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.