**An Open Letter to Alexis Stewart:
Dear Alexis Stewart,
If you want to be friends with me, just ask. You don’t need to buy all of your Christmas and birthday AND Mother’s Day cards from me.
Friends Forever,
Fran
—
Whew! I’m glad I got that out of the way! Thanks to Mail Chimp, our email-blast campaign was full of success.
Wanna know what Mother’s Day card Martha Stewart is getting in 2016???
I’LL NEVER TELL!!!
Does my IQ have to be higher to understand Sci-Fi films?? 
As the credits rolled for Interstellar, I whispered, to myself, “whaaat???” Maybe I should have taken 100 classes to prep me? All of that technlogy and time-talk made me wish I was working on the new Zeichen Press catalog that Jen so agressively marked-up.
I’LL GET TO IT. As soon as I finish rewatching Mad Men.
And while I’m (not) doing that, The Intern
is gallivanting about in Italy like some sort of hippie. Well, let’s just see if you have a studio to come home to. (OMG, I’M KIDDING. Please come home. And bring us souvenirs.)
“WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??”
~Fran Shea
These cards stopped me right in my (dog) poop-covered tracks:
Let’s be friends, Emily McDowell.
Too needy?
Dinah always makes such a big deal about choosing paper and envelope color for a new release.
First, she has Jen print a card:
And then she does this:
She is such a taskmaster.
Greeting cards would be better if they were huge. And I could wipe my feet on them.
And what better way to spread the Good Word of Zeichen Press than by emblazoning it upon the doormat of every doorstep for every home throughout the land?
High Cotton makes lots of things, for lots of people. And now they will make doormats for us. I mean, for you. They’ll make doormats for you. Designed by us.
…El Nińo. I know I’m supposed to be cursing Climate Change… I KNOW.
But how can I curse when meteorologists are predicting a warmer-than-usual winter??
I must embrace the phenomenon the way a mother embraces her wayward son.
IN OTHER NEWS, Jen and I chose 12 cards for the next release using darts, a cardboard cutout of Steve Buscemi, and our first-aid kit.
Here’s a teaser:
And because I always plan ahead, here’s a new Father’s Day card:
When my daughter was small (until she became a giant),
she wrestled daily with Jungian archetypes… She was fascinated by the Actor/Storyteller… and the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf was a favorite.
Oh, that Boy!! She was disgusted and fascinated!
Ahh, there is nothing like a Midsummer Night’s Homebirth!
Oh, and here’s a card. I’VE BEEN BUSY, OKAY??
Don’t you hate looking at photographs when you’re not in them?
Me too!
Oh, and I made this for my gals.
We bought our house on the Cape in 1982…
this was the same year that The Go-Go’s penned their masterpiece.
Coincidence?? I THINK NOT.
Summers on the Cape were filled with so much adventure! There were trees to climb, sea-creatures to discover, rocks to paint (it’s complicated), and cans to return for 5˘ imagine returning an ENTIRE BAG of cans. Your very own money to spend on candy at the Barnstable News. I dragged a garbage bag of empty cans up Millway, past the dead bodies
to claim my prize. I did not anticipate this being such a great windfall… The Adult behind the counter counted all of my (mostly beer) cans (thanks Uncle Gary!) and the total staggered me.
“Two dollars and thirty-five cents.”
I gasped.
I walked past the wall of candy, right to the freezer full of ice cream treats. One box of six ice cream sandwiches, all for me. ALL FOR ME!!
I was a girl on a mission: Eat all six, share with no one, and never breathe a word of this to any of my siblings. 
I held the package to my (boyish) chest, and ran until I was sure I was alone. Across the street from the cemetery, and next to an abandoned house, I ripped open the box and started eating. 1…2…3… still going strong… 4… slowing down… 5… Five! Only FIVE! What a failure!
I staggered home, and benevolently offered the final sandwich to my little brother. (What a fool he was for not even questioning my backstory!)
Present day: Southwest Airline’s Boeing 737: 40,000 feet.
I made these:
Would a plate-smashing scene make this trip more authentic? Maybe. Oh, but here we are bored out of our minds…
It’s tiresome, really! Just ocean, ocean, ocean… day in and day out.
And nobody even documents my joie de vivre! Sadly, I must document myself.
Jen sent me her selfie all the way from Zeichen Press Headquarters:
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Back on the Cape again…
Aren’t the kids so sweet? They have so much fun… Wait… WHAT?! How did I miss that??
With the warm weather comes mating animals and flies covering the shop windows.
And nothing else. NOTHING ELSE.
One might ask, “I wonder why that window is so filthy?” And another might respond, “Shhh, just close your eyes while I slowly and firmly place this pillow over your face…”
There.
Now, onto the flies. I did all the research and learned that these are no ordinary flies. The internet told me that they are called Cluster Flies, so I vacuumed them up and made this card:
I think Tib The Cat is pregnant. I could have (should have?) put a stop to the coitus, but who am I to stand in the way of true love? WHO AM I? Wait, was that really true love??
Hmm… Zoom… Enhance…
GOOD LORD.
Speaking of Father’s Day…
Oh, and did this Father’s Day card ever make it on the blog? (Winky-face.)
PS: Apparently my SEO success could be better if I mention letterpress-related words IN my blog posts. Words like: tactile, vintage press, printing, ink, paper, mangled hand.
Sometimes (oftentimes) I wake in the middle of the night and tap messages to myself on my iPhone.
For example (and I quote):
“I just want to eat gobstoppers and take rearview mirror selfies… William Shatner in gladiator costume on 40′ stilts… A young Ben Franklin with a head full of dreams and a heart full of hate… Bromeo & Juliet… You Are Here –>brain…”
Upon thoroughly waking, my task is to decode this nocturnal rambling.
Sometimes I am successful.
In the Spring of 1990, I packed up a carton of cigarettes, a skillet, 4 forks, a sketch pad, and some Mexican jumping beans. Graduating high school means moving into a dormitory on the campus of the college of your dreams. OR moving into an apartment above a pizza place.
EITHER WAY, this card seems appropriate:
SPEAKING OF APPROPRIATE, is gluten-intolerance funny?