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Matthew’s gift arrived safely and is now wrapped, waiting in the lounge. I mentioned previously that I was a little concerned about it being as nice as I’d hoped; well, that worry was quickly destroyed. :-D I am a little curious as to the actual arrival of the box though; the UPS man was nowhere to be found, and I saw someone walk into the trees on the side of the driveway. I’m thinking it was delivered it to the neighbors, highly weird, since their address isn’t even technically on the street. In either case, it made it here, I’m happy about it, and with it.

The second little trauma was finding Bormioli Rocco coffee cups for my brother Matt. I thought, originally, that this would be a very simple task. Crate & Barrel had been selling sets of six for quite a while, thus I was confident they’d still have them. I was wrong.

I’d bought mine at Marshalls and Ross, so I stopped at the Marshalls, no luck. Finally lastnight I made a ‘quick’ trip to Carlisle to hit the Ross & TJ Maxx there. Huzzah! Ross had them! I’d much rather have bought him the ‘all-purpose’ ones, versus the ‘cappuccino’ ones, but either way I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.

The reason I’d rather have been able to find the ‘all-purpose’ ones is that they hold exactly the right amount for my Folger’s Home Cafe coffee contraption. He doesn’t have one of those, so it’s really a non-issue, but… whatever. I have all three sizes, the third being for espresso, I love ‘em.

Seryozha came up this evening and we decorated our/the lounge’s ‘Charlie Brown’ tree, which was amusing and enjoyable. I really didn’t think that I’d need more than nine feet of this ribbon stuff, but, uhm, I needed more like thirty feet I think… d’oh. Like I said, I think it looks better in person, but really, it fits very well with the sort of ‘over the top’ room decor overall. The important thing is that we both like how it looks, right? ;)

We started out the evening with trip up to the smoke shoppe and getting some pizza. Following that with some SoCo & Gingerale, then some sherry & dark chocolate, and then we shared a hard cider while smoking a clove… finishing up with a Hennesy Sidecar each. It was rather an evening of indulgence in all the little things that we both very much enjoy; somewhat of a decompressing for the frenentic rush toward Christmas.

I finally found what Matthew has been wanting for as long as I can remember, which basically means for as long as I’ve known him. In sheer spite of my efforts to obtain said item(s) locally (hah!) and closer to the city (D.C), I failed. This meant, of course, that purchasing online would be the necessary course of action. Online shopping isn’t a new thing for me, of course, but I tend to buy technology, not something subjective like this.

Fine, though, really, because I reconcilled myself to the fact it would be necessary to do it that way, my only problem was shipping time. The website indicated that the 17th was the deadline for arrival by Christmas, I ordered on the 18th, being the weekend that meant it wouldn’t ship until the 20th. Eeep!

Okay, so, we’re not going to have “Boys’ Christmas’ until after the actual holiday (as far as I can tell), but it still sort of freaked me out. It was really starting to freak me out more when I started looking at the absolute clutter of wrapped packages in my lounge… none with his name on them. I’ve since changed that, btw.

I was even more paranoid when Monday came and went (at least business hours) without a shipping notice, almost to the point of wanting to call and make sure it’s really going to arrive.

Around 11pm or so I checked email again and saw the shipping notice. My eyes bugged out when I saw the 21st as the date of delivery. For some reason I was already thinking it was past midnight, and that today was only the 20th. I’m not quite sure how that happened because to see it was the 20th I would have looked in the upper right corner of my screen… and right next to it would have been the time… lol.

Anyway, I sat down here to write the previous entry and realized that ‘wait, it IS the 21st! The package will be arriving this afternoon!’ :-) So, yay, I didn’t pay for expedited shipping, worried about it getting here because of that… and I come to discover it is being shipped from New Jersey and is, while currently in transit) a mere hour away! Actually, I just checked again and it’s “out for delivery” now, it’s in town, lol.

So, hurrah, I’m now far more comfortable ordering from them, because I know I’ll get it ‘next day’ for the price of ‘8 days’ instead.

My year and a half long complaint about my flatware pattern not having serving pieces was finally resolved. I was randomly walking about in Walmart (as is a regular happening, it’s sort of fun… okay, this is Chambersburg afterall), and I happened to walk down the aisle in the kitchen section. I wanted to check on the price and such of the flatware they carried, because, well, it relates to a Christmas gift… I sort of stared at the 45-piece package with my jaw dropping when I noticed it said “Loft” and not the whatever the fuck it was supposed to be instead.

You see, Gourmet Settings, which I was unaware of at the time, signed contracts with various merchants to sell certain patterns exclusively. This means I didn’t realize that I could -only- buy this Loft pattern at Walmart. This particular pattern was sold only in 20-piece sets of four place settings, no serving pieces anywhere to be found. So, now I have service for sixteen, heh, whooo! …along with the serving pieces, I feel so complete, hah. Now, if only I could find a way to purchase a ton of the little butter knives I’d be totally happy, but, alas, I think I’ll have to settle having only one of them.

This morning, after coffee and showering, and all the other usual morning activities we set off on the frenetic shop-a-thon. We hit Bed Bath & Beyond in two cities, Circuit City, Walmart (oh, god… scary), Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Le Gourmet Chef, Kitchen Collection, Target in two states, Ikea (of course, hah), Carter’s, Harry & David, and the Fossil store. Yeah… in one day. That puts us visiting three states, btw. It also means the usage of five distinct interstate highways, one of which is toll, and three major routes, lol, lest we forget the Washington, D.C. beltway!

I followed that up with a little online shopping and now I’m finished with holiday mayhem! Well, not exactly finished, but pretty much everything else at this point is random and locally attainable.

I am utterly exhausted. Oh, and sorry Matthew, I didn’t go into Barney’s, Kenneth Cole, or Saks; maybe next time. ;)