Loriville Gazette
2000 October 1 shoe fascination

I've been preoccupied with shoes the past several days. Ever since I decided to replace my favorite, holey shoes, I've been looking at everyone's feet. I'm very particular about my shoes. The pair I've been looking for had to at least closely resemble my now-defunct favorite pair: black leather with a mid-height heel, somewhat Mary Jane (but it had to have a LOW strap around the top of the foot, not at the ankle), and somewhat feminine looking (translation: no square toes). They also had to be shoes I could wear dress up with a skirt or dress down with jeans.

I thought this would be fairly easy. Wrong! As much as I hate shopping, I searched everywhere, including Macy's, Nordstrom, all the stores at the mall in between, and even on-line at shoesonthenet.com, ninewest.com, and 800shoes.com. None of them carried a style I was satisfied with. Aldo's had some that were perfect in every way except they were microfiber, which I would have accepted, except the only pair left were the ones on display... and they weren't my size.

I was agitated. Yesterday, I awoke resolved to find and purchase a pair I could live with. Because I was meeting my mom in Alameda for lunch, I decided that I would scour Alameda and, if I didn't find anything, I would break down and buy something on the internet that would make do.

I looked at 3 stores in Alameda before finding the pair I finally purchased... at Mervyn's! As much as I hate the new-fangled futuristic "moon boot" looking soles they're now putting on shoes, it was some of those that I actually purchased. Otherwise, they're perfect in every way. I was fairly pleased with myself. Especially because they were on sale! Imagine my good fortune: I only paid $30!

I even wore the shoes last night to my favorite restaurant with grey slacks and a sweater. We celebrated my mom's birthday last night. My mom, her friend Kim, and I started off the evening with a bottle of wine while we waited for Maurice and Brendan to come over and pick us up. We headed over to the restaurant in Maurice's convertible because the weather was so divine. We all gorged on Hunan beef, potstickers, celery salad, and garlic chicken, then went to get ice cream at the Toy Boat. Afterward, Maurice and Brendan left and us girls had a slumber party. Very fun!

We slept in, then Maurice came over and we all took a leisurely saunter over to Cha Cha Cha for lunch where we gorged some more (on fried plantains, calamari, chicken Pailliard, quesadillas, sangrias). Needless to say, I've eaten my quota for the week!

Now I've got to go to the dreaded mall again to exchange a blouse that my sister gave me for my birthday (she couldn't believe she mistakenly pulled the wrong size off the rack). I forgot the blouse the other day when I was on my shoe quest... which would have been the perfect time to exchange it. Dumb me.

Wish me a speedy trip to the zoo - err, I mean mall. I'm off.

Over and out.

back & forth
recently...

quick recap - 2007 July 13
Happy August! - 2006 Aug 01
I dream of Albuquerque - 2006 Jul 08
mindstorm - 2006 Jun 30
Pomegranate scale - 2006 Jun 24