Happy New - 2021 - Year!

      The year 2020 was weird the least, all the lockdowns, worries, good things [personal ones], I guess in future our grandchildren will come for their modern history assignment to ask how it was to witness these times. Anyway, 2021 can only be better, right? The maxicard is with the 2018's New Year stamp with a Snow Maiden. It's also sticker, and it seems that the issues of holiday stamps are very limited - for New Year it's typically about 37 000 - not enough for everyone, they are immediately sold out. I think it's very stupid, some random and pretty boring stamp with little known Hero of Russia has a circulation of 85 000 pcs, where is the logic? The second postcard says 'Happy New Year, Guys!' [note the diversity - seems the card shows different professions and nations], reprint of the Soviet postcard.

left - received from silent_gluk, Russia (direct swap); right - received from Robin_Goodfellow, Russia (direct swap)

     The New Year Round Robin immediately brought not only this year's stamp, but also the holiday cancellation of three cities: Saint Petersburg (left), Kazan (center), and Moscow (right). The middle one from galina_rm also has quite smart use of the middle sticker surroundings of additional sheet of 2020's traditional embroidery stamps [and 2016's triangle New Year stamp].

left - stamps of the postcard, received from ri17, Russia (New Year RR LJ - 2020); center - stamps of the postcard, received from galina_rm, Russia (New Year RR LJ - 2020); right - stamps of the postcard, received from shishna_vedma, Russia (New Year RR LJ - 2020)

Just little [postcrossing] things

      It's always a joy to see your postcards in someone else's instagram or blog post - I sent a postcard with 'Carol' movie poster to a friend of mosaika. I received this postcard blank couple years ago from one of the Asian users, and haven't found anyone to send it to yet, because it's very specific. The better to find out that it landed on someone who really appreciates it [Cate Blanchett is divine in any role!]. Other cards are handmade I was meant to make for a year or so - the idea of making a watermelon appeared once I got orange and green felts, and learnt that mondschein collects watermelons. Then I bought special buttons which look exactly like seeds, several months of marinating the idea - and here they are!

left - the screenshot from instagram of mosaika's friend with the postcard, I sent to her; right - recent handmades, sent to mondschein and azuregosa, Russia (direct swap)

     The other handmade is a susuwatari, who was truly a coal accident [who would think that you shouldn't use a wooden plank to put a hot coal on?]. The last ones are screenshots again - my dear penpal, loving6thgrade, appearing on the 15 years of postcrossing video for a short moment; and one of my postcard being favorited at the same time with two people from very different countries but with very similar nicknames.

loving6thgrade, sending her mail, on the screenshot of the 15 years of postcrossing video

screenshot of the letter about users, who favorited my sent postcard

Perks of instant memory: In the boat

      Some of the recent postcards, received from azuregosa, had a take on the scrapbooking - mad skillz! The postcard shows just some ridiculousness which immediately was associated of working as a technical writer with a big IT company for azuregosa [and with working in a University for me] - sometimes you are left in a boat alone with no oar... in a desert.

received from azuregosa, Russia (direct swap)

     The other two are by the same artist, her pseudonym is Emina the Poisonous from LAM Art Studio  [lamart.livemaster.ru]. Azuregosa, who is an owner of couple rodents herself, writes that the illustrator really knows rats well: they can't keep themselves from soap [or anything made from rubber], and will start gnawing on it. The second one has a joke on the backside: 'The cow with a rat on her head comes to a doctor. Doctor asks what bothers her. The rat says: There is something stick to my arse'.

both received from azuregosa, Russia (direct swap)

backsides, both received from azuregosa, Russia (direct swap)

     As a fun thing to add to the 'instant' nature of the post, the list of tabs in the browser I have opened now: reading the 'What if?' series by xkcd; having 'Welcome to the forum' tab opened for the new official postcrossing forum to remind me to participate something there, when I send all the current swaps; the 'Pratchett Project' youtube channel after the tip from meldh, UK; the link for the interiors with the Bodbyn kitchen series from ikea; wikipage about 'Games People Play' book by Eric Berne; my google.drive page with all swap addresses along with the profiles of the people I'm writing postcards this evening :)

Children's postcards preference [part#3 - Learning Dutch - B - Beer]

     I mentioned in the first post that my son's love for Nina expanded to all brown objects.  Mostly I mean a very certain big brown object - the 100-cm-tall brown bear from ikea - djungelskog [this bear with its sad fat face similar to the Homunculus loxodontus, which memed as Zhdun = The Waiting One in Russia, became a meme too]. Ben wrestles it like an MMA fighter - no rules! - biting and grappling. Furthermore, I can officially say that my son's first word is a 'Bear', but in Dutch -- 'Beer'. And the postcard for it - new penpal from Perm, Olga, POPEEVY, she's a carpenter, and we started with handmade postcards, but since I'm now separated from my handmade supplies box, it spread to the ordinary postcards too [especially, after a discovery that she likes icebreakers postcards - I'm eager to share the wishlist]. Note the finest drakkar, battleaxe, and sword drawings on the back and one of the cutest Russian New Year stamps, from 2006 issue. The illustration is 'The Viking Bear', 2015, by Sonechka Nemarmeladova [vk.com/siberianowl].

frontside (left) and backside (right), received from POPEEVY, Russia (direct swap, it seems the nickname is now 2009_POPEEVY and profile is reoriented to the son rather than family profile)

Children's postcards preferences [part #2 - Banana dog]

     After I noticed that my child is interested in postcards, I was willing to teach him how the postcards are supposed to be treated [I have so many of them lying around, I can't risk him tearing one of them apart!]. I had a box of postcards prepared for the utilization [city views and boring messages], so I just gave it to him after scanning all [and saving some]. He was taking them from the box one by one, quick look and throwing on the floor, until he found - the One! He held it firmly with both hands and cooing at it for good five minutes. 'What did you expect?' - my husband said. - 'Two of his most favorite things - bananas and dogs'.

received from Amapola, Spain (10x10 RR#67)

     I received this postcard on April 9th, 2012 [sent on March, 26th 2012], basically next spring after starting postcrossing in the autumn, 2011 [after visiting my friend in Israel who was also doing it, I think I've told this story before]. It was my first round robin on the official forum. The picture is called 'Banana Dog' from 'Play with you food' series, character design by Saxton Freymann [he has a lot of more different food and play related books for children, seems this food play works], copyrights of Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann, photograph: Nimkin / Parrinello, published by Graphique de France, Boston, USA / Paris, France. The postcard was manufactured with a concern for the environment, printed on chlorine-free paper made using timber from managed forests [so good to know when the toddler tries to kiss and lick it].

Merry Christmas! [2020]

      My husband just asked me: 'So which Christmas are we going to celebrate?' And there are at least three to choose from! This year I accidentally got involved into big New Year Round Robin in the Russian postcrossing LJ community, so to tell about all received Christmas and New Year themed postcards, I really need to start to write with three-four posts every year [Sinterklaas, Catholic Christmas, New Year, and Orthodox Christmas], then maybe I run out of the cards to tell about in 5 years or so [if no new ones arrive ever - ha. ha.]. Left one is the door of the 'Black Books' bookshop by Lena Gnedkova, decorated for Christmas ['Black Books Christmas' from the set of postcards 'Fantastic New Year -2' by vk.com/illustory], I love these series. The second one is received through official website, on the back the sender from Boise, Idaho, said the weather we have in our cities was very similar this winter [with the little difference of the humidity, here it's less].

left - received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap); right - US-7151386, from fancyQB, USA

the stamps of US-7151386, from fancyQB, USA

     Also the US postcard had nice thematic stamps with red pears, red cardinal bird [surprisingly, USA has a lot of different stamps with cardinal birds], and the snowy pine trees.

     P.S. My answer to the husband's question is 5th of December, Sinterklaas, obviously. But of course putting up the Christmas tree, New Year gifts and fireworks, all that too, please, but with less pressure.

Children's postcards preferences [part #1 - Nijntje and Nina]

     Let me admit that before having a child, I was very skeptical towards toddlers or newborns having their own profiles [probably my opinion can be found even somewhere in the past posts in this blog - I was less skeptical towards pet's profiles even xD]. Now sometimes I feel like a crazy hen, especially when the work load is less and I spend more time with the boy - it's some sort of chemical reaction our bodies have - when you become a parent and you have to spend a lot of time with a baby, you body pumps you up with loads of oxytocin [aka 'love hormone']. So the cave women won't throw their new, tiny and ugly creature out to the swamp during the first days, when it ruins their sleep and comfort - literally, when I look at his first month photos I think 'okay, he was not that pretty as a newborn - red and yellow, plumped, weird legs and hands', but I clearly remember how wonderful and beautiful I saw him back then, I was high on drugs my body provided. Anyway - postcards! - I allow my child to look and touch all the postcards and postcrossing supplies, it entertains him, but with time he started to pay attention more and more to the pictures: even though we don't have pets he recognizes cats and dogs on the postcards and coos at them.

front side (left) and back side (right) of the postcard, received from Ejderha, Netherlands (direct swap)

     Another behaviour I noticed was an unexplained love towards Nina from the Dick Bruna's book, which was sent to us by my in-laws. Nina [in English version she's called Melanie] is the small brown female rabbit, she is a penpal friend from a distant land of Nijntje [=Miffy, the name 'Nijntje' rhymes with Dutch word for small rabbit - 'konijntje'], the small white female rabbit [Nijntje and Nina on www.nijntje.nl]. He was turning page after page of the book [it's a book with different objects to learn words and surroundings], and every time he saw Nina, he bended to the book to kiss her! [later the love expanded to all brown objects of any size and shape] So I asked my penpal friend from the distant land, Ejderha, to send me a postcard with Nina. When card arrived [and with stickers and stamps, full set], my son tried to kiss it right away so hard, he was almost wrapping it around his face xD

Postcrossing: What would my book about it be?

      Okay, first to reveal the underlying 'kitchen' of my blog - it's December, 19th, 2020, 00:56 am - and I'm bulk writing the posts to schedule them to appear every day from now on -- till _now_, I guess. I sorted all [and I literally mean ALL, none of them left behind, some of them doubled in some posts] of my received postcards, and they all organized in the draft posts waiting for my time/mood/energy to write them [or sometimes waiting for an one more card of the same topic to arrive in the future]. Timeline of received postcards is irrelevant of course, and to be honest drinking a glass of wine in the evening gets my writing flowing [we call alcohol 'Ben's potion' with husband now - because drinking a sip makes you more tolerant to any of your kid tantrums, totally get the suburban female's casual alcoholism now too xD]. Anyway, I read the post about Masha's spotlight on official blog, and just sporting a thought what would I write about if I ever would write a book about postcrossing.

     I keep rereading my own blog - how many weird or less known facts I learnt through googling about the received cards! Of course, me being lazy - I usually put the wikipedia links instead of rewriting the text [I think wikipedia is as stable as you can get on the internet, I know that many professionals use wikipedia as their working notes, writing specific rare articles on their research topics], but the amount of new information which I now know -- not only pictures on the cards, also the messages make my mental environment more diverse, more open, more educated. So my postcrossing book would be about that - the collection of random facts and observations, also my favorite - matching postcards which you would never match [oh, how many copyrights permissions from all the artists, museums, and illustrators of the world I would need to obtain to add pictures to my not-existing book!], and of course the coincidences, the investigations, the people I met through postcrossing!

left - received twice [that's how well it fits my profile] from klemens_ku, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday 2018 RR) and from azuregosa, Russia (direct swap); right - received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     Masha's postcard shop 'Amelie's postcards' is one of my favorites because she prints weird and unusual postcards [also she has a club subscription when she sends you blank postcards of her choice monthly, always was too expensive for me to try, maybe with the next salary bonus]. I've received some of postcards from her shop too [here too: #1 and #2]: above there is a poster from the reprints of the ads from Russian Empire and one from the 'My Russia' series ["Aurora. Guba Pala, Murmansk Oblast" by Alexander Merkushev, on instagram - his instagram is full of icebreakers!], which she mentions in the postcrossing official blog interview.

Space postcards: A starry portal [part #16]

[This is a series of posts, see previous one, part#15 'Lunokhod]

      Two themed illustrations showing all colours of space and stars. Probably more fitted to "weird space-related" type of postcards, but I follow the planned names of the posts here. The left one is 'Lady Universe' by Anastasia Polekhina [sadly, I didn't find her website =(]. The sender says that the illustration reminds her of the children book 'Night of the Full Moon' by Elena Lanetskaya and the closing song of the children TV show 'Good Night, Little Ones!', the moment where Lady Night claims her rights. The second illustration is by Lena Gnedkova, and I think you will meet her again in my blog, she has a lot of cute postcards  - she usually references some cultural items, books, movies in her illustration, but both sender and I failed to recognize this one [her works on vk, on deviantart, on tumblr - did you notice how different is the presence of each illustrator online? the set on sites is never the same].

left - received from eva_aref, Russia (LJ Favorites #239); right - received from lhanya, Russia (LJ Favorites #48)

[Read next: Part #17]

Perks of instant memory: Japanese mascots

     Two seemingly different postcards from Japan have more in common than visible to uneducated eye! The black bear on the left postcard is a mascot for the Kumamoto - Kumamon [Kumamon news in Japanese Times]. The mascot is earning millions of dollars for the Prefecture through merchandising. Also akatuki_ mentions that the city has very good hot springs and Lamian (=hand-pulled) Noodles, she brought the postcard from the business trip to the place [and has another one in her sent gallery - JP-1237428].

left - JP-1253108, from akatuki_, Japan; right - received from amakara, Japan (HappyRR#307)

     The second card, as you already suspect, are not just cute penguins. Also - surprise, surprise! - mascot, not for the city or prefecture though, but for East Japan Railway Company. His name is Suica Penguin, suica is rechargeable smart fare cart [here is his merchandise on jreast website; more info]. Not letting this post to be just about the picture on the postcards - some Japanese stamps as well: the space ones and the cute ones.

upper - stamps of JP-1253074, from KITTEmeguri, Japan [hmm, seems all the Japanese postcards received around the same time were in the same post than got divided, so stay tuned!]; bottom - JP-1253108, from akatuki_, Japan

Perks of instant memory: 'I picked some garbage for you' xD

      The quote in the title of the post was one of the most hilarious and cute manifestations of 'look, I did these stupid things, you asked for in your profile', I've ever encountered xD [another version would be common for Asian users - 'I don't know why you want an ugly postcard, here is some very beautiful one, maybe you will change your weird disturbing tastes']. Actually, thinking of it, recent handmade from Russian postcrosser #1 can classify as the same, but he enjoyed composing all the 'garbage' on the card.

front side (left) and back side (right) of CA-1044878, from Nicoleannepurvis, Canada

     Since we are on insect topic: here is another one - The Insect Art/Form and Pheromone by Christopher Marley [www.christophermarley.com], "Leaf beetles of the family Chrysomelidae, subfamily Eumolpinae <part of description is covered by stamps of an apple, four of them> Thailand and Java, 3--8 mm long." The postcard was part of the Riddle RR, so riddle, related to postcard and stamps, on the back was: "People say that some famous immigrant old lady raised not only a lot of children but also X. Image of the X was used as a logo for one of the businesses of other celebrities' group. And what was the name of one of this group, whose name means 'apple' in translation from English".

received from pandafromisland, USA (Riddle RR#1, direct swap)

     Another random fact about similar type of beetles - they are used for jewelry [they are even called jewel bugs]. Different beetles were used in Thailand and in other South-East Asia for earrings for Royals [modern designers suggest different variations: from fairly cheap to ones decorated on gold or on diamonds]. I saw very similar earrings on Sylvie in Netflix's 'Emily in Paris', s01e06. Also there are designers like Jan Fabre [www.janfabre.be], who made a space in the Royal Palace in Brussels, Belgium, covered in bugs! And to top it off - some of the insect stickers used by mondschein in the backside decorations alongside with Daniil Kharms' poems.

backsides with insects stickers, both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

Perks of instant memory: Better visibility of double profiles [part #1]

     The quarantines and lockdowns [and probably the chaotic work of postal services - like US post stopped unpacking the incoming postcards and was just sending the whole packs to the address of the top card; or Russian post saving money and not hiring separate postal flights when the passenger flights they were piggybacking on diminished - and prices] not only did change the dynamics of my swaps, but also changed the 'social' structure of the active postcrossers. Nowadays you barely encounter any empty profiles or new users, and sending to the same users or different profiles of the same person, especially when you getting addresses for both of your profiles became very common. I think it's connected to postcrossing algorithms of picking the new addresses - often they pick out the address of a postcrosser which just was or is online. If you are in the process of registering postcards from both of yours profiles, there is a probability that your addresses, twice, will be given to someone who is bulk-sending, and vice versa.

AT-511600 (left) and  AT-511603 (right), both received from PepiCat, Austria

     I didn't guess by the pictures on the postcards - they both were fitting the wishlists more or less, and I liked them. But the backside first attracted my attention by the same set of stamps, but in postcrossing coincidences happen more often than you expect [that's why for long time I thought better visibility of double profiles is mostly coincidences], but then the text on the postcard was practically the same - it's a card from a little red cat, probably second profile of one of the active Austrian postcrossers. First postcard has the name of the photo and it's author covered by washi tape, so it's just mannequins in peaked caps. The second one - don't get me started on breast feeding xD - "O'zapft is" is the Oktoberfest phrase [card is from Munich] in Bavarian dialect, which means 'time to party', 'anzapfen' is a tap which is installed into a barrel with a wooden hammer. Opening the barrel with this type of tap is official opening ceremony for Oktoberfest [frankly, I'm still confused why the breast feeding is on the postcard].

stamps of AT-511600 (upper) and  AT-511603 (bottom), both received from PepiCat, Austria

     P.S. Ah, and also received on the second profile the same Küstenbengel [it means "coastal villain", weird!] seal postcard from pxott - DE-9797222 [and in this post].

Mutant sunflowers and riding into the sunset

     Have you ever noticed something weird about Van Gogh's sunflowers? Half of the bouquet looks not like normal ones, I've always thought it was the artist's imagination or trick to make the simple painting interesting. Apparently, it's a common mutation of sunflowers - 'teddy bear' sunflower, nowadays scientists obtained the new breed even from that one [original PLoS Genetics article by J. M. Burke et al]. Van Gogh also made a whole series of sunflower paintings - in another post I've shown the similar card with seemingly a bit different version of the same painting, replica or repetition most likely [the card was sent away in the travelling envelope before I learnt about the mutant sunflowers, so it's cool I got one again]. Looking closer at both postcards, I think, that lizochek's version is from Van Gogh museum, Amsterdam [the postcard itself is from the postcard set of Van Gogh paintings], and Japanese version is from National Gallery, London [it seems though that the Van Gogh museum version is marked 1888 by mistake of the publisher, the London version is an earlier one from 1888, and Van Gogh museum version is a repetition from 1889].

left - received from lizoshek, Russia (direct swap); right - received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap) 

     The second postcard is here for an unlikely connection - colour scheme, all yellow and green/metal. The illustration is 'Land of the Winds' by Artem RHADS Chebokha [rhads@deviantart, rhads001@instagram, rhads@artstation]. The stamp on the back was from joint Russia-Switzerland issue - Architecture, tower clocks, 2014 - Zytglogge tower in Bern, Switzerland, and clock on the Kazansky railway station, Moscow, Russia [the Swiss version of the stamps is more elegant or simpler - on the white background, without 3D spin of the clock - tbh I like Russian version better].

both stamps are from postcards, received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

Weird postcard: Painting with the Foot

     Sometimes 'weirdness' of the postcard doesn't reveal itself till the picking for the #utilization comes. For utilization I am picking postcards with cityviews or boring unremarkable images [not ugly enough], also with standard stamps and short or absent message on the back. While looking at this postcard, first you see pretty boring, simple, and not very skillful painting, but then you read it more attentively. The text on the front says it was printed from the original painted with the Foot [_The_ Foot, and with the Upper case] by Sabar Subadri [www.sabarsubadri.com]. If you check the painter's website, you find a lot of interesting paintings of everyday life in his online gallery.

SG-214899, from joyyy_, Singapore

     This one though - the sender calls it "cryptic painting", and her interpretation is that it's silhouette of a Mosque [I see a little bit of boobs like everywhere in the landscapes in 80's hard rock cartoon 'Heavy Metal', which was parodied in South Park's s12e03 'Major Boobage']. I wonder whether the dream of joyyy_ came to realization - she wanted to work in some international organization, like UN [well, she's doing something which leave no time for postcrossing for sure :)].

Handmade: Pimping an IKEA postcard

     Another two from the IKEA family of postcards [#1, #2] - the right one is in its original state and the left one decorated with stickers in the framework of the *Pimp my postcard* tag [the backside was same colourful as the frontside, and with the Canadian flag!]. 'Pimping' postcards is one of my favorite types of handmades, and I mentioned it many times - basically many of my precious #battlekittens are pimped postcards, also see posts - #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5.

left - received from rosiews, Canada (Pimp tag); right - NL-2312990, from WimTea, Netherlands

First arrivals on the new address

     First thing a postcrosser does when moving to a new address [at least in Russia] - sending a postcard to yourself, from old address to a new one, to check the speed of between-post-offices interactions, check when the postman comes [before I always lived in places where mail was delivered at 7-8 in the mornings, here it's more around 12-13 in the afternoon] and how nice they are [very nice post office for quite a big neighborhood, part for sending/receiving parcels is very busy always]. For me it's also a way to: (1) - receive a postcard which nobody would think to send to me [in this case in couple of years I encounter zero postcrossers' profiles with this wish]; (2) - go nuts, trying to have an exaggerated example of my current decoration features for the backside. So here I put the teabag labels from Dutch orange pekoe tea [to be honest the tea itself was nothing miraculous, but the labels each had unique phrase in Dutch - super for learning] and some space stickers on top of the scrapbooking background, and the card was sent on October, 1st, World's Postcard Day.

front side (left) and backside (right) of the postcard, which I sent to myself to check the validity of the new postal address

     Then many of my Russian penpals started asking my address even before it was checked 'to try it', eventually I gave in and wrote them my address. And first of the received postcards [excluding the returned envelope because post workers misread the sender-receiver addresses] was this one from mosaika with one of my favorite stamps' pattern on the back - hares, foxes, and lynxes of the old standard stamps and couple of the new ones [including new stamps with half ruble - I thought they only started from 1 ruble and higher].

frontside (left) and backside (right) of a postcard, received from mosaika, Russia (direct swap)