14-VII-2026.
Monday, the day to laze it out. After quitting Mieville, I gathered it was about time for a rereadng of Dune. Found somewhere a fan page with the full chronology of events, and went down it to see what's given, and who knows how much of that was invented by the old man himself and how much did unstrong Brian and Mom's Anderson (from 'keva' - mom (ethymologically Paraskeva, greek name; kevin - mom's) add, still impressive. I read two of their prequels, one because it was the base for the excellent series on Sisterhood (excellent because they didn't stick much to the book), and one about the princesses, where it's noticeable that the guys finally mastered writing, at least in the second half there's some density of events and many chapters lack the, otherwise mandatory, three or four paragraphs to just skip. And then I went to the old man, it must be twenty years since the last reading. Um, it's all still there but now with the even stronger impression which I had the last time, that he wrote very little there, that is wrote at least three times more than he included in the book. It's just selected excerpts from the wider story. And yet it's all there, the story is complete, has head and tail and the between, nothing missing. And the universe is complete, so hundred more books can be inserted into it, which these two guys are working on for years, whereby I'm not sure they weren't aided by some glugenius from day one.
A glugenius is an expression (generator gluposti - rubbish generator) invented on sezam long ago, to describe any software which composes sentences from random parts, by just enough rules to make it similar to text; meaning is optional and accidental. Even I wrote a couple of those. The current generative AI software is that, more or less, with just much larger database and better statistics.
The old man had a total of one ugly habit, permanent attributes. Chani is always an „elfin face“ (whatever that was), the phrase „terrible purpose“ appears many times - and the habit is the first thing the two have emulated. Eh.
Tuesday, before lunch we hopped to Mere to resupply (water, onions). The old house by the new cemetary gates looks even uglier than before. It was abandoned for years, allegedly for sale or rent, and this winter the Chineses took it and made into some restaurant. Strange, it would be a perfect place for a restaurant specialized for daća, but it's then also suitable for Chineses, the Linglong is within spitting distance from there, not a kilometer. That's closed now as well, and the façade is all pitted, white gypsum patches on the ugly seagull gray, the signs were taken down. Along with the restoaurant by the railroad which was like working for several years, and the one by tomaševačko cemetery, which looked like it worked a few times, this is the third one that closed. The one in Gimnazijska remains, if still working, didn't pass that way for two years.
After lunch I took it to Optima. The guy looked at me like a cow at a dead calf. I said „what if you replaced everything you so far didn't?“. Because Stanley said „I'm calling bullshit, they're poking at random, if this fixed it then that's it, otherwise next“.
Did nothing on wensday as well. She finally proceeded with haircut of the rosemary by the gas meter, not to trim it but to take it out completely - the other one, between entrance and garage suffices. This one is just too being, if we trim it we'll be left with dry branches. And didn't do that today, either, let's distill first tutifruti of this year, when it finishes fermentation, then to distill the rosemary in the still, and use that for the next batch of soap. Waste nothing.
At least I washed up the keyboard. Took out the keys (only the alphanumeric part, the funcion row, navigation and numeric maybe some other time), and put it all back. True, the Q, O and the right control aren't under the correct angle, the two are turned by plus pi half, the other by a pi, never mind, nobody else is using it (she is, sometimes) and I know the layout by heart. Well not exactly, when I put the keys back, I didn't quite know the order of the three keys between X and N, nor the two between M and right shift... I could have called the layout onscreen, the mouse was still connected, but there, I preferred to play with it until I got them right. On third try.
Jackie Onasis must have been a Sosa, we concluded in the evening, over drinks. Onasis wanted to divorce, she wasn't much of a chick, more a trophy, his chick was Maria Kalas, but it ended with „you took me as a widow, you'll leave me as a widow“.
Thursday, 17th. Swept the cobwebs off the bike, went to pay the bills. There was already a guy sipping coffee, said he knew me, he's from the next street, probably across from Juliška or thereabouts, asks about Stole, is he bonkers again. Oooouch, guess that whole street knows about him, there even Vera's mom at the other end knows... (well, she's also from Mladenovo) So I told how I discern his state as soon as we spot him, if he came into the garden wielding a stick, it means it caught him, he holds it high to shoo away those black guys who spy on him and take pictures, from the crown of our birch and from inside our chicken coop. He threatened to report them to the police, so my missus told him to take pictures of them guys and show them to the cops.
In the afternoon she took the old Toshiba out from the archive, and put together a sewing pattern on that software from back in 2008 or 2012, thereabouts, printed it. It's now on the table, so when she gets to it.
Friday. She picked the rosemary leaves, almost a full bucket, then distilled it in steam. Whole yard smelled. Then made soap, using the distillate instead of water, so the house smelled. We'll see in a few months, when the soap solidifies properly and we begin using it. Just like yesterday, I called Optima about the fix, and nothing, Vanja is not picking up. Maybe they fucked up something and she dares not respond, she knows my number from an airplane, I'm the only one on 067. Sent an SMS too, nothing.
The visits on site declined gradually, on eleventh it ws 6000 a day, then went up to 8000 the next day, then kept falling, falling... On sixteenth it totalled 117000, by lunch on nineteenth it still didn't reach 120 thousand, at neckbreaking speed of 300-700 a day. On twonyfirst just 230.
Saturday, not a peep from Optima. Well okay, if needed for anything, we have the van. Talked with Nina in the evening. Everything fine, shelves ae coming Raja will get the desk we once made for Lena many years ago, it's just not an angle one now, the right wing was cut off. Its place in her work room will be used for those shelves. There, she put all her ducks in order save for betwarmer, wich which she's taken a break now. The last guy's sticking point was „how do I explain to my ex that you're homeschooling your kids“ and broke off. Also, she told him he was fat, which he took as an insult. And she actually didn't, she said he could have put a fresher profile picture online, the one there was from the time when he was thinner. Eh, they don't make them anymore the way they once did.
Then we talked with our Seattleians as well, more or less same as each time. Stanley is happy that the price of silver is coming down, so whenever he sells a car he buys more. He nearly sold one but just went to check it over once more, found a fault in engine's wiring. And decided to not waste time debugging the thing, just remove the whole witing harness and replace with new. Because he maintains the quality. Zeka is waiting for windows for the old house to arrive, and then be done with it.
Spoke with Vanja of Optima on monday finally, said they were waiting for some part, probably a flap, they'd have to take off the dashboard, the malfunction is there. Oooowch... well okay. I was already woken up by the phone before that. Judging by the sound of it, I thought it was either Vera's mom or Anka, but nope, it was Dragana calling. She needs to pick the results of some test, the seedee with the scan was sent to Belgrade for someone's opinion, and the daughter from that girl from fourth one, the ophtalmolog[ist], will bring it. She works partly there partly from home, so we'd drop by to pick the opinion when I go collect her in the evening. And we did so, I parted at 19:00... about, as I tried to call her but she wasn't picking, then she called back while my 'calling' dialog on the phone was still stuck in landscape mode, so it didn't draw the new 'ringing' dialog (same, actually) and I couldn't take the call, no buttons visible. Luckily, it reboots quick, so I called her back... all the time sitting in the van, after having scraped the biomass off the windshield and gave it electricity. And it just starts, goes... And we did exactly as planned, picked the thing, then Borče off the street, he was engaged in conversation with some neighbor lady. Always in female company, eh? Well drop that, she's eighty and change. Looking good, though, as if she's sixtyseven.
The rakija went fine, Borče downed probably four, I three, ladies... well about two and a half, it was replenished. I poured the first one almost to the rim, bare millimeter short of it, don't know what's with me this evening, I usually can't pour so precisely before the third. The interesting part of the discussion was when they noticed I was late with grub, they were already biting their pohovan'd drumsticks and wings while my plate wall still empty. Well I just poured and lit one, easy now. There Dragana went on about her ex darling (some Slovenian, lived here since age of four, officer's kid, no wonder that in twenty three years with him she learned only two words of slovenian), how he drank wine until he had as much as he liked, and eventually after that moved to eating, while everybody else at the table were done with the second course, and the host was already looking to remove the vessels for the first two to bring out the third, there was no room on the table... And how she hated him then for spoiling it for everybody, specially the host. There Borče went on defending the guy, saying that he as a guest has the rights and it's up to the host to suit the guest. Sure, but at the expense of all other guests... and then he went about rules, rules, individualism as opposed to collectivism etc etc. By that time I ate my pohovan'd wing and made up for my delay. Didn't reach out for salad, and didn't want to supper anything larger, I know it's better for me if I don't eat much for supper.
And I remembered Jesenjin and printed the russian version and gave her to practice quickly then to recite, but nope, the translation was the sticking point, we guys stated that it was correct. Then I read the translation out loud, from the screen, it was unprintable, as it was the 103242nd case of the oldest quarrel in the history of computing, what is the proper end-of-line terminator, letter ten or letter thirteen, so it printed as one paragraph... And we concluded that Jesenjin was a drunkard, and didn't stay with Isidora too long, „pazi bugati“.
These two words requre explanation: „pazi“ is a warning, „watch out“, „take care [to...]“, but in a common sentence it may mean just „well look at that“. „Boga ti“... „for your god['s sake?]“, but then god is in accusative case, and this is actually short for „boga ti jebem“, I fuck your god... so „pazi bugati“ may read as that and as „look at that, a Bugatti“.
And then we agreed to still go to Days of beer, well not exactly, only the city filharmonia concert, and then walk to Šanta (it's redecorating its interior presently). That'll be a thursday after her term for frendz parti, so he insisted on this being instead of her term, but we all refused it altogether, why not both, why discard anything.
Tuesday, got up earlier, jučetina (v. house dictionary) for lunch, good nap after it, kept dreaming how deeply I sleep and feel everything waving around, and then I was somehow in Novi Sad and my car was mistakenly rerouted to Osijek, but I departed with the whole group which went there, with some ship, and to the ship in some small boat with several chicks, and the boat sank deep, missing just a couple of fingers' depth to sink, but didn't. Got onboard somehow and then remembered that I didn't bring a passport, this'll become complicated, then talked with the captain and the cook... Luckily, woke up before it got even more complicated, so I didn't have to untangle the issue of reaching Osijek by ship. Around 16:40 Vanja finally called, Joda is done, and it wasn't any hose, it's a flap, it's all worn out, they stuck it to blow straight into the cabin, instruction now reads „don't touch“. We'll see whether it'll dry the windshield, if it doesn't, we'll see by november. Until then, fine as is. But... I have barely 20 minutes while you're still open. Doesn't matter, we'll leave the keys in, just pick it if we're closed. And how do I pay then? Well nothing, there were no parts involved.
She finally talked with Stole over the fence, said the apples will [be there] in the morning, into a wheelbarrow and then to the back gate, we're too old to pass them over the fence. Anka is lying, her hip hurts, waits for it to subside.
Meant to go on reading in the evening, the „Dune messiah“, the endless intro chapter where the four conspirators outwit and outplay each other, and there I noticed a whopper of a bug - as per the story from that chapter, Duncan Idaho died in the battle when Paul became emperor... However, in the first book, he died several years before that. Ayhemmmm...But she came by shortly after ten, said she had one shot and a half and one beer, that doesn't count. Okaaaaay.
Wensday, finally those apples. Stole looks the same, on the outside, as he did six or ten years ago. He's just speaking even softer and is generally slower. Today he was, amazingly, quite normal. She pushed the wheelbarrow and returned it, leaving me the harder part, to keep him company awhile. But okay, he wasn't so difficult. The apples we chopped after lunch, wormy and not good looking at all, each, literally each had some fault. These weren't picked off their branches, they fell days ago, and almost every one had a worm. The one happy circumstance was that I didn't care where I tossed the rejects, it's all biomass, it'll fertilize somewhere. Of course, the german softener is stronger than the smell of apples, but at least there was no free music. We got a total of four buckets, what with the figs it filled exactly one barrel, it'll be two stills.
By evening a shot arrives - Tanja with an empty pot and small spoon, something brown but can't guess what it may be, gulaš perhaps. The caption arrives: „putej kiki“ (puter od kikirikija, peanut butter)... The colleagues tried the rakija (one Finn from France, one Italian from Britain or some such combination), they like it, „warms between the ribs“. I sent the axioms („1. in mouth it doesn't burn, it slides, 2. in lungs it warms up and the warmth spreads, 3. then it finds where you're hollow and goes straight there“), she said she'll teach them the next day.
Mentions: daća, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, house dictionary, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Juliška, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Mladenovo, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Novi Sad, Ostoja Čaković (Stole), pohovano, rakija, Ryu (Raja), sezam, Stanley Berger, Šanta, Tanja Nastić, tutifruti, Vera Vraneš, in serbian
19-VII-2026 - 29-VII-2026