new shoes, dry feet

The hardest need I am challenge to provide for myself is shoes.  For awhile, I had a long run of scoring great deals on clearance racks. I only wear 'good' shoes, with arch support and sturdy soles. Such shoes don't come cheaply. Buying something that costs $100 or more can take me months to save up for.

Now that I am walking quite a lot every day, determined to get my Fit Flex buzzing at 10,000 steps and beyond, I suddenly realized all the shoes I own, which I have been wearing about as long as I have lived in California (8 years) were very worn down in the heel and bad for walking.

My whole body hurts more when I walk with worn out shoes.

So I asked a friend who loves me to buy me a new pair of shoes. I chose a pair on Zappos, choosing $100 shoes so as not to appear greedy. The first pair didn't fit. The second pair didn't fit. So I chose a third, more expensive pair. I was prepared to pay the additional $30 for a pair of waterproof walking shoes. If it ever rains again in Berkeley, for it barely rained at all last winter, I need waterproof shoes.

My one pair of closed, waterproof walking shoes had worn through the sole, no longer water proof. Water would seep in from the bottom hole in the right shoe.

I am glad I remembered to get some waterproof walking shoes. It doesn't get cold here like the harsher winters in Minnesota but it gets down into the thirties and forties. With the dampness of fog seeping into one's bones, forty degrees is cold. Add wet feet to the formula, and one is frozen.

I lived in Minnesota over 20 years, first for law school, then raising my daughter there after a brief, un-self-loving detour to Omaha. Ever heard this line:  "Yeah, I spent one night in Omaha one month." The point being that Omaha is so boring that one night feels like a long boring month.  I digress. As I do. A professional essay writer would edit the Omaha aside!!!

I learned, living in a climate where it really can remain thirty below for six weeks or longer, that the key to staying warm is wool socks, waterproof footwear/boots and hats. Dry feet is absolutely essential to staying warm anywhere.

When I called Zappos to return the second pair and pay the extra money for the third pair, the customer service guy told me that since I had had so much 'trouble', he would waive the $30.  I thanked him and did not tell him that I did not think I had undergone much trouble. Hey, a gift is a gift. I try to say yes to gifts, altho I did once decline an offer of money from a friend who knew I was flat broke with ten more days in the month to feed myself. She said "I thought you said you always say yes to offers of money."  I do always say yes to offers of money but this woman is also always strapped. I just couldn't take her offer of $40.  I love her for offering.  When I love someone, it is forever, my love locked down more powerfully than those Kryptonite locks on bikes. That's not a great analogy because those Kryptonite locks can easily be pried apart with a crowbar, as any pro bike thief seems to know.  My love gets locked in with the kind of endless power Superman has. It never ends.

Marc Tognotti, I will love you forever. You can always come back.  It will feel like magic to you to enjoy stepping past your disappointment in me, magic to feel the happiness we sometimes shared. I promise.

I know from online tracking that my new, waterproof, closed Chaco walking shoes are out for delivery in Berkeley. I sit here, waiting for the postal carrier. We usually get a chick postal carrier.

I want my new shoes.