October 4

 We have a pretty day and a full slate of Premier League soccer games. So far a nice easy day which hopefully will stay that way. I got about 15 rows of the Tunisian stitch blanket done this morning. I saw a quip on one of the stitching groups on Facebook a couple of days which reflects my mood: The 30 minutes I spent crocheting this morning were the best 8 hours of my day. Amen!!!

I was also glad to see that the mail seems to be coming again. We don't get a lot of important mail but we do get utility bills and we pay them and our rent by mail. It had been reliable. But over the last couple of weeks. We hadn't received the usual e-mail notice from our bank that the rent check had been paid. Usually within three days of my putting the check in the mail it has already passed and a week and half later no notice in e-mail. I called the rental office to make sure they had received it and all was well. But over the next week and a half we didn't get anything in our box for several days. Nor did we see a single mail car on the street. That is unusual. I wondered what might have interrupted the flow and got on line. I found a number of people in my town that noted the same problem. A couple had traced the problem to the regional distribution center which was having staffing problems and couldn't get everything distributed. A bit more research revealed that the Gary, Indiana center which used to distribute mail in our area had closed and operations moved to somewhere in eastern Illinois. I saw a couple of stories that some future moves even further away are being considered. But throughout the search I saw numerous accounts of interrupted service. The whole episode has us rethinking our set up. The Postal Service seems to have become as unreliable as much else associated with the U.S. government.