Package Delivery in YK

It's rather amazing, and how it goes just all depends...

Late last November I had ordered some flannel-lined jeans from LLBean. LLBean used Purolator (I believe), and neglected to put my phone number on the outside of the package. Since it arrived at the beginning of the Christmas rush, the fellow had no time to track me down, or deliver - so the package sat in the Purolator warehouse... and sat... and sat... until finally I got smart myself and went to them four weeks later, in the off chance that maybe something had been delivered. "Yep!" said the guy, and immediately retrieved it.

More recently I ordered some kids' presents from Land's End, who used UPS. Same story, different process (and same guy here, though - seems to handle UPS and Purolator): no phone number on the outside of the package, and stricter time limits on how long a package could sit. By the time I had figured out how to access the tracking number and see where the package might be, it had been shipped back to Edmonton (!), since the "keep" limit is five days and the fellow had already exceeded that. Luckily I caught him early enough on a Friday afternoon that he, in turn, was able to catch the woman in the Edmonton office - and sure enough, she knew the package and put it on the first truck back to YK. The shipping fellow now has my name and number on a yellow sticky by his computer.

Just today a letter came special overnight delivery - Buffalo Air Express. I was sitting in the Vietnamese Noodle House, a few blocks from my house, when the phone rang: "Package delivery downstairs!" (of my apartment). "I'm not home," I said, "I'm at the Noodle House." "Oh," he said, "you can pick it up tomorrow," and he explained location and hours. A few minutes later the phone rang again: "I wasn't thinking," he said, "that's just around the block, isn't it! I'll just come by - I'll be wearing a yellow safety vest." And sure enough - a few minutes later the van rolled up and the letter was delivered to me at the restaurant. Amazing.

Soon Willem will ship something Greyhound - except that Greyhound doesn't deliver to Yellowknife, but rather hands off freight to Frontier Coachlines. I've told him to be sure to get a tracking number, and track religiously, so I'll know whom to contact and when! wouldn't want the item to languish, or to get sent back, or even to get delivered to a restaurant.

Though the latter was rather nice, and much appreciated.

Puppet Costumes for the Snow Castle

A little "sewing gig" this past week was creating costumes for four puppets which "Mr. Freeze's Royal Puppetorium" needs for a Snow Castle production on Sunday March 17 and 24. More on the Snow Castle in a future entry - it's one of those unique Yellowknife events that one has to experience to believe. As a sneak preview, however, here is a picture of the castle in the very late afternoon about a month ago:

"Mr. Freeze" is Stefan, an Old Towner and now friend I met through my sister. He asked, and I foolishly agreed, to try to make some puppets look like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, and Elvis, for his "Rock'n Roll Snowking" show. Of course Elvis was a concept (though: what did he usually wear???), but I'll show my ignorance by confessing I had to look the others up - thank goodness for YouTube!

The process was the usual: from chaos to order (and yes, those St Pat's Joseph costume pictures are coming - patience patience!), so my dining table once again looked like this:

I'll take a stab on identities and suggest that the order of the puppets below are Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and Bill Haley, in that order (obviously Stefan will have to do things with their hair, and add glasses):

And, finally, Elvis. He's basically done but not completely, for the belt needs to be adjusted. However, I just gave Stefan a piece of extra fabric and said: do what you think needs to be done! (I being kind of tired of costumes by this point):

I did have to make a flesh-coloured bodysuit for Elvis, since the puppets came with boldly striped stocking bodies and those show through white. Kinda cool that he came with "blue suede shoes", though!