Waiting for Godot in a Big Van

The coffee maker gave it's last gurgling sigh and I am up to fill my cup: Starbuck's Skyline Alaska, "The Last Frontier". Random shuffle on the iPod ushers in the day with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas "Nowhere to Run". Is it a sign? For whom? On to the day!

With any luck at all the new kiln lid for Big Bertha will be delivered this morning between 9 and 11. It was supposed to be here Monday between 1:30 and 5:00. Monday at 3:30 I called to find out the status and after much transferring and hold time was told my delivery was next in the route but 1) the two shipments in front of me had been refused and the driver wouldn't be able to get it off the truck, and 2) the driver didn't have a liftgate or pallet jack (or both) and so wouldn't be able to get it off the truck (my shipment weighs 418 lbs).

This is my first time dealing with this particular freight company. I have so far not been impressed. I wondered aloud why I had not been called first thing in the day and notified of the lack of the equipment I requested and paid for to get my stuff off the truck (lift gate and pallet jack) thus freeing me up to Get Something Done instead of having to listen for the door all day (I cannot hear the doorbell from the studio, a flaw, I know). The harried dispatcher asked if they could bring it back Tuesday and I said no, appointment with the photographer. She asked when I want it and I gave her the 9-11 window today.

Normally you don't get such tiny windows for delivery but they screwed up, she was grateful for my understanding, and she probably has today off anyway so won't have to hear me scream when it gets Screwed Up Again! (A side note: there was a voice message waiting when I got back from the photographer yesterday afternoon--the driver from the freight company had tried to deliver while I was gone. Is it any wonder I lack confidence in the potential for a smooth hand-off today?)

So why the tight window? Because my wondrous spouse has procured tickets for the new aquarium! J is staying home from school today so we can leave as soon as the kiln lid is delivered or at 11:00, whichever comes first. Our tickets for the aquarium are for noon, you see. It is so popular that you don't just buy tickets, or buy tickets for a specific day. No, you get a tiny window--an hour--in which to enter the aquarium. The you can stay as long as you like. I see fish-inspired work in my glass future.

But back to my delivery. I am still trying to figure out how the kiln lid weighs 418 lbs even in crating. I have removed the extant lid and repaired it once with the help of another person. I am strong, but I do not think I could do over 200 lbs. And I still haven't unloaded the glass from Bullseye which wouldn't fit into the garage so had to go on the parking pad under plastic. (One might uncharitably wonder why I was in such a hurry to get it last week. The answer: The frit.) So now when the 418 lb kiln lid gets here where am I going to put it? Answer: further back on the parking pad!

Martha Stewart moment: Good thing Dave never wanted to park in the garage (it was lost to kilns, molds, display equipment, workshop and crap). Good thing he didn't want to park on the parking pad either. Maybe I could get Home Depot to come out with a shed and just put it together over everything on the parking pad...

That would have been the end of the post, but Jessie just came running into the room yelling "Madagascar!". I didn't get it. She caught my quizzical look and said, "Madagascar" and pointed to the iPod which was playing "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees. "That song was in Madagascar." From now on I will have John Travolta in a white suit morphed into four cartoon zoo animals striding down the streets of New York City whenever I hear that song. Any residual edgy sexiness I might have clung to in my memory of it is just gone. Yet another casualty of Growing Up, Real Life and Kids.