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Santa and Abandoned Malls


Here it is, the day before the day before Christmas.  The snow is actually falling for once, all our shopping is done, all gifts wrapped, and Santa Claus is terrifying a new generation.  One of our friends asked my 3-year-old if Santa was coming to our house.  Without missing a beat, he responded, "No, he's too scary."  I mean, forget presents.  Santa is a creepy stalker and little P knows it.

On a much lighter note, did you know that you can curl wrapping paper like you curl ribbon?  I had this giant present and no giant bow.  So I cut some wrapping paper into strips and ran a scissor blade across it and voila!

Dollar Tree wrapping paper curls just like ribbon!

With Christmas being the commercialized time of year it is, I started thinking about abandoned or nearly abandoned malls.  I already fessed to my love of evil robots, now I'm coming clean about my love of old places.  Be it a grand Victorian or a humble tenement house, I'm just full of anemoia.  Sigh.

I was knocking around deadmalls.com and I ran across a link to an article on Totem Lake Mall which is relatively close to where I live.  Then actual nostalgia kicked in.  I forgot about Lamonts and Mervyns.  Heck, I even forgot about Gottschalks.  All of this made me think about the mall near where I grew up, Kitsap Mall.  Kitsap Mall seemed like it was dying around 2006-2007.  Two of the anchor stores failed during this time and a lot of the small storefronts were empty as well.  Somehow magically, this mall now seems to be on the upswing. Here's a map of their current layout.   I was there last weekend and it was hard to find a parking space.  We ended up at World Market, a non-traditional anchor for what was originally a very traditional mall.

So . . . writing.  Yeah.  I'm still writing in the same futureverse, but I'm what I'm working on doesn't fit with the Culling series.  It's about the same people when they're a bit older, and ties up some loose ends.  It's not action/adventure/ya, I think it's going to be more slice-of-life/romance/drama.  I'm thinking about putting it on this page instead of Wattpad, if it turns out.  Who knows, the cake might fall when I open the oven door.

But Chapter 7 of the Bond is now on Wattpad.  Hint, hint.

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