Counting is not as easy as it looks. The intern and I had to count cards (we love to gamble) for a big Kate’s Paperie order.
Holiday cards in June?
My life is an endless sacrifice.
All of that counting tasted terrible, and so to cleanse her palette, the intern put a lot of ampersands together. That looked exactly like this:
And because I need attention, I made this:
See, it’s a profound cultural statement? DO YOU SEE?!
That sounds delicious!
If Spring would come I wouldn’t be forced to sit here and email sell sheets to hundreds of newspapers around the country. 
I won’t complain about the weather because that’s about as interesting as listening to someone list their health problems. But I WILL say this:
If I lived in Hawaii, there’d be no Zeichen Press.
See, I can always find the blessing in disguise.
Oh fine, here’s a new card inspired by the endless Winter:
My high school English teacher told the class that if we looked up the word ‘glib’ in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me.
She was right!
I think I felt insulted.
I’m sure Jen’s high school English teacher said something similar about her.
And if not, she should have.
What does this have to do with angry parents or a new card?
Obviously, my glibness was not celebrated at home. In fact, it was frowned upon can you believe it?!
And Jen’s reckless behavior?? You’ll have to ask her about that… I mean, pregnant at 19?! What was she THINKING?! (Wait, that was me?? We need to hire a fact checker.)
The poor peasant said it best, “even if we had only one and it were quite small, and only as big as a thumb, I should be quite satisfied, and we would still love it with all our hearts.”
If Fairy Tales were true, hedgehogs would speak and donkeys would spew gold. And poor old peasants could wish and receive tiny children.
I wrote a Fairy Tale about an old childless couple and a duck. Inspired by true events. In the story, there is a duck, a baby, and an angry mob.
But I’ve said too much!
I’ll get that published someday but MEANWHILE here is a card for the new parent it features a disgruntled chick.
The Winter Walk Home from school included two memorable rituals: Dipping our un-mittened hands in 25¢ Tom Thumb coffee (how old IS she?) and passing by a very high retaining wall.
The wall held up the yard of our enemies: Two freckle-faced, red-headed brothers. These boys went to a Public School and as if that isn’t bad enough, they took great pleasure in tormenting me.
I will remind you that this is what I looked like:
Why would anyone want to harm such a sweet creature?
Armed with boulders of snow, poised-and-ready atop the wall they would wait. Down Vincent Avenue I trudged: snow-pants under my plaid skirt, grease-covered hand-me-down coat, knit cap with sheepskin earflaps.
Again, why would anyone want to harm such a sweet creature?
I won’t tell you the ending.
We had a dusting of snow the other day but I knew better than to break out the snow-pants and knit cap. It was merely a teaser, a preview, an appetizer, an AMUSE-GUEULE.
Speaking of snow, here’s a new card: 
Off-key Christmas carols float dreamily through the Summer air, the ice-cream truck trolls for kids using low-fi audio technology. Water-balloons are filled, teams are picked (bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?) but distractions are everywhere and soon talk turns from who is on which team to pretend lands filled with orphaned children. Poor, parentless children, left to cobble together meals from mint leaves and wild rhubarb.
Summertime, and the children and animals are off-leash days are filled with sprinklers, wet bathing suits, hot dogs burned on the grill, and day dreaming.
Here’s a new card:
Step right up, step right up!
It’s here, a cure for all that ails! Do you suffer from one (or more) of the following complications?:
Bumpy skin?
Webbed toes?
Nagging wife?
No? How about?:
Limp tongue?
Rotting scalp?
Too many fingers?
Fear not! Just one purchase of a Zeichen Press letterpress greeting card will set you on the proper path to wellness!
(The following photographs are guaranteed to cure any inflammation:)
The intern packed up her carpetbag and rode away. I felt like we should hug but we didn’t – hugs are best left out of print shops. She made this before she left:
Go, my young grasshopper, go and use the life-skills I so generously shared with you.
Fred photographed the new cards - here’s my favorite:
That’s a true story.
ALSO: Becki Iverson at Metro Magazine wrote a nice thing about us. I think we’ll keep giving out that photo until we are 60 years old.
Nobody needs to see a photo of us taken in February.
That’s where I am. Will I ever be able to get back to Minneapolis? Stay tuned.
And, just because I’m a little obsessed with the weather, I gathered some very important figures. - Record low temperatures in The United States of America:
| State | Temp. | Date | Station | Elevation |
| Alabama | -27 | Jan. 30, 1966 | New Market | 760 |
| Alaska | -80 | Jan. 23, 1971 | Prospect Creek | 1,100 |
| Arizona | -40 | Jan. 7, 1971 | Hawley Lake | 8,180 |
| Arkansas | -29 | Feb. 13, 1905 | Pond | 1,250 |
| California | -45 | Jan. 20, 1937 | Boca | 5,532 |
| Colorado | -61 | Feb. 1, 1985 | Maybell | 5,920 |
| Connecticut | -32 | Feb. 16, 1943 | Falls Village | 585 |
| Delaware | -17 | Jan. 17, 1893 | Millsboro | 20 |
| Florida | – 2 | Feb. 13, 1899 | Tallahassee | 193 |
| Georgia | -17 | Jan. 27, 1940 | Mauna Kea | 13,770 |
| Idaho | -60 | Jan. 18, 1943 | Island Park Dam | 6,285 |
| Illinois | -36 | Jan. 5, 1999 | Congerville | 722 |
| Indiana | -36 | Jan. 19, 1994 | New Whiteland | 785 |
| Iowa | -47 | Feb. 3, 1996* | Elkader | 770 |
| Kansas | -40 | Feb. 13, 1905 | Lebanon | 1,812 |
| Kentucky | -37 | Jan. 19, 1994 | Shelbyville | 730 |
| Louisiana | -16 | Feb. 13, 1899 | Minden | 194 |
| Maine | -48 | Jan. 19, 1925 | Van Buren | 458 |
| Maryland | -40 | Jan. 13, 1912 | Oakland | 2,461 |
| Massachusetts | -35 | Jan. 12, 1981 | Chester | 640 |
| Michigan | -51 | Feb. 9, 1934 | Vanderbilt | 785 |
| Minnesota | -60 | Feb. 2, 1996 | Tower | 1,430 |
| Mississippi | -19 | Jan. 30, 1966 | Corinth | 420 |
| Missouri | -40 | Feb. 13, 1905 | Warsaw | 700 |
| Montana | -70 | Jan. 20, 1954 | Rogers Pass | 5,470 |
| Nebraska | -47 | Feb. 12, 1899 | Camp Clarke | 3,700 |
| Nevada | -50 | Jan. 8, 1937 | San Jacinto | 5,200 |
| New Hampshire | -47 | Jan. 29, 1934 | Mt. Washington | 6,288 |
| New Jersey | -34 | Jan. 5, 1904 | River Vale | 70 |
| New Mexico | -50 | Feb. 1, 1951 | Gavilan | 7,350 |
| New York | -52 | Feb. 18, 1979* | Old Forge | 1,720 |
| North Carolina | -34 | Jan. 21, 1985 | Mt. Mitchell | 6,525 |
| North Dakota | -60 | Feb. 15, 1936 | Parshall | 1,929 |
| Ohio | -39 | Feb. 10, 1899 | Milligan | 800 |
| Oklahoma | -27 | Jan. 18, 1930 | Watts | 958 |
| Oregon | -54 | Feb. 10, 1933* | Seneca | 4,700 |
| Pennsylvania | -42 | Jan. 5, 1904 | Smethport | est. 1,500 |
| Rhode Island | -25 | Feb. 5, 1996 | Greene | 425 |
| South Carolina | -19 | Jan. 21, 1985 | Caesars Head | 3,100 |
| South Dakota | -58 | Feb. 17, 1936 | McIntosh | 2,277 |
| Tennessee | -32 | Dec. 30, 1917 | Mountain City | 2,471 |
| Texas | -23 | Feb. 8, 1933* | Seminole | 3,275 |
| Utah | -69 | Feb. 1, 1985 | Peter’s Sink | 8,092 |
| Vermont | -50 | Dec. 30, 1933 | Bloomfield | 915 |
| Virginia | -30 | Jan. 22, 1985 | Mountain Lake | 3,870 |
| Washington | -48 | Dec. 30, 1968 | Mazama | 2,120 |
| West Virginia | -37 | Dec. 30, 1917 | Lewisburg | 2,200 |
| Wisconsin | -55 | Feb.4, 1996 | Couderay | 1,300 |
| Wyoming | -66 | Feb. 9, 1933 | Riverside | 6,650 |
AND before we start killing and eating each other, we are entertaining ourselves by throwing boiling water into the cold air.
There were two parts to the Freak Show – two tents – one contained The Fat Lady and the other was filled with the usual freakish-fare. I didn’t really want to pay to see the Fat Lady so I poked my head under the tent – it seemed silly to pay to see a fat lady but this was before the days of google searches and voyeuristic television masquerading as health and human interest stories. Before the days of shows actually called, World’s Fattest Woman.
So I poked my head under the tent. A pit had been dug in the dirt in the center of the tent – she, all 600 pounds of her, sat in the pit in a teeny weeny bikini. The paying public stared and stared while she thumbed through the pages of a paperback.
The other tent promised a variety of oddities and I handed my tickets to the dusty man guarding the flap-door. In this tent there was a stage and on the stage there was a sign and on the sign were the words, “World’s Fattest Man”
The crowd – and I was in the crowd now – stared at the sign and waited for the man. He hobbled out using two canes – those canes that have the four baby canes on the bottom. He reached the center of the stage and lowered himself into a reinforced chair, spoke to the crowd about his thyroid disorder, and asked if we wanted to see him attach a bucket of bolts to his tongue.
Ugh. I wanted my tickets back.
Why can’t things be the way they’re supposed to be? And why can’t freaks just enjoy their exploitation? If I were a freak (if) I’d love it. I’d use my freakish power for the good of mankind.
I’d love to have one super long arm. A Super Arm. I could take seemingly candid pictures of myself even more easily!
Do you see that?
It’s like someone else is taking the picture. But what a struggle!
If I had Super Arm my whole life would change!
