Friday, March 14, 2008

It could be something special just for me

Once upon a time, people had to be patient in order to get stuff. There was no such thing as overnight shipping, no internet, no ordering by phone. In the musical "The Music Man," there's a song about the Wells Fargo Wagon - the means by which people got stuff they ordered by mail through perhaps the Sears Roebuck or other catalogs, and you never knew when it might get there. When the wagon came, it might have your dishes or your raisins or your double boiler, or someone else's salmon from Seattle or a gray mackinaw. There was just no telling.

These days, we have the luxury of impatience. We have telephones and the internet, and we can buy sparkly things we see on TV, and if we act now we get a free gift. We have instant global communication and extremely fast transport of goods and services, all around the world, even to exceedingly remote places. Hell, you can get movies delivered to your house and you can watch them and send them back (for free) whenever you want. These days, it's unusual to have anything but bills and junk mail in a mailbox, as people tend to communicate through faster modes and nobody sits down to write a good, old-fashioned letter.

Recently, we had a bunch of non-junk, non-bill mail come through our box. Granted, they were postcards that we'd made, addressed, and stamped ourselves and all people had to do was send them off and write whether or not they intended to come to the wedding. Most people opted to RSVP online anyway. But for a few weeks there, the mailbox was truly exciting, something to look forward to every day rather than something to sift through and toss the contents in the recycling bin.

Yesterday was a red-letter day for our household. While Dan was home for an hour in the afternoon in between work and class, he received a package from FedEx, a package from UPS, and signed for a registered letter. UPS brought a wedding gift from a friend of ours who lives in town, and the registered letter had shocking contents I won't even go into. There was also an engagement ring in the mail, courtesty Dan's mom (I left it at Dan's parents house when we were up there this weekend). And best of all? Well, best of all was my new camera!

I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to upload the photo. It's not working. I'm getting rather hungry and am going out for breakfast *by myself* - have never done that before - so rather than wait another 20 minutes, let's all pretend there's a photo of me up there taking a photo in the mirror so you can see my new camera. Isn't she pretty? I'm so excited to finally have a camera again!

I also intend to go to my yoga class at noon and spend the rest of the day doing things I enjoy. Thanks for the advice, QIR.

4 comments:

Sara said...

HAPPIEST OF HAPPY BIRTHDAYS, EMILY!!!

Cilicious said...

Happy Birthday and Happy Photo Shooting!

Erin said...

Happy birthday, darling! See you soon!

Yank In Texas said...

Happy Birthday! And Happy cameraing!