Spoiled, Privileged Person First World Problem

It's funny how we so quickly become dependent on little conveniences that we were perfectly fine living without for most of our lives. Take, for example, package tracking. I hate when I order something and there's no or only minimal tracking info, such as only the date shipped and an estimated delivery date. But sometimes knowing can be as bad or worse than not knowing.

I ordered a t-shirt from an Etsy shop. (It's going to be a gift.) It shipped from Seattle via DHL. From there it went to Raleigh, NC. My package spent several days in Raleigh then finally shipped to Grand Prairie, TX, where it apparently spent several more days. I say "apparently" because on the day it finally arrived here Tracking showed that it was still in Grand Prairie.

I have the t-shirt and I didn't especially need it in a hurry but I would just like to know why. I'm pretty good at map reading but you really don't have to be to know that North Carolina is way far the other side of Oklahoma from Seattle, WA. And then there was the extra stopover in Texas. I admit that I really don't know a lot about how shipping works but that route seems terribly inefficient and wasteful.

And while we're on the topic of shipping, how long do you think it should take for a package to get here from the other side of the planet? I have only ordered internationally a couple of times but from my limited experience and reading the experiences of others three to four weeks seems to be typical. I just don't know. If you, personally, traveled around the world by plane how long would that take? According to this page it's possible to do in three to four days. That's a complete circumnavigation. Since we're talking about packages though, I'm talking about, at most, halfway around the world. And I know there's a lot of handling of packages that adds time but still, it seems to me that it should be possible to get a package from Europe to the middle of the U.S. in about two weeks.

But what do I know? As I said, I'm not a shipping expert, just a spoiled, impatient consumer. You know, if someone could finally invent the transporter we could get packages in just an hour or two. Sometimes Star Trek makes the real world look so lame.

Why Can't They Make Them Right?

Warning: I'm about to bitch and whine a lot.

It's my perennial complaint: Why can't anyone make house slippers right? We have a choice between slippers that completely cover the foot and have more insulation than most snow boots or little ballet slipper things and other styles that are the right weight and thickness of material but don't cover the entire foot.

In addition to this, sizing is a big problem. You rarely find slippers that come in all the sizes. I wear a size 8 not a size 8-9. There is no such size as 8-9. In order to fit both size 8 and 9 it has to be a size 9, which means it's too big for a size 8 foot. Which means, they don't make slippers in my size.

So what about slipper socks? This is what I would really like - barefoot feeling but warm and non-skid. But here we have similar problems. There are lots of slipper socks or "lounge socks," some that are just socks, some with anti-skid dots. Some of these fit well but many are loose and saggy. Most of them are not really warm enough for cold floors. And the ones that are aloe infused? These usually fit very well but they shed worse than a pair of Persian cats in the summertime until you have washed them half a dozen times.

On the other hand, you have the famed Acorn slipper socks - nice thick wool socks with a leather slipper sole with a thick layer of foam padding. They're nice and a lot of people love them but they don't really work for me. I did have a pair years ago. The thick, padded sole is more than I want. I want something more like the sole on kids' footie pajamas. There's also the same sizing problem mentioned above. They don't come in exact sizing and with the kind of sole they have they really need to. Not to mention that they are ridiculously expensive.

Finally, there are the "muk-luk" socks. I got a pair of these last year. They have exactly the right kind of sole and the sock is a nice thickness but way too loose. The sole on them is a little short for me but it's about a whole inch too wide.

The only solution is to make my own and I am working on it. Which, at this point, means mostly just thinking about it. The problem is finding the right material. I did find a couple of different non-skid sole materials; I'm talking about the tops. I made a polar fleece pair and that didn't work well. It's not stretchy enough. It also makes my feet sweat and then cold. I suppose I just need to learn to knit or crochet.

So... the quest continues.

Three Annoying (unrelated) Things

First of all, I need a new Kindle.

That's not all bad because it means I get to buy a new Kindle with all the nifty new features that the old one doesn't have. The annoying part is that it did this in the middle of my reading (Iron Council by China Mieville, in case you're curious) and it will be two days before the new one gets here. Oh well.

The second thing is worse and much harder to solve. We have a serious and persistent ant problem. Today we found ants in the peanut butter. (and by "we" I mean Number Two Son) We had to throw out a four pound jar that was nearly half full. I had been buying a smaller size but I saw this big jar of our brand (they had not had the big jars before) and impulsively bought it.

Anyway, these are tiny, tiny black ants - just specks, almost too small to see if there's just one but of course there's never just one. We've been having a problem with them for a while now. I've been spraying with this "organic" pesticide that smells pretty good, like mint and cloves or something like that, and it actually works but only for a few days to a week. We need to find where they live outside and get rid of them there.

I love summer and I'm sad that it's ending but at the moment I'd love a good hard freeze for a day or two to kill all the ants.

Third thing: Very minor but still... I was getting tired of this template and thought I would try a different one for a while but when I was trying to customize it the sidebar kept looking wonky in the preview. I tried three different ones and they were all the same so I gave up and decided to try again in a few days.

UPDATE: I ordered the new Kindle but they say it could take until October 4 for delivery. Yay, two day shipping. They've already shipped the cover I ordered for it but not the Kindle itself.