The Craftstravaganza is o-v-e-r. And in case you missed it, Jen gave a stirring performance as Janet Jackson circa 1989 – here’s a photo I took at the event, right before she threw down her cardboard and got totally into it. 
That was really something.
Also, and I don’t know why, I made this card after the show:
Happy Mother’s Day, all you mothers!!
Jen has already packed up her cardboard for our big breakdancing number — that is our “workshop” for the Craftstravaganza on Saturday at the MN State Fairgrounds.
I sewed costumes (Jen will be dressed as Janet Jackson : Rhythm Nation 1814 and I will be a butterfly). Other workshops include weavers weaving, making t-shirt necklaces, food jewelry, and yarn bombing. The yarn bombing sounds dangerous.
There will be nearly 150 vendors, so if you can’t find a Mother’s Day gift on Saturday, I can only assume you hate your mom.
My mind wandered as I listened to the Second Reading. I wondered if I could get my hands on a chocolate milk for lunch. I watched the third graders fidget. I planned my fishing-themed diorama. …Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth… I figured out what the initials TGIF stood for — oh, that makes sense! …I felt something crawl up my uniform blouse.
I felt something crawl up my uniform blouse! Or did I? The question went unanswered because, like Abraham Lincoln in the balcony of Ford’s Theater, I’d been shot. Most likely, an assassination plot carried out by those boys that dumped Mountain Dew on my head last week. Oh, the pain! I signaled my teacher and was escorted to the nurses office by a girl that needed a hero badge to add to her girl scout sash.
The nurses office was familiar to me. Homesickness was an ailment I suffered from semi-regularly.
When I staggered through the door, the nurse stopped her mimeographing and looked at me. I pointed to my gunshot wound — nearish my right armpit but closer to a more embarrassing region. She lifted up my blouse. I stared at the poster on the wall.
Yes, kitten. I will hang in there.
It turned out not to be a bullet lodged in my ribcage, but a bee sting.
In honor of that important event, I created my own Hang in There! card. Do not accuse me of ripping off the original, it is an homage. An HOMAGE.
I think that means Seize Mother’s Day. But maybe not – I am really only fluent in Pig-Latin.
As far as I know, we all have mothers. I don’t think Science has done away with that yet. And I’m going to boldly state that the majority of readers of the Is That Funny blog love their mothers. Why? My research shows that people who $*#%-ing love Zeichen Press also $*#%-ing love their mothers. My research involved a picture-day slideshow and ham salad sandwiches. Also, $50 bills stuffed in a piñata. It was unorthodox but revealing.
You still have time to order a Mother’s Day card (and a card for your Mother-In-Law, dear God, DO NOT FORGET HER) from the shop! We will ship it to you so you have time to send (or give) it to mom.
But, don’t let me tell you what to do. I mean, if you don’t want to celebrate your mom (OR mother-in-law!) on this one day of the year, that’s your decision. I’m sure she won’t be hurt at all. It will never be brought up again.
Once Upon A Time, there lived a woman who tried and tried to cram a live chicken into a cooking pot. The chicken would not oblige and finally the woman had to accept the notion that live chickens will never submit to such unnatural behavior. Rather than chop off the chicken’s head, they became companions and live in an abandoned mine shaft. The End
I have dozens of stories like that, just waiting to be published. That reminds me: I was trying really, really hard to write a Father’s Day card. This is what I came up with:
At brunch, George Lucas asked me to write a Father’s Day card that suggests a theme from the Star Wars Trilogy but warned me not to use any of the Star Wars imagery. It was a strange request but I accepted the challenge and after tossing back our mimosas, we arm-wrestled and I made this:
Should I shower today or plan a fictional vacation?
Should I take down the Christmas tree or pet the cat?
Life is so challenging.
Decision du jour: Which card is funnier??
A)
B)
I have fictional vacations to plan and cats to pet — help me move on with my day.
Why hide your abnormality under a dingy flannel sack? Love suffers enough in this disposable culture and I will not be a lemming — I will stand up for the odd, the fractured, the misfit, the offbeat, the freaks. I will stand up and say, I embrace the grotesque!
As long as they don’t smell like urine.
I can handle just about any disfigurement — emotional or physical — that sits next to me on the bus, but my achilles heel in my mad-dash for sainthood, is my keen sense of smell.
Damn my olfactory perception.
I don’t think John Merrick
smelled like urine, so we would probably have been great friends.
I made two new cards that celebrate this subject. Feel free to give them to the person in your life that needs to know they’re special.
If you have someone in your life that smells like urine, they would probably appreciate this card very much.
Congratulations, future St. Blankblank.
**Spoiler Alert** Zeichen Press triumphed over Twenty-Twelve.
At times, the year was a nail-biter: will 2012 take it’s boot off of Zeichen Press’s face?… Will 2012 stop hitting Zeichen Press with a folding chair?… Yes and YES.
And as Zeichen Press says adieu to this Year Of Pestilence, Zeichen Press welcomes Twenty-Thirteen — welcomes it the way a mother welcomes the news of another pregnancy. The gift of amnesia is powerful and we are grateful for it. 
I’m wrapping up the year, as usual, in Brainerd, Minnesota. The temperature is hovering around a balmy 0° and as the supplies dwindle to beer and bacon, we are considering sending the children to town for chocolate and dvd’s. And medical marijuana.
Stay tuned…
I welcome the extra-ordinary. In fact, I am hyper-vigilant and ever-watchful for signs of miraculous happenings.
I ate two pounds of filet mignon on Christmas Eve and I’m pretty sure that was a miracle. It felt like a miracle — béarnaise sauce drizzled over huge hunks of very rare cow flesh doesn’t happen every day.
I love Christmas Miracles, they are the most powerful kind of miracle — A change of heart is better than filet mignon and antlers growing out of a dog’s head is, perhaps, the most miraculous of all.
Jen did say I couldn’t make any more Christmas cards but I squeezed this one past her because she is a sucker for dogs and because I threw her computer in a snowbank.
It’s almost January and you know what that means: It’s time to wash my Smart Wool socks. And celebrate Christmas.
Jen told me I can’t write anymore Christmas or Chanukah cards. After I egged her face, I wrote a Get Well card:
The Christmas Tree lot shack doubled as a meth-lab and while I admire ingenuity and entrepreneurship, I like my Holiday Traditions to be more “cozy-by-the-fire” and less “mix-up-a-batch-in-the-tub.”
BUT THAT’S JUST ME.
The “lot” contained exactly eight trees but due to a Christmas Miracle, we found the perfect tree!
We only had to retie the tree back onto the car once. To be fair, cooking meth doesn’t really prepare a person for handling Christmas Trees.
My Jewish friends don’t have these stories and this saddens me, so I made them a card:
The No-Coast Craft-O-Rama was a success!
I think it might be because Jen and I were wearing our new uniforms. 
It’s hard to know — but marketing is SO important these days and we really do our best to be, as the kids say, cutting edge.
After the show, we packed our uniforms in bubble-wrap, sat by a roaring fire, and watched the snow fall.
And fall.
And fall.
That inspired a Chanukah card!
This goes out to my Jewish brothers and sisters:
And like the Canadian Goose, she stayed. She stayed and embraced the cold, using her derriére to warm the waters of her pond.
And by derriére, I mean “bottom” and by waters of her pond, I mean “the Midtown Market.”
What?!
It’s time for the No-Coast Craft-o-Rama! TOMORROW (Friday, December 7 AND Saturday, December 8)!!
Here’s what I’ve done to get ready: 
That’s a full cord of wood that I ordered.
AND I made this card:
Jen did everything else.
See you tomorrow!
xo,
Fran
A long, long time ago, when men roamed the wild, with sharp spears and heavy stones, a discovery was made: A charred nub-of-a-stick was scraped against the wall to create a picture, a representation of reality — why?
The need to communicate visually is unique to humans (and some elephants).
I wish I had a trunk.
Here’s what I need to communicate visually:
Secured to her bonnet with picture wire, butcher’s twine, and Christmas Spirit (egg-nog). That spruce-top sat atop her head for the entire season of Advent.
She knew that it offset her dour expression — an expression she couldn’t redesign. Oh, but the tiny tree brought delight to all she passed!
For those blissful weeks, nobody seemed to notice her stern glower, her face — twisted into the judgmental scowl went unnoticed. She imagined wearing other elaborate fancies on her head — but for now, this would do: