Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I am busy discovering just how many people I don't have postal addresses for, but anything from "I know it's on Mass Ave near Cambridge Common" to "is she still in San Jose?"

Most of the time, I like keeping in touch by email. But right now, dropping random cheerful cards in the mail is appealing, and I am supporting independent creators by getting the cards on Etsy.

In line with that, if you know me and would like to hear from me this way, please give me your address. I'm screening comments this time, and will unscreen any without personal info.

We moved into this apartment about six weeks ago, and filed changes of address with the post office, credit card companies, etc.

For the first couple of weeks we were getting some mail, including my new state ID card and , oddly, "we got a request to change your address" notes from our banks and credit card companies, forwarded from the old address. Then it stopped. It took us a little while to notice the problem, because I wouldn't necessarily expect requests for donations to be forwarded: but there's been nothing in that box for two or three weeks, including the weekly magazine we subscribe to.

Last week, I checked with the landlady at our previous apartment; all they've gotten for us is a few catalogs. I called the post office this morning (yesterday was a holiday). It took a little while to get through to the right person, including busy signals in the morning and a long hold time after lunch, but when I did get to the "delivery supervisor for Somerville" she was friendly and helpful.

She asked whether our names were on the mailbox, and whether our apartment number was on the mail. Then she asked me for our names, and asked me to hold. The current state of affairs is that she was going to leave a note for our letter carrier, and I could call back tomorrow morning and see where things stood. (One weird thing, which I didn't think to mention, is that it took us a while to put the nametag on our mailbox, and we were getting mail without that when we first moved in.)

Being a cautious redbird, I called one of my credit card companies over the weekend and checked that nobody had filed a change of address on the card. Whatever else is going on, they still have me at the address I gave them in the middle of August.

Today's mail contains a charming postcard with a recipe for she-crab soup on the back, and a nice sketch next to my address on the back.

The other thing that arrived today was my May Beads of the Month order ("Oh, Shiny," the Big Magpie version): it was sitting on our mat this evening. I have no idea where that box has been for the past three months; the shipping label is dated 5/31/08, and while the address is somewhat faded (I think it got rained on), even if the name is murky, the street address, including apartment number, city, and state are clear. That combination is unique even if they can't make out the zip code (and the P.O. has generally been pretty good at looking up zip codes in the past). The package was missing long enough that elisem had her faithful assistant send me a replacement package.

elisem, I owe you a bunch of beads; the replacement box that arrived a few days ago doesn't look much like the ones that just showed up. (My hunch is that what was sent as a replacement was a duplicate* set of June. They arrived just after I got home from Montreal and I just went "oh, good, I'll look at these later when there's daylight" and got distracted by life, work, catching up with the cat, and so on. Now I need to look at all my nice dichroic beads in daylight, which may take a few days.

*I did order and pay for June, so the confusion is entirely understandable.

It being a nice afternoon, I wanted to walk a bit at lunchtime, so I went to the nearest post office and bought ten one-cent stamps from a vending machine. (There's not much you can get out of a machine for a dime anymore.) They're nice stamps, with a Tiffany lamp on them.

When my officemate came back from his lunch, I mentioned having bought one-cent stamps. He asked why. I explained that I had some 39-¢ stamps and didn't want to waste them.

It transpired that he didn't know the postage rates had gone up, and in fact had mailed a bank deposit a few days ago with a 39-cent stamp. In case anyone else didn't know and is affected: the one-ounce rate for U.S. mail is now 41 cents. The second-ounce (and thereafter) rate is now 21 cents an ounce. (Yes, that's a reduction: if you have a two-ounce letter, and a 39 and 23 sitting around from the previous rates, you're fine.) There are also some odd new rules about package and envelope size and shape: if it's something other than a standard-shaped letter or card, check at www.usps.gov for details.

Belated correction: The second-ounce rate is actually 17 cents, as I discovered when I asked a postal clerk for 21-cent stamps. I now have ten of the new second-ounce stamps. (Anyone who put 39+23 on a two-ounce letter will have gotten it through okay, and there's something to be said for using up those old 23-cent stamps.)

I am disappointed at the moment, I think moreso than the situation really explains.

Today's mail included, in addition to the usual selection of junk and a small check for some freelance work, two packages. One was from elisem, containing my new pendant and cattitude's two new cat earrings.

The other was from Malaysia. I looked at it and thought "What has fivemack sent me?!" A mysterious gift from halfway around the world, in an envelope with stamps showing rice and bananas, yet.

Inside was a nice postcard of the Sukhothai Golden Buddha, on which Tom professed his love for cities, and then said "I don't quite know if the enclosed is remotely [?] appropriate for tnh, if you think not could you give it to someone else, and if not, to TNH". Now, it's true that "the enclosed" is not at all my thing--Teresa, how do you feel about a cute pink washcloth?--so it's not that I'm thinking "He got her this cool thing that I want." It's that I thought he'd gotten me something, and it turns out to be more akin to sending a package "TNH, c/o redbird," only not labeled as such, so I thought it was something else cool from the friend who sent me a goat.

It may be relevant that I don't see TNH much except online, a mode in which Tom could equally well have sent the thing to Teresa, or hung onto it himself, because the net doesn't currently support Fabric Transport Protocol.

I'd been going to wait until Andy got home to open the package from Elise, but after feeling grumpy and itchy for a few minutes (the itchiness is unrelated to the package, but it doesn't help), I decided it would cheer me up. I am now wearing my new pendant. The pendant is smaller than I'd visualized, which probably means I'll wear it more often, because that makes it lighter.