all i want for christmas is...

i already have my two front teeth so i came up with a list of other pretty sweet and really rad things santa could place under my tree if he felt so inclined.

los alamos / william eggleston

East of the Sun, West of the Moon print by Marika Paz

pyrrha writer wax seal necklace

scottish clan distribution map

J for Jaguar print by Paola

le creuset french oven

kris nations washington state pendant

a city to sleep on

saw these pillows on Apartment Therapy the other week. patrick chirico is delightful and so are his picture pillows.

the concept of turning pictures into pillows got me thinking about creative christmas giving and how this idea could be implemented in a way to bring joy to those around me. i could't decide what image i would want to pillow-ize for the masses (or at least the folks on my christmas list) and then it came to me suddenly. 

kevin bacon.

how incredible would it be to wake to next to this guy EVERY MORNING. or chillax with him on the couch in the afternoons. watch the new version of footloose and talk about how terrible--really, really terrible--it is. there would no longer be six degrees of separation from KB, instead he would be right next to you all the time, always wearing the same, way-too-tight-in-the-crotch stonewashed jeans.

after dwelling on this idea for awhile i realized not everyone might be such a fanatic bacon fan so i came up with some other people/things it might be immortalize in plush form.

lindsay lohan--to remind someone that no matter how bad things get, at least you're not doing community service in the morgue.

a puppy -- because it will never get any bigger or less adorable than when you first saw it. also, a puppy that will never bark, poop, jump on you and spill your beer, or lick your face after...well, yeah.

spilled beer - so that when you actually do spill your beer, or your friend's beer, no one can tell. Same goes for blood, nail polish, wine, etc.

shoes clues

Winter has most definitely moved into Spokane bringing all the usual accouterments; freezing cold weather (our living room is a comfortable 41 degrees at the moment), holiday drink specials and a mystery we can't seem to solve. The mystery is this: someone has been losing shoes on our doorstep at a rather alarming rate. There have now been several instances where we've stumbled across (or run over) some large, mannish shoe that has appeared out of ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE and taken up residence in our parking space. Other articles of clothing have appeared as well, such as a large, bright blue bikini top but these items are discarded (or lost?) less frequently than the shoes seem to be.

Some important things to note:

-The shoes never come in pairs, meaning someone likely still has the other half of the pair.
-The shoes don't look terribly worn out so we've ruled out the possibility of someone trying to use our driveway as a garbage dump. Especially since the actual dumpster is within a kid's throwing distance of where the shoes are, and we live at the back of a parking lot with no building entrance or exit en route to our doorstep.
-The shoes are unclaimed, despite the fact that we have left them in exactly the same spot we found them in to ensure the original owner is able to easily locate his or her missing shoes.

That said, I'll share the possible scenarios M and I have drawn up--based on evidence--to try and answer the mystery.

Scenario # 1. Someone who lives above us, most likely on the 3rd or 4th floor based on the angle of the projected shoe in relation to the building, recently lost a foot due to a run in with an endangered animal or ferocious small (but adorable) dog and can't bear to look at shoes in pairs because the pain is so great. If a pair of shoes is within reach at that moment, one is picked up and hurled toward the window with force. If the window is closed the shoe bounces back and falls into the giant fish tank below the window. If the window is open the shoe takes a nose dive toward the parking lot, landing close to our front door at the precise moment when we are definitely not paying any attention. Also, once while the boyfriend was using his ex-girlfriend's bikini top as a slingshot for slingshotting rotten eggs into the dumpster, he clumsily sent the entire bikini top out the window, along with the rotten egg.

Scenario # 2. The same someone did not have an accident but does have anger management issues, and is still dating the blue bikini top girlfriend. The blue bikini top was thrown out the window during an argument over mayonnaise. The now bikini topless girlfriend decided to get even instead of getting mad and has been stealthily dumping a single shoe from a pair out the window since then and blaming it on the dog or her boyfriend's sleepwalking problem.

Scenario # 3. Same girlfriend, same boyfriend, probably no dog or even any major issues besides being too lazy to walk outside to get to the dumpster.

Scenario # 4. Elves. Chipmunks. Freakishly mutated mice. Some kind of shoe stealing creature large enough to carry a very large man shoe but small enough to sneak into an apartment building undetected.

Scenario # 5. Zombies. Because zombies don't really need shoes anyway. Bad news if this is the case.

soul music

This summer has been full of amazing adventures, most recently a trip to Cashmere, WA to visit my grandmother. The last time I was there was for her funeral in June 2009 and the town hasn't changed-at all. It's a nice place to visit though, especially since there are two GIGANTIC antique stores and an authentic western town museum. Oh, and Country Boys BBQ is delicious. 

we invest hope in what your boyfriend completely disagrees with

Threw on my headphones today at the coffee shop and amazing sounds have been reverberating in my eardrums for the last hour. The amazing sounds of Throw Me The Statue, that is (hence the lyrical title of this blog entry). They make my face go crazy.

They've also inspired a list of (2) Other Things That Make My Face Go Crazy. See below.

1. Dead Winter Carpenters.

 Mitch and I were invited by friends Brian and Mary-Kate from Ornery Heron Farm to see this bluegrass slash rock n' roll band at South Perry Pizza last night and ended up following them over to The Swamp to see their second show of the evening. During the first show they played a cover of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes and the crowd went wild--or as wild as a crowd in a pizza restaurant could go anyhow. 

2. Fresh pasta.

Last time Mitch went home I wasn't able to go with but he brought back something so much better than flowers or chocolate. He brought artisian pasta from Pappardelles and Coho salmon. We had the Pacific Rim pasta blend and followed this recipe to make an Asian-style salad that went incredibly well with the salmon. Just recently we tried the Calypso blend (a little spicy but good) and next up is the Lavender fettucine. The pasta from Pappardelles inspired me to try making my own pasta for a dinner party we had a few weeks ago. It turned out all right but getting the dough thin enough was difficult and I've been on the lookout for a pasta maker ever since.

so see this

www.eleanorred.com

is now online and somewhat operational!

celebrations ensue.

les images

Sasquatch 2011

<photos by mitchell>

stornoway | oxford awesomeness in a hawaiian shirt.

fitz & the tantrums | her dress killed and the saxophone player whipped out a flute on a few songs

noah & the whale | ridiculously great

jenny & johnny | one of the best things about california

matt & kim | threw balloons into the crowd and made everyone else almost as happy as they were

also so good

the head & the heart

chromeo

reggie watts

bus ride to this one night

We just spent four days listening to the best kind of music in one of the prettiest places in Washington. The weather was perfect, Noah and the Whale was perfect and my sunburn stopped hurting just in time. It's all a little overwhelming still and I can't decide which set was my favorite, although both Fitz & the Tantrums and Jenny & Johnny were close to the top.

We got in Friday afternoon and set up camp with a group of friends from Pullman, dipped into the whiskey bottle and hung out for awhile before going in for Death From Above which was the best possible way to start Sasquatch ever.

(here)

On Monday we saw Noah and the Whale, making it my third time. I still remember so vividly taking the train to Glasgow in 2007 with Jesse and crowding into a bar that was hardly big enough for drinking let alone live music. The show was incredible and I left feeling like I was going to remember it forever. The next time I saw them was at Chop Suey a few years ago with Janae. The crowd was small enough that we were able to stand close to the stage and talk to them afterward. 

They sounded great at Sasquatch and thinking about their set still makes me quite happy.

I didn't take any photos, mostly because I couldn't see the stage most of the time, but Mitch was able to take a few and they turned out beautifully.

what else we do

I've been missing the ocean lately.

My grandmother used to live on the Oregon coast, off highway 101 in an area called Neskowin. She sold her beach house about ten years ago, much to the dismay of her only granddaughter--me. I spent a lot of time with her at the beach as a child while my mom was working on her degree and one of the things I most remember about that house, besides the stunning view and giant floor to ceiling windows, was how all the colors she used reflected so well the state of the ocean itself. The glassware she used was a deep, royal blue and the tiling in the kitchen and bathroom ranged from the same dark blue to a shiny teal. The teal tiles were my favorite ones, partly because the Pacific has accents of teal in the summer, and partly because there seemed to be less of them than any other color. 

raining in the windows

The weather at the moment is being ridiculous and temperamental and I don't approve, at all. This morning was perfectly sunny and wonderful until I realized there was an embankment of stony clouds directly North and they were bearing towards Brown's Addition rather quickly. Since then it has gone from sunny to overcast and windy with rain, hail and more sun in between.

The current condition is overcast so in order to cheer up after losing the sunshine...again, I've got a picture.

This is three of the four bowls that make up the set of my favorite mixing bowls ever. I originally purchased the first one at Goodwill a year or so ago and came across another component of the set at an antique store a short time later. Finding the rest of the set became my mission while thrifting and right before Christmas I came across the third (and biggest) bowl at an antique store. Janae was with me and ended up buying the bowl for me as a Christmas gift. The last bowl was also a present from another favorite person of mine. Mitch and I were up in Hillyard on Valentine's Day checking out the antique stores and he spotted the bowl tucked away in a corner and bought it for me as a Valentine's present. The best part? The turquoise color perfectly matches my future KitchenAid mixer.

cordial gentlemen and a three-legged dog

What happened? Wasn't it February just a few seconds ago? Anyhow, despite the months moving rather quickly a lot has been happening lately. M and I signed up for produce deliveries from Full Circle Farms, a company that delivers weekly (or bi-weekly in our case) boxes of about twelve different kinds of fruits and vegetables, many sourced locally. We learned about the program through our friend Mary-Kate who works for Full Circle and just got our first delivery this last Thursday.

Among the greens were a few I had never used before, namely rainbow chard and arugula. I'm still figuring out exactly how to use the arugula but my chard adventure was successful!  I found this Red Pepper, Sausage and Chard Risotto  recipe and set to work. 

Compiling all the ingredients was easy but having never cooked risotto before I didn't realize how long it would take to cook. Usually with rice you can put a pot of water on the stove, add the rice and come back in 20-40 minutes to a steaming pot of white fluff. Maybe it isn't quite that easy, but to a hungry cook, standing in front of the pan adding scoop full after scoop full of broth to the risotto, making regular rice seemed like a walk in the park. However, the result was definitely worth it. 

I wasn't sure how M would feel about the chard and greens in the dish but not to worry, we were both satisfied with dinner as well as watching Elton John on Saturday Night Live. Today we ended up using the leftovers to make burritos...which seems to be what we do with all of our leftovers lately. Somehow wrapping something in a tortilla makes it all the more delicious.

shady fabric shifters

While surfing/window shopping the internets to find inspiration for Eleanor Red, I came across a few articles that inspired a gag reflex instead of creativity. Something tells me I might steer away from mustard-colored ruffles and gauzy see-through fabric after this, especially since the one on the left is eerily reminiscent of Taylor Momsen's stage style (sans the jeans anyway). 

beer on the bookshelf

Ever since our trip to the Rogue Brewery in January and the magical epiphany that occurred while drinking the sample of Dirtoir Black Lager, M and I have been enthusiastically drinking dark beer. This is a relatively new experience for me, considering how unenthusiastically I regarded beer before. Anyhow, one of our favorite haunts in Spokane, the Main Market Co-op, happens to stock all kinds of delicious dark beers (and not so dark beers) so every time we go we make it a point to try something new. Some of our favorites so far have been Old Rasputin (left) and the Trois Pistoles and La Fin Du Monde by Unibroue (right).

When we left the Brewery we brought home a growler full of the McRogue Scotch Ale. This one is rather difficult to track down if you're looking to purchase a bottle considering they're only selling it in the 7oz XS bottles, and not a ton of grocery stores cater to novelty brews. However, last weekend M and I went down to Pullman and made a detour to the Moscow Co-op where we spotted (and purchased) the LAST BOTTLE on the shelf. Our team.

lions and tigers and SNOW

Just a few days ago the weather was amazing, or at any rate amazing for February. The sun was out, it was relatively warm, I was getting excited to ride my bike again...but I made the mistake of closing my eyes to enjoy the sunshine for just a second and when I opened them the world looked much different.

It looked like this:

We got hit by about 8 inches of snow in one night, supposedly with more to come. It's a strange snow, too. I tried to make a snowball while M shoveled out his car but the snow wouldn't pack at all and my snowball disintegrated into a snow flurry mid flight. 

We've ventured out on the streets a bit, once you get outside of our neighborhood the streets are all right, but I've observed a much different side of Spokane since the snow fell. Namely (I'm going to generalize) Spokane drivers are CRAZY. They drive crazy fast and just...crazy, regardless of road conditions. 

sofa! sooooFA!

I've been on a furniture binge lately. Not buying, just browsing via the interweb. It is ridiculously difficult to find an awesome sofa on Spokane's Craigslist page. I did find a church pew which was awesome, but I don't think I could fit that in the trunk of a Corolla. Anyhow, here is my drool list of furniture for your perusing pleasure:

This baby blue upholstered beauty is from roomandboard.com and costs more than a lot, but she sure is purdy.

The next two specimens are from area51seattle.com and make my fingers tingle just typing the URL:

Also, I know this is not a sofa, but I can hardly wait until I'm old enough to own this:

A teal colored Kitchen Aid! 

the windy city is mighty pretty

we flew our spaceship to the beach last week

the sea foam was spilling up the boat ramp

and the sky called for sweaters in january.

also took a walk around browne's today. this photo is from a while ago but i like it.

now just imagine everything covered in six inches of snow fluff.

chuck forever ago, in the days when his large body didn't swallow his head.