Nothing against seahorses I’ll get around to writing about them one of these days. But for now, here is a card about a Victorian mermaid.
I think it could be used as a thank-you note? I don’t know… you will have to make that decision. These mermaids were less common than the typical topless mermaids.
While filling out the application for a small business grant from Chase and Living Social, something occurred to me:
Zeichen Press Headquarters is located exactly behind my house in a building some might call a “garage.” 
There. I’ve said it. I feel so much better.
It is 360 square feet of letterpress goodness. It is 10 tons of letterpress finery. BUT, IF we got that grant (would it be in the form of a giant, novelty cheque? I will accept nothing less.) we could expand … We could punch another hole in the leather belt of our business! We’d be that much closer to World Dominance.
We are in over 500 shops around the world. We have dozens of reps. We have distributors in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. BUT, what if we were able to operate from a larger venue? … What if we could hire a big, hairy man to operate our presses?
Step 1) Go to missionsmallbusiness.com and click ‘Log In & Support’ and log in using Facebook.
Step 2) Type “Zeichen Press” in the search field.
Step 3) Click on the blue Vote button next to our business name.
Step 4) Weep, openly.
We need 250 votes (what?! That’s all??) to be CONSIDERED for the grant. How much is the grant?
$250,000.
Or whatever.
NO BIG DEAL.
Please vote I’ve been starving myself so I would take up less space in the shop. I’m so hungry.
There was a canopy bed in my bf’s bedroom with a Holly Hobby theme. There was a room covered in pink carpeting, but not entirely covered in pink carpeting one wall featured a mural of a day-glo leopard when the “black light” came on, it was party-time. There were, at least, four fireplaces a bronze peacock guarded one of them. In that room, there was an off-limits record collection. Ziggy Stardust confused and intrigued me. An indoor pool in the basement? Yes. Sauna? Check.
This was the Mary Tyler Moore house, circa 1980. AKA: Heaven.
You know, Mary Tyler Moore?! Once Laura Petrie, reborn as herself and the star of her very own situation comedy set in my fair city?
I haven’t been back to the MTM House since my friend’s family moved out, BUT one of my spies was just there (it’s on the market for a cool $3,620,000) and saw our Room and Board prints hanging on two walls. Now, I know: Not as cool as a day-glo leopard mural, but as Miley Cyrus would say, “still pretty cool.”
The Zeichen Press shop has a concrete slab for a floor and this magically keeps the room from feeling like a sauna until mid-July. Surrounded by all things letterpress, the air thick with a healthy wi-fi signal, and the temperature hovering around a tolerable°, I streamed some Netflix.
And while watching reruns of Portlandia, I bumped into this:
Powell’s Books.
I paused.
Could it be? Yes, it is! That little bookstore carries Zeichen Press cards!
We’re famous-ish!
I’ve been told that it’s important to take a break get in the car, hop on a plane, inject yourself with propofol whatever it takes. I love free advice remember when everyone told me to get my cat fixed? She did die but I hate dwelling on details.
Anyway, I decided to take that break…
Step one was important and involved shaving the dog.
This took about two hours because she insists on wearing the wig.
Step two involved tuna-salad. That’s self-explanatory.
And step three was spent poring over maps. This step was critical because, for some reason, I would be the person driving the car. “WHAT?!” you say. And rightly so.
Yes, for two and a half hours, my passengers/prisoners sat with clenched jaws, praying for safe passage or a quick, painless death.
Praise the Lord, prayers were answered, tuna salad was consumed, ticks were pulled, and screens were repaired.
It was only 24 hours, but it felt longer. If someone you love is diagnosed with a terminal illness and wants to make their life feel like it’s dragging on and on, send them to a place without flushing toilets a place where you are forced to haul your own water to pour into the toilet bowl so the toilet will (magically) flush.
The drive home was terrifying and I gripped the steering wheel like a scrap of wood floating by a freshly wrecked ship. If the other drivers on 35W only knew my fear, they would have given me my own lane and maybe a police escort.
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:
An ANTfestation in the shop required aggressive use of insecticide. Two waves of spray-on poison were needed to completely wipe out the colony hiding behind the Great Wall Of Cards.
We murdered thousands of ants
before Jen and I had an important meeting to decide which cards should be included in our next release.
Wait, after the genocide, but before the important meeting, Classic Pam got ahold of another baby rabbit. (See blog post: Fear and Dread) There was some backyard bedlam involving the dog and five kids chasing the cat… I got caught up in the chase but ended up somehow kicking the hopping baby rabbit. Don’t ask me how that happened.
DON’T ASK.
And without further adieu… the moment you’ve all been waiting for… OUR… NEW… CARDS!!!
“We’re Creek People now, mom… We’re Creek People…”
What began as an optimistic, joy-filled journey down Minnehaha Creek turned into a somber, personal purgatory.
The creek didn’t mean to be a metaphor for life, but it was.
IT WAS.
We made it out alive and I’m so glad, I didn’t want to have to eat one, or more, of my children.Did you know it’s Jen’s birthday today?? She celebrated by printing cards for Paper Source in our studio-turned-Easy-Bake Oven. She treated herself with a fan pointed at her back.
Tradition dictates that I make her a card. So, I did.
I’m not afraid of heights or clowns or rats or bats or cemeteries or sharks. But I AM afraid of centipedes.
Once upon a time, I vacuumed up a centipede that was wearing Bill Cosby’s sweater.
But enough of that!
It’s August and time to dread Winter.
My research shows that Hell is being trapped in a snow cave with 1,000 centipedes. And here’s a card for Christmas.
WHAT?!
The much-anticipated matchup between Bionic Fran and Wonder Woman is finally here! 
Tickets are available by our back gate and the fight will be held in the driveway.
Come early and pick an unripened tomato to throw at the loser.
The event takes place as soon as Jen finds her way out of the mountains I know her pockets were stuffed with breadcrumbs, so I’m sure she’ll be fine.
I’ve been pretty busy while she’s been gone… The intern and I talked a lot, I picked up two dead birds and one dead baby rabbit… I brought orders to the post office… I made this birthday card…
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?!
Jen held the garbage-pail lid and I swung the hammer, it is our shop gong and is ceremoniously banged when we receive an order over $1,000.
We bang it one thousand times and then Jen gets to printing.
Paper Source ordered a new (for them) card:
Oh, what do I do after the gong show? I chase and scold the cat.
Classic Pam has single-pawedly wiped out an entire rabbit family.
Tsk, tsk!
This one survived…
until it peed and died in my hands.
ALSO, Urban Outfitters (a real mom and pop joint) wants samples of some of our cards.
Settle down. SETTLE DOWN. They’ve led us on before I’m not going to fashion a wooden stool into a potty chair so that I can sit by the phone day and night.
I’m not. I’M NOT.
Jen has been toiling away at Zeichen Press Headquarters and I have been thinking about her toiling away at Zeichen Press Headquarters.
It’s hard for me to think about that when I am so busy staring at the ocean.
I also took the time to create this:
(I’m a giver.)
But I did make her a card.
(I hope she doesn’t really want me to help though.)
So I think that makes us even.
The pilgrimage to Cape Cod was like a lil’ slice of Purgatory and I wept with joy as we pulled into the driveway. I also wept when we discovered the house-mascot had been murdered in cold blood.
Who would do such a thing?
Don’t worry, everything else was in order:
The boats are in the harbor.
The hydrangeas are blue enough.
And the dead people are still dead.
PHEW!
My application for Mensa included a $20 bill and a film.
I hope they accept me I want that laminated membership card.
I also incuded a couple of my own cards:
No, no… it’s not a miracle. Just one woman’s attempt to make the world a better place.