That means: if it happens two times, it will happen three times. Another interpretation: Good things come in threes. The envelope on the right arrived with the mail yesterday. I've whited out my address, but you can see that the envelope was sent to me via Royal Mail, the British post office, bringing Christmas cheer. If you squint, you can see it was sent by The IT Buffs in Leigh, near Manchester in the U.K. I had ordered the hardware from amazon.fr, but the actual vendor turned out to be in England.
Imagine my surprise when I opened it. Out came another display adapter for my computer. Actually, I have just one computer that could (but only possibly) benefit from the installation of a different display adapter (graphics card, video card — why do these things have so many different names?). So unless I send them back, I'll have two left over.
They're colorful, as you can see, and I was just thinking that maybe they would make good ornaments for the Christmas tree next year and on into the future. They would remind me of all the fun I've had celebrating past Christmases with generous and cheerful friends and relatives, as many of our other Christmas ornaments do. I wonder if I'll continue receiving one every week in 2020. Would that be too much to ask?
Meanwhile, I was successful in tracking down another delivery yesterday. It was a flat-pack containing all the boards, feet, knobs, and hardware to be assembled into a chest of drawers (when I was growing up in N.C., this was called a "bureau" or a "bureau-drawers"). The delivery van driver decided it would be better to leave it to at post office in Saint-Aignan, where Walt and I had to go to pick it up and bring in home, rather than delivering it to our front gate as the company had promised.
When we got there, I quickly told the clerk at the post office my story. Why in the world didn't the driver stop at our front gate? We were at home. In fact, Walt was out on the road, headed to our neighbor C's house to feed her cats. He saw the van, and the driver was inside studying some piece of paperwork. We tried to flag him down, but suddenly he floored it and whisked the package away — to where we didn't know. It was already three or four days late in arriving. An hour later, I got an e-mail telling me that I could go get my package at the post office.
The postal clerk advised me thusly: "When you are expecting a Chronopost delivery, and keep an eye out and if you see the delivery van, hail the driver and force him or her to stop. Otherwise, the driver will not make the delivery but just bring the parcel to the post office. This is especially true when the package being delivered is a heavy one."
I'm speculating, but maybe the drivers are afraid that the recipient might ask them to bring the parcel into the house and maybe even carry it up a flight or two of stairs. A lot of older people who would need help like that live out here in the French countryside. These Chronopost drivers say they are underpaid and have to work long, stressful hours, according to at least one article I've read. Enough is enough, they say — trop, c'est trop.
The postal clerk, a middle-aged woman, actually couldn't lift the box that all the boards and hardware were packed in. She sort of dragged it out of the storage room located behind her desk and then examined the paperwork. At that point, we thanked her and we picked up the carton and carried it to the car. We had folded down one of the back seats in the little Peugeot, and the long, heavy package fit neatly, sort of diagonally from the trunk up onto the folded-down seat back. When we got it home and into the downstairs entryway, I opened it up and we carried manageable bundles of boards up the two flights to the loft, where Walt will put the thing together, maybe today, and we we have a spot picked out for it.
LOL Ken! So I guessed right yesterday with the third video card or whatever that is! Diogenes sugested you could open a tech business selling IT
ReplyDeleteBuffs video cards. You could even send them a small percentage of the sale as a thank you token of your appreciation.
Deliveries in France are lousy and that is a big understatement. Two years ago I ordered from Amazon some medical items. I didn't know they would come from England and that they would use a terrible French delivery oufit whose name I can't remdmber at the moment. They never delivered the package at home and told me I had to go somewhere to get it. I was in no condition to walk that far and requested a delivery at home. They never did and I never got a refund. Hopefully, Brexit might change that?
This is the first time in 15 years that I've had bad delivery experiences. More than a few times I've sent items back when they didn't meet my expectations. No problem. Sometimes the tracking information is hard to come by, but usually the deliveries show up in a reasonable amount of time.
DeleteI found the name of the delivery outfit that is to be avoided at all cost, it is Colis Privé. Maybe it operates only in Paris?
DeleteI get deliveries via Colis Privé all the time. The company has a facility in St-Georges-sur-Cher. It usually gets packages here about 24 hours before the predicted arrival time, and the drivers just leave small packages in our mail box, no signature required. Paris is a different world, I guess.
DeleteI just checked Colis Privé Reviews, eighty five percent of the commenters think just like me that it is to be avoided. You're probably lucky!
DeleteIt looks like the piece of furniture you bought is called un chiffonnier in French ; it is a masculine name. The feminine name, chiffonnière, applies to a smaller and somewhat different ltooking piece of furniture.
I'd call it une commode. Chiffonnier seems to be an older term for it.
DeleteGoogling "différence entre chiffonnier et commode", je trouve : «La commode est plus large et plus basse, le chiffonnier a plus de tiroirs et donc est plus haut et généralement plus étroit. Le point commun : les tiroirs.» In English we have the term "chifforobe" for chest of drawers, but it sounds very old-fashioned these days. In my photo, the piece with cut-outs that you see lying flat on the floor is the bottom panel of the chest of drawers, not a side panel. Dimensions: 120 cm wide, 74 cm tall.
DeleteThe first time I heard chiffonier was in "To Kill a Mockingbird". It was before I ever studied French.
DeleteWell I'll add another chest of drawers word: "semainier." My friendly way of stirring the pot. My gran in PA used "commode" for chest of drawers and I think this is more an east coast US term. Never heard this word in Texas growing up. Or chiffonier
DeleteThat said, if you need a commode bombé or perhaps a secrétaire à abattant, Emm and I can check the local brocantes for you. ;-)
D. you're right.
DeleteA semainier, as its name implies, has seven drawers, is tall and narrow, and, in my opinion, could be called a chiffonier. On the other hand, a chiffonnier can have fewer than seven drawers, is not as tall nor as narrow as a semainier, but is taller and not as wide as a commode which has, at most, four drawers.
We have a chest of drawers or commode that we bought in DC in the early 1980s that has six drawers in it, 3 + 3. The one we are now putting together has nine drawers — 7 small, narrow drawers and 2 wider ones. We also have a tall chest of drawers with — it's still dark upstairs, so I can't go count them — with 7 or 8 drawers in it. That must be a chiffonier (pronounced shih-fo-'neer, with the stress on the last syllable, not like chifforobe ('shiff-uh-roab) with the stress ont he first syllable. I'm less familiar with the term semainier, which according to dictionary.com is pronounced suh-'men-yey, with the stress on the middle syllable. So much stress everywhere... We also have an old dresser with three drawers that I bought in a second-hand store in Alexandria VA. It has a round mirror mounted on top. Is that what should properly called a dresser? Un-oh, we are really in the weeds now. So what is a highboy?
DeleteA highboy is a chest on chest raised on cabriole (curved) legs. Common in England and the US in the 18th century. See this example:
Deletehttps://www.britannica.com/topic/highboy
It was supposedly the inspiration for Phillip Johnson's AT&T headquarters in Manhattan:
https://www.archdaily.com/611169/ad-classics-at-and-t-building-philip-johnson-and-john-burgee
This
For more about chests of drawers, etc., read this page.
Delete"I wonder if I'll continue receiving one every week in 2020. Would that be too much to ask?"
ReplyDeleteKen, it is IT Buffs.... that might happen!
So we'll have a 2020 Christmas tree decorated with blue and red display adapters! I hope the IT Buffs get things sorted out and will let me know what they want me to do.
DeleteI'll message you their direct email.
DeleteI had an interesting delivery experience with Chronopost a few years ago. We had flown from the US to CDG airport via Icelandair. Unfortunately, my suitcase was left in Iceland, and we were immediately taking a train to Bordeaux for one night, then another night in the Armagnac region before joining friends at a gite near Pau. So I gave the person at the airport what I thought was the gite address. When we got to the gite, there was no package. When we called a number we had been given, and were told that the package was at the Chronopost office at an industrial park on the outskirts of Pau. Apparently what I thought was the actual address for the gite was just the street it was on, and there were plenty of other houses on that street, so they couldn't deliver it. But I did eventually get the suitcase.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm excited to see what your commode will look like, all set up and sitting pretty up in the loft :)
ReplyDeleteI just placed a refill order for my cat's insulin - 91ml for $100 - too bad the company isn't mismanaged like IT Buffs so I could expect an extra shipment of that - it only lasts for 60 days! Now that would be worth the hassle!
ReplyDeletePerhaps "your" company has been celebrating for a few weeks now and nobody is really paying attention to orders! At least you have a plan C - ornaments for the tree!
Mary in Oregon
I, too, first heard of "chiffarobe" via "To Kill a Mockingbird", but thought it was more like what we would now call an armoire.
ReplyDeleteGlad that your lost is now found. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Well, one definition I read for chifforobe (which I would spell as you do, chiffarobe) says the word itself is a put-together American term from the early 20th century and based on chiffo[nier] + [ward]robe — it's like a wardrobe or armoire that also has drawers inside. I had always thought that it was just an old name for chest or drawers or dresser.
Delete