Sam and Lindley are flying out on Wednesday to meet up with the Wyomontata tourists. At some point this morning, I received a request for frozen breast milk. See, during the past four months, while Emmatha has been quite content with her feedings, Maribeth has been mass producing milk and freezing it, resulting in my freezer being full of breastmilkcicles. Before they left, Emmatha was given a taste of the previously frozen milk and deemed it acceptable. So, with Emmatha's current ravenous state, Maribeth requested that more frozen milk be sent.
The first choice was for Sam to bring it when he and Lindley come. Which really wouldn't be that strange - a man, his six-year-old daughter, and a cooler of breast milk. I googled "taking frozen breast milk on a plane" and found some valuable information. I promptly texted Sam of his possible mission along with the valuable information. To which he quickly texted back and suggested Fed-Ex. Apparently with Batch, he has his own personal Fed Ex Guy, who gave him all the valuable information about Fed-Exing breast milk. Which Sam gave to me. And so begins the fun.
First I texted Maribeth as to how much breast milk was requested. She replied with 20-25 frozen breastmilkcicles (each is basically a bag with 4 ounces frozen milk). Sam's valuable information was to (a) get a cooler and dry ice, and (b) go to the Metro Center Fed Ex, and (c) send it Priority Overnight and tell them its perishable. Sounds simple, right? Yes, and I am current on this blog ...
Anyhoo, I counted out 25 breastmilkcicles and put them in Maribeth's lunch cooler. Which filled up pretty quickly. Of course I knew this would not be a suitable container, but I jammed it full with an ice pack and headed directly to Wal Mart. Where I studied the cooler aisle for what seemed like hours attempting to ascertain which cooler would be acceptable for this mission. I finally decided on one, for reasons totally unknown, and headed to my next stop, the dry ice place.
Luckily, Sam also apparently knew a Dry Ice Guy, because he knew exactly where I should go. I googled directions, and was soon pulling into the cryogenics place (or something that started with a "C"). I got out of my car with my cooler of frozen breast milk and my new Wal-Mart cooler and looked for a door. I went in the only one I saw and found myself in sort of a warehouse looking room.
I looked around with my usual lost blank stare, until Dry Ice Dude walked out of some office. He had on a tshirt and shorts, but he looked fully competent so I told him my story. He said a bag of dry ice scrap would work, and went over to the freezer and pulled out a paper bag, presumably of dry ice giblets and not someone's frozen head. I assembled all the milk bags into one big ziploc, Dry Ice Dude put the oversized ziploc into another paper bag, put that in the bottom of the new Wal-Mart cooler, and put the dry ice scrap giblet bag on top. He told me it weighed 31 pounds and if Fed Ex wanted me to take some dry ice out, that would be ok. As if I knew and/or would do that ...
So I paid him the $10 for the dry ice bits and got back in my car with my two coolers and asked Siri where the Metro Fed Ex was. To which Siri promptly replied there were six - which one did I want? I didn't have time to mess around with Siri, since Sam had told me the package had to be at Fed Ex (the important one where he has a guy) by 4pm. So I texted Sam and asked him where the #%$^ was the Fed Ex office. While waiting for his response, I picked one of Suri's picks, which ended up being the correct one, as per Sam's eventual response.
Eventually I pulled into the Fed Ex office and hauled my Wal-Mart cooler filled with frozen breast milk and dry ice to the counter and explained my situation to the Fed Ex Dude. He then asked if I had the dry ice label. I looked around at the myriad of Fed Ex supplies and said I didn't - where could I get it. To which FE Dude said I would have to print it off the internet, that they couldn't give them out anymore. They used to be able to give them out, but no more. I would have to go to the internet and google "Fed Ex Dry Ice Label" and print it out. Of course, today would be the day that I did not have my handy dandy car computer and printer in my car...
I hauled the cooler/breast milk/dry ice back to the car and texted Sam that I needed the label. To which he said, "Fed Ex should be able to make that for you." To which I schooled Sam on the latest Fed Ex rules and regs. I happened to be in the vicinity of Sam's Batch store, so he said to come there, that he would locate the label on the internet, print it out, and hand it to me in the parking lot. Which all happened, only after I nearly rear-ended some idiot who thought he would pull out of his parking place just as I was driving past ...
Anyhow, with label and directions for the label in hand, I return to the Fed Ex store and to FE Dude, who seemed surprised to see me so quickly. I reiterated my mission, and he selectively listened, weighed the cooler/breast milk/dry ice, and had me fill out the label and tape it to the cooler. I asked him if the cooler would be put in a box, to which he said no, it would go as is. I taped the cooler as best I could, taped the precious, internet only label to the cooler, and handed it off to Fed Ex Dude. Who, I assume, rushed it out to the waiting Fed Ex driver who would whisk it off to the airport for the Fed Ex plane waiting on the tarmac to fly it off to Dillon, Montana.
I just hope Emmatha is thirsty when it gets there ...
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Thankful today for: getting many tasks complete (other than the milk mission); dry ice dudes that helped; Fed Ex dude who had lots of information and eventually helped; Sam and Batch's help in the milk mission; Las Palmas dinner; catch up blog: May 16, May 17
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