Two New Books!

I don’t remember when the mail man brought me the notice, but I found out early this week that two packages have arrived for me.

The Post Office kept them for me and I have to personally pick them up from their QC depot. Oh-kay. It’s a little out of the way so I had to plan to go there just to get my packages. Though there was nothing on the note to say what the package was about, I already knew what they were. My BookSneeze goodies.

Of course, I was secretly wishing they were something else too. Maybe someone sent me a gift I’d been wanting to have. Or notification of winnings of a free trip to a ranch in Texas or elsewhere. It was on Wednesday when I found the break to go to the Post Office. The office doctor sent me home because he says my URTI was still contagious. Upon arriving back home, my parents were getting ready to leave for work. Since the way to my dad’s office is near the Post Office, I asked him if he could take me to where I needed to go. He gladly obliged.

On the way there, I was imagining my fantasy trip to a ranch.  I blame it on my crazy Pioneer Woman induced bake-a-thon (recipes were mostly hers) in the past two weeks. I’d be picked up by a cowboy, but his mount would be a Chevrolet Silverado instead of a real big horse. The ranch would be a an hour’s drive from the airport but it would take us longer. The truck would need a brake job and we’d had to stop by a Dallas auto repair shop to have it done.

The ranch I’d be going to would have a lodge just like P-Dub’s. A guest house fit to be in the ranks of the best bed and breakfasts in the world, only better. But I won’t be living the cowboy lifestyle. No wake up calls before dawn to greet the cattle. Just late sleep-ins, and learning to cook and bake  in the cast show kitchen of the lodge.

Now I wasn’t able to dwell on this fantasy because we’d arrived at the Post Office soon enough. And well, like a ranch, it is quite isolated too. There’d be no hope of getting a cab after taking care of business (my dad had to go to work after dropping me off). I guess that’s why tricycles are stationed right outside the gate.

So I went in the building that didn’t look too old (not ancient) yet the facilities looked so dated (duh, what facilities?). The post office is in such sorry state I couldn’t bring myself to take photos. I found the appropriate window, signed the forms and paid 80 pesos (4o per package). A few minutes and a third window later (all three windows just side by side really), the personnel handed me my unopened packages. Uhm, I paid for Customs handling fee because they needed to inspect them. Yet, they just looks at the unopened envelopes, declared that a book was in each of them, and that was it. Couldn’t they have determined that without me having to go there?

I appreciate that they didn’t open them at all, and would have only done so in my presence, but…. Ahh. Never mind the cost of the taxi fare home, and the fee I paid. I got the books for free after all. Here they are:

I’m just reading something right now before I start on these two (they get to be prioritized because I must write a review).  So there should be at least three new reviews in the next two weeks. Stay tuned for those!