So in the comments section of my last post fellow blogger, (not wine blogger…there are others, did you all know about this?) AnotherDayofCrazy alerted me that she had tagged me on her latest post. Once I realized that she had not covered me, a photo of me or this blog in graffiti I remembered that I had seen this tag thing once before on my beloved Sara’s blog, Sara In Le Petit Village, (again those linkie things, gotta get me a lesson on how to do that, but she is on my blogroll). So the deal is, someone writes a post about something then they tag a couple people and now they have to, (well you don’t HAVE to but it’s kinda douchey not to) do their own post on the same subject. They then tag a couple folks and so on and so on.
Now I have yet to see this in the wine blog world, but seeing as I only read a handful of them it may in fact be happening and I am just clueless. That or we wine folks are so encased in our little bubble that we have no idea this is happening in the rest of the blogosphere, but seeing as my goal has always been to reach out to people on the other side of the bubble….well I’m gonna play dammit. But Holy-mother-of-all-things-that-make-me-feel-like-more-of-a-freakish-chick why did it have to be shoes?!
There was a time, a time long ago that I was in fact a shoe freak. I was about twenty and making my own money for the very first time. Each dime that did not go to my son and his care went to shoes….the latest, hottest, most worth dropping triple digits on shoes, Nikes. I was a total sneaker freak. I bought pair after pair of white, they were always white, Nikes and would give the “No you did-int stare to anyone that dared to step on my kicks or ding them with their shopping cart. It was an addiction that needed to be addressed. It was ugly, the sweats, the vomiting, the shakes but I was able to emerge victorious and free of my “just a little taste” monkey, the one that would have me sniffing around the Foot Locker scratching my calves, biting my lip and begging to, “Just let me put my toes in for a second”. I would love to say that my family was unscathed but I shamefully admit that my son, my dear sweet son was touched by my habit. He has been working at Dick’s Sports Goods for two years….in the shoe department. He seems to be able to use better than I did but I do get horrendous pangs of guilt when I get the text messages with pictures attached, “Ma which ones you think? These or (second photo) these?”….sigh.
Since kicking my habit those many years ago I pretty much own one pair of black shoes, one pair of brown shoes and a pair of flip flops. I wear them until they literally fall apart, my last two pairs of black shoes ended up splitting across the sole before I finally laid them to rest. Oh and did I mention my toe thing? Okay so I have a “binding” issue. I don’t like things that hold me too tight, this goes for clothes, under garments, men, and shoes. Fuck I waited until my eleven year anniversary to even marry my husband….kinda hard to hold on to and if you hold too tight…doesn’t fit. My clothes are always at least two sizes too big, jammies are often closer to four sizes too big and when it comes to shoes…..well I now buy the right size but I always buy men’s. The very idea of having my toes pinched (shudder) together and crammed into some against nature point…well it just aint ever gonna happen. My mother used to love telling everyone that I would stop dead in my tracks and begin crying if I had a wrinkle in my sock. No words, just a two year old Sam wailing because something in her shoes was making her feel funny…not much has changed in thirty seven years.
So okay AnotherDayofCrazy here we go….
My Brown Shoes
I love them but fully understand why some, (read men) hate them. They are dinged to hell, the backs are structurally challenged and the heels wear the fact that I rest my weight on them. Cannot remember when or why I bought these shoes but remember clear as day walking down the steps of a tiny hotel in Cadiz….feeling shy and so not ready to join my massive group of travelers. The females noticing my chunky, squared shoes first…the guys being distracted by my slightly too big brown suit, pumpkin shirt and brown tie. Alliances were formed that first night; me against all the girls and while it pained me I found comfort and acceptance with the dudes that never thought to look at my shoes and loved pulling me around by my tie. As our little gang of divided travelers moved on to Alsace there were more females leaving the nasty shoe-shit talking pack, tired of stumbling around on four inch heels through the cobblestone streets and after a very drunken night in a gay bar in Colmar where somehow my shoes were removed and I tried to force them back on, (thus destroying the spine of my beloved shoes) before cramming my ass in the ONE cab in all of Colmar, with three of my once snarling and whispering female travelers. Drunk, shoes wrecked and the four of us laughing our asses off.
Fast forward three years, my next trip to Europe and I am meeting the only other woman on the trip. “I love those shoes” she said as we shook hands, in love…I was in love from that point forward. Broken, scuffed, squared and so very me. These shoes are mine, they wear my life on them and I stand so proud and so confident when my feet are in them.
My Flip Flops
Being from Southern California wearing flip flops is just part of the deal. It is the uniform and what we all deem acceptable footwear for anything from hanging on the beach to four star dining. Love it or hate it that is SoCal and I personally love it. I adore getting all glammed up, curling the hair, laying heavy on the eyeliner, wearing the, (too close for my liking) form fitting shirts, curve hugging jeans and hearing the slap-slap-slap as my flip flops accompany me to the hostess station at whatever new hot spot is on my list of, “must see”. Sure there are some fancified versions of the flip flop but these…these are my chosen ones. One look at the underside and you might figure out why…
Bottle opener. My freaking shoes can open a bottle of beer…dude, I am so in.
So my favorite shoes, the ones that make me feel the most sexy, the most sass and the most comfortable…it’s these….
My skin, my toes, (they need a painting I know) but no shoe, no manufactured piece can make me feel more alive, more sexy and more me than these. Living in my skin, looking at the little bits of growth, the rough patch on my big toe that reminds me that I used to dance….the way the veins run down the length of my foot…the way I can cradle my whole heel in the palm of my hand. Sexy, just seems sexy to me. So my most beloved “Hello Lover” shoe thing, well it comes from touching my bare feet…my skin...feeling all the weight and texture...those little rough bits, it's just me.
So now I have to tag someone, keep the game going and see if my beloved wine bloggers can intermingle with the rest of the world so...Ron and Charlie, you're It!
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19 comments:
Love it!!! And flipflops or barefoot are how I go too. Inevitably, as soon as I get to my office, I kick off my shoes under my desk. My favorite feeling is beach sand between my toes... it's pure happiness.
Thanks for sharing!:)
PS: I'd love to see a "What I'm drinking tonight" kind of thing occasionally, seeing as you're the wine gal, and some of us are not. Lead us to temptation, and deliver us from (yellow label) evil.
(sorry for multiple comments, working on first cup o' coffee, not quite with it yet)...
the brown ones are awesome, they have far more character than any frou-frou shoes out there.
Okay, now i'll go finish my coffee and stop blathering
I know, I know, Sam. I re-read and decided my post would have been best as an email.
Thomas,
I um, LOVED your comment...why sweetness? Why did you delete it? I hope you put it back in some form but either way, thank for sharing yet another thing we have in common.
AnotherDayofCrazy,
It was kind of fun although I fully admit that I was quite buzzy on 2009 Joguet Chinon Rose when I did this...damn that wine is wicked. Thanks for picking me girlie and I'm with you, sand between my toes has an almost magical affect on me.
Oh and I picked two cats that will not or cannot, (no blog) keep the game going. Should have mentioned that in my post but....wanted to play along but knew none of my folks we keep this particular ball rolling.
I have never been a shoe person, or a foot person, for that matter. I find feet to be the least sexy part of the body, and I don't get the fascination with them.
But, there was a time when I was a shoe person. It was in high school. Now, let me say that I was not, have never been a fashion plate, not my style. Don't especially like standing out in the crowd, but our group of guys had to have two particular shoes.
One was a leather shoe with a tab down the front where laces were supposed to be. We had to have this shoe. You slipped it one and pushed the tab into place where it snapped. No laces. Kind of like Velcro tabs these days. We knew we were cool when we wore those shoes.
The other shoes were white Converse sneakers. Our neighborhood had a kids basketball team that was sponsored by the local grocery store and played in the city league, which we won, by the way although I was about the least valuable player on that team being the youngest.
Don't know how we came up with the name, but we were the Dobbers--having something to do with a bird. Various clubs and gangs around town had jackets with logos, and the Dobbers had to have a jacket as well. So we raised money and got these navy blue wool jackets with snaps up the front, shiny white triangles on the shoulders and Dobbers writ big in script across the back. Since there were twelve of us, we stood out. I never knew whether those seemingly interested glances from some of the young women were real or up-their-sleeves laughter. It did not matter. I was a freshman in HS and had no earthly idea what to do so I did nothing.
But, I digress. One of the shoe trends of the day was white bucks. Now, we did not have white bucks, so we polished our basketball shoes with whatever it was one was supposed to put on white bucks to keep them looking pristine.
That seemed to bother a particular group of local hoods who decided (correctly, of course) that we were acting like we were special.
Those shoes were almost the only time I ever cared about style in shoes until the day I became my son's soccer coach. I coached for almost three decades because it turned out turned out that I was good at it, and it was the outlet from writing, which is work.
So, today, the USA played England in World Cup soccer. It was an important game, and I had a bunch of friends in to watch.
And what did I wear on my feet? My old indoor soccer shoes. Somehow, on this day, I had to have my feet in uniform.
My Gorgeous Samantha,
What makes you think I won't play along? What's more fascinating than shoes? I have hundreds, but they have to match my manpurses or I simply can't leave the house.
To be honest, I think I own about three pairs. Black, brown, tennis (the cheaper the better, no Nike swoosh in my wardrobe). Haven't bought a new pair since I moved to Sonoma four years ago. Many years ago when I worked as a waiter, before my sommelier days, the restaurant where I worked changed the uniform from a brown pair of shoes to a black pair. My best friend EJ and I didn't want to buy new shoes, so we went one better. We spray painted our brown shoes black. Yup. Looked damned nice.
Ron & Charlie,
Well I'll be damned...you did play. Loved your shoe stories and most of all, love you!
Even with my massive shoe Jones, I've always despised "loud" shoes. Hated patent leather for its gloss that screamed out "look at me!" When I was in the Air Force I hated the fact that we were forced to shine shoes to look like gloss. My favorite Air Force shoes were the jungle combat boots, flat surface greenish/brownish canvas with leather trim.
Having said that, I always liked color shoes, especially green, red, and mustard. But always as flat leather so as not to scream out.
I had Velcro shoes in the 1960s--ain't nuthin' new under the sun.
My favorite shoes are usually boots, whether high or low rise. I like the look of a shoe that follows the contour up the ankle.
Thomas,
I've always thought there was something kinda sexy about a man confident enough to wear shoes in shades of something other than brown and black....so RAWR Mr. Mustard Shoes.
Sam,
I started wearing red and green shoes when I was a teenager--helped me pick up girls, and also a lot of fights with other boys. But the girls outnumbered the fights and they always had a first aid kit handy, if you get my drift.
Thomas,
Always knew you were wise.
Tom--
Were you a Boy Scout?
Charlie,
Never got past the first meeting of the Scouts, especially after I called the Scout leader an idiot. Always have had a problem with authority, especially authority in short pants. I was, however, fond of Brownies.
Not a Boy Scout? Then you must have learned to "be prepared" elsewhere.
"Be prepared, that's the Boy Scouts marching song,
Be prepared as through life you march along.
If you are walking through the woods
Looking for adventure of a new and different kind,
And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined,
Don't be nervous.
Don't be flustered.
Don't be scared.
Be prepared. "
~~Courtesy of my math professor, who also taught me about the Great Lobachevsky.
The magic word is quedl, which is almost appropriate.
I'm your beloved... aw shucks... I'm all giddy now :-)
P.S. not joking... giddy xo
Sara My Sweet,
You know I adore you, am wild about you...lets be giddy together. You humble me with your sweetness. Sending you kisses from far far away but feeling you so very close.
Nuzzles
Sam
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