The Machinery of Night

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Posted 6:13 AM by Angie Schultz

USPS, You've Done It Again!

Strolled out a little while ago to get the mail. Yes, I know it's Sunday, but I don't get much real mail, so I don't bother to pick it up every day.

Anyway, the sole piece of mail was not really for me. This isn't too unusual; I haven't lived here long, and I get mail for three or four people who may or may not have ever lived in this apartment before me.

But this mail -- which was something from Citibank, something important-looking -- was for someone on another street.

In another city.

In another state.

In short, it was for someone in Los Angeles, three time zones away. The street name is not remotely similar. The name of my town does not look remotely like "Los Angeles". The zip codes are not remotely similar, either -- no one mistook a 9 for a zero or an 8 for a 3.

The only reason this ended up in my mailbox is that the apartment numbers are -- sort of -- the same.

I want to know how it came to be that no one in the local PO took a look at that letter, and said, "What street? In Los Angeles?? California???" No, they just ignored the zip code, the state, the town, and the street, and dumped it in my mailbox.

There are no words.

Since it looks important, I should take it down to the post office in person and hand it in. I won't have much time on Monday, though.

I guess we're supposed to be grateful that things don't go astray more often, what with the volume of mail that the Post Office has to handle -- including vital credit card offers and advertising circulars and whatnot.

I've been reading Victorian novels where characters write a letter one day and have the reply waiting for them at breakfast the next morning. This is not only an impressive tribute to the Royal Mail (or whatever it was called then -- which, of course, didn't have so many credit card offers to transport), but to Victorian correspondents, who didn't have much else to do with their time.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Posted 2:53 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Far Uluru

I'm digging around in the dusty photo vault. I don't think I've used this one before:

Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia
Aug. 2000

This was taken from quite a distance away. I think it might have been taken at the same time and place as this. It was certainly taken on the same day, but I think I must have taken one picture, turned around, and took the other. But I'd have to dig out the negatives to be sure, and I'm too lazy.

I love the haze in these pictures -- it adds a dreamlike quality. Makes me want to follow the mirage over the horizon.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Friday, June 13, 2008

Posted 6:31 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: ZaZa Galore

The ZaZa Hotel, lurking in the background on the left, has saved you from a truly dire title[1]. Here is an unlucky Foto Friday (which, luckily, was not posted on Friday).

Mecom-Rockwell Fountain and Colonnade
Houston, October 2007

According to this site, the columns were once part of the Miller Theatre [sic], "[a] classic Doric proscenium structure...[that] featured 20 Corinthian columns on either side of the stage." This opened in 1923. (NOTE: A Doric structure with Corinthian columns? How gauche! But they're not Corinthian -- not enough gunk on them.)

And then the Sixties were at our throats, and the present structure -- which looks like a hangar for diplodocuses, guarded by the annoyed, fossilized remains of a prehistoric Phyllis Diller -- was foisted upon the world.

I shall really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find FFs from now on, as I don't have much scanned that is presentable, and I haven't been able to get my most recent stuff developed (have to send it to Kansas). Do try to endure.

[1] If lemonade is made from lemons, what is colonnade made from? :::::::::::::::::::

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

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