A Catchy Title

Hi, this is blacknephewo (aka stevadore bernicus - answerer of doors, feeder of cats, and mover of all things large, cumbersome and heavy). Warning, I'm a bona fide complainer. If you're not ready to read complaints, then you may want to wait til tomorrow, when there is sure to be a sunshine and rainbows blog published.

I've been debating this whole week whether to write about the 80% that I see on a daily basis in this house, or whether I should stay silent, not look a gift horse in the mouth, and, literally, not bite the hands that feed me. I mean, who am I to complain that every grocery item that comes sealed in any sort of packaging (be it anything from potato chips to flour to cheese) gets opened, but never, ever closed? Who am I to blab to the blog reading world that all bread in this house must be toasted before eaten, so as to prevent the eater from noticing that the bread is stale.

So, should I complain about the 80% that I see during the 9 to 12 hours I spend at work? Nah, I tend to prefer the Blackpetero blogs about Israeli society, far more than work related blogs. Therefore, I've decided that I'll do some blogging about Israeli society.

Now, I'm a oleh hadash (which is a new immgrant to Israel), not quite fresh of the boat, but still pretty fresh (more fresh than the opened, but not closed, pitot in the kitchen.) This week was my 9th month in Israel. I have noticed a lot of things in this country that leave me... well, I'll say, irked, but that may change as the blog rolls on. I've served my time in Hebrew school and logged countless miles walking the mean streets of Ra'anana. He's what I've noticed:

1) Proportions:
My office building is about 600 meters from the bus stop. Apparently, 600 meters is a distance of extraordinary magnitude. All afternoon, people post email messages, to all the employees in our company, looking for rides to the bus stop. What I can't believe is that people actually get rides to the bus stop. If I had a car, I'd tell you to get off your duff and walk, fatty. (Yeah, I called you fat... look at me, I'm skinny.)

The size of a person indicates where they stand on the sidewalk when waiting at a bus stop. Smaller, skinnier Israelis will wait, either, inside the canopy-covered portion of the bus stop or next to it, in line, allowing plenty of room for passers-by. Sometimes they gather behind the bus-stop, when the sun hits the canopy and casts a shadow back there. Large, fat Israelis will stand in between the bus stop and the curb. Those of us walking past will either have to step into the street or balance on the curb (which is difficult, because in this country, they like to paint the curbs).

(while on the subject)
2) Bottlenecks:
There is a strip of sidewalk, in our fair town, where the pharmacy is, that is incredibly narrow. It's quite difficult to pass thru this bottleneck on a normal day. Now is election season, and you guessed it, the pollsters/campaigners have decided that they'll set up kiosks and stand in the sidewalk handing out brochures, right here, on this, the most narrow strip of sidewalk. Mark my words, I will not vote for anyone who has their cronies blocking this narrow stretch of sidewalk.

3) Brake-lights
Israelis should be issued brake-lights with their identity cards. Not brake-lights for their cars, but brake-lights for when they're walking. You have never seen a race of people more prone to walking and then just stopping, for no apparent reason. They are particularly good at doing this when walking thru the most congested section of sidewalk, like the aforementioned area.

4)Hebrew Teachers
So far I got 'lucky' I had the benefit of attending not 1 but 2 Hebrew schools. The first was the obligatory, new immigrant, learn the language of your new country, Hebrew school. The second was a Hebrew school to help you find a job. In both cases, I started off with a really good teacher, enjoyed class for 2 weeks, and then arrived, one Sunday morning, to find a new teacher who had taken over the class!!! Of course, the new teacher was useless. In my first Hebrew school, the teacher got Tuesdays off, too. You know how difficult it is, when one day a week, you stop what you're learning, switch gears, and learn something else??? How is anyone supposed to learn anything when you spend your time adjusting to a different teacher??

5) No list is complete without 5 points. After 5, I'm going to shut up and hit post.

5) Where's the English?
When you finally work up the courage to call Orange (the cellphone company) looking for customer support, the automated system says, "Press 4 for English." So you press 4, and hear some wonderfully horrible music, followed by some announcement in Hebrew. I've been on hold hundreds of thousands of times, so can only assume that this message means, "please hold and you call will be answered in the order in which it was received." Eventually, someone answers and without fail it's a Hebrew speaker with no knowledge of English. If no one there speaks English, then don't have it as option 4!! Learn from your own website and don't have English as an option!

Well, that's it. I've had enough. You probably have too. Damn, now I have to think of a catchy title.