feels so good to be home

It's good to be back in the US of A, even for a little while.
What I've missed about this country:
*The courteousness of total strangers and service people
*Being able to choose half anf half or skim milk with my burnt-roast Starbucks coffee
*Burnt-roast Starbucks house coffee
*Walking through an airport and dreaming about the distinations displayed on the boards at each gate, its fun to think that all those exotic locations are only a flight away from where I am.
*Being able to return mechandise at the store and get back cash.

Anyway more soon with some pictures.
As we say in America, Happy Thanksgiving.

How desparate would you be to find parking in Tel Aviv?

This desparate?

there are a few posts like this on my street,
mainly outside building entrances. Didn;t seem to bother the good folk who decided to park there. Posts? We don;t care about no stinkin' posts!

I guess after the first time you dent your car on a post like that (maybe by accident), a whole world of parking possibilities opens up to you, cuz hey, you already got the dent.
But if you look closely at the photo on the right you'll see that even Miss Kitty who was hiding out under the wheel is pretty amazed at this idiot.
fixing a dented car - $400
finding a parking place in Tel Aviv - priceless??? until you have to move, that is.


oh and one more thing - I didn;t think this one up (credit goes to Benben, or "Santa's Little Helper"), and I apologize to female drivers everywhere (most of them) but to the tune of a previous post of mine (Tel Aviv And Me: A diatribe), we changed the words to:
"Woman-driver woman-womandriver
you're a woman-driver
oh woman-driver oh
you're a woman-driver, babyYou, you, you areYou, you, you are....."

you get the rest :)

Altezahen

Morning Kittens,

Back to talking about Tel Aviv.... Yesterday Municipal elections were held all over the country and in an impressive bit of administrative magic I was actually eligible to vote in Tel Aviv, being that I am now officially a Tel-Avivian. Now of course this is a dangerous thing since I don;t know the first thing about any of the issues. But off I went to vote on a whim, a hunch and the advice of friends, rather than any real understanding of reality.

Yes, I felt like part of the Republican Base.

I Keed, I keed, of course!

Anyway, my candidate lost, which I am not too broken up about. For city council I voted for the party that promotes animal rights and the environment, cuz I figure people can speak out for themselves but our 4-legged friends need all the help they can get.

But that's not the topic of today's post.

Today I want to introduce you to another (I think) decidedly anachronistic Israeli institution, that of the AlteZahen.

"AlteZahen" is a Yiddish phrase which means, if I am correct, "to carry old things".

Imagine in the olden days of the country, the glory years of old, when a horse and buggy would roam the streets and collect old things that people did not need. It could be clothes, an old stove, books, whatever you wanted to give away. Twice a week or so a man riding this horse and buggy would stroll by, shouting "AlteZahen" at the top of his lungs, and you would know that he is near, drop your bucket that you were milking the goat with (no, not camels even though this is the Middle East), and run over to flag him down and hand over your trash... er, I mean vintage ware.

Well, now close your eyes and imagine in the hustle and bustle of the Tel Aviv morning, that this horse and buggy still exists....

ok, open your eyes. Did your mental image look anything like this??

Yes, the horse and buggy are alive and kicking in Tel Aviv 2008! So this guy strolls down the street shouting "Altezahen" at the top of his lungs. If you flag him down he will stop and pick up whatever stuff you have to give, then take it and try to sell it in the market, I think.

I realize this makes Israel look like a horse-and-buggy sort of place, but well... you can;t argue with the facts :)

On a side note, this is a picture of my street, which you can see is very narrow (one-way). Parking absolutely sucks here.

Anyhoo, that's what I wanted to share. Altezahen. A Yiddish institution for centuries now. One more thought: Wouldn't it be embarrassing if he looked at your crap and refused to take it?

An Open Letter

To Bentzi, The television delivery guy who is supposed to deliver my TV,

Dear Bentzi,
No, I am not "harder to reach than the Prime-Minister".
It's just that at around 5:00 pm, the hour during which you tried to call me 5 times, I was on the road on the way back from work and do not have a hands-free device in my car yet.
And I WOULD have gotten back to you ASAP, except for the fact that your number showed up as "unavailable" and that you did not leave message any of those times.
So when finally called a sixth time and I was already home, I was more than happy to pick up.

And so my observation for today is that Israelis do not leave voice messages. It's like you see a missed call from someone and that's an indication that you should call them back.
That's not to say that I don;t get voicemails, but they are overwhelmingly left by one source, not asking me to call back so much as wondering aloud in an astonished and guilt-inducing voice why I have not called my father and her in over 24 hours.

That's all I have to say, now I need to go call my Mom.

A diatribe

I have to get something off my chest that has nothing to do with Tel Aviv.
It has to do with lazy songwriting.
Although I loved "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce as much as the next guy ("To the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left"), I think there should be a rule that you CANNOT, indeed rhyme "minute" with "minute" (Angel you and I discussed this at length), in the immortal lines:

"I can have another man in a minute
in fact he'll be here any minute"

I always felt that was lazy songwriting. Can't you open a dictionary or google a word that rhymes with "minute"??
But rhyming "minute" with "minute" is pure lyrical GENIOUS compared to the following lyrics from a contemporary pop single...

"Womanizer woman-womanizer
you're a womanizer
oh womanizer oh
you're a womanizer, baby
You, you, you are
You, you, you are
Womanizer, Womanizer
Womanizer"

SERIOUSLY, Britney??? It must have taken all of 5 minutes to come up with these lyrics!
MAYBE! Suddenly Beyonce seems like a master-poet. If you're trying to stage a comeback, spend another 90 seconds on your lyrics PLEASE.

That said, it's still a f*cking great song to dance to :)

Idiocracy

I just recently watched the 2005 movie Idiocracy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/), which I highly recommend. It depicts human sociaty in 500 years, dumbed down by consumarism. the funny things was that during the first 5 minutes of our hero being transported to the future I saw two familiar elements:
1. Mass piles of garbage as high as buildings
2. A guy sitting on a chair watching a multi-screen TV, with a built-in toilet and drinking spigot, so he would never have to get up.
Hey wait a minute! Any of that sound familiar? Why yes, you must be saying, sounds like elements from the movie Wall-E.
And since Wall-E came out AFTER Idiocracy, one must only assume that they knocked off those things from this movie. ALLEGEDLY.
Another reason for me to hate that fucking robot.

Holy Deliveries, Batman!!! My stuff's here

Last week I got the call that my shipment has cleared customs and it will be a few days before I got it. This morning it cleared the Haifa port and it is on its way!!!
As a courtesy to my 3 regular readers, I have decided to live-blog the event...

8:38 pm : ok, so I'm not much of a live blogger. I think the problem is that when you quote-unquote "live", you don;t have time to quote-unquote "blog".
Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty hectic, the boxes started piling in, The General directed them downstairs, the Engineer checked them off thelists as they arrived, I unwrapped the packages in the paper so the movers could take it back with them, and Santa's little helper and the iElf were kept busy helping with everything.
All in all - everything arrived safely (it seems), and no more drama ensued.
At approximately 6:00 pm I lay down on my newly constructed bed to take a 10 minute nap.
At approximately 8:00 pm I woke up from my 10 minute nap. God, I missed my bed!!!!!


Here is a first look at my apartment with the boxes and the sofa finally assembled. And...... my bed! If you notice on the picture on the right - Elvis (my snowboard) is peeking out there.
He still feels bad about what happened...










2:20 pm - the first two packages arrived in the house! MAZAL TOV!!!

2:18 pm it's on!!! Much drama - The Big container van could not access my street (very narrow) so they parked outside of town (Reading parking lot) and decided to send the stff in two trips with a smaller van. Santa's little helper and I drove out to meet them there where the ceremoniously opened the container, and I drove back and left Santa's little helper there.

12:10 am: T-20: What's the appropriate music for such an occasion? Stevie Wonder works for ANY occasion. Stevie it is. Fulfillingness First Finale and Square Circle...

11:20 am: T-70: Cleaning the house. Not so much because of the movers as because my mother's coming to help. Can;t let her see a dirty house. Hide the laundry, clean the sink, usual pre-General visit stuff.

11:00 am: T-90: Got the call from the movers that they just left Haifa, so it will be about 90 minutes before they arrive. They asked me to make sure they have a place to park and I said sure. There's nowhere to park on my street. We'll deal with it when they get here and it's too late for them to refuse service.
Called Mom and Dad ("The General" and "The Engineer"), they will depart Headquarters shortly and arrive at the scene ASAP.
Texted Benben and Idan ("Santa's little helper" and the "iElf").