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Speaking of letters! The new prints arrived at all of the Room and Board stores across this great land. The photographs on their website are gorgeous and make me feel like I live in a crack house.

I have nothing against crack houses, I’m sure the people that live in them are perfectly lovely and are just misunderstood.

The legendary, Katie Dohman (Minnesota Monthly) already wrote a little something about them. I’m feeling pretty fancy.

Katie Dohman, style editor for Minnesota Monthly, made a special guest appearance in the shop. She was just delightful and for that she got one of these:

I just need, like, 500 more photographs for a lovely coffee table book.

Enough small talk! On to the new cards:

 

PS: I know the card above looks like a black blob but it’s a man carrying a baby elephant. Don’t worry, the real card will be perfect.

Hot Plate-> 5204 Bloomington Ave South Minneapolis, MN 55417

I had no idea that I loved to be surrounded by paint-by-number art and Paula figurines. Who could know something like that? I was once surrounded by prosthetic limbs

 

Patina-> So many locations.

Another profile for the special series dedicated to bringing our readers biased reviews of shops that carry our goods.

I’ll tell you what Patina doesn’t sell: beer bongs, hazmat suits,

DIY cryogenics kits or kittens. And, while I’m still waiting for such a shop to open, (perhaps in the afterlife) I must admit that Patina has nailed the drag-me-out-of-this-store-before-I-spend-all-of-my-money formula.

Owners, Rick Haase and Christine Ward comb the planet in search of gifts for your (my) Aunt Lynn, Uncle John, teenager, baby, mom, neighbor, lawyer, therapist, evil twin,

dog or bf (blind faction). I don’t even know what I did for gifts (yes, I do – homemade soap anyone?) before Patina opened its doors on 5oth and Bryant. I can’t even think of another shop (I can, but they don’t carry Zeichen Press goods – yet) in the Twin Cities that has so successfully cemented itself into our retail subconscious. (Did you even know you had a retail subconscious?? Everyone does, without it we would only shop at Walmart.)

I guess writing this blog FOR TWO YEARS means I’m a writer. Or something like that. I’m going to put on hospital scrubs and walk around HCMC for a couple of years – I’ve heard that doctors make more money than me and I’d like to change that.

Loretta already gets it – she’s a princess.

That was a lot of syllables.

I’ve heard that experiencing four letterpress harbinger doppelgangers is about as rare as seeing the Virgin Mary in a pancake. I’m not saying that Zeichen Press cards predict the future, I’m just saying that some of our cards seem to foretell a subsequent event. Wait, what am I saying? Never mind, let’s just get to the evidence:

Don’t freak out. This is being investigated by the proper authorities.

Isn’t that nice?

OH, also: It only seems appropriate that on the eve of the launching of the new site, the dog was caught nursing the kittens.

Enjoy.

I’ve never met a middle-aged man at a BP in Grantsburg and given him money for a Kitchen-Aid mixer — until now! The ZP intern was the recipient of the gift. She cried and looked like she was just crowned Princess Kay of the Milky Way.

It was beautiful.

I spent the last 56 hours holed up in my room (cell) uploading content for the new Zeichen Press website. And just to make it interesting, I didn’t shower or change my clothes. I DID leave once to get a new iPhone because my old one decided it would rather be a hot plate than a phone.

So be it/good riddance.

Fran Shea’s résumé

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

1988-1988 (Nov. 1-Dec 23) Lyndale Garden Center

My first job. Silly me, I heard “making Christmas wreaths” and thought I’d be “making Christmas wreaths.” Pre-made wreaths were heaped onto a lunch table – my job was to choose the sprigs for the wreaths. “Sprigs” was an industry term for cheap Christmassy crap.

1989-1989 (Sept. 1-Sept 15) Pearson’s Family Restaurant

I bussed tables and was told to clear as much of the table as would fit in the gray bin. It would have been very satisfying if I were training to be a power-lifter. Two weeks was too long.

1989-1990 (Oct. 1-March 1) Leeann Chin, Richfield

As a server, I wore a little white hat and jacket. Like a chef. A disgruntled, panicked, 17-year-old chef.

1990-1990 (June 1-Aug. 15) GJ’s SuperValu

A block walk from my apartment above Ribizza – this job required speed and superhuman strength. Bagging groceries during a “rush” filled me with doubt and indecision – eggs before bread or bread before eggs?? Should I take my smoke break now??

1990-1990 (Sept. 1-Nov. 1) Telemarketing for the Special Olympics

I don’t even know how I found this job – it was in a bland office in a bland office building on University Avenue.  The script we were handed was written in the 1950′s and we were supposed to offer lots of garbage bags in exchange for donating to the Special Olympics. Our boss was, I think, Bob Saget.
1990-1991 (Nov. 15-Jan 15) Meyer’s Bakery

A job that required cash register skills. I’d rather wash old peoples bottoms than use a cash register – I’d try to push customers into buying things that would result in even dollar amounts so I wouldn’t have to make difficult change. Three cookies? Why not four?… Two loaves of bread? Why not two loaves of bread AND a cookie??

Fast Forward—>

1993-1996 : Carney Studio

The interview went something like this:

“So, you want to be a graphic designer?”

“A what?”

“You’re hired.”

1996-1997 : Odney Advertising

This is where I learned about advertising. And stealing office supplies.

1997-present : Stay At Home Mom

This is where I learned about cleaning up poop.

2006-present : Owner of Zeichen Press

The culmination of a life-long set of painfully acquired skills.

Jen and I share many things: Type wash, paper towels, dirty looks… But nothing… nothing even comes close to this weekend…

Whew! That was a tear-jerker! Um… there is no easy way to segue from a cat eating a placenta…

Well, other things happened this weekend, too… I biked 8 million miles to Hopkins to take some pictures of the new Pizza Lucé…  I wrote about that on the Tanek blog… And, well I guess nothing can really compare to the moment when Jen and Susie the Cat locked eyes and Jen stated firmly (but tenderly) “I love you.”

Sigh.