Postcard on wheels

Old postal delivery vehicle, on display at the James A. Fareley post office in NYC.

Postcard received in the mail.

Lassie lives in Finland, Clarice lives in my Neighborhood

This stamp and postcard arrived last week from Finland.

Clarice hasn't set up her farm stand in the neighborhood yet. She's a musician who lives in the neighborhood, and she has a farm upstate. Every once in awhile, on no schedule that I've figured out, she sets up a tv tray on the sidewalk and sells fresh produce from her farm. We have some bigger farmers' markets around here, but I like Clarice's stand best. When she brings jars of homemade pickles, I know I live in heaven.

If the portrait on the postcard included a cello, and if the woman were 30 years older and wore a colorful skirt, floppy sunhat and a fanny pack around her waist, I would swear it was a painting of Clarice from my neighborhood.

From China

A postcard from China with charming stamps arrived the other day. The red pig diamond-shape stamp is my favorite.

The sender wrote on the card that Shanghai is the largest city in China. How embaressed I am that I didn't know that, and I would not have guessed it if someone asked me. Collecting postcards and stamps from around the world is bound to improve my education.

Plus, collecting mail is really fun.

Birthday on Paper

I celebrated a birthday recently. A little girl who knows her mother well slipped this envelope under the door as a special-delivery birthday surprise. The stamp and postmark made me smile, but knowing my daughter made a card that so suited me really warmed my heart.

As a birthday gift to myself, I bought this little bookbinding kit:

I'm no Leonardo da Vinci, that's for sure, but he was an Aries just like me and was born this time of year. He liked to write and draw on loose leaf papers, not in bound notebooks. So I'm taking a cue from Leonardo and I'll write on the pages first and then bind into a notebook later, rather than making the notebook with blank pages.

Super Cool Stamp Saturday

I mentioned to a friend of mine that I'm disappointed I'll miss the upcoming stamp show in NYC. Next thing I knew, she sent me a bunch of stamps from Australia and a few from New Zealand. Thanks for the pile of postage, pal!

A Postcard and a Tree

"It will never grow," my father said to my mother as she and my aunt dig up a clumb of sapling birch along a river. My mom and aunt put the saplings and some dirt into a bucket and stuck the bundle in the backseat of the car.

"It will never grow," my father said to my mother as she planted the little trees in the front yard of their new home.

The tree planting happened before I was born. As long as I can remember, I lived in the blue house with the big white birch tree in front.

I recently received this art gallery postcard with images of wood pieces:

San Francisco Postcard

A photo of the beautiful houses in San Fransisco arrived in my mailbox this week. If I were the art director of this postcard project, I would've moved the cool green pick-up truck a bit forward. Against that red brick wall, it would look even cooler than it already does.

Then again, the postcard isn't about the cool car and perhaps moving the car would distract from ths houses.

This morning on the subway, a woman walked up and down the aisle and explained to the crowd that she didn't have a home. She was homeless, she said, and was selling candy from a box to support herself. One of the people who gave money (she didn't want the candy) was dressed in a white sweater and black skirt. Her make-up was done to perfection and her bleach-blonde hair was pulled into a neat up-sweep style. The candy-seller took the dollar and said to the woman, "You are beautiful. You look just like Ivana Trump."

On the way home on the subway, I overheard a dark man with gray-hair wearing a white knit cap tell a group of young men, "Don't conform to the trash. You hear me? Don't conform to the trash." The boys nodded in agreement.

It was a long day for me, and it seemed like every friend and acquaintance I encountered today had negative comment to say. It's easy to slip into negative thinking and talking, and it's a fight somedays not to comform to it.

As I slipped into my apartment building, this old art-deco building that is my home, I recalled the two uplifting moments of the day - a homeless woman telling an elegant woman how pretty she was, and an old man giving advice to young guys who seemed to be actually paying attention.

Jefferson postcard

I received this museum postcard from a fellow American.

My family took many road trips when I was a kid. My parents loved to stop at any museum or historic place we encountered on the road, and my father liked getting off the main highway to travel the back roads. My friends came back from winter vacation with stories of Disney World or beach resorts. I had stories from LBJ's ranch and could name every scenic overlook along the Mississippi River.

The sender of this postcard writes that she has taken many school groups to the museum and would like to visit on her own someday. I'm a homeschooling mom and I also organize plenty of group field trips to museums, but I have to admit the reason I do it is because I like writing the name tags. There is something about handing out "Hello. My name is ___________" name tags that pleases me.

From Belarus

At a dinner party awhile ago, I sat next to an iconographer. He told me he paints religious icons in the Russian Orthodox style. Since that dinner, I run into him from time to time at various events. Whenever I see him, I say to myself, "There goes the icongrapher." It's not often you get to say that.

I received this icon postcard from Belarus. It's beautiful, isn't it?

Today I passed a tiny shop with a curious window display of figurines and candles. Turns out the store does business in books, firearms, and church supplies. They have an in-house psychic detective, too.

I peeked in the store, but it was dim and I didn't see a postcard display to lure me inside. I kept walking, though I wouldn't mind meeting the detective. I'd like to be able someday, when I see the detective in chance encounters, to say, "Well, there goes the psychic detective." But, I'll have to live my life without being able to say that.

Then again, what do I know? Maybe I will get to say it. I really can't predict, after all, whether I'll meet such a person or not in the future.

But, back to the mail. Here are the beautiful stamps on the back of this beautiful postcard.

Postcard

This postcard arrived in my mailbox from Finland. I'm liking the local handicrafts I see in the picture. I'm not sure what all the pieces are used for, but they look good. The stamp looks good, too.

Postcard

I always reserve the right to change my mind. Just yesterday I wrote on the blog that I'm not particulary fond of photographs of flowers. Today I received this postcard of a wildflower and I said to myself, "I am a fan of flower photographs after all!"

There is an abandoned, empty lot near my apartment. It's mainly bedrock outcropping, a big hunk of rock a few stories high on a lot between apartment buildings.

A few years ago a developer began the project of hammering away the rock, with the idea of building a new apartment building. I guess the guy ran out of money because one day the work and noise stopped. Year by year I have watched the weeds and wildflowers take over the lot.

The first plants that come into a distressed area are strong, and they help break up the soil so other plants can later take root. I like those pioneer plants and I admire their strength to heal a wounded piece of land.

I wonder if I had a wound, of the heart or body, who would be the first on the scene to help heal me and pave the way for growth and blooms. Someone with the strength of a wildflower, I suppose.

Oh, and before I forget, here are the stamps that came with this wildflower postcard.

Postcard

This postcard arrived in my mailbox today. Isn't it beautiful?

And here are the stamps that came on the postcard from Russia.

Postcards Received

Yes sir, I like this postcard of a library in Scotland.

I like the rack things on the desks. What do you suppose they are used for? To hold papers, it looks like, or maybe to hold open books while you're working at the desk. That would be so cool. I want one on my desk. This card from Scotland was sent to me by someone in California.

And this postcard sent to me by someone in Ohio who says she got the postcard at the Met, in my own city of NYC.

Funny how these postcards are traveling around the world...and they end up in my mailbox and then in my hands and then in my nifty postcard storage box.

Postcard Received

I received my very first postcard today from Postcrossing! Whoohoo! Fun stuff.

The card is from Finland (just like my Grandma T). The bird is a grus grus, a thing so nice they named it twice (just like my city of New York, New York).

The grus grus is a type of crane and the postcrossing'er writes on the postcard that the birds stop over in her village as they travel to warmer places in the autumn.

Mail Received

A business correspondence received with five different types of stamps. How did she know I would like all those stamps? Well, she didn't know, and she also had no idea that I get a kick out of people writing New York City instead of plain New York on the envelope. Simply pleasures like this keep me smiling throughout a run-of-the-mill day like today.

Mail Received

Last month, out of the blue, I received this postcard with a thank you note.