End of Vacation

[hrj]

So 12th Night was. For the most part it was shopping and schmoozing, but I seemed to have uncanny timing for wandering into the court hall just barely in time to go up for peerage ceremonies. The Golden Stag Players' version of Pericles was freakin' hysterical. There was a point where I was actually laughing so hard I couldn't breathe (although it was more about the audience reaction/interaction than just the play itself). Ducked out to Anderson's Pea Soup for dinner then back to the main site for the Duchesses Ball. I hadn't brought any instruments or made any contacts about the dance band, but they found me a recorder. I think I may need to have one more go at learning to play a double-reed instrument. Nothing like a krumhorn for LOUD. (The last time I tried, the necessary air pressure gave me migraines.) Got to try out a somewhat immature version of aureellia's hard root beer. Nice stuff! It was still a little syrupy since the fermentation wasn't finished yet, but having allowed for that we had a chat about optimal flavor balance in root beer. I handed out lots of little packages with quince paste in various variations. I think I started out with 5 dozen and gave out about 4/5 of them. I really do prefer having 12th Night presents where I can spontaneously just hand them out to people I bump into, rather than worrying that I'm going to forget someone in particular. The one more specific present I brought came back home with me since xrian ended up not coming. This meant the Clare-inspired underdress came back with me as well, which means I can get a bunch of photos taken before I hand it over (rather than trying to remember to get them later). I still need to put together the whole process-diary for the pattern-gathering development in general and the dress in particular.

Oh, and Friday night was the coda to United Airlines and the ski delivery. They hadn't delivered my strayed luggage by the time I left on Friday, but the downstairs tenant was willing to be substituted recipient (as indicated on the instructions I'd already given the airline luggage people -- in their electronic records and everything). So Friday evening, while I'm in the middle of the first mad dash to the merchants room to see if Pastiche had any books that needed to be snapped up quickly (no, alas) I get a call from United to say they'll be delivering the skis sometime between 11 and 1. Yes, they will be delivering luggage some time between 11 pm and 1 in the bleeding morning. This is why it's a good thing I have a night owl for a tenant. So I told United that they'd be delivering it to the alternate address since I wasn't at home, and called and confirmed with the DT that the delivery window was acceptable. Then I figured it was taken care of. Right. At quarter after one -- yes, that's right 1:15 in the bleepity bleep AM -- I get a call on my cell. It's the United delivery person telling me that she's on the road and expects to get to my place in about 15 minutes. I reiterate that I'm not at home at the moment and that -- per previous instructions -- she'll be delivering it to the alternate address. Oh, she says. She doesn't have that information. Easy, I say. It's just the same address but apartment #1. No problem, she says. She'll just phone me back when she gets there to get further instructions.

This was the point when I'd had it. I explained in words of one syllable that she had just phoned me at 1:15 AM and woken me up -- and woken up the two other people I was sharing a hotel room with -- and she was not going to phone me back in another quarter hour to get further instructions, she was going to deliver the item to apartment #1 as it should indicate on her delivery slip and if it didn't indicate that she could just remember "#1". (Keep in mind that all this is because United shipped my skis to Chicago for no good reason in the first place.) I guess she managed to remember the information sufficiently because I now have my skis back in my possession. And I guess I can understand that people might want their strayed luggage badly enough to be willing to have it delivered at 1:30 AM. But was it absolutely necessary? Was it completely impossible for United to have delivered the thing at a civilized hour? Inquiring minds want to know.

Comments

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

Nothing like a krumhorn for LOUD.

<Crocodile Dundee>That's not 'loud'--THIS is 'loud'! :-D

Jocularity aside, I've tried some krums that were real devils to blow--harder than my shawms =8-0 If you're serious about trying out early double-reeds, there's no shortage of people out your way (Geoffy-Matt or Aldric, within the SCA, or people in the Bay Area early music community (like Herb Myers)) who could help you get started.

FWIW, when I priced krums ::mumble:: years ago (because my then-recorder group was leaning on me to buy some, I realized that new ones were as expensive as shawms, and less versatile than shawms, to boot--worth noting if finances are an issue. JMHO, YMMV, Void Where Prohibited, etc.

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

The Golden Stag Players' version of Pericles was freakin' hysterical. There was a point where I was actually laughing so hard I couldn't breathe (although it was more about the audience reaction/interaction than just the play itself).

The participation did help. The original script really sucks. <g> Glad you liked it!

[j-i-m-r.livejournal.com]

Needing luggage at 1:30am I too can see, but skis look like skis, even when packed in the luggage ... so who needs skis at 1:30 am in the East Bay where there isn't any snow. I guess they don't get paid to think, just to haul stuff around.