lizvogel

Housemate bought shower gel in England instead of toting body wash along, and we're still using it up at home. Of course, we couldn't resist the irony of a brand called "Imperial Leather" selling a scent called "Cosmic Unicorn". It was perfectly fine (in fact, disappointingly unremarkable) over there. But some combination with the air or the water or whatever over here is making the scent much more pungent, and it smells exactly like what I would imagine unicorn sweat would smell like.

I mean to do a proper write-up of the trip, for my own memory as much as anything, but unfortunately all the brain I can muster is being used in fighting with FedEx to try to get our stuff. We chose to ship some things instead of maxing out our luggage limits (first mistake), and it's turning into an exercise in absurdity.

Things I have learned:

- Never ship anything if you don't have to.

- If you must ship something, make it one kind of thing. Do not yield to the perfectly reasonable urge to tuck in other items to fill space in the box; it will only bring you grief.

- Never mix items you already owned and items you've purchased abroad in the same shipment. It confuses the shippers unmercifully, and will result in charming things like being shouted at that the forms you've filled out are invalid and completely other forms are required.

- Do not ship pens. Ink, apparently, requires a Toxic Substance Control Act Certification. (Yes, this is ridiculous. Yes, we strolled through Customs at the airport with five times as many pens (housemate collects them) and nobody cared. We still had to fill out a TSCA form for, yes, two pens.)

- Do not ship DVDs or CDs. Though at least the Video Declaration form (nothing pornographic or seditious, yeah, don't get me started) is relatively straightforward.

- Do not, for the love of all that is holy, ship feminine hygiene products. You will have some overly-officious FedEx employee demanding the precise physical address where the menstrual pads (and you'd better not call them anything else) were manufactured (and good luck finding that!), even though they were originally purchased in the US. If you need to fill a space, for gods' sake just buy bubble wrap.

- Do not ship clothing, or anything made of cloth. Unless, of course, you want a demand of "NEED MANUFACTURER WITH FULL ADDRESS, KNIT OR WOVEN AND WHAT GENDER MADE FOR" for a sweater you bought second-hand ten years ago, or a pair of socks you picked up at a sidewalk kiosk for which the tag is, you guessed it, in the package you can't get hold of.

- Don't ship anything. Really, just don't. The airline's over-the-weight-limit fee is likely to be cheaper than the shipping charges anyway, and the Customs guards at the airport are the epitome of courtesy and understanding compared to a "Sr. ECO Import Coordinator" at FedEx.

Really, this was not the learning experience I needed to have as the capstone to our trip. To be fair, the folks I've spoken to on the phone at FedEx have generally been pleasant and helpful; it's only this horrible woman we're emailing with who seems determined to make an international incident out of some souvenirs, spare laundry, and a half-used package of pads. To rub salt in the wound, our box currently seems to be held up at the FedEx facility in Lansing, not 20 miles from here. We could go there in person, open the box, and go through each item with a FedEx agent if they'd let us. If I have to call again, and I'm sure I will, I may suggest just that.

*headdesk* Not leaving me with happy memories of the trip, this.

ETA: Not at the facility in Lansing, apparently; it's still in Newark. Several more phone calls in which people don't seem to grasp that asking us for the manufacturer and composition of clothing which is in a box that we can't access (and likely couldn't provide that information for even if we could) is flatly insane. Finally resorted to calling FedEx's Customer Advocate team, where I at least found out that the shouty all-caps parts of the emails have probably been copy-pasted from Customs itself, not from the person "brokering" the clearance process. Better, but she could have stood to make that clear herself, y'know? And if that's Customs' idea of communication, wow, my tax dollars need to be better spent.

ETA 2: Can it be?? Two emails citing scheduled delivery dates, and the online tracking now says it's been released and is in transit. Perhaps calling the Customer Advocate team did some good? I'll believe it when I have the box in my hands, since the automated phone system already lied to us about the status once, as did multiple humans who said we'd sent all the forms we had to. But it would be really nice to not have to spend tomorrow as miserably playing bureaucracy roulette as today.

Prepping for England, and thus reading airport security regulations:

"A live lobster is allowed through security and must be transported in a clear, plastic, spill proof container. A TSA officer will visually inspect your lobster at the checkpoint. We recommend that you contact your airline to determine your airline's policy on traveling with your lobster before arriving at the airport."

I just. I mean, WTF?


ETA: Okay, but the TSA redeems themselves somewhat with this:

"Light Saber

Sadly, the technology doesn't currently exist to create a real lightsaber. However, you can pack a toy lightsaber in your carry-on or checked bag. May the force be with you."

At least someone's got a sense of humor. And unlike the lobster, you can put it in checked baggage or carry-on.

Hmm, what's a better band name? Traveling With Your Lobster, or Live Lobsters With Lightsabers?

I stuffed myself full of sushi last night, so I finally feel recovered enough to write this. Sushi is magical that way.


The problem with writing a con report is that if the con is good, you're too busy to do it during, and too exhausted to do it after.

Narrativity was a really good con.

And I can say that without feeling like I'm tooting my own horn, because what made it so good was our attendees. We got such great people! They were smart, and insightful, and engaged, and really excited to talk story for three days. We had a lot of fantasy and SF writers, of course, but we also had people doing historical, and erotica, and poetry, and all sorts of stuff. And we had visual artists, and musicians, and editors and readers and people from lots of different perspectives. And everybody seemed committed to learning and sharing and having a good time.

( Me, personally, I had a blast. )

We researched things to do. We compared flights. We picked dates. We committed to buying tickets, and we even picked our seats.

We spent three fucking hours on the British Airways website, while they asked creepy "security" questions pulled from who-knows-where to which they wouldn't accept the correct answers, and then finally they insisted something was wrong and wouldn't take our money or even let us start over (again).

Swiss Air keeps insisting we're a bot and making us do jigsaw-puzzle Captchas, and refusing to even start the booking process.

Yeah, everything's so much easier on-line. [/sarcasm] We have the name of a highly-recommended travel agent; assuming we can ever find out when they're open (because neither their website nor their voicemail divulges that secret), we'll see what they can do.

We got our passport applications submitted yesterday!

It was a fairly painless process, mostly due to having read the website and done all the paperwork in advance. (The passport guy was impressed.) There was a bit of a wait at the passport office, but they had coloring books in the waiting room. ;-) And after the weeks-long wait for AAA to replace their photo printer, what was one more hour?

Am displeased about having to let my original birth certificate out of my custody -- hey, that thing's a classic, if not quite an antique -- but chose to roll with it.

Should get our passports in a few weeks. Yes, there's about 3000 things yet to do before The Trip can be a reality, but the passports are Step One.

Yes, there is more write-up. Yes, it's weeks after the con. I was tired (still am); deal with it. ( Cut for length... )

The drive was an interesting experiment, and I'll probably do something similar next year. Which I will totally have the opportunity for; I can't wait for next year's 4th Street.