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:
Have I mentioned how much Millie The Dog 
barks at anything and everything within a 500 foot perimeter of our house? Mailman, delivery-person, solicitors, neighbors, guests, the kids, trick-or-treaters, my mom… We’ve talked a lot about it and she feels super responsible for alerting us – I told her that we really don’t need that kind of help, BUT WE DID. SHE WAS RIGHT. SHE’S ALWAYS RIGHT.
SO, my driveway was full of a dumpster filled with bathroom remodel debris, Millie was having a staycation with a friend, AND SOME JERK CLIPPED THE LOCK ON OUR SHED AND STOLE MY BIKE.
And he threw the lock in the dirt like some sort of criminal.
AND THEN, the loser (no judgment) tried to sell MY bike on a site called OfferUp.com.
But he is as slippery as an eel wrapped in a banana peel, and disappeared INTO THE NIGHT. Police have been alerted, prayers to St. Anthony have been said. I asked St. Anthony if he could forward my prayers onto the Patron Saint of Stolen Goods and he told me to go back to sleep and stop Googling escutcheons for the new bathroom.
FINE.
While I wait for my miracle, I spend days mindlessly migrating ALL of the content from the Zeichen Press site to THE NEW Zeichen Press site. DON’T WORRY, you won’t even be able to tell the difference because we wanted to spend a lot of money on something that nobody notices.
OH, and Jen got some new/old cuts
so I made a Father’s Day Card out of that little man.
BACK TO MIGRATING/WEEPING.
I did the math and figured out that two toilets MINUS one toilet EQUALS one toilet. And one shower MINUS one shower EQUALS zero showers.
I desperately yelled that equation to the boys during my bathroom demo, but they pretended not to hear me.
I only gave birth to them to provide me with free manual labor. Ha! Who’s laughing now, boys??
Anyway, who needs a shower??
OR a bath??
I barely do.
And as soon as all of my family and friends get back from being out of town for a month, they’ll tell you the same.
Here’s a new birthday card/fantasy:
Everyone celebrates Jenmas Eve differently.*I* like to go to Hot Plate SANS Jen to eat a Mexican Omelet surrounded by a gallery of paint-by-number masterpieces.
YEARS AGO, Jen (carefully) slaved away over *her* masterpiece and it sits atop a shelf of knick-knacks in Cape Cod.
She was so dedicated!
I bet she knew that someday I’d repay her in birthday cards.
The Art Licensor (RSVP) asked us for some birthday cards and because I love to work/need money, I made nine. I won’t bore you with the details/need to get back to listening to my new podcast (My Favorite Murder).
Here are a few… Will they choose any???
Stay tuned.
Thank you, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. I can’t wait until Alexis Stewart and I meet you in person!
“What street is this??” I yelled up to the boy watching us float past him. He told me that we were just about to enter the Ninth Circle of Hell.
PHEW! Almost done!
Three hours to travel 2.5 miles… Could we have walked faster than the creek carried us? Oh, THAT’S the point my kids were making when they got out of their tubes and dragged them the last four blocks! Oh, kids! So subtle!
I didn’t get a photograph of them on our adventure, BUT a giant spider landed on my belly! AND who needs a picture of all three when one of them modeled for the company that made our tubes?
(Grip those handles! Safety first, Dylan!)
I only thought the creek-pollution caused blindness one time and I only lost my sunglasses one time — I’d call that a win!
Here’s a card, maybe inspired by laughter-induced bladder incontinence. MAYBE NOT.
My life is one big Sexy Action Thriller. And being a bouncer at the Double Deuce in Missouri when I was only ten years old was pretty intense. Sure, I had great hair and sure I had a winning smile, and sure I always made breaking up bar fights and drinking black coffee look sexy. That’s just who I am.
Truth is, practicing tai chi in your brother’s sweatpants and running a letterpress design studio with cards SOLD AROUND THE WORLD, takes discipline and dedication.
Live Wires, our New Zealand distributor, knows this and sent us a token of appreciation.
I think they’re supposed to be for tea but I already used mine for sopping up blood from a letterpress-related (packing tape dispenser) injury. Thanks Helen Harvey!
After I bandaged my wound, I made this:
My little sister had baby #2 last week, she gave birth at home but, strangely, didn’t ask me to participate.
Despite my lack of presence, the birth went off without a hitch because anyone can boil water and get towels. (SORRY MOM.)
I will give her this card the next time I break in to her house:
ALSO, I made this because I am so into politics:
So, you don’t need to watch the news tonight. You’re welcome.
Dinah told me about her crazy dream!
She said we left her for two weeks with Tib and Jen so we could go to Cape Cod, and she had a fever and hair-balls. She said it was actually more like a nightmare poor thing!
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her nightmare was real… that we did leave her for two weeks with Tib and Jen.
But she isn’t alone. When she reads the blog, she’ll find out about our scary flight home. The airline warned us, but people just do whatever they want.
The other passengers made calls on their flip-phones, watched who-knows-what on portable televisions, drove their remote-controlled cars up and down the aisle, talked to each other on walkie-talkies, and blasted music on transistor radios! Meanwhile we, The Law-Abiding, were stuck in the teeny-tiny bathroom, forced to take hysterical selfies.
BUT, we managed to land safely, no thanks to all of that recklessness. I will NOT be giving them my latest Thank You Card.
Cape Cod 2016 is (so far) drama AND cage-free. Wait, we did lose one member of the party searching for the water shut-off valve in the cellar.
He was brave and will be missed.
More importantly, we never found that shut-off valve! One life wasted.
But we must carry on, he would have wanted it that way.
The very next day was filled with so much splashing and laughter and sunscreen, I’m sure Ben was looking down on us and giggling! Oh, how he’d giggle!
AND here’s a little thing from The Boston Globe about Millennials’ loving PAPER greeting cards. DUH.
This isn’t the first time I blamed The Cats for a crime they didn’t commit.
Nor will it be the last. 
The odor of rotten animal is unforgettable and like the odor of rotting potato, it is embedded in the brain. But sometimes the brain jumbles the smell of decomposing rodent with the smell of a blanket of maggots coating the bottom of the garbage can.
And that is where my story begins…
The Summer Breeze gently wafted through the upstairs windows. It was pleasant, until an occasional repulsive odor stung my nostrils. I blamed The Cats for hunting, killing, and hiding their prey somewhere on my second floor.
But a search for a body was in vain and a garbage can investigation led me to the real suspect: that damn blanket of maggots coating the bottom of the garbage can!
Mea culpa, Tib! When will I ever trust you again??
Speaking of breezes (and puns??)… Here’s a new thank you/congratulations card.