-$4.95

Back in September, I made my first ebay purchase -- 18 vintage airmail envelopes for $2. My exuberance at my "win" in the online auction world was barely tainted by the fact that no one else was competing with me for them. I can't imagine why. They are very cool.

Some of my friends are living in China this year, and I wanted the envelopes so that I could write to a couple of them. Thin envelopes that say "via air mail" and have short blue and red stripes framing the border are not strictly necessary - in fact the post office doesn't sell them anymore - but they are way cooler to receive.

A girl who buys vintage envelopes will want special paper to go with them. It's sort of the "if-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie syndrome." I returned to ebay to look for onion skin paper but couldn't find anything satisfactory. Amazon was a bit more help. I would suggest trying Amazon if you ever find you need 500 sheets of the stuff or are willing to spend an exorbitant amount per sheet. I wasn't interested in either option, so I settled on ordering some thinner-than-onion-skin paper (8 lb. paper, rather than 9 lb) through Amazon from one Phil's Stationery. It was 100 sheets for $4.95 which seemed very reasonable, though the shipping and handling fee of $9.75 was excessive.

Amazon warned me that it could be 5 days before the paper was shipped, in addition to the regular shipping time. When a couple weeks passed and the paper still hadn't arrived, I started to get a little concerned. I had just made up my mind to follow up through Amazon when I got this message in my Wheaton email account:

Carol,

I have a package that you ordered from Phil's Stationary sent me by mistake....

Please call me...thank you.

Janet S.


Puzzling.
I called Janet and left a message, and we played a little phone tag. Janet suggested that I come into Chicago where she lives to pick up my package, but I was disinclined. Nor was I willing to send her money for shipping when it wasn't my fault in the first place. She gave me Phil's Stationery's phone number with the imperative, "Call them directly."

I called and discovered to my delight that the proprietors of Phil's Stationery have wonderful, thick New York accents. I didn't mind listening while Phil told me all about the debacle that ensued when the guy usually in charge of Amazon orders was out of town and someone else sent the shipments. He lay the orders out on the table and matched all the packages with the wrong address labels. My small order was the least of their worries, but that didn't stop them from being apologetic and promising to set all to rights. It seemed that Janet had also already called Phil's and agreed to mail me the package if they sent her money. "It's already taken care of. The check is in the mail," they said.

"It's taken care of" is what I communicated to Janet, and she responded with, "Do you want me to throw out your package? Let me know."
No! Please, no! Further explanations.

Quite a few days passed, and I checked CPO regularly, always disappointed. I called Phil's Stationery again to complain that the paper still hadn't arrived and to request reimbursement for the shipping and handling fees I had paid. Phil commiserated with me about the cost. Amazon doesn't make any sense to him. They would mail me a check and if my paper didn't arrive by Monday, they'd send it to me themselves.

Then just a couple hours later, I got a call from Janet:

Janet: Hi, Carol. I got the check from Phil's today.
me: Oh, great! I'm so glad.
Janet: No. No, it's not great. I got the check, but it was for $7 and not $8, and, get this, it wasn't signed. It wasn't signed. And it's ridiculous the amount of time I'm putting into this.
me: Oh no! I'm so sorry. I'll call Phil's - you won't have to worry about this any more.
(and to myself: I sure hope they sign my check.)

On Monday, I called Phil's for the third time. "Hi, this is Carol. I had the order for the thinner-than-onion-skin paper. . . " Ah yes. "Phil" connected me with Fred who is the guy in charge of Amazon orders who wishes he hadn't been out of town that fateful day.

Fred made apologies and explanations in a charming New York accent. Apparently they are a very small, old-fashioned company; they sell paper; they don't know much about these modern internet things. . . Ordinarily, Fred explained, they would have just sent me a replacement shipment of the paper themselves, but Janet had been willing. . . No matter, they'd send the paper to me themselves this time.

After all the hassle, I wanted to make sure that I was getting paper I could actually use so I described why I wanted it.

"I have these friends in China to write to. I bought vintage air mail envelopes and wanted onion skin paper, but this was the closest I could find. Will it work?"
"Oh yeah, oh yeah. It'll do great. It'll hold the ink, and it won't tear. It'll do great. Did you know it's green?"
"It's green? No, I didn't know that. What kind of green is it?"
"Oh, kind of light green. I'd say it's kinda pistachio colored. Hey Bill, what color would you say that paper is? . . . . Oh yeah, yeah. Bill's says it's like mint-chocolate chip ice cream without the chocolate chips."

We were just confirming my real shipping address when all of a sudden the line went dead. I sat with the phone in my hand for a couple minutes, trying to decide if I should call them back or wait when it rang:

"Hey, Carol. This is Fred from Phil's. I'm sorry. I dropped the phone. We're a great company!" Fred promised that he would ship the paper the next day, and I began to check CPO hopefully again.

A week passed.
And then another week.
Four weeks passed and still no paper. (Though I did get a check to reimburse the shipping charge with "Sorry!" written in the memo line.)

I called Phil's for the fourth time a few days before Thanksgiving, nearly two months after I'd made my original order.

me: Hi, this is Carol. I had the order for the thinner-than-onion skin paper. It hasn't arrived yet. . .
Phil: It hasn't arrived yet?! Oh, I'm angry. I'm really angry now.
me: Wait, what's wrong?
Phil: Fred didn't know it when he promised to send you the paper, but the paper that was sent to Janet in Chicago was the last package of that kind of paper in America. So I called Janet. I said I'd send her $15, and she said she'd mail it to you. I figured since I hadn't heard from you, that you'd gotten it. $15 is twice what it would cost to mail the paper, and I know she has the money. The check was cashed! Oh, I'm really angry now! What's your number? I'm gonna sort this out, and I'm gonna call you!
me: Ohh, no, no. Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. Don't worry.
Phil: No! This is a big deal. This is personal now. I'm angry. I'm calling Janet after the holiday, and she'd better send you that paper. I'm angry. If you hear about a killing in the Chicago area over stationery, you know what happened!

Thanksgiving has come and passed, and then most of December, and I still haven't gotten the paper, nor have I heard from Phil's. As far as I know, no one has been murdered either.

Phil's is out one order of paper and at least $25 worth of shipping costs.
I am short $4.95.
Janet has some thin, green paper she doesn't want, and an extra $15. (I wonder how she'd feel if I gave her a call.)

In the middle of all this, my mother found a few sheets of onion skin paper in a drawer at home. I bought some 98 cent stamps, so I'm all set. I'd even have a story to tell, except I wrote it here instead.

Ein Deutsches Requiem

I meant to post this several weeks ago and I forgot.

Every year, Wheaton College invites alumnus John Nelson back to conduct an Artist Series concert with combined choirs and symphony orchestra. This year all the choirs plus Chicago's Apollo Chorus and a choir from another college plus some professional soloists performed Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem. I'd been looking forward to the concert since my high school piano teacher emailed to me say that he'd heard that Wheaton was performing the Requiem and that I absolutely had to go. It was totally worth all the anticipation. I got goosebumps over and over again.

Brahms's Requiem is unique because instead of following the standard Latin requiem text, he collected texts from Scripture, and it is sung in German. The selected texts and translations were printed in the program. It was a very worshipful concert.

If I click on the picture and zoom in, and I can actually recognize some friends who were performing.

Thanksgiving weekend

I had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend in Louisville, Kentucky with the Stam family and some other friends, with plenty of skype calls home to the family I was missing in New Jersey. Kara, Grace, and I left Wheaton Wednesday afternoon to drive through rain and midst traffic to the Stams and arrived late that night.

After a leisurely morning, we drove to Churchill Downs, home of the famous Kentucky Derby, and watched a few horse races. Clara said that some families dress up and have their whole Thanksgiving meal at the races, but there weren't all that many people there that day, perhaps because of the rain.

Here's Grace, Marty, Kara, and me outside the area where the horses are walked before they head out to the track. Perhaps some people have more sophisticated methods, but we picked which horses we thought would win based on their appearances before the race, or perhaps the color of the jockey's silks. I cheered for the bays because I think they are the prettiest. (I'm realizing I base most of my horse knowledge on the Marguerite Henry books I read as a child, with a little Ralph Moody mixed in.)

We spent the first race in a box belonging to some friends of the Stams, but for the next couple races we got up close to the fence by the finish line. It's pretty exciting to hear the pound of their hoofs as they approach the end. "Heartbeats speed up; I have never been so keyed up" and all that.

Here they are approaching the finish line.

And we talked to a man dressed up as an Indian (that's a real timber wolf pelt) who knows all there is to know about Churchill Downs.

Grace and me

We got back in time for tea and just a few minutes before Grandpa, Gram, and Skip arrived from North Carolina. I hadn't known, til just a few days before, that they were coming and was very excited. It had been nearly a couple years since I'd seen Grandpa.

We had our Thanksgiving meal on Friday - there was much cleaning and cooking and preparing all day long, and a good bit of eating too. I was glad for the chance that afternoon to work up an appetite on the tennis court. The Stams all love playing tennis - Marty and Skip both teach - and they (and Grace) were very patient with me. I can't say I show any aptitude, but it sure was fun. My arm was so sore from holding the tennis racquet that I ate very genteelly with my left hand and tried to keep my glass from shaking too much when I drank. Some day I want to take tennis lessons.

After dinner, dessert, songs, and time to share some things we were thankful for, the middle-aged folks went to bed and the old folks and young folks stayed up and played games.

Here's Grandpa and me in the middle of a round of fish bowl.

Kara has been telling everyone for years about how wonderful Waffle House is. It's associated in her mind with good company, good conversations, and late nights. Now the rest of us have good memories of it too:

Tomorrow. Likely.

The next morning we visited The Southern Baptist Seminary where Clara is attending and her dad has taught.

This is a small chapel in the Puritan style. When I stand behind the pulpit almost as much of my head shows, but not quite.

And then we returned back to Wheaton for the crazily busy rest of the semester. It's nice to be able to post these pictures and think back on Thanksgiving without feeling the stress of those looming papers and exams.

Small group and a big dog

The Sunday after my birthday (which was a Very Good Day), one of my small group girls invited us all over to her apartment for dinner and games. Grace, my co-leader, figured out how to use the self-timer on my camera (which I'd recently discovered, but forgotten how to find again), and we took this picture after a wonderful meal, dessert, and rousing few rounds of bananagrams. From left to right: Jessica, Emily, Allison, Grace, Stephanie, and me. Kari, unfortunately, wasn't able to come. These girls come over to my apartment devotedly at 7 AM every Tuesday (I supply coffee) - I've been so encouraged by them! We've all found our study of Paul Miller's book A Praying Life to be convicting and helpful. I'm looking forward to another semester with them, which I hope will include more fun outings together. We also enjoyed a joint chapel skip for hot chocolate at Graham's in downtown Wheaton.

And partially because I'm amused at how bad I am at taking pictures of myself and partially to show how much she's grown, here's a picture of me and most of Lucy. Remember how I used to be able to hold her? I'm growing quite fond of this dog, and I think she likes me too.

3 happy things

1) I finished my papers and exams, and I'm going home tomorrow.

2) Robin, Erin, Sarah, Susanna, and I are having waffles for dinner and watching a movie tonight.

3) My birthday amaryllis bloomed for me!

I couldn't help but laugh at this:

Ferdinand: I do beseech you
Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,
What is your name?

Quite a pick-up line.

Read what you like.

We read this in Senior Seminar today, and it made me go, "Hmm."

The critical judgment "This book is good or bad" implies good or bad at all times, but in relation to the reader's future a book is good now if its future effect is good, and, since the future is unknown, no judgment can be made. The safest guide therefore is the naive uncritical principle of personal liking. A person at least knows one thing about his future, that however different it may be from his present, it will be his. However he may have changed he will still be himself, not somebody else. What he likes now, therefore, whether an impersonal judgment approve or disapprove, has the best chance of becoming useful to him later.
- W.H. Auden, from "Making, Knowing, and Judging"

Discuss.

I, for one, will be reading what I like over Christmas break.