and waiting and waiting is what I was doing all weekend. Ryan told me he bought me flowers but did I see them on Valentine’s Day? No. Did I assume he was lying? Nah.

In fact, the flowers never wound up on my doorstep. Indeed, they were delivered to the office, instead. What’s more, is that there was no note left on my door that this is where my flowers were. So after waiting 2 days, I called the office on a whim to inquire about the status of my flowers. Lo and behold! They were in the office waiting for me the whole time. Except, how would I have known that if the delivery person did not leave a note?!

I wasn’t sure how to remedy this situation but it did make me feel better to send this letter to the flower service:

Hello,

My husband recently used your website to purchase flowers which were supposed to be delivered to me on Valentine’s Day. Saturday came and went with no delivery; I was out of the house for only 30 minutes and there was no note left on my door if the delivery person had come.

I live in an apartment complex with an office which accepts deliveries if tenants are not available. Although no note was left to indicate that this was the situation, I called the office on Monday afternoon when no flowers had arrived. My flowers had, indeed, been delivered to the office with no communication to me that this was the case.

I am now in possession of my flowers but am sorely disappointed in my delivery experience. Had a delivery person knocked and found I was out of the house, he or she should have left a note indicating the flowers were sent to the office. However, it is my believe that the delivery person did not even come to my door at all and, instead, simply dropped the flowers at the office because our leasing agent said this person stopped there first. She informed the person to check if I was home and leave a note, if not, before leaving them at the office. Obviously, even with these instructions, this did not happen.

I have used many delivery services and there is no service of which I know who would think it is acceptable to deliver my goods to the office without alerting me or ,as I suspect to be the case, even trying my door. Although I recognize Valentine’s Day must be one of the busier days of the year for you, if not the busiest, this is simply shoddy business practice and I find it appalling that you could treat your customers in such a manner.

My husband is currently deployed to a war zone and went out of his way to order me flowers. I waited, literally, all day for my flowers to arrive and when they did not it’s safe to say I was extremely disappointed. Having to let him know that my flowers had not arrived was no more rewarding itself. Had I not taken the initiative to call the office, who knows how long my flowers might have sat, unbeknown to me, wilting away.

I hope that you are more accommodating in the future when it comes to doing the job customers like my husband pay you to do. I certainly hope others did not have their special day ruined because of such poor service. I did not expect your deliverer to go out of his or her way but simply to deliver my flowers to my door in a timely manner or, if the situation calls for it, let me know the flowers are in the office by leaving a note. With customer service like this, I wonder how you can claim you have a “100% satisfaction guarantee.” I certainly do not feel satisfied that I had to wait this long to receive my flowers which were not delivered to me in the first place. Now I will not be able to enjoy them as fully as I would have been able to, had they been delivered on February 14th.

Nicole

The fact that having no winter means I don’t get to break out into a crisp spring day. There is no freedom or release from the frozen atmosphere. No green shoots popping up from beneath the snow. There is no first day without a coat. There is nothing to break up the monotony of this weather. It’s pretty much the same 50 – 75% of the year. It’s not just a lack of snow. It’s a lack of life as I know it and it’s disheartening.

I’m sorry Texas, I could never love you.

I look over toward the bedroom door and Phantom has climbed up the door frame 3-4 feet and is just hanging there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t grab my camera fast enough.

Sunday marks the first day of this semester for me. My second as a (part time) college student. I passed both Accounting and Psychology with As (96% for both). This time around is Sociology and Economics – both of which I have at least a little interest in so I hope it will be a decent semester.

Rather than buying my books ($150 total for both of them, used) I stumbled across a service which allows you to rent your books for the semester at a fraction of the price – Chegg. Very neat.

Other than that, life is quiet,

don’t you do what your big brother does (you know, like the Elvis song ;))

One issue of our kitty dynamic is that Goliath seems to really admire his “older brother” and likes to imitate him. Phantom sits on the edge of the tub when I shower? So does Goliath. Phantom runs into the pantry when I open the door (we keep the food at the bottom), so does Goliath. Phantom sits on the printer, Goliath must follow. I certainly hope Goliath doesn’t pick up Phantom’s really bad habit, jumping on the fridge (from the counter).

Of course, wherever Phantom is, Goliath likes to be by him. Licking, cuddling, playing. I think Phantom gets a bit annoyed when he is trying to relax when someone is biting his tail. It’s cute, though. Sometimes they really act like older brother and younger brother.