Gamble Rogers State Park, Flagler Beach, Florida
The two men (angels) said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here – sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it.” ~ Genesis 19:12-13 God continues to offer blessing to Abraham, as the angels send Lot out to gather up any family he has. “For the sake of ten . . .” But there aren’t even ten to save. Even with all of Lot’s family, there are only six – and these are both righteous and unrighteous people. God chose to offer safety for Lot and Abraham’s sake. Can you imagine living in a place like that? It makes me shudder! And the decision to destroy the town and all its people brings Noah to my mind. Oh, the great and powerful and frightening wrath of God! But oh, the compassion and forgiveness He offers us, that is even greater!
Other than a short ride to the beach to look at the ocean, we stayed at home today, so this is the perfect time to share about our shipping fiasco that I forgot to mention previously.
It happened back when we were in Jupiter.
Remember when I told you about making all that soup for my mom, so she’d have it following her knee replacement surgery at the end of this month? Well, before I definitively decided to do that, we researched the shipping possibilities. After all, if we’d have to take out a loan or offer up our firstborn, it really wouldn’t be worth it to send homemade stuff to her – much as we love her. We looked at USPS, but with their recent track record, we didn’t want to chance sending perishable stuff through them. (It took 3 weeks for our ‘normal’ Valentine cards to get to our grandchildren in Ohio!) We looked at UPS and FedEx too. In the end, we chose FedEx.
Now, I don’t want to besmirch the FedEx name, because I don’t know if what all happened was their fault.
Down here in Jupiter, we discovered that the local WalMart had a FedEx drop off place inside their store. Convenient! Later, Blaine discovered a small local shop that was a designated shipping center for FedEx as well. He called and talked to Phillip. A nice guy, he said, who told him that packages left at the WalMart location frequently come up missing. So on the day of the shipment, Blaine went with Phillip and his small local shop. It was my shopping day with Sandy.
We had the perfect sized box to fit everything nice and snug. At the designated time – about 3:30pm (because Phillip told him FedEx picked up at 4), he put all that frozen stuff in a heavy-duty garbage bag, tossed in some frozen shipping do-dads for extra protection, wrapped it in an extra-large, heavy towel we could part with temporarily, taped the box securely and took off to meet Philip in person. When he arrived, Lorraine met him at the counter and was equally cordial, promising that the box would be on the FedEx truck momentarily. Blaine left the store confident that our package would arrive in the two days promised – “but not guaranteed”. If you want a guarantee, you have to pay three times as much. Crazy!
24 hours later, Blaine still hadn’t received a tracking number. When he checked on it, it said something like, “A label was created and FedEx will give you the tracking number as soon as we receive the package.” WHAT?!?!?!?
I got on the phone. “This is Phillip.” “Hi, Phillip. I’m calling to check on a package we dropped off yesterday.” “I’m in my car with Lorraine’s son and he says the package went out yesterday. I’ll check on it tomorrow.” “Okay.” I don’t know where my mind was. I guess it was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt???
At any rate, as soon as I hung up, I told Blaine, “I’m not willing to wait until tomorrow. I want to know where that package is NOW.” So I called back.
The conversation went downhill from the minute I told him who I was.
I wanted to know where my package was. I explained what was in it and the importance that it arrive on time because it was frozen food. You know what he said to me? “What. Do you have some precious food in there that you can’t part with?!?” “Yes! It’s homemade soup for my sick mother!” Can you believe his audacity?!? Who would say that to someone?? It shouldn’t matter what’s in my box. I want it to get there on time! So eventually, he says, “Your unhappy? Call 1800FexEx!” and he hangs up. Unbelievable!
Guess who my next call was to?
FedEx.
I spoke with two different women in the company who filed a complaint, but there was nothing else that could be done. They couldn’t even tell me where the box was. We still don’t know if our box sat in the shop an extra day, or on a FedEx truck or facility somewhere, but the package arrived a day late, and thawed. Thankfully it was 34⁰ in Ohio that day. Mom said the box looked like someone had kicked it multiple times, and her cookies were broken – some reduced to just crumbs.
Like I said. I’m not placing specific blame on anyone (other than Philip for his attitude), but that box sat somewhere for an extra 24 hours. If there’s ever a next time (unlikely after this experience), I’ll not use FedEx, nor a third party drop off location.
On to happier things . . . .
I’d like to say today was a lazy day, but it really wasn’t. Especially for Blaine. He spent a good deal of it fixing stuff – his driver’s seat (YAY!!),
This is the culprit – a pinched wire.
he took the cold air return vents down and cleaned the dust out of and off them,
and something else fairly big that there are no pictures of so we can’t remember what it was, among other tasks.
I worked on the blog post covering the past two weeks at Johnathan Dickenson, until it was time to work on dinner. Shrimp pizzas! Yum!!!!
After dinner, we took on some exercise, and walked around the campground area and trail.
Pretty cool! 
