Taking a Moment From the Holiday for Airline Announcements, Good Wishes and Amazonian Props.

It looks like we're running Amazon.com's shipping department out of our breezeway.

You name the size of box, we've got it out there. It's fabulous. Rich did almost every single bit of Christmas shopping on Amazon, and I did a bunch as well...the result? Four large boxes, six mid-size boxes, four small boxes, and one funky one sent from the returns department. All stacked in the breezeway until about two hours ago, when we opened and wrapped everything. Wow.

Also, MAD PROPS for my friends at Amazon. Everything I ordered came so damn fast it made my head spin, every order was correct and had the proper emailed paperwork to correspond with it so I could remember what the hell I bought, and my favorite thing concerns a shipment which I am not at liberty to describe because certain members of the household will be unwrapping it on Christmas Day. ANYWAY. Skeezix's mom wanted me to online-ize an order for her for this product, and I found it for her, no problem. Ordered it the 16th from Taylor Gifts...it was in stock and theoretically ready to ship. So, the other day, say the 20th or so, I'd recieved no shipment notification or anything, and I was a little concerned. I check the order online...backordered. The hell? They charged my card! Where the hell is my shipment? I call them, and a cranky sounding man informed me that it would ship "in the next few days" and it would be there in about 6 days.

"Is there any way I can upgrade the shipping so I'm sure it's here by the weekend?"

"No."

All right then. You know, here's a life lesson for you, Cranky Man and Taylor Gifts...just keep people updated and be nice about it, and people won't hate you.

So, when I saw the backorder thing, I ordered a similar item from Amazon, and picked standard shipping (3 to 7 biz days). I would have gone with expedited shipping, but it was my backup plan and I had Faith in the Amazon. This was the 21st. Today I get home, and what do I see but a pre-delivery notifcation from FedEx. It's due in tomorrow. GO AMAZON!!!! You guys rock my world. I'm sorry we ever fought [over your sneaky hiding of contact phone numbers].

On to more stuff...we bought a new vee-hickle, which will substantially reduce the number of headaches in the house that come with trying to coordinate our lives. It's a 2001 Dodge Durango - I know! - and it's blue and purty. It will mostly be my car, but of course, sharing is caring.

I, amongst others, sent the inaugural Allegiant Air flight off from lovely Worcester, Massachusetts today. Flight 776 left after a slight delay (thanks, area traffic. Can't help what's up in the air - the ground crew did it's job, no delay on our heads!) to sunny, seventy-degree Sanford, Florida around 11:30. It was a lot of tiring fun...I checked people in and got the station ready in the morning. I really felt great about helping the airport get a boost. We also had a few "Oh geez" moments...a family of four showing up at 11:00 on the dot thinking the flight was at 11:40 (even if that was the right time...forty minutes before a flight?), an almost-missed box of - I shit you not - cooked lobsters, which I got to run up to the gate for gate-check at the last POSSIBLE second. And of course, my boots set off the metal detector, I wound up running the last few yards in bare feet. Clearly. And we get to do it all again tomorrow.

On an icky note, my poor honey is sick as a dog...I hope I don't get what he has because I'm pretty sure it's the plague. He seems to be on the (slow) upswing, but it's still no picnic. Get better soon honey!

So, merry Christmas, everyone, and I hope to see you soon!