shoes and shells, mostly shoes

Some women are crazy about shoes, Imelda Marcos comes to mind. I’ve never understood the fascination, preferring to go barefoot whenever possible, shoes are utilitarian to me. While I like a pair of nice flats for the few times I dress up I don’t wear heels, haven’t since my mid-30s and back then only when dressing up, and never spike heels. Despite the shoe industry’s promotion of them in advertising, four or five inch spike heels always seemed like the American form of foot binding to me. Not quite as crippling but serving the same basic purpose; small dainty wobbly steps, me at least, and no running for your life. 

The last time I bought a new pair of shoes (and by that I mean real shoes not the cheap $14 dollar sandals I have bought every year or two at Walmart that wear out quickly) was in 2017 before our trip to Hawaii that are really worn out now.

 

This year I have bought 3 pairs of shoes, all sandals. Since my open toed black flats for dressier wear had worn out I went shoe shopping last spring to replace them. I ended up with some black sandals because my ingrown toenail had flared up and all the closed toed flats hurt. I think I’ve worn them twice so far. Early summer I really needed new everyday sandals, tired of the cheap Walmart versions, and shopped online and bought some Earth Origins slip-on sandals which cost more than I have generally paid at a shoe store and have worn all summer. 

I like them well enough but they only have one strap with which to tighten the fit and have stretched out a bit and my left foot has started to skew at an angle on the foot bed so I started searching for new sandals and Sunday I bought a pair from Ortho online. This is the most expensive pair of shoes I have ever bought, over $100 and that was 20% off, but they have three straps with which to tighten the fit and I like the style better than the ones I have now. I was FaceTiming with Jade and dithering about buying the shoes and how much they cost and as we were ending the call, love you, she says, and buy the shoes. So I did. 

Now I’m waiting for them to arrive and hope they fit and live up to the claims on their website.

I wear sandals as long as weather permits. I even, gasp, will wear socks with sandals, but I do have some winter shoes. I have a pair of ankle length moccasin booties that I bought probably in my 40s and have worn a hole in the sole of one of them but I just put some thick insoles in and still wear them. I have a pair of Sketchers that I like that a friend gave me probably 5 years ago because they were too small for her and some gym shoes that I bought right before I stopped going to the gym about 12 years ago that I hardly ever wear. I have some hiking boots I bought years ago when I went to Scotland in 2016, also that I’ve worn only a handful of times. And of course a pair of black cowboy boots, I am after all a Texan. There’s a few other pairs of shoes lingering in the back of my closet that I don’t wear anymore like the blue suede Cole Haan sandals I wore to a wedding two years ago that I bought at a resale shop and are really a half size too big, some worn out huaraches that I loved even though the heel was narrow and tended to twist my foot if I wasn’t careful, some dressier not sandal brown leather slides that started to hurt my feet the last several times I wore them.

I should probably buy another pair of enclosed winter shows. I like the sketchers and I’ve bought adidas in the past but here’s my main complaint about shoes with laces…they won’t stay tied. That aggravates the shit out of me. How hard is it to sell shoes with laces that stay tied. I have to tie them normally with a bow and then take the loops of the bow and tie another knot and still they will come undone. Maybe I’ll check out the kind that have elastic laces you don’t tie.

Autumn was in town and spent the day with me working on a project. She’s making decorative belts, one for her and one for a friend, from chains and seashells. Mostly I just supplied tools and an idea or two. Yesterday she glued jump rings to some of the shells Pam had collected (they didn’t all get thrown back into the Gulf) and made some from wire that she could insert into the olive shells, a loop on the end of a straight section about 3/4” long, and arranged them how she wanted. She has to wait until the adhesive cures before she can flip them over and attach them to the chains with smaller jump rings.

Later we went out to see the partial eclipse of the full moon since we had a clear night but when I asked the All Knowing Oracle what percent would be eclipsed and how long it would be, 8% at the top edge and another hour, not worth the wait so we came in.

rose rustling, eclipse, addressing the shop, and folk art

Friday evening my brother arrived for a week's visit. He lives in the PNW in Washington state across the river from Portland. He stays with our sister who lives across the street from me because I don't have a guest room any longer.

Saturday was the last EarthLab speaker for the year at Hesed House in the red house. A woman from the Rose Rustlers came and spoke about the organization. They started out by going around to old cemeteries and abandoned homesteads and taking cuttings of the old antique roses that thrived even with total neglect and have brought some of them back into commercial availability by propagating them and then she talked about how to do that. She was through with her talk but still answering questions when I left to go out and check out the eclipse over at the welcome center (the white house) where a group was standing out with the dark eclipse glasses. Pretty cool. We didn't get totality of the ring of fire but pretty nearly. As soon as I walked out of the red house I could tell it was going on. Didn't get dark by any means but there was just a different quality to the light and air. Meanwhile back at home Marc took this picture of the multiple images as the light filtered through the yew tree onto the deck.

After I got home I finally went over to the shop and opened up all the bay doors and the door to the studio with the goal of cleaning up the studio and putting way all the packing material and in general getting it ready for work and beginning to reorder and clean out the big bays. We've been retired from the etched and carved glass for 6 years now and it is time to get rid of all the materials and supplies used in the production of same. I cleaned off one of the metal shelving units in the big bay and dragged it into the last small room that has yet to be built out from when it was torn out to the metal walls after the flood 6 years ago and has boxes of stuff covering the floor and stacked up full of stuff from the back room and stored over there for 6 years like all those small bowl reproduction molds and other miscellaneous molds and waxes, games and puzzles and craft items, books and cast glass experiments, open house display stuff, just stuff too numerous to name. So I flattened the boxes and organized packing material that was taking up floor space in the studio and put it all on that. When I was done the studio looked like this (of course there's no before picture because...me).

Sunday we, my sister and brother and I, did a day trip into Houston to go to the Orange Show and the Mosaic Park. I hadn't been to the Orange Show since the kids were little and it looked basically the same except for 40 or so years of decay.

The Orange Show is a folk art construction that was built by Jeff McKissack on a vacant lot across the street from his house. It is constructed almost entirely of found and scavenged items he collected throughout his life. He initially had a nursery on the lot for 10 years and in 1968 began building the Orange Show in earnest and ending in 1979. In his words the purpose was to encourage people to eat oranges, drink oranges, and be highly amused.

Without further ado or information (you can go to their website for that), here are some pictures.

Next: Smither Park (the mosaic park).