shipment woes

I've decided to take the advice of the scrapbook gurus and "keep current" on postings, but will also recount earlier experiences as I go. Today's challenges: shipment woes. We very carefully planned our air shipment before we left Michigan, stacking items on our dining room table, adding and deleting over several weeks as new information about customs became available. Always conflicting information, but we tried to sort it out as best we could. We did what we never do and checked two suitcases, crammed full of things like pain medication, cold remedies, dish towels, pillow cases and the like. After changing shipping companies to save some money, we packed up a four foot by four foot container with winter clothes, kitchen essentials, board games, some books, desk top computer, wii video game, shoes and, very importantly, coffee grinder and coffee press. It left our house Tuesday, August 1. The shipment arrived in Xiamen on Friday, August 14...here we are on Friday, August 21 and the shipment was due to be delivered to our apartment this evening. Meanwhile, we've been living out of our suitcases and getting by on the few staples we've been able to purchase here. Gene has been emailing the shipping liason all week and she told us that the paperwork has been making its way through three tiers of government. Then, at the eleventh hour Gene got an email stating that the air-something-or-other paper has been misplaced and our stuff will not be released to us. Bye, bye, have a nice weekend, we'll look for it again on Monday! What?! We are trying to be patient but are growing weary...guess we'll continue to cook from our one pot, wear the same clothing (thankfully I've been able to decode the washing machine and perfect the hanging-to-dry-on-the-balcony-rack system), chop vegetables with my new tiny and not so great paring knife, drink tea and wait! I sure hope no one is dancing around in my sweaters or damaging my beloved coffee supplies!