the last time I bought new sneakers

[fflo]

The last time I bought new sneakers was in 1999 or 2000, at an outlet shopping center on I-70 between Columbia, MO and Kansas City. I was with my boss at the time, whose Grand Cherokee was providing our transportation home from a nuthin' conference on a lousy computer system the bookstore has since scrapped. I was delighted that she was willing to shop separately, if we had to stop (and we did); I ended up in a discount shoe place and came away with a pair of Reebox walking shoes for about 30 bucks. Turned out one of them had a flaw in the heel; that shoe made a popping, squeaky sound whenever you took pressure back off of its heel. So for a good deal of the rest of the time I worked at Varney's, you could hear me squeaking when I walked around the warehouse.

Last week squirrelykat and I were at the discount shoe place up here, and I musta tried on 15 pairs of sneakers that I could find in my size---surprisingly many choices in a women's 11, so most of 'em were even women's shoes. Sadly, only one pair seemed to fit right and feel good, and they were the most expensive. So expensive I wouldn't have even put 'em in the stack to try on if I'd seen the price correctly. I hemmed and hawed and decided to come back another time and try to find more options.

A few days later I returned, tried on at least 20 pairs, and was waffling, on the verge of buying none at all, when I noticed that the expensive ones came with a keychain bearing a little cast iron replica of the shoe---complete with the orange and black paint job this very model of shoe had. That finally made it okay, and in a light-hearted way; so, thanks to my love of gee-gaws, I went a little further into debt and now have my first new pair of sneakers this millenium.

I just wore 'em to traipse down to the park with the basketball I bought at a yard sale in Ypsi in the spring. No, they're not "court" shoes, but I made a few baskets anyway. And did a lot of dribbling.

Dribbling is good for the soul.

Comments

P.S. re: kite

[fflo.livejournal.com]

The day after my mother's memorial service, Holly and I went to the kite shop in Ocean City, MD (half an hour away) and bought Amelia, a very easy-to-fly kite, and a good string reeler-inner, and a LONG thing of kite string for her. Like her namesake, she's just dying to get up into the air. We were going to make a custom tail for her out of some highly-mom-identifiable pieces of clothing, for color and character, and to make her even more of a memorial kite. Still could do that, I guess; the clothing, particularly one colorful-patterned shirt, is still in the basement somewhere.

Holly was a pretty wonderful girlfriend, in so many ways. I worried for a while that I'd forget about those, what with the horror and ultimately inexplicable nature of the schism and its long, slow, painful and soul-boggling (my latest word for't) aftermath. But it seems there are a damned lotta things about her I loved that I'm not going to forget.

Much more painful to remember, yes, but worse for the soul to forget. Yes? The clean-slate types---they do trade off something for it, right? Something big & vital?

---Hey, I thought I was writing about a kite here... ! sheesh. geez, ann-louise.

Re: P.S. re: kite

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

"Much more painful to remember, yes, but worse for the soul to forget. Yes? The clean-slate types---they do trade off something for it, right? Something big & vital?"

that's what that movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was about. Did you see it? really good.

Re: P.S. re: kite

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Didn't see it! Started to a couple of times---suspicious of it, somehow. The Jim Carrey factor is not a positive in my book, fer instance.

Re: P.S. re: kite

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

OK. Sit down, honey. Let me tell you. I _despise_ Jim Carrey. But some Washington Post reviews convinced me to go, and I was glad I did. I wasn;t what I expected-- that extreme, physical humor (not funny to me) that gets annoying the first moment you see him. He was an actor. A damn good one. With good but not overdone facial expressions and this perfect, unshaven, hangdog look. You could totally see this movie.