Stay at Home - Day 16 - Swimming With Sharks

I had been wondering where my mail was. I was at my post office several times a week to pick up my mail for the shop, but every time they said my bin was empty. On Saturday, I finally got to speak to the Manager of that Substation who tried to phone my carrier. She wasn't answering, but she was due back in the building by 1:00 pm, so he said he would check with her then. 

The Postal Service and transportation system workers are
considered essential and they're doing a wonderful job
during the pandemic. Jean and I got our wires crossed,
but we're straightened out now and there won't be any
more missed mail. 

It turned out that Jean and I had our wires crossed and when I had turned in my instruction card, and assumed Midway would have my mail, she thought back to earlier discussions we had about mail and had forwarded my mail to the Roseville location. Yes, it's more convenient, but No, I hadn't even thought about that as a possibility. So, they open at 8:30 am today, and I'll be picking up two weeks of mail from Roseville, then going to Midway to check the mail there, and from now on all mail will be at Midway. Tomorrow I'll write and mail all checks, and I'm hoping this mix-up won't cause me to be late paying any bills from my various vendors. I'm sure they would cut me some slack, but still ... 

The St Paul Bridge Fund will accept applications until a certain date, then
put all vetted applications into a lottery and draw from that to assign
funds. They are requesting corporations to step up with more funds
to help more people. We'll see - this funding source is NOT guaranteed. 

We got our application in for the St Paul Bridge Fund on Saturday morning. As of close of business on Friday (Day 1), there had been 3000 families and 1200 businesses whose applications had already been submitted. It's a guarantee they'll run out of money. Since this one is a lottery, not a first-come, first-serve, it's a total crap-shoot if we'll get the boost or not, but my landlord came through with a copy of our lease so we now have all of the supplementary documentation available that they will request within a few days. I'll jump through whatever hoops I need to in order to keep my business afloat and my employee paid. I have resources of my own through April, but then I'm out of money and without the two grants I'm applying for, I'm out of business. 

I'm not comfortable swimming with sharks, but often if you don't
call attention to yourself, you can float over the surface and
escape unscathed. We'll see - I'm not that good at camouflage. 

But, I'm basically an optimist at heart, so I'm going to practice what I preach and continue looking at the positive instead of the negative. Deaths are stabilizing, new cases of COVID-19 are decreasing, and even though we're still in the middle of the maelstrom, we're still hanging on to our broken timbers and staying afloat in the sea of sharks. In the meantime, please take care of yourselves, stay safe, stay home, stay well. I'll be back tomorrow. 

A Redundant Why?

Why do prices keep going up? With the notable exception of gasoline and oil products, prices keep rising every time I look around. But salaries aren't going up, so in reality, we all have less money to spend on these more expensive items. It's a vicious circle and I'm not happy about it.

This story was from mid-2014. I guarantee the prices are
even higher today. Just one very small product example. 

For example - the Post Office. I'm quite ready to admit that they do an amazing job, sorting and delivering the mail in excellent time across the country and overseas. I ship all packages to my mail order customers using their Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes and merchandise is delivered quickly and in one piece. But the latest rate increase that they sneaked through really sucks. Small envelope rate went from $5.05 to $6.45 and the small box rate went from $5.20 to $6.80. Thus, the two methods I use most frequently went up $1.40 and $1.60 respectively, increases that are HUGE for my mail order sales. OUCH!

The US Post Office provides mail boxes and envelopes for
Priority Mail shipments at no charge. That's nice, but
with an increase like this, I'd almost rather pay for the
damned box. 

Of course, asking "Why?" in a case such as this is shouting to someone on the far side of the Grand Canyon - i.e., useless. The Post Office is mired in red tape and red ink - a losing proposition even though they must be saving tons on their gas costs right now. Still, it's my customers who will end up paying for this ridiculous raise in fees and I'm disappointed in the huge jump in the rates I have to charge them. When added to the costs of mandated health insurance, food cost increases, and general across-the-board cost of living increases, it's a wonder anyone can afford to put food on their tables.

Everywhere you look, stores are offering sales. Fast food
is dropping their prices too - to some of the lowest I've
seen in years. So does this mean that services are increasing
while products are decreasing in price? Not across the board - no. 

Are we getting better quality for the money? Are we getting more variety? More competent service or sales people? Are we feeling like we're getting more for our hard-earned money? No? Yeah - I hear you and I feel your pain. Every time we have a price increase from a manufacturer, we weigh whether we increase our prices to our customers, and often we leave it alone and eat the smaller profit. How long can we do that? It's anyone's guess.

Here's hoping you have an excellent Wednesday. I'll be spending money buying higher priced groceries after my swim. I wonder what my lettuce will cost today? ...

Shards of Unease and Poetry

Why is it that some things just spear through a person with unease? In my mail last night, I found a notification from the Post Office that I had a Registered Mail item awaiting me at the Post Office. Now, my schedule is such that getting to this particular post office today in a timely manner won't be easy, but I'm going to have to try because the next day I could manage this would be Tuesday. By Tuesday they probably would have been returning the mail to the sender.

Sorry We Missed You notifications are a bit nerve-wracking. If they
arrive on a Monday or Tuesday - no problem. I can get to the Post
Office on Wednesday. But later in the week requires some serious
shifting of my schedule. *sigh*

But who would have sent me such a thing? I could see my DH receiving something like this for his father's estate legal papers, etc., but I don't really have anything out there that would require Registered Mail for the delivery. I'm perturbed, a bit worried, and slightly frustrated. I'll manage to work it into my schedule, but today is a super-busy day at the shop and having to drive to an out-of-the way post office isn't fitting into my schedule with ease.

I enjoy the poetry of Ogden Nash. He has a biting sarcasm wrapped in
a small package that packs a punch. He's fun to read. 

My 'humorous poem' was released yesterday and I'm rather pleased with it, as well as with the reviews/responses from those who have read it so far. I need to get some of my past fics up on my archives - I'm behind again - but last night I spent working on an overdue beta. Although I write poetry every now and again, and am comfortable with the genre, it isn't my favorite. John Milton doesn't have to turn over in his grave with fear for my skills eclipsing his own. I'd say he's very safe indeed.

Who doesn't love the poetry of Dr Seuss? Whether writing for
children or adults, he had a wonderful way with words. 

But I rarely read poetry - I don't find it something relaxing to just sit down and read a poem, even by some of my favorite authors. There's something amazing about good poetry, though. That ability to search through for the perfect word, that single word conveying the exact emotion that needs to be carried through to the next word, is a skill that is beyond most of us. There's a lot of really poor poetry out there, along with some gems that gleam like sunlight off a sparkling ripple. I love those wonderful gems, but I can't always spend the time culling through the chaff to get to the good kernels.

Want to try your own hand at poetry? Try some of the forms
featured in the buildings above. You might be the next great
poet and not even know it - yet! 

The snow has finally almost melted here, but that has left us with serious fog and our second season - that of road construction. This weekend has some serious road closures on major interstate highways through the Twin Cities. I feel sorry for anyone visiting or just trying to pass through our cities this weekend - it will be a frustrating stop and go turtle-like progress through the bottlenecks. I think I'll stay in or just go to work, and I hope my customers won't be too badly affected by the traffic issues.

It's time for road construction season again. It's better than shoveling
snow every day or two, but it's going to be really inconvenient for a lot
of people over the weekend. 

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy your day!

Errands, Appointments and Postal Again

Running late (at 5:15 am!) so this is quick and dirty.  Today is a day of errands - breakfast (making sure that it works within my Weight Watchers program - easier said than done), the bank, the post office, a 9:30 am appointment for a tour at a local gym to see what they have to offer, grocery shopping, and finally sitting down to continue the colorizing on CB's pieces and begin the pencil work on her Erestor --- oh...the PERFECT image found!

I'll be surrounded by color today - happy me. So I'm sharing this
wonderfully colorful picture with all of you. Ohhhh...pretty!

Thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's "Women's History" post. I've been so focused on this issue for so many years that it's second nature. To have so many of you tell me that it is also important to you makes me very happy.

Yes, it came back a THIRD time! I'll be speaking to the postal
supervisor for my area today. GROWLLLLLL...

At the Post Office I will be attempting to speak to a supervisor about....yes....THE CARD! which was returned to me again, Monday night, in my mail. So this is time three! I really want this person to receive her mail, and I could drop it off to her directly (it's not that far away from me) but really.  I mean REALLY!  Is my postal sorter that completely inept???? Time to shake things up a bit because this is really beyond the pale. (Image altered to protect address specifics.)

And for those of you who want to look at something that just totally sweet, I have a short video link for you to a very sweet less than five minute video of a young gay couple - This Is Our Year. I link to this in celebration of Colorado's passing the legal right for gay civil union yesterday (Bravo!), and Minnesota passing their law into the full Senate yesterday (another great step toward equality!). This, from a state (Colorado) who had voted to ban gay marriage seven years ago. We're getting there people - slowly but surely we are admitting that love has no gender.

Adventures in Real Life - Electronic and Postal

Wednesday was my regular day off and I was sitting at my desk, pastels all around me, my sketchpad with inked drawings awaiting color in front of me and Aearwen on my cell phone for our weekly conversation. But we kept getting interrupted - on her end first, and then twice on mine. Since she was leaving to visit her brother the next day we finally smiled, said we would catch up next week, and hung up. Within five minutes my shop was on the phone with me again. They were saying something about the register computer crashing - they heard a bunch of small, high-pitched beeps which were followed by a complete and sudden shut down. I was on my way to the shop when they phoned me again, telling me that they got it fixed.

Nothing like a computer melt-down to brighten my day - NOT!

Yesterday afternoon I was at the register when the same thing happened. A series of small, high-pitched beeps followed by a complete, sudden shut-down. I isolated it to the APU - the automatic power unit - and went to the backroom where I unplugged everything that I had attached to the back room computers - the scanner, the laptop, my lamp and my recharging cords. After some difficulty I got the back APU moved out of its shelving and replaced the defective one with that one - one that I knew worked well and had a new battery in it. Everything powered up and worked a charm. What a relief. I have an extra APU at home that I will bring to the shop to swap out so that I can have my backroom equipment back again. Minor crises averted again... What was the saying over the summer? Stay Calm? That worked - very well *grin*.

So that was one success...and then we have the US Postal Service. Now I have known some outstanding postal service employees in the past - some sharp and fun people with wicked-good senses of humor. But whoever is on my home route needs a bit more ability to pay attention to detail. On Wednesday I received a card hand-addressed to a person who shares my street number (12345) but not my street name (AaBb instead of GgHh). I wrote "Delivered to Wrong Address" on the envelope and dropped it into the mail on my way to work in the morning. Last night, it was back in my mailbox - AGAIN. I have now added a circle around the street name, the word TWICE! underlined next to "Delivered to Wrong Address", and highlighted the word TWICE. I'll drop it into the mail again on the way to work and we'll see if it comes to me yet again. In the meanwhile my DH has been expecting something in the mail since Wednesday and it hasn't arrived yet.

Hand sorting - how 1950's. No wonder the Postal Service is
losing money hands over fist.

Competence? The US Postal Service has some of the best and some of the worst employees I've ever met. Oh! One more example of stupidity, although this time it is the system, not people. I was sending something to a customer via a postage-paid return envelope and mentioned to my postal carrier as he collected the envelope that they had to receive the paperwork before mid-week (it was only going across town). He said that because it was a postage-paid return envelope that it could be delayed for up to a week because of the way they need to keep their records on them - hand entering them into a ledger before delivering them. He also suggested that if I wanted it delivered quickly, to just put a postage stamp onto the envelope instead of the postage-paid aspect of the envelope and then it would be treated as first-class mail and they would receive it early in the week. I put on a stamp. Such a system!