Yesterday evening brought an embarrassment of wondrous stuff into the house. First was a mailing from Classic Malts of Scotland, which, if it didn't actually contain any whisky, reminded me that we had representatives of at least three of the six Classic Malts in our liquor pantry and happy memories of visiting two of the distilleries.
Next was a box containing the antique Underwood No. 5 manual typewriter I won at auction on eBay a couple of weeks ago. It's a beautiful machine, and I can't wait to get it working. It's been a long, long time since I've written fiction on a typewriter, and I'm eager to try it out and see what happens. (I'm also eager to see the design that Stephanie Tamez of New York Adorned comes up with for a tattoo based on the Underwood. If all goes according to plan, a woodcut-styled rendition of this baby goes on my arm June 30th, my wedding anniversary.)
After that was a long mailing tube sent from Canada. It contained a beautiful numbered print sent to me quite out of the blue by Kenn Brown, a frequent illustrator for Wired and other publications, in thanks for support of one kind or another over the years. True, I was a fan of his work back when he was still obscure, but I'm not sure what I did to have been honored with print number 1 of 50. I'm humbled. It will have pride of place on the wall of my den.
Finally, our friend Stephanie Lienhard delivered us a four-panel painting of birch trees for our living room, simply out of the goodness of her heart. Originally two of the panels were going to hang in the Lienhards house and two in ours, but in the end Stephanie couldn't bear to break the grouping up, so we've ended up, over our weak protestations, with all four.
Oh, and not to overlook the bootleg of Danger Mouse's Grey Album that one of █████'s coworkers slipped her earlier. And certainly not to overlook the marvelous packet of magazine articles received the day before from BOGMONSTERcurmudgeon, for which I have yet to render a proper thank-you—or, indeed, any thank-you at all. (Thanks!)
As I say, an embarrassment of riches this week indeed.
