the rooster

at 5.30 this morning my alarm went off. if i had hit "snooze", it wouldn't have given me those precious five minutes extra... the rooster would've jolted me right out of bed.

the kid, unused to such ridiculous hours, was pissed. he got dressed and went a-stalking, and he was joined by other members of the auto-neighbourhood-anti-fowl-play-league.

i spent the morning helping out the new girl and busying myself with all manner of arbitrary tasks... turned out i missed one...

around mid-morning, the kid called to let me know that they'd found the building, but that the city council refuses to take action without a specific apartment.

great.

the afternoon was filled with frustrating difficulties, and i passed out while someone was helping me with a technical fault - i must've slept about twenty minutes, and it took so long for him to deal with that he didn't even notice.

in the afternoon the woman from the mortgage bank called, i updated her and discovered that everything was much easier to handle than i'd anticipated... it was a sign - too good to be true.

i walked into my office a little after home-time, and said hi to our unit commander as i passed him.
"did you begin working on the little job i sent you this morning?"
"what job?", i asked innocently :/

he was pissed and i was surprised to discover that an email that he'd sent me this morning was marked as read - and i hadn't seen it. can't explain that one...

either way, it's a really irresponsible task to be giving me a week before i disappear for half a year, and i have real work to do that's not looking like it'll make the deadlines. yeah, sure i'll translate the meaningless drivel that you plan on presenting to a bunch of people who don't care. fantastic. first priority.

i love my work: every now and again i'm reminded of what it looks like and why i made the right decision. the rest of the time i hate the military and all i want to do is get on with my life.

speaking of which - for the next half a year i'm going to have internet access once every two weeks. this should be interesting!

a british couple stood next to me on the bus, loudly discussing inappropriate things. one of them began describing a bus route, but trailed off halfway with "and i don't know where it goes from there" - and i automatically blurted out the rest of the line.

we all looked rather sheepish when they realized that i'd understood the first part of the conversation and i realized that i'd let on that i was essentially eavesdropping. i suck.

i joined the kid in a good meal when i got home, and we went rooster-hunting. we picked up our neighbour on the way, found the building, and started on our door-to-door mission. by the fifth apartment we had a vague idea of what was going on, and nothing but blessings for our courage and curses for whoever's responsible from the neighbours.

our tip-off led us to a large, overgrown backyard, and while sniffing around in the dark a door suddenly opened, and an old woman came out.

we got an interesting yarn from her, and at the end of that story the rooster is captured and sent away. it's not clear if that happened today or will happen tomorrow, but either way she pointed out the windows of the people who know so we'll see if that information becomes necessary.

an amusing shopping at the pharmacy later, we sat outside discussing our plans for the next few months. they're complicated. i spoke to my mum, and sadly came upstairs with the kid to fold laundry and get the net stuff over with.

nothing doing as far as the apartment i found is concerned. i'm disappointed, but such is life.

it did bring to a head an issue that's been bugging me for many years - israel is a country where it's simply not financially sound to put away cash. the best place for one's money is in liquid form or high risk / high return investment. the second you try to play it safe, somebody invariably shafts you.

now it's bedtime, and i'd planned on picking up the guitar but i'm exhausted.

i suppose i've learned a hell of a lot from this round of apartment seeking, now to move on to the next item on the agenda - partying hard before sunday.