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!
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Youth Is Wasted
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Don’t Look Away!
Ahh, there is nothing like a Midsummer Night’s Homebirth!
Oh, and here’s a card. I’VE BEEN BUSY, OKAY??
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Marinate & Ruminate & Distill & Purge
Don’t you hate looking at photographs when you’re not in them?
Me too!
Oh, and I made this for my gals.
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Deja Vu
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:
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July: Barnstable County
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:
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When I was down beside the sea
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??
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Man vs. Himself
I was once one of them — an innocent amusement park customer. I looked down at them now, from the highest man-made point in Shakopee, Minnesota. I sighed and listened to the chug-chug-chugging from beneath our coaster — our lives depended on the integrity of a giant bicycle chain. Our open-casket hesitated for just a moment at the tippy-top of the steel summit — hesitated just enough for me to grasp the inevitable free-fall. And as we plummeted to our possible deaths, I screamed.
And wet my pants.
The End
How old was she?
Don’t judge me.
Obviously, I wasn’t born riding a roller coaster, I was born screaming. And wetting my pants.
*Hint: this photograph was taken close to the time of the event and **Double Hint: I’m not the baby.
Speaking of literary themes, there is a lot (not really) to dissect in this new (Holiday/Winter Season?) card:
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Countdown To Countdown
The newspaper is delivered to our doorstep each morning (by horse and buggy) and I comb through it — if I find a particularly odd/sad/absurd story, I read it aloud to whomever (the dog) is nearby.
Here is an abbreviated digest of the only (two) articles I remember from the past (two) months: (In alphabetical order)
1) Stratosphere jump by daredevil, Felix Baumgartner: In an attempt to break the world record, Felix jumped from a capsule suspended 23 miles above Roswell, New Mexico.
I plan on breaking that record when I get tired of this whole letterpress thing.
2) Talking elephant in South Korea loves Zeichen Press. Strange but true.
Crazy?! I know! Koshik’s trainer must $*#%-love Zeichen Press.
Enough time-wasting.
Here is a new Christmas card (available NEXT Christmas. Sorry).
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Winter Preview
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:
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Winternship™ & Skin Suits
Zeichen Press has never had a Wintertime Intern.
Until now.
I expect the new “intern” to make me laugh. It’s an important job. She also claims she will sort type and organize cards but we’ll see. WE’LL SEE.
In other news: I made ANOTHER Thinking Of You card. I thought and thought about what sort of message I’d like to receive if I were down-in-the-dumps, and I came up with this:
My sister wanted me to show The-Softer-Side-Of-Fran, but all I could think of was Marshmallow Fluff® and then I just wanted to sit on the beach and pull hermit crabs out of their shells.What is wrong with me?
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Snail Mail : Our Bread & Butter
There has been an ethical debate raging regarding snail shell art. Some feel that humans have the right to decorate the shells of living snails.
Where do I stand? The following new birthday card reveals my feelings on this sensitive subject:
Please respect my freedom of speech.Speaking of freedom: Come down to Foiled Again on Saturday night for some free wine. While you’re there, you could buy some of our cards!
Two birds! One stone!
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Insomnia and the Woolly Mammoth
I can’t wait until scientists clone the Woolly Mammoth.
Some might call it reckless curiosity, I call it Vegas-style science. Implanting salvaged Woolly Mammoth nuclei into an unsuspecting Asian Elephant sounds safe to me — what could happen?
Meanwhile, I lay awake and imagine receiving (or not receiving) a baby Woolly Mammoth as a gift.
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I’ve Never Been To Paris
But I did take French in high school so I know all about magnetephones, l’autobus, et la lunettes pour Luc.
For the foreseeable future, I will stay within a 30 mile radius of the Zeichen Press headquarters and dream of faraway lands.
Feeling the need for a Field Trip, I went to the Other Side Of Minneapolis and visited Rex Mills. I walked through the front door, broke the tenth commandment, (You shall not covet - geez, get your mind out of the gutter) pretended I had something in my eye, snapped some photos, threw a drink in the owner’s face, stole five pounds of ink, and left.
That man in the photograph is not the owner — Rex Mills has Press Operators.I will kidnap him as soon as my taser gun arrives in the mail.
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But Wait, There’s More!
Bears have it best — fattening up and slipping into their Wintertime coma. I sit here, like a fool, planning my Wintertime Wardrobe — if I never had to shower, I would wear my neck to ankle long-underwear uninterrupted.
I have Faith that Winter will eventually turn to Spring.
In Spring, I will tear off my layers of long-underwear. I will bury my Smartwool in the backyard. I will shun my calf-length coat like an old boyfriend. (I can’t believe I was with YOU!!)
In Spring, kids graduate from educational institutions. And because I am a Giver, I give you these: New graduation cards. Don’t be like, “Why are you thinking about graduation in October?”
Just accept the greeting card calendar. ACCEPT IT.
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MakeReady-Or-Not
How To Play:
Witch
• Using a neighborhood approved selection method (engine, engine #9 — bubblegum, bubblegum in a dish, etc.) select The Witch.
• Use the same method to select a Guinea Pig.
• The remaining players are Runners.
• The Witch leads The Guinea Pig away. (This should be terrifying.) The Witch hides The Guinea Pig — not on the garage roof. (This might be tempting. Don’t do it.)
• The Witch gives (verbally) a list of tasks to The Guinea Pig — things like: A) Run around the house three times singing The Happy Birthday Song. B) Dig a hole, bury one June Bug in it. C) Fill a hat with decorative rocks from the neighbor’s garden, etc.
• At this point, The Witch must call out “ready-or-not!” from wherever he/she is waiting/hiding.
• The “tasks” given to the The Guinea Pig are meant to lure the Runners off their safe-base and into the waiting/hiding clutches of The Witch while searching for the hidden Guinea Pig.
• When/if any Runners are caught by The Witch, he or she turns them into Another Guinea Pig. Meaning: They are hidden and given a new list of tasks for The Runners to complete.
• When tasks are completed for a particular Pig, a Runner must free them by tagging. The Guinea Pig must run to the safe-base without being caught by The Witch.
• If The Runners successfully free The Guinea Pig(s), they win the game.
• If The Witch catches all of The Runners, she/he wins the game.
* If someone wets their pants during course of play, a “time-out” should be called and fresh pants should replace wet pants.
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In a bold (not really) and unprecedented (true) move, Zeichen Press will be offereing box sets of greeting cards that are not letterpress printed.
Hold your applause until the end.
We call this our Makeready Collection.
Why?
Letterpress printers (like us) need to test placement, packing, and color when printing something new. The same old piece of paper is printed on over and over again, resulting in an odd (and might I add, paranormal?) mishmash of goodness.
Our Makeready Collection imitates this letterpress printing practice using a computer and some other kind of printing. (Offset)
Here are the three designs: (Available for The New Year)
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Your Marriage vs. The Zombie Apocalypse
I’m not a lawyer or a scientist but I understand the importance of writing marital vows that contain language relating to soulless corpses.
I know it’s not Zombie Season because the weather is cooler and I know the weather is cooler because the maggots in the garbage bin magically disappeared. The rash of zombie activity this Summer has inspired me to rewrite my vows — I simply cannot have my husband strip naked and eat my face on the turnpike.
Give this card to newlyweds or oldyweds:
