And Now For Something Completely Different ...

Including apologies to Monty Python. Of course it isn't true. It is really more of the same.

I still have not received the mysterious envelope of the last posting. Maybe the anti-terrorists at the USPS have decided to keep it for their hall of shame. Maybe they just cannot find me now that I am on the lam. {*grin*} (That is what they get for calling and warning me.)

Then there is the weather. After a dry and warm January with many days in the 50s, February has been cold and snowy with many a snow storm and all sorts of cold. But at least today it started a fast melt. This is the view on the back patio as the snow begins to melt and re-freeze.

Shoveling the snow from last nights flurries sounded like I was working in a waterfall as the snow started melting off the roof.  It was kind of neat.

That brings us to Valentine's Day tomorrow. L and I have never been real big celebrants of the holiday. Usually just a card with the occasional meal out or flowers or ... Given that this will be the 40th Valentine's Day we have celebrated as a couple, we'll undoubtedly do the same old things.

One of the reasons we don't get too excited about February 14th is that my birthday is on the 17th and L's is 5 days later. So we tend to get excited later in the month.

Interesting ...

Yesterday I received a call from the anti-terrorism unit of the U.S. Postal Service. That was a bit of a surprise since I wasn't even aware that there was such a unit. After a round of twenty questions to establish that I was indeed who I am and they were indeed who they claimed to be., we got down to the reason for the call.

They wanted to know if I was expecting a large manila envelope. Another game of twenty questions ensued to establish that the envelope *might* contain a book. When I admitted that yes, I had recently won a copy of the Everyday Happy Herbivore from Little Miss Blogger over at A Little Blog About Nothing things went downhill even further. Trying to explain that you won a book from a blog and that that is what might be in the envelope in question to an anti-terrorism agent is an interesting exercise in futility.

Needless to say, some time later we had established that:

• I was not a terrorist.
• The sender of the book was probably not a terrorist.
• The U.S. Postal Service should go ahead and deliver the book to me.

Now you might wonder what really triggered this insane sequence of events. (I know that I sure did!)

Near as I can figure out, the whole sequence was set in motion by the fact that whomever sent the book to me (the publisher???) somehow neglected to put either postage or a return address on the package. Thus the postal people saw an anonymous bomb sized envelope suddenly appearing in their system which triggered all the anti-terrorism red flags.

The final upshot of all this: I won a free book, but will undoubtedly have to pay postage for it when it gets here. Certainly worth it to me for the interesting conversation with the agent. I am also impressed that they found the right phone number for me. All they had was the physical address and my name and they found the right number to call on the first try. (I have at least 6 phone numbers associated with me and my address - even more if you believe the errors that Google has propagated from time to time.)

Any one else live such an interesting life?