**An Open Letter to Alexis Stewart:
Dear Alexis Stewart,
If you want to be friends with me, just ask. You don’t need to buy all of your Christmas and birthday AND Mother’s Day cards from me.
Friends Forever,
Fran
—
Whew! I’m glad I got that out of the way! Thanks to Mail Chimp, our email-blast campaign was full of success.
Wanna know what Mother’s Day card Martha Stewart is getting in 2016???
I’LL NEVER TELL!!!
Does my IQ have to be higher to understand Sci-Fi films?? 
As the credits rolled for Interstellar, I whispered, to myself, “whaaat???” Maybe I should have taken 100 classes to prep me? All of that technlogy and time-talk made me wish I was working on the new Zeichen Press catalog that Jen so agressively marked-up.
I’LL GET TO IT. As soon as I finish rewatching Mad Men.
And while I’m (not) doing that, The Intern
is gallivanting about in Italy like some sort of hippie. Well, let’s just see if you have a studio to come home to. (OMG, I’M KIDDING. Please come home. And bring us souvenirs.)
“WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??”
~Fran Shea
These cards stopped me right in my (dog) poop-covered tracks:
Let’s be friends, Emily McDowell.
Too needy?
Dinah always makes such a big deal about choosing paper and envelope color for a new release.
First, she has Jen print a card:
And then she does this:
She is such a taskmaster.
Greeting cards would be better if they were huge. And I could wipe my feet on them.
And what better way to spread the Good Word of Zeichen Press than by emblazoning it upon the doormat of every doorstep for every home throughout the land?
High Cotton makes lots of things, for lots of people. And now they will make doormats for us. I mean, for you. They’ll make doormats for you. Designed by us.
…El Nińo. I know I’m supposed to be cursing Climate Change… I KNOW.
But how can I curse when meteorologists are predicting a warmer-than-usual winter??
I must embrace the phenomenon the way a mother embraces her wayward son.
IN OTHER NEWS, Jen and I chose 12 cards for the next release using darts, a cardboard cutout of Steve Buscemi, and our first-aid kit.
Here’s a teaser:
And because I always plan ahead, here’s a new Father’s Day card:
My interests are broad and highbrow sometimes I think about zombies and sometimes I think about bowel movements. I guess I’m not the only one. The reaction to the zombie card I posted on Easter caught me off guard.
Caught me off guard like a show poodle at the dog park. (See, I’m the poodle, and the big dirty dogs come out of nowhere and molest me).
And that brings me to bowel movements. I just realized that both of the cards Paper Source chose to carry are poop-related. How childish! How jejune!
Something (the cat mistaking my bathroom floor for her litter box) woke me up this morning and although I completely resented being awake, I wrote three cards.
Here they are.
Don’t send me hate mail.
I was getting dressed… brushing my teeth… pulling my hair into a ponytail… looking for my wallet… looking for my keys… feeding the dog… All the while, I heard many, many ducks flying overhead.
QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK
I thought, “Wow… there must be like a hundred ducks… they sure quack a lot…”
I walked outside.
There was just one duck.
On my roof.
Managed to trap and skin a rat it will make a delicious stew AND the fur can be used to plug my empty eye-socket the Lord doth provide!
Does anyone know where I can find some food? My family has been living on brown bread and my old trousers for the entire Winter. Help!
Dug such a deep pit today grandma will surely die this Winter and the grave will be ready in Spring. #planahead
My husband has had a fever for so long the barber-surgeon is going to start the bloodletting tonight. Fingers crossed…
My son is going to the gibbet tomorrow. đ
Okay, that was nice. How about a new card?
Oscar Litterer lived in my house and he loved his ham radio. He loved it so much, he built a secret radio room under the stairs. I imagine he sat there night after night broadcasting his message to the moon and back. He was not alone others really did share his passion for frequency modulation but not in his own home. In his own home, his wife tended the peonies and their only son was devoted to the project of digging the hole in the driveway.
What a lonely life for Oscar!
When someone has a passion for something, they shouldn’t hide under the basement steps. They should open a shop and hire Zeichen Press to design t-shirts. 
F for Fran. Plan Fran…
Ready? OK!
F-R-A-N… That spells, Fran! Yayyyy!
That’s how I start every morning. A rousing cheer, followed by a shot of micro-nutrients and a cup of coffee. Rituals are so important.
On this particular morning, I heard my favorite sound in the world right after the cry of a newborn baby and right before the death-rattle of my enemies the fax machine. Beep-beep-boop-beep-bip-bope-bop………..whirrrrrrrrrrr
‘Twas our first order from that paper super-power, Paper Source! I grabbed the fax, my coffee and laptop, and headed to the warehouse. I set all three things down in front of me, sat myself down, faced all squarely and said aloud, “Oh, this is nice.”
And to celebrate, I knocked over my coffee cup, spilling its contents all over the fax and into my open laptop.
Luckily, the dog ran in, lapped up the spilled coffee and pooped on the floor.
When is Jen coming home?
With Jen gone, I wander about bumping into doorways and stepping in dog poop. I think I can write off glasses and shoes as a business expense so I’m not so concerned about the money. I am concerned by my ever-growing obsession with taking photographs of everything I see.
Help.
Me.
Interns make me think of Summer and since we met two potential candidates this week, I think Summer must be approaching. I wanted to have the girls fight to the death for the position but Jen said we could hire both. She is so sensible.
Anyway, Jen’s going on vacation tomorrow and that leaves me plenty of time to clean up the blood and call Centerpoint before I dig the grave in my backyard.
Dear Diary, I witnessed something today that I’m pretty sure is illegal. Anyway, I hope Jen has a nice time in Mexico. Fondly, Fran
One year, the Easter Bunny put a tiny white bunny in our Easter basket. I was sure it was meant for me and not for the other kids that shared my home and parents. An outdoor cage was built and the bunny lived in it until and my memory gets fuzzy at this point the bunny went to live with the Easter Bunny again? Yes, I think that’s what happened.
I don’t remember how I got it, but I also had a durable green parakeet. I usually forgot to clean her cage and the droppings rose like stalagmites from the newspaper-covered floor.
We never had a dog, although my grandparent’s dog tried to make me his wife. That was pretty traumatizing.
Last weekend, I was surrounded by six small dogs. I loved it so much, I made a new card:
Oh, AND the Important Thing? We got cards into Paper Source. It’s about time you noticed us, you big lug. (Paper Source has 63 shops around the country. Thats 63 x something x $ = $$$$)
Artisan Center -> 2757 East Third Avenue, Denver, CO 80206
ANOTHER profile in that special series dedicated to bringing our readers biased reviews of shops that carry our goods.
Okay, so I began my exhaustive research with the Yelp reviews. One phrase stood out, “This place hasn’t been around for 30 years by sucking.”
That should be their slogan.
Do you need soaps, jewelry, mobiles, salad bowls, stained glass, OUR CARDS, or a bird house made of a Minnesota license plate??
You do? After reading those reviews, I had to go check this place out for myself:
Those people are small. And blurry.