Blog - Saints & martyrs

I wrote this in 2009 for another blog and decided 12 years is long enough to wait to share with the dedicated Zeichen Press readers. See how important recycling is?!

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Various Meats, Come Forth!

There was a story in the news yesterday about a fish-store owner who drove to the airport to pick up a special delivery of exotic fish. The seven-foot long package they gave him did not, in fact, contain $1,000 worth of exotic fish. It contained exactly one dead man – Jon Kenoyer.

Oops!

The dead man was supposed to be delivered to some institute – he had donated his body to “science”.

What the f*ck?

A) Who does that?
B) What does that even mean? What sort of experiments can be performed on a man that has been dead for 5 days?
C) Who does that?
D) Isn’t that whole embalming thing done so that your loved ones don’t have to plug their noses while they kneel in front of your stiff corpse at your wake?
E) Was Jon packed in those cute little peanuts or placed gently in a silk-lined coffin?

More about rotting meat:

We left Minnesota in the middle of a heat-wave one summer and returned to discover a “freezer” full of rotting meat.

The cab dropped us off and we dragged our luggage past tumbleweeds and panting squirrels.
PANTING SQUIRRELS.

That’s how hot it was.

Opening the front door of the house was like opening the tomb of Lazarus.

“Various Meats, come forth!”

Whereupon they that were dead stayed dead. The stench of rotting meat stung our noses. The refrigerator in the basement had lost power and 40lbs of frozen chicken, cow, and pig thawed and rotted. To make matters more delicious, every window had been shut tight for two weeks.

Two steamy weeks.

Also:

I had a dream last night about a really, really smelly raccoon. He wanted to be my “companion” but every time he came near me, I winced – it made him feel bad. I kept apologizing and saying, “okay, I’m sure it’ll be fine this time – come closer.”

Someone (WHO??) told me I am LUCKY to live in these times. Umm, I don’t feel lucky. My body always knows what’s up and that’s why my heart (my “hizart” in ebonics, I think.) was beating 177 times per minute!

Oh! According to three doctors and exactly two blood draws, it turns out my thyroid was doing that! Nothing some methimazole can’t fix!

CARRY ON! (My wayward son!)

PS: Ilhan Omar told us we didn’t need the police – I couldn’t agree more and these two ALSO agree!

My favorite quote was yelled by my favorite English contractor.

“CAN YA’ SEE, CHILD??? CAN YA’ SEE???” My three-year-old daughter was RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and jammed them nearish her eyeball. Luckily, she COULD see.

That reminds me of the time in 9th grade when I thought it’d be helpful to shovel our walkway. Using proper shoveling-form, I scooped and filled my shovel full of heavy snow, threw the snow off the shovel, AND hit my four-year-old sister nearish her eyeball. Luckily, SHE could see and her snowsuit and a snowdrift broke her fall and her scar only shows up if she cries. PHEW!

Fast-forward to the present-day and she forced one of her kids to “play” with the Manger Magnets I generously bestowed upon my siblings.

Oh, ALSO and very unrelated… My son-in-law (I’M SORRY!!) has spent the last few months rebuilding my upstairs. It’s not like it’s a piece of heaven on earth or whatever.

   Oh, AND also very unrelated here are some new cards to kick off the New Year:

Hide-n-seek is the best game! One time I hid in my bedroom closet for hours – my siblings said they tried super hard to find me and finally started watching tv hoping I’d come out, and of course didn’t forget about me. 

Tib also loves to play hide-n-seek! She puts her head down and counts (in her head) while I hide. I ALWAYS WIN! See?? I’m really good. Between games, I make cards for RSVP (because they pay us The Big Bucks to license the Art) and squeeze in designing a few cards for our own line, THAT DEFY ANY CATEGORY.

My Mom speed-walks up to the library with her tote bag to solve whatever needs solving. She uses their Xerox machine to copy important pages of uncheckoutable periodicals and checks out the books that are checkoutable. When she is done, she scampers home to (speed) read those books and take notes on a fresh pack of 3″ x 5″ (lined) index cards. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

I also feel compelled to solve whatever needs solving but I prefer never leaving my laptop (or house) and using Google to search the World Wide Web. Just this week, I needed to get to the bottom of the origin of our Stone Table.

I opened the drawer and took this photo of the (seedy) underbelly:

APPARENTLY Barnhart Bros. & Spindler operated out of Chicago from 1883 – 1911, BEFORE THAT they were called the Great Western Type Foundry AND THEN they became American Type Founders.

I also learned that ye olde printers used the smooth and clean side of the slab of granite for their own personal gravestone – I can’t wait to share this info with Jen! My brother will be so happy, he hates waste and loves recycling.

After I finished my important research, and because the Intern gave me a huge stack of Tribunes from 1938 to steal graphics from, I wrote and designed a card.   

Remember when you were three years old and and ran down a hill and lost control of your legs and ran straight into a wooden post that holds up the picnic pavilion?

No??

My forehead wanted to meet that 4×4 so bad and who am I to stand in the way of destiny?? I don’t pretend to understand the stars! Wait, I do! I do pretend to understand the stars!

While Jen is on the Cape, and between my sobs because I miss her so much, the Intern and I box up orders. 

But what about that head-injury?? Hush your sweet mouth and spend the next ten minutes wondering why I am so in tune with the cosmos.

Loretta has come such a long way – from an unnamed fetus to sorting wood type.

I doubt she even remembers special moments we shared…

I told her that being my Foot-Twin means she has a lot to live up to and she told me I was crazy. WHATEVER, LORETTA.

While Jen puts her to work in the shop, I’m going to spend the next few weeks admiring my own feet and designing new astrology cards. WHO’S CRAZY NOW, LORETTA??

Now that my fireplace is ready for Winter,

Jen can finally print Holiday cards for our favorite custom customer. Akustiks is a fancy company of acousticians who design the architectural acoustics for theaters and concert halls.

And, correct me if I’m wrong, but a group of acousticians were actually hired by God to assure the residents of Bethlehem that His choir of angels sounded better than some music pouring out of the earbuds crammed in my earholes.

Despite my lo-fi circumstances, I created a new card. Only 38 shopping days till Christmas!

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 cutsso I made a Father’s Day Card out of that little man.BACK TO MIGRATING/WEEPING.

Remember last year when my lung collapsed and my mom had to sleep on a cot in my dingy bedroom so she could walk me to the bathroom in the middle of the night?And EMTs had to come to that same dingy bedroom, on that very same night, because we thought my chest-tube had fallen out?

No?

I know you’re wondering if the EMTs were cute and why my bedroom was so dingy. Um, my mom volunteered to be their Resusci Annie doll and I’ve been a little too busy building the Zeichen Press Empire to focus on home-making frivolity.

But, between choosing paper/envelopes for the Spring Release and conquering territories, I did refresh my bedroom. And now I see no reason to ever leave it.Choosing paint color is just like choosing ink color. But with less Jen and more anxiety.

Speaking of self-medicating (was I?) here’s a Spring Release teaser (see/buy ALL 12 from the shop!):