Get ’em now, before they’re gone.
All of a sudden, a lot of history for the Triffid Ranch ends all at once. It’s been over a year in the coming, but the old mail drop on Royal Lane in Dallas shuts down once and for all next week. It’s a space that I snagged shortly after moving back from Portland in 1997, and it’s amazing to look at what’s happened in the nearly one-third of my life since I put down the first deposit on it. At the very least, it was intended as a space to receive manuscripts and review copies of books back from my writer days, and it served that goal admirably well. For 13 years, it was in a perfect location (even as closer mail stations shut down over the years), but with the last move, it went from being convenient to a major obstacle.
In the interim, both the Czarina and I have done our best to inform customers and friends (which aren’t always mutually contradictory) of the new address, and it’ll be repeated below for your edification. After October 17, though, the old address will be toast. No more. Finis. Bereft of life, it’ll be pushing up the daisies. This is now an ex-address.
And along that line, I also had a bit of bad news involving Triffid Ranch extras. Since 2008, I had ordered those metallic Triffid Ranch buttons from Rachel Dukes and Mike Lopez of Poseur Ink, through their side-business Mod Buttons. Rachel just informed me that she’s shutting down both her button and her silkscreening side-businesses, just literally days before I was going to put in a new order. This doesn’t to say that the Triffid Ranch won’t offer more buttons in the future, but Rachel and Mike’s buttons were always a hit, and once these are gone, that’s it for that design.
What does this have to do with the price of eggs? Well, while organizing other things, I just came across a collection of envelopes with the old Triffid Ranch return address on them, filled with stickers, buttons, and postcards for a big promotional blitz in 2009. I definitely don’t want them to go to waste, which they won’t, and I definitely want them to go to people who’d have fun with them.
Here’s the deal. Right now, I have 30 envelopes, all going to the first people to give a mailing address to “buttons (at) txtriffidranch (dot) com”. (Obligatory online privacy notice: your mailing address, either E-mail or print, will NOT be used for anything other than sending this envelope, nor will they be sent to any third party for any reason without your direct written permission.) Or give me a direct message via the Facebook page or through Twitter. Distance isn’t an object (I’d still love to hear from someone wanting a Triffid Ranch button at the US South Pole Station), and neither is hearing from someone who received buttons and stickers in the past. Just give me a yell before October 17, and it’s yours. Heck, if you want to send ones to friends or cohorts, that’s all right, too. While you’re at it, feel free to pass around word, because there’s always someone new who needs a Rachel and Mike button who didn’t know they needed one.
Remembering where I was on this date in 1997, the last fifteen years have been an interesting trip. Let’s shoot for the next fifteen years being more interesting, shall we?