had the merry old time. Went to Mere on the way back, met that electrician with missus, they used to live in the neighborhood, Nina used to play with their daughter. Then we suppered, and I ran the script to move the shots from the card but didn't process them, just laid down and took a nap. Not right away, though, I knew that Borče will call, which is usually around 19:30 but he's prone to delays. So this time, around 20:20 or thereabouts. Then I fell asleep and was later woken up by Telegram - Go called. It's situation regular over there, except the business in the shop this week was near zero. People seem to have stopped patching clunkers. Their previous customers are broke, and the next batch of customers still haven't confessed to their new status and aren't looking for that kind of shop. At least he worked on his own cars, sold one engine, easy.

Neša had a new dad joke, this time not simply translatable, but actually sounds better in serbian, it's shorter. And burundi liked it again. We then drank a little, just two and a half, we'll do it for serious the next day.

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* I tried to insert a real greek Pi, but both uppercase Π lowercase π look like cyrillic п (p) than like themselves.

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Mentions: burundi, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Klincaid, majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), sarma, Tanja Nastić, in serbian

25-II-2026 - 25-III-2026