von is designing a set of calling cards for me! (well, he won't let me call them calling cards, as he thinks those should be used in their strictly victorian sense and should have only my name on them, and what i want are name cards, but these days even very respectable stationers like crane's are calling social name cards calling cards, so let's not be sticklers for tradition?)

the thing is, i've always hankered for cards since i was a little girl and read little town on the prairie, and that is exactly the sort of childhood wish in his power to fulfill, so he leads me to bob slate's to look at options.

von says i'm not allowed mossy green ink ("do you want to look like one of the nouveaux riches?") and no pinks. this crushed me, as i secretly wanted pink and teal, but i admit that's a bit of an eyeful even for a bimbo. (you can have pretty or classy but not both, and i suspect pink and teal isn't even pretty, just bimbotic, and what would the social psychologists say?) he also forbade whirly types, which is no problem, but i did want something italic, because i don't write straight under any circumstance and would like that reflected on my card. (von: you have no taste, woman.) i'm also not allowed flowers (i don't really want them, i just am so influenced by laura ingalls wilder's card that i think flowers are very acceptable, but i quite see his point. let it be known that in matters of taste i defer to von.)

at the end of a long afternoon von finds out they won't charge us extra to use custom plates, so he has come up with this idea: a very dark espresso brown on cream, with, on the reverse side, a very translucent hummingbird in a very dark magenta. that sounds really cool. i'm not allowed a girly type because, he says, that and the hummingbird together are too much. one or the other, and i'd rather have the bird.

so the only question is: can anyone draw me a beautifully abstract picture of a hummingbird?