Shoes

While I was on my recent vacation up north, my sister and I were cruising through the store everybody shops at but nobody admits going to. (Don't pretend you don't know where I was.  If I hadn't been out of town, I probably would have run into you there.) 

When we got to the children's section, there was an aisle display of tiny shoes with heels on them.  As an adult, I am appalled that they sell these to children. They are not being sold as "dress up," they are being marketed as shoes - and by a manufacturer that I used to buy baby shoes from.  It horrifies me. 

As a child, my reaction would have been different. I'm certain I would have thrown a tantrum worthy of prime-time television right on the floor in front of that display in an effort to secure a pair of these babies for my very own.  (It might have just worked, too.)  

Decades ago, I recall begging my mother to buy little high heels for me that were sold with the cheap toys in the grocery store.  They had high black heels, silver soles and black elastic over the top.  When I was lucky enough to finally score a pair, the heel broke off the first time that I put weight on it.  That was not enough to keep me from coveting a new pair next time, but it was enough to keep my mother from buying me them.  

My mother had an entire closet devoted to shoes alone, so I come by my love of footwear honestly.  (Yes, Kate, I am aware that I wore only Crocs for a decade, but that was because I broke my foot and only Crocs were comfortable.)

When I was a preschooler, Mom took me to get a new pair of summer shoes. We went all over town trying on different pairs, and each time I told her that they hurt my feet.  Mom drove to a neighboring town and experienced more of the same results, a crabby Chris with sore feet.  After I'd complained bitterly over and over that all the shoes I'd tried on hurt, we arrived at the final store and the clerk brought out one last pair for me to try on.

When I saw him approaching me, I couldn't contain my delight.  "That's what I wanted," I exclaimed, "RED shoes!" 

I'd be wearing these today if only they were my size!

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

Poor Lost Sole

Weird, goofy things happen to us all the time, we just need to be alert for them.  Such was the situation on Sunday. 

I don't "get" football, but I do enjoy a good party, so both Jer and I went to Mary Ann's for the Superbowl Sunday night.  Since the Gamecocks* weren't playing,  we didn't have any personal stake in either team, so we decided to just pick one to root for.  Jer noticed the Giants' head coach was the only one on either sideline that sang the national anthem.  That was good enough for him so he became a Giants fan for the evening.  (I would like to note though that he was wearing a Bengal's jersey.) 

I think Jer likes the Gamecocks because of the cheerleaders.

 [*When Jerry previewed this story, he reminded me that the Gamecocks are a college team and the Superbowl is a professional game.  I think that I've already made it clear I just don't get the football thing, and that spills over into sports in general for that matter.  However, I do understand that I'm not allowed to root for Clemson under any circumstances although I do not know why. 

Go Cocks!  Jerry insisted that I write that too. The phrase sounds dirty to me, but nobody in South Carolina seems to mind.]   

Football is a visual affair, which makes it perfect for mixed company.  Talking doesn't disturb the flow of the fun for the fans, so the men watched and the women talked.  Occasionally when the guys hollered, we'd look up from our conversations to catch the action.  (By "we" I mean everyone else.  Personally, I was so clueless that I didn't even figure out which team went with which color uniform until late in the third quarter - and even then I had to ask.) 

During a game high point, several of us noticed that something had fallen off one of the guys' shoes onto the wood floor.  To protect his personal privacy, we'll just call the shoe's owner 'Dick.'  It wasn't a big deal, just something that he'd brought in with him. You know how mud and grass can get stuck in the treads of your tennies and then when it dries a bit, it falls out all over the place?  Well, it was kind of like that, just a tiny bit of something on the floor.  The women ignored it.

Then Jerry saw it.  He doesn't ignore things well and so he started to tease 'Dick' about it.  "What ya got going there 'Dick?'"  'Dick' opined that spring had come early and it was probably just tree pollen.  As 'Dick' grew more animated watching the game, more stuff fell off his shoe.  The larger the pile grew, the more Jerry needled him.  "Geez, 'Dick', did you mow your grass today?"  The stuff did sort of look like a bunch of wet grass clippings by now.

Our hostess was trying to ignore the whole incident and kept directing us back to the screen but every time I looked at 'Dick,' I noticed that the mess was expanding.  The stuff on the floor was darker now, too.  Dog poop came to mind, but it didn't smell at all.  Big relief to him I'm sure, but now I could see 'Dick' squirming just a bit.  Eventually even Jerry must have sensed the poor guy's discomfort, because he quit ribbing him so much.  By now there was a small mound of debris underfoot - more specifically, under 'Dick's' foot.

Finally, after that last few exciting seconds of suspense, the game ended.  'Dick' leaned back and crossed his legs.  It was then everybody saw the bottom of 'Dick's' foot.  Literally.  The pile of stuff on the floor wasn't something he'd  stepped in, it was chunks of his shoe falling off.  Now everyone was howling with laughter!  It was soooooooo funny, especially because it had been a running joke the entire evening.

How old do shoes have to be before the rubber degrades enough for the sole to fall apart when you are doing nothing but sitting?  As the story unfolded, we learned that 'Dick' has a lot of shoes.  (How many?  Well, we couldn't pin him down to an exact number but his wife called it a shoe collection.) When he pulled out this particular pair of classics, they were so comfortable that he decided to start wearing them again. 

One more time, as it turns out.

P.S. My Shoes Passed the Test!!

P.S.  I wore my new old shoes to a party last night and nobody -- not one single person -- pointed and laughed.  Several people who knew the story were surprised at how nice the shoes looked.  Nobody was more stunned than I was when I realized that using porch stain on my shoes actually worked!

The Shoes

A while back I broke my foot and when it healed none of my shoes were comfortable.  Then, during my waitress phase, I happened upon Crocs and have been wearing them pain-free ever since.  They're great except for one small thing - they're not stylish, a fact which my daughters mention, well, every time they see me.  I needed something a little dressier for occasions when Crocs with jeans wouldn't do.

Enter the NAOT shoes I bought on sale during a visit to Salt Lake City in 2005.  Now frugality (and college tuition) prohibits me from going wild buying shoes like my own dear mother did.  She had an entire closet devoted to shoes, aptly referred to as (drum roll, please) "the shoe closet."  That was an enchanted place where dreams were born!  Sadly, all that followed me into adulthood from it were the memories.

With a nod to Mom's memory and a great big gulp, I bought the mint green shoes for $50.00, and, that like I said, was the sale price.  They were unbelievably comfortable though - maybe you really DO get what you pay for - and I wore them everywhere, including, as it turns out, to tile and grout the kitchen floor of our house in Mantua. 

What was I thinking?  The shoes did not weather that event well.  Both the toes got scuffed up pretty badly and their upscale look immediately vanished.  I loved the feel of these shoes so much though that I toyed with the idea of replacing them and looked them up online.  That's when I realized what a deal my $50.00 shoes were.

These shoes are made in Israel and the current sale price for my style is $130.00.  Faced with my internal spending constraints, I knew that was never gonna happen.  I looked on eBay but didn't find any within my shoe budget there either.  Still, I kept the shoes.  They were so comfortable.  Sometimes I wore them around the house when I didn't have anywhere to go.  Occasionally I even wore them in public, although even I knew that they looked horrible.  But they were so comfortable!

Did I mention that these shoes were mint green?  Nobody, I mean NOBODY makes mint green shoe polish.  I called the company and asked if I could buy a little dye in this color to repair the leather and they said no.  That didn't seem very friendly to me. 

Next I bought some Rit Dye and tried that.  What did I have to lose?  The results were disastrous.  The shoes actually looked worse now that they had Koolaid colored toes. Still, I kept them.  I'm not proud.  Comfortable shoes are difficult to find and I liked having one pair that weren't plastic.

Yesterday while staining our deck Carolina Mud Brown, I got bored.  As fortune would have it, I was wearing "the shoes" when inspiration struck.  I started staining them with the deck stain.  I figured, how could they look worse?  It was so exciting to watch them go from icky to cute again!  When I was finished staining them, I took a Sharpy marker and colored an accent band black.  Upcycling at its finest!

As it turns out, I can wear the brown shoes places mint green never would have gone.  Only you and I will know the secret.  You won't tell, will you?

This I know

I never quite "got" E=MC² (or how to make a flat chocolate chip cookie) but here are a few things I did discover:

If I hold a baby over my head, I will get spit-up in my face.

No matter how cute the clothes are that I buy for my daughters, they won't like them.

If I am in a hurry to leave the house, I won't be able to find my car keys, my shoes, or my car keys and my shoes.

No one can accurately predict the weather.

If I wash the windows, it will rain - even if there's been a drought for months. (See above.)

If the new house has a swimming pool, you will feed all the kids in the neighborhood lunch every single day for the whole summer.

No one drops by to visit when the house is clean.

It is possible to have acne and wrinkles at the same time.

Although it takes months for me to lose five pounds, I can gain it back virtually overnight.

I always feel better the minute I step into my doctor's office.

Once we get in the car, my husband won't want to stop FOR ANY REASON until we get to our destination.Even if we only get invited out one evening a season, we will receive three invitations for that very night.

Kids think of handwriting as an irritating font that's difficult to read.

As soon as I put the last item into my grocery cart, everyone in the entire store will swarm to the check-out lanes.

If I have computer problems, any elementary school child can fix them.If I get a manicure this morning, I will end up gardening this afternoon.

Cashiers at gas stations don't like you to pay with change.This is by no means the sum total of my knowledge, but I didn't acquire any of it at school. I'm not saying that learning to use a slide rule wasn't important, I'm merely stating that it would have been nice to learn to balance the checkbook somewhere in that educational process.

If a cute guy smiles at me, I probably have broccoli stuck in my teeth.