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.
There were two parts to the Freak Show – two tents – one contained The Fat Lady and the other was filled with the usual freakish-fare. I didn’t really want to pay to see the Fat Lady so I poked my head under the tent – it seemed silly to pay to see a fat lady but this was before the days of google searches and voyeuristic television masquerading as health and human interest stories. Before the days of shows actually called, World’s Fattest Woman.
So I poked my head under the tent. A pit had been dug in the dirt in the center of the tent – she, all 600 pounds of her, sat in the pit in a teeny weeny bikini. The paying public stared and stared while she thumbed through the pages of a paperback.
The other tent promised a variety of oddities and I handed my tickets to the dusty man guarding the flap-door. In this tent there was a stage and on the stage there was a sign and on the sign were the words, “World’s Fattest Man”
The crowd – and I was in the crowd now – stared at the sign and waited for the man. He hobbled out using two canes – those canes that have the four baby canes on the bottom. He reached the center of the stage and lowered himself into a reinforced chair, spoke to the crowd about his thyroid disorder, and asked if we wanted to see him attach a bucket of bolts to his tongue.
Ugh. I wanted my tickets back.
Why can’t things be the way they’re supposed to be? And why can’t freaks just enjoy their exploitation? If I were a freak (if) I’d love it. I’d use my freakish power for the good of mankind.
I’d love to have one super long arm. A Super Arm. I could take seemingly candid pictures of myself even more easily!
Do you see that?
It’s like someone else is taking the picture. But what a struggle!
If I had Super Arm my whole life would change!
Cary Grant’s tie is the perfect shade of gray.
It’s not like I’m obsessed with shades of gray because of this project I’m working on. I don’t get obsessed. I wasn’t obsessed with pulling out (and counting) all of the dandelions in my front yard (689). I wasn’t. I also wasn’t obsessed with collecting and transporting rocks halfway across the country to surround my little tree.
I’m not obsessed with letterpress.
And I don’t just sit around waiting for the sun to be in the perfect spot.
Doesn’t this gray look just like Cary Grant’s tie? :
WELL?! It does, doesn’t it. Won’t it look lovely decking the halls of Room and Board?
Sigh.
1/3 of the project done.
We had a special guest for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! : The Swine Flu aka:H1N1 That’s just what we needed to shake things up around here! Oh, and nothing brings a family together like contagious disease. I mean it. I barely notice my kids unless their eyes get glassy and they vomit on my bedroom floor. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, a nosebleed will get my attention -and so will a 2 am phone call from the Edina Police. Oh, kids!
I heard that “scientists” are working on some sort of “immunization” for this particular version of the flu. They can just inject themselves with their magic potion. I’m not standing in line at the Walgreens with a bunch of clammy people. Anyway, I discovered the cure: 100 episodes of Malcom in the Middle and lots of popsicles. When The Plague finally, and politely, exited our home – I felt that I needed another challenge:
The Fish Pond at St. Helena’s:
Of course! Everyone knows what a daredevil I am – I just couldn’t say no to Jen’s (repeated) requests to “volunteer.” I don’t regret a moment. In fact, I’m pretty sure that my time in Purgatory is reduced by exactly the same amount of hours that I spent in that claustrophobic booth. That’s five hours, God. Should I go on and on about the ROOM & BOARD project I’m working on? 21 down, only 279 to go! I love you, grayish-brownish-not-quite-taupe-ish-sort-of-smog-ish ink.
Vomit blood for a week or have a nail gun misfire so that the nail pierces your eyeball?*
WHICH ONE DO YOU CHOOSE?!
Maybe I’d choose the vomiting… I hear the ICU is like staying in a fancy hotel. You see? Life is about choices. Or wait… is it about rolling with the punches? Having your eye sewn shut is worse than getting punched – Maybe life is about getting your nail-pierced-eyeball sewn shut.
Yes. That sounds about right.
°°°°°°
* These events are true and happened to two men that I know. Both named Ben.
I can’t wait to turn 40.
Jen did it and she got a Fu Manchu AND pickles. It was a very special evening – one she will never remember.
See how the Fu Manchu put her under his spell? Isn’t he cunning? Poor Jen, she never had a chance.
I was always jealous of those farm kids at the State Fair. Barefoot and confident, covered in dust — their coveralls did indeed coverall, catching every drip of ice cream, every drop of grease. I imagined that they slept right on the hay bales that penned off their milking goats – what a life!
Their blue-ribbon proudly pinned for all the Fair-Goers to see. And The City Kids lined up to milk their goats! Why can’t I have a goat? Why can’t I run around the fair barefoot — ringworm be damned!
I guess that DIY story is coming together — one of the writers called me on my telephone… I kept telling her everything was “off the record” – she seemed confused. I can’t just open myself up to the public. They did ask me to create Headlines for the other “Best In Show” categories. I wanted to do them in macaroni but they reminded me that I own a design and letterpress studio – not a design and macaroni studio. Now I feel like a missed the boat on that concept.
Here are some of the headlines they asked for:
Oh, they also wanted some blue ribbons:
“How can we be expected to teach children to read when they can’t even fit inside the building?”-Derek Zoolander
It turns out that Panko Japanese Style Breading boxes are the perfect size for my Press (kit) Boxes! It’s true. Now my family will enjoy breaded EVERYTHING for the next two weeks.
Breaded meat, breaded not-meat, breaded bread… YUMMY. 
The boxes have been turned inside-out, printed on, and stuffed with a variety of cards. I might sprinkle extra breading in for packing… We’ll see. I’d say that I’m sending them to my favorite magazines but that’s not entirely true.
Bass Master, Muslim Girl, and Quick Quilts didn’t make the cut.
Who did?
Oprah and Martha. And others. I think Oprah and Martha should combine forces, the masses would kneel before them.
Back on the Cape (Cod) again. I spent a restless night out in the barn. Maybe it was the vinyl covered futon OR my teenager’s shenanigans OR the twin mosquitos that took turns attacking me. I just don’t know – I just don’t know why my uncomfortable evening produced this:
(Inside: God bless you.)
Wellfleet, Massachusetts
A Minneapolis woman dove into the icy Atlantic Monday morning in an attempt to “meet a seal”.
Assuring onlookers that the attempt was an “act of diplomacy” she swam a distance of approximately 50 yards using a stroke known as the Dog-Paddle. She met the 350 pound Harbor Seal unaware that the top of her two-piece bathing swimsuit had become untied and dropped to her waist. The woman is reported to have said that the seal reacted to the introduction like “some sort of wild animal” … “His flippers were all over me.”
