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:
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:
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).
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: 
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 FluffŽ and then I just wanted to sit on the beach and pull hermit crabs out of their shells.
What is wrong with me?
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!
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. 
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.
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.
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.
————-
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)
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: