e-cigs, e-sigs, e-gads! I b4 e, eb4 ME...return of the Signet! 

ITTOYA: Nope, not a mis-spelling of the now popular import, Toyota. Yep, in long hand, spelled out, "It's That Time Of Year Again" (almost always abbreviated these days), as well as a time in our COVID calendar driven lives, as the number of cases, at least in our part of the world, have thankfully started to ebb due to a number of convergent assiduous efforts, which has in turn led to an inverse, reciprocal number of invitations to weddings, baby showers, birthday parties, and other celebrations (including 'celebrations of life', funerals), which can now be held IP (do I have to spell it out for ya?!). And. of course, you have probably already received ( i before e, except after...) more than your fair share of graduation announcements -- invitations and announcements which were probably received via...

Paperless e-invites: "Your friends won't believe your DIY..." or so says the add, luring you to purchase their en-direct way to invite loved ones and friends to your e-vent...or, in the case of even more ex-pediency, you can always simply announce it through FB, etc....I remember the first time one of our daughters experienced a sense of FOMO, when she was waiting for an invitation to an event other friends had already put on their e-calendars...LO and behold, she had neglected to check her FB (more specifically, a FB she had temporarily put on pause due to the frustration and e-nergy depletion she experienced trying to keep up...after which "It's the only way to find out; it's how everyone is inviting these days..." Of course, FB as a way to invite, has been now e-clipsed by other, newer methods, e-volutions...On the other hand, not usually a hand to actually put a pen to paper, you should expect, eventually receive a...

TYVM! Yep, the Once-Upon-A-Time, obligatory, "Thank You" card. Many of which, of course, are now covered by the 'blanket statement' (in the case of a baby shower) on FB or e-mail, or group text, or other forms of em-personal responses. In rarer instances, you might even get a hand written note that comes in an e-nvelope with a stamp (which, of course, no longer requires licking, the saliva of which could actually be examined for DNA and denote the authenticity of the sender)...in which case the legibility, punctuation, and content light earn the writer an "E" from our English teachers. And, while it seems more common among the younger e-generation, it's not exclusive. At least you can (usually) tell who signed it, decipher the signature...

Signing, a stroke of en-genuity: Way before COVID, way before we became concerned about being in each others spaces, faces, we started signing important documents from a distance, increasingly via e-signatures. There are now several types, subcategories of e-sigs, and authorizing agencies like notaries, which are almost all offered (if not required) electronically, at a distance, all 'personalized'....well, sorta. As I reflected on this, while walking along a beach during a family vaca, (isn't this the kind of thing you think about when in such a sanguine setting?), as I viewed a stone my daughter showed me, I thought, "Why not bring back the signet ring?" Yes, the signet, which dates as far back as 3500 BC, when Mesopotamians wore cylindrical seals that they stamped in clay or wax to approve documents. Which eventually also became a symbol of power and aristocracy...in the 14th C. King E-dward II decreed that all official documents must be 'signed' with the king's signet ring. To preserve the authenticity, in this world of hyper-cyber awareness, such a ring could be combined with another item of antiquity, a local example includes what my daughter was trying to show me when I was in gazing off in reverie...a "Petoskey Stone" (in your locale you probably have other coveted stones)...which, like snow flakes, have their own unique patterns -- composed of fossilized rugose coral, Hexagonaria percarinta, formed by glaciation...Brilliant! As brilliant as a freshly polished stone, which was a topic of an article from a recent periodical from the same region such stones are frequently found, a local store offering to make you a ring of a stone you found during a recent vaca-, a stone that might bring to mind some sanguine scenes, which could double as your highly personalized signature. Perhaps I/we could refer to it as a Pet-Signet (like a PET-scan, which becomes a biomarker for a highly personalized treatment plan)...

Invitations, Salutations, Appreciations: If we are going to continue to truncate language at both ends, if we are going to watch handwritten invitations and Thank You notes become something of antiquity, why not  go out in style?