manders2280

Updated May 3, 2021

My greatest regret over the last year is that I can't go anywhere. In March I traveled 30 miles to Wyoming, MN, to be vaccinated, the first time I'd been more than ten miles from home. Rates of infection need to go way down before we visit my in-laws in central Wisconsin.

I'd planned several trips before the lockdown: Glacier and Yellowstone in last May, Botswanna in the summer with my niece who's a primary school art teacher, and Amsterdam or maybe Japan with another niece. Of course those trips never happened. That trip to Africa may never happen, and Amsterdam is a long shot. I hear the less popular national parks are not so busy. The CDC says Australia, China, Greenland and Nigeria have low risk of infection. Maybe... eventually.

My husband, a university math professor, is working from home. He teaches remote classes and works hard on getting it right. Students are doing pretty well, though mental health is a big concern and counseling services are overwhelmed. And I'm quiet until 3pm each day so it's quiet for him to work. Cleaning and cooking and baking begin at 3.

Swap-bot is a blessing now. There's practically no one in our postoffice on Thursday afternoons and that's when I mail swaps with tracking because it's quick in and quick out. I purchase postage stamps online for a better selection and one less trip to the postoffice.

Now that spring is finally here in Minnesota and by the end of May we'll be free of the danger of frost, I'm spending more times outdoors in the garden. I'll manage my swaps by pulling swaps of interest from my watchlist when the weather forecast means I'll be inside more.

I swap for blank postcards in envelopes and written, naked postcards. I send the blank postcards I receive to family and friends and people on Postcrossing; I set them aside so I won't send them for Swap-bot swaps. I don't mind gently bent corners; I lop them off with a corner rounder. Please send nice postcards that you'd happily send your family and friends.

If you're sending me a naked postcard, please send one that's a favorite of yours, sender's choice or for a swap with a theme.

No, thank you. Sorry, no hearts. Postcards to color, postcards for Christian holidays and legends, and Zazzle postcards. Those cheap sepia 32-pcs Vintage Travel Sights Landscape Retro Postcards. I have many Pomegranate postcards because I buy their remaindered postcard books at Half Price Books for $3. (Lucky you if there's a Half Price Books near you.)

My favorite kawaii has a face. I love food with faces and anchovies with legs and animals in an unlikely milieu like cat servers at faux Starbucks.

I'd appreciate stickers and memos for mail art: faux postage, letters, writing implements, and stationery.

I enjoy most characters, especially San-X. My favorite characters at the moment are Corocoro Coronya, gudetama lazy (or depressed or fatigued?) egg yolk, Kogepan Burnt Bread, and pastel Sentimental Circus.

I'm looking for kawaii books with faces. And puffins. How could all the kawaii artists have never thought to draw puffins?

No, thanks. Poo and bottoms aren't kawaii to me. 3D stickers from sheets and sticker flakes, especially PVC and puffy. Real photos made cute aren't so cute to me. Unicorns are too sweet for me.

• Louise Penny's binge-worthy mysteries featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
• I raced through the first two books in the Gunnie Rose series by Charlaine Harris and look forward to the third book, expected in February.
• Book club books: Nemesis by Philip Roth, a novel about the polio epidemic; When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi; Pulitzer Prize winner The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Snow in August by Pete Hamill
• A Promised Land. Barack Obama's memoir, read by Barack Obama
• The Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I read and loved the first three books in the series The Queen's Thief ages ago and will backtrack to 4 and 5 in the series.
• The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell. It's like meeting many new people while we aren't just now.
• I'm learning Talmud with a Daf Yomi group.

• Artificial flavors and artificial sweeteners
• Candles. My husband worries that we'll burn the house down.
• Christian holidays, etc. I'm Jewish.
• Coffee. I never started drinking it.
• Extras. I have plenty of kawaii, stickers and washi.
• Glitter, sequins and other tiny metallic bits
• Plastic, if possible. Reuse all those bubble mailers!
• Please, not those cheap sepia 32-pcs Vintage Travel Sights Landscape Scenery Cartoons Retro Postcards.
• Tobacco smoke residue aka thirdhand smoke. See also thirdhandsmoke.org: People can be exposed to thirdhand smoke by touching contaminated surfaces (absorption through the skin).
• Unicorns, unless they are images of the Unicorn Tapestries dating from the late Middle Ages.