Well, Susie hasn’t had her kittens yet – and like every other overdue/expecting mother – she is watching Oprah and eating tubs of Ben & Jerry’s.
Meanwhile, I biked through the Heat™
to bring Fred a card so he could photograph it. It isn’t any ordinary card – it is the card to introduce our new website.
Aren’t you intrigued?? It must say something sweet – just look at that cute little bellhop! I’ve been waiting to use him for a long time – thanks, cute little bellhop!
Our transition from the Cape included a stay in Boston.
Boston is best experienced on-foot and with a tour guide dressed as Dorothy Quincy Hancock.
The next picture is for Andrea. (Edmund loved the Westin).
Okay, fun’s over. Back to the muggy wall of heat – we walked out of the Minneapolis airport and I felt like someone wrapped me in 100 electric blankets.
… remember when I told you about this?? I don’t know a lot but I do know that this belly is full of kittens. They are due in a few days – and I swear to God, if any of you take one home – I will repay you in strange and creative ways.
One more thing: The pile of mail, collected by Jen, contained this:
After a harrowing day at the beach, I had to stop into the Brewster General Store
to check out their card selection – one thing is clear: they might have enough rubber lobsters but they do need some letterpress from Minnesota. I will see what I can do about that.
A day at the beach always includes:
That poor thing has been around for such a long time.
I remember some sort of Mexican-standoff In an early apartment that involved my roommate, dirty dishes and refried beans. Neither of us wanted to do the dishes and so they were stacked, teetering on the counter – pots and plates on top of other pots and plates – the bottom of the pile forgotten like a lost tribe. My roommate, a vegetarian, had a particular pot that she favored for heating her refried beans – she used this day after day until one day it was forgotten – and the pot joined the pile. But not before she filled it with water, she believed in the pre-soak method. I’m not sure how much time passed – a forensic scientist would be able to determine that based on the evidence in the kitchen.
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: