Simple pleasures, postcards from Japan, mud slushing and Hoh

Okay, yes I know I talked about rest and resting but instead (typical me) I am going off on another adventure which I hope will NOT end with me going to the hospital. See, tomorrow was SUPPOSED to be my, “I will go to the Hoh Rainforest Trip!” because the last attempt failed only because of the effect of the Coho (I am not strong enough to compensate for the movement of the ship for 90 minutes so start having problems breathing, etc), I need an evening to recover (so I going tonight and then lying there making vague moaning/vomit noises - actually viewed as less odd when I do it in Port Angeles than in Victoria, so I must not be the only one lying down making those noises over there). Then tomorrow I go to the Hoh Rainforest and recover again, and Saturday I come back and recover from the Coho Ferry after I come back. Admittedly two days and nights for 2 hours in a rain forest but hey, I said I was going and it would HAPPEN, I didn’t say it was going to be easy.

Only…..it is raining. I mean it IS called a rain forest, it is just that it has been sunny for weeks and weeks and now, when I actually WANT it to be sunny, it is raining. Oh Fudge! So I will need to plan the whole, “I will go to the Hoh Rainforest!” AGAIN, because we still have like a bunch of summer (many, “soon” of summer) and I need two or three weeks of sun to dry off the forest. Because while Able Bodied people can walk around that giant mudhole that appears after rain in the middle of the trail in a rainforest, wheelchairs have to go THROUGH. Which means if I go, I would do a LOT more pushing (mud is more resistance than dirt), and look like a mud monster within .5 km. So what we are doing is unknown. But not the Hoh. But I am still going (drinking margarita’s is high on my list right now).

But I wanted to let you know that I am, and have put my plan of doing the simple pleasing things in action and am back on the postcard project, and these are some of the postcards I prepared over the last day or two. Just a selection of what is going out. The ones with the pinked haired anime girl are from Aria, an anime/manga series about Neo-Venice (The New Venice) which is built on the terraformed Mars and the girls are the only ones who row the gondolas. Cute coming of age story of our heroine who dreams of being a professional gondola rower and the people she meets.

I have taken all of the postcards to stage three now. Stage one is matching postcard to person (I actually end up with several cards laid out reading up on the person to trying and decide the right one). Stage two is getting the address label and return address on. Stage three is wood block or rubber stamping. Stage four is all other stickers. Stage five is writing and then off it goes. Here is an example of two of the cards as they wait to dry, as Japanese cards have a bit of slick veneer on them which requires drying time.

When I send cards to parents I try to select cards and wood blocks and stickers which will make their children envious of them (Parents are rarely the envy of being ‘cool’). I also, if you email me at mpshiel at hotmail.com will send your child a postcard. I usually send baby animal ones, or simple anime ones – everything super G-rated. I remember as a child/youth/teen how that I NEVER seemed to get any mail, so I try to make sure all the youths/teens or children on my lists get cards regularly because a cool postcard from someone you don’t know is STILL better than no postcard at all, right? So if you want me to send a postcard to your children, just let me know. As I said, the information is kept for postcard use only. Only Linda and I have access and it is not kept on-line but off-line. Also, any readers (not to point fingers but SHEA) who I don’t seem to have addresses for, I would really like to be able to send you a postcard. If in this modern world the idea that someone would send time and money to make sure you got a postcard seems odd then just remember that I have some brain damage (if that is what it takes to explain it).

I got to try out some new wood blocks today and I am very pleased with them - Look at the totem pole and the baskets - cool! Simple pleasures, right? Hopefully the people who get them will like them too. This post is also so that those who haven’t got their card recently know that I am hard at work at the Postcard mine, toiling to dig the cards out of the earth, and bring them to the light of day (that means my 120+ postcards from Japan have ARRIVED!).

Anyway, I am off to the post office with today's batch, I hope you have a good day and I will update you tomorrow on what I did INSTEAD of slushing around with my wheelchair in the MUD.