Vanessa thinks this little pigeon lamp, designed by Thorsten van Elten, is "a little freaky," so I feel the need to fly to his defense (you see what I just did there?).

Real pigeons are freaky. No, real pigeons are pests. The last time I was in Venice I had two, count them two, pigeons graze my head with their wings. I got chills. It was foul, I mean, fowl.

And I used to live in an apartment building that was infested with pigeons. One mother pigeon decided my back doorstep was the perfect place to lay her eggs; I had to step over the nest whenever I needed to do laundry or take out the trash. As much as I dislike pigeons, I couldn't bring myself to move the nest, because I'd heard that if a human touches a nest, the mother bird will never come back. Not that it made a difference in the end. One morning I opened the back door to discover a dead baby pigeon, alone in the nest. I had to shovel it into the garbage. It was all I could do not to vomit.

So why would I want a pigeon lamp, if I've had such horrible experiences with pigeons?

I'm consistently drawn to bird imagery - in fabrics, art, even housewares. For me the representations are much better than the real thing, especially if the renditions are not entirely realistic. This happy little pink lamp (it also comes in white, black, and yellow) is absurd enough to make me laugh, modern enough to fit my personal taste, and OK, I admit it, I have a thing for pink. Don't tell anyone.