One of the weirder things about Wendy’s passing is the mail that shows up in the days that follow. Erin wrote a thank you note to Wendy and posted it the day we learned that she had died. She somewhat dreads the fact that it will likely be in Tucson when her husband, Lars, arrives home.
While we were on the road, we learned that Wendy had sent cheery postcards to family members while on vacation in La Paz. At first Erin was dreading receiving the postcard, but after seeing the postcard her mother received, she started to look forward to seeing hers when she got home. Is that weird?
I ask this because, as we neared the Canadian border, my cellphone rang. It was Dan, who wanted to talk to me specifically. I’d asked him to take in my mail, and he discovered the postcard from Wendy. He seemed rather freaked out about it and wanted to know what to do about it. I suspect he would have literally burnt it if I’d told him to. I calmed him down and told him that we were looking forward to seeing it. The postcard brought Erin to tears, but she was glad to receive it.
So, I put this question out to you folks: how do you feel about receiving postcards from the dead?
Beam Us Up, Scotty
From the BBC:
James Montgomery Doohan 1920-2005
Harry Potter and the Scammers from Nigeria
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 04:28:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: xxxxx xxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com>
Subject: LOOKING FOR SPONSORS FOR THE HARRY POTTER AND HALF-BLOOD PRINCE PARTY LAUCHING IN NIGERIA
To: Me
Hmm… You know you’ve hit the big time, not when your book sells 10 million copies before its official release, but when the people behind the Nigerian e-mail scam try to incorporate you into it.
good day
Same to you.
i am xxxxx xxxxxxx from nigeria i was on this web site http://www.potterparties.org/index.php?mode=viewparty&eid=2065 when i noticed that nigeria was missing from amongst the country’s listed. which i didnt like so decided to organise a private party for my fellow nigerian fans.
I’ve looked and this pretty much appears to be a legitimate website. So, so sorry to hear that Nigeria has been neglected. What do you want me to do about it, again?
which only me can not organise without help from insiders and outsiders which actually means i need spornsors from all over the world willing ones and from nigeria too.
we need people from this groups:
bookstores
private companies
wholsellers and retaliers
or any other person intrested in the party to support the hbp cook lauching on JULY 19 2005
Actually, no. What you need is a bunch of Harry Potter fans and a place to meet.
pls if you have intreste reply my maill back or contact me with this nos.
xxx-xxxx-xxx-xxx or xxx-xx-xxxxxxx.
pls dont count this as a fraud.
(sigh). Look, maybe this was a legitimate e-mail tainted by the curse of the Nigeria 419 scam, but I doubt it. And the big reason I doubt it is because why would somebody be coming to me to fix a problem about the lack of Harry Potter parties in Nigeria? There’s got to be about a dozen other things a legitimate individual could have done before calling me.
But on the off chance this was legitimate, good luck to Harry Potterdom in Nigeria.
Another E-mail
Here’s an e-mail that was wrapped around a Betelgeuse.gif file that my spam-filter said “nuh-uh” about:
From: claudetteroper@duluth.net <claudetteroper@duluth.net>
Reply-To: claudetteroper@duluth.net <claudetteroper@duluth.net>
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:22:32 -0600
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Oh, cool! Slam poetry for the blog and I didn’t have to write a word of it!
Star Wars III: The Backstroke of the West
Cameron Dixon sends me this link with instructions that I forward this to Dan immediately. And I figured: why should Dan have all the fun? So go see!
Thanks Cameron!