I'm not happy

I found out yesterday that at least two (and possibly more) greeting cards I sent out recently never made it to their recipients. Starting with my dad's Father's Day card, stuff has been disappearing out of the mail.

I can only guess that this is either some random crook raiding mailboxes (I don't leave mail in the box overnight; I usually put it out in the morning before I got to work) or, worse, some crook in the USPS's employ lifting greeting cards out of the mail stream. I am guessing cards go missing (I have paid bills by check without problems) because people think there might be cash or gift-cards in there.

I'm both angry and sad. One of the things I enjoyed doing was sending cards to family and friends. Oh, you can do e-cards, but some of my older relatives don't have e-mail.

I reported it - first, I caught my mail carrier as she was heading back down the street. She had not heard any complaints but told me to call it in to the local post office. I did, they took the information but told me the "national" had to do the investigation. So I called them. Like any big bureaucracy, it was a big mess, with an involved phone tree and finally the person I got seemed to lose interest when I said there was no cash or gift card in the missing cards I sent. So I figure they will do darn-all to investigate it.

So, solution: I ordered a pack of postcards and some postcard stamps. So from now on, anyone whose birthday/graduation/whatever it is is getting a postcard. Sorry. That's how it has to be: "Happy birthday, here's a photo of Arches National Park." The crooks have taken yet another thing from us.

(I figure: postcards are less likely to go missing since it's obvious there's no money or gift cards "inside" it)

There's the outside chance that there are new machine-readers that can't read my handwritten address but (a) my writing is bad, but not THAT bad and (b) I've received things with sloppy handwritten addresses okay.

Also, both of the cards I know FOR SURE went missing went to the same zip code, which makes me wonder if it could be someone working in that general sorting area.

I suppose what I need to do is figure out a friend or relative with a different zip code and test-mail a card to them, and see if they receive it.

(I mailed a card or two - I think, I don't remember for sure - to people on Ravelry and I didn't hear back but you don't always know in that case).

But, crikey. It DOES seem to me like more and more petty criminal activity is happening and it makes me both angry and sad.

(Also: apparently my office phone isn't working; I missed two calls that came when I was sitting in my office and also the "message light" never came on).


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I also turned off the "click this to prove you're not a robot" thing. I know people hate it and dear knows Blogger makes it hard enough for people to leave comments if they want to. I am still moderating. If, however, taking the "no robo" restriction off means I get 10000 spam comments for every one real one (slight exaggeration), it's going back on.

don't make me sad, spam bots. Well, sadder than I already am.

(Somehow: "makes it really hard for real people to comment but still lets spam bots attempt to" is symbolic of so much in our culture right now)

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This has been a really terrible allergy season. My eyes feel extremely puffy today. I'm tired, despite having slept longer than normal (did not get up to work out). I have little motivation to do ANYTHING so I'm going to have to reach as deep as I can to find the "enthusiasm" for glycolysis for Iteration 2 of my intro class for today.

That's the hardest thing: when I'm not "feeling it" (which happens a few times a semester) to have to walk into class and be up and be on and do it. Oh, I always manage. The last time I didn't was way back in grad school (round 1) the day after one of my aunts died and I actually started crying a little in lab (I explained why and the students understood), but it's still HARD. 

At least I have few requirements on me this afternoon: set up tomorrow's lab and also (finally) arrange to get my supplies ordered. And buy cards (see the post above) but that's more of a fun thing.