"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" – Bob Dylan
If there is anything that sets our crazy country apart from the others is that it is never prepared and always surprised.
True, winter came a bit late this year, but after so many years we already had to know that winter was coming and now, it caught us unprepared and helpless once again.
We were surprised back during the Yom Kippur War and we are still licking its wounds to this day.
We were surprised by "the revolution" of 1977, back when we thought that the rotten Mapai Party (Today's Labor Party) was going to stay in power forever, but then came Likud leader Menachem Begin – a leader surprisingly more honest and peace-seeking than any other Israeli lawmaker at the time.
I don't know how you're feeling about this, but I hate being surprised. So far, I haven't encountered a single positive surprise in my personal life.
About 40 years ago, my first wife had clandestinely thrown me a surprise birthday party in a moshav near Netanya.
I woke up in the morning and saw more than 100 friends devouring caked and clinking glasses, while The Doors blasted at ear-deafening volumes.
My course of action was as follows: I left the party, went to my Subaru, drove to the "Uranus" bar in Netanya, got plastered and only returned home in the middle of the night after the surprise was over.
My good wife, after a short and succinct argument, not only never surprised me again, but she also never celebrated my birthday again.
I even considered putting a sign on my study door saying, "please do not disturb, please do not surprise!"
I lived for two years in the oh-so-cold Boston, in my adorable igloo. I didn’t leave the house for weeks apart from rescuing my car out of the snow and taking my daughter to and back from school.
I actually liked this peaceful blockade, disturbed only by the voice of the mayor on TV instructing citizens to stay home.
The Bostonians weren't surprised, no matter how harsh the storm got. The streets were always dry, and homes stayed warm. While it was freezing outdoors, it was always cozy indoors.
In Israel, it doesn't matter how hard we try to keep our abodes balmy, the sly cold manages wonderfully and mysteriously to creep in and freeze all the tenants.
And here we are – surprised by the weather yet again.
Streets turn into rivers, trees collapse, roads are being closed off and people get lonely because we have no clue how to be alone around here.
How much more can we rejoice over the fact the Sea of Galilee's water level has risen by 25 centimeters. I don't any other nation in the world that is so obsessed with a single muddy puddle.
I live in an old-fashioned and well-maintained moshav and find it hard to wrap my head around as to why there are hourly power outages on these cold and rainy days.
I find myself walking blindly in the dark, holding a candle like some evil wizard from a fairy tale, looking for my phone to call the Electric Company.
Finally, after 30 long and excruciating minutes of listening to their abomination of a jingle, "with you at any moment, the Electric Company", I get a human response, albeit a bit grumpy, asking me to wait on the line.
I wait there, holding my candle, for over twenty minutes, with the Electric Company's little couplet playing repeatedly in my ear.
I listen to the radio on my cellphone and the jolly weatherman says the weather is only going to get worse and there will be more floods.
I reminisce on times when there were no weathermen. If I wanted to know what's the weather like – that's exactly what windows are for!
Once again, we were surprised, and most surprises are bad.
We want to stay in this familiar situation, and we have no desire for surprises or changes that will shake us, much like this harsh winter.