Category: hot shoes

A Nordstrom Epiphany

Yeah, so, I’m attending a friend’s wedding this weekend.

After a decade and a half of working in Silicon Valley companies with their schlubby dress codes, it turns out that I have a lot of pants and very few dresses in my closet.

This wedding is taking place in a lovely art gallery in Southern New Mexico. A really elegant place. This is going to be a very classy wedding.

Oh god…I need to wear a dress. And I don’t have one. Or at least not one nice enough for this shindig.

So today after work, I went shopping.

I hate shopping.

I used to really, really love shopping. Adored clothes. Couldn’t get enough shoes.

But not anymore.

Today as I sighed and whined, I closed my eyes and asked myself “why do I hate shopping this much?”

Then I opened my eyes and the answer lay there in front of me.

I dislike shopping so much these days because:


I’m living in a


kind of world.





And I have become a


kind of girl.



That explains it all.



Photos Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page.

Photos taken with an iPhone4s using the Camera+ app.



Happy Awkward Easter!

Because you didn’t ask, I decided to provide a blast from the past.

Easter, April 8, 1976 from our backyard in Albuquerque:

I’m only sorry I had to drag my siblings into this.

I’m the shortest one. You know, the one with a deathgrip on my Easter basket.

Man, I loved that dress. It had a sash and everything.

We’d been to Easter Mass that morning.

Mom had sung “Jeeeesus Chriiiiist is riiiiiisen todaaaaaay!” loudly along with the congregation and the church organ (man, she loved that song. Something about all the allelujahs.)

Ham was in the oven and the backyard Easter egg hunt was soon to begin.

I always did love Easter. A new dress. New white sandals. A basket full of candy. Yeah baby!

Anyhow, Happy Easter to all who celebrate it!

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Oh, also, because no one asked, on the next page of that same photo album….

Here’s what the 1976 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta looked like:

Ah, Spring

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

– Alfred Lord Tennyson

Yes, yes, it’s inevitable that the famous Tennyson quote will be trotted out when the weather turns warm. Especially after the winter we’ve had.

But is that true? Does a young man’s fancy lightly turn to thoughts of love?

Is it love? Or more like “damn, baby, it’s been a long cold winter.”

And if young men turn to thoughts of love, what about the thoughts of young ladies?

Well, I may not be young and I’m no lady, so what do my thoughts lightly turn to?

Well. Those cute little strappy sandals. You know the ones, with the heel, not to high, but high enough to make my legs look nice?

Oh, and if I’m wearing those, then I totally need a mani-pedi.

*ahem* Excuse me. Totally girled out there for a minute. Bringing it back to center….

My thoughts lightly turn to…

Margaritas on the patio of my favorite restaurant while nomming guacamole and hearing light mariachi music in the background.

Iced tea. Preferably made by the sun.

Liberating my legs from the tyranny of pants. (oops, better shave ’em. It *has* been a long winter!)

Apricots ripening in the side yard.

Farmer’s Markets with all of the rest of the produce that arrives with spring including nectarines, peaches and artichokes.

Daffodils on the dining room table. Followed by tulips. Followed by a cacophony of all the flowers of Spring and Summer.

Achoo! Sneezes. Because god knows all those fabulous flowers bring not so fabulous pollen.

Longer days and fabulous sunsets.

Riding my bike! (getting it tuned up today!)

Stepping outside and turning my face to the sun like an over ripened sunflower because oh-my-am-I happy to have that big fireball back in the sky where it’s visible. My vitamin D-cell batteries are running low!

Photo from: Kimberly Clark… time out, tired of Flickr!‘s photo stream.

What it takes to rock my world

Last night during rush hour commute, a cable assembly on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge snapped, sending a 5,000 lb chunk of metal careening to the upper deck of the bridge.

A couple vehicles sustained some damage, and luckily, only one person was hurt. No fatalities.

This bit that broke off was part of a “fix” done over the Labor Day weekend. This is the famed S-curve I spoke of here.

As of today, Cal Trans is saying the bridge is closed “indefinitely”. Due to high winds, it may take several days for the welders to get the new piece in place.

Ugh. Since approximately 280,000 cars traverse that bridge every day, this is not a small matter.

This is, in fact, a very huge matter.

Thankfully, neither The Good Man nor I have to cross that bridge to get to work and back, so for us, you’d think, this is no big deal.

But you’d be wrong.

A major traffic hindrance like this changes the whole traffic pattern of the area. Since we live near the next bridge to the south, the San Mateo Bridge, that means much traffic will now be diverted our way so that folks can get back and forth across the Bay.

It will also affect the rest of the bridges and highways in the area. You’d be amazed the distance the ripple effect will have.

Which got me pondering how much we tend to rely on infrastructure, now, as a human race.

I mean hell, just go one day without electricity, and you remember all the little things you take for granted.

The Good Man recently had some major car troubles and was without his ride for about a week. Whoa, that really threw a kink into our lives.

Sometimes, you know…I think to myself, maybe a shotgun shack in the middle of the woods somewhere with a hole in the ground for sewer and a roaring fire, and my manual Underwood typewriter for jotting down my manifesto might not be such a bad idea.

Then I surf over to Zappos.com to look at adorable shoes and use my credit card to pay and have the UPS man put that box right in my hands and I think…

nah.

Source

Time changes things

This morning when I arrived at work, the elevator doors slid open quietly, and from the car emerged a very pretty young girl wearing these *really* adorable gray Louboutin or Blahnik or some such with a very tall heel.

She lurched forward, took a step on the marble floor, her ankle gave way, she stumbled, got her balance back, and then galumphed with a clack clack sound the rest of the way out and into the foyer.

And I thought to myself: Rookie!

Terrible, I know. But really, if you are going to wear the heels, you oughta know how to walk in them.

In my mother’s day, they wore three to four inch stilettos every single day! And those women could walk a mile in those things. Hell, many women of that era got to the point they couldn’t even put their heels flat on the floor anymore, so used to wearing high heels were their legs and tendons.

Even that bastion of shoe goddessness, Carrie Bradshaw, knew how to walk in her way in overpriced but delicious shoes. C’mon girls! If ya gonna wear ’em, wear ’em well!

Then I realized that all these thoughts are all kind of ironic, because over the weekend, I was out shopping. I stopped at the shoe department for a look-see. I was drawn to the rack of comfy, padded, mostly flat shoes.

And I thought to myself: At what point did I migrate over to comfortable shoes only? Did I consent to this?

In defiance of myself, I tried on a really cute pair of heels. I walked around in them (no rookie, me), then was like “eh. Why?” Ripped them off, put my comfy shoes back on, and kept shopping. For something with a waistband that’s not too binding.

edit: Good lord…I’ve had these thoughts before. Same outcome. Really, this whole shoe issue is plaguing me on a deep level. I need help. Retail therapy at least!