The Negotiator

Even with all the crazy stuff going on, life continues. Just a couple updates, not nearly as exciting as a war, but remember: we don't talk about the war. It's like Fight Club, OK? We don't talk about Fight Club.

My landlady told me a couple of weeks ago that she is raising my rent by about 5 percent (my lease is up at the end of July).

Meanwhile, as my loyal readers know, my air conditioner is kaput and she refuses to replace it.

The idea of paying more money for less apartment just galls me. Particularly since, at the rate she wants me to pay, I could get an aparment about 50 percent bigger for just $50 or $100 more per month. Maybe it wouldn't be as nice-looking, and maybe it wouldn't have an a/c either, but it would have a living room and maybe even a porch.

Anyhow, she's been out of the country since that conversation, vacationing in Ireland, and only returned a couple of days ago. Today I called her and said that it's outrageous to raise my rent, and we need to work out some deal about a new a/c that is better than her offer of a ceiling fan and small electric radiator.

We discussed it for 15 minutes or so, and she was not budging, so I finally played my wild card: I said "well, then give me a couple of days before we sign the new lease, because I want to look into finding a new place to live." She said "you really think you'll find something better?" and I said "Well, I don't know, but it's sounding like it's worth it for me to do some research and find out."

End result: The rent stays the same, and she is paying 3,000 of the 3,800 shekels it will cost to remove the old a/c, fix the wall, and install a brand new one in a more convenient location.

Yay!

In other news -- and I hope it's not unseemly to talk about something so relatively trivial when you are probably expecting a blogger whose country is at war to talk about, oh, say, the war -- I recently finished reading The Great Gatsby for the first time. What a perfectly depressing book. Yes, yes, masterfully written, engrossing, etc. But depressing! I'm glad I read it just so I can say I have, but I can't say I loved it. I'd say it's an exceptionally worthy book, but not an enjoyable one.

I also recently read A Raisin in the Sun. Wowee! Now that is an awesome play! I must rent me the movie! Wow.

(I'm realizing now that my taste in books leans strongly toward those on 10th-grade English reading lists. Things that make you go "hm.")

Um, OK, we can all go back to not thinking about the war now.