No Shoes Necessary

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Today was supposed to be hot and sunny and there was nothing on the calendar (after big band rehearsal in the morning). We had lunch and got ready for floating. Keith went out first and when I came out, he was floating. WOW! So, he doesn’t float. He bobs. He holds his comfy noodle and bobs side to side on his knees in the shallow end of the pool. Today he was on a raft, floating, all over the pool. It was quite exciting. We floated all afternoon, until about 4:30.

We were going to Louise and Tom’s for the evening at 7pm. I was determined to be on time, because we are late every single time we go over there. Augh. We showered. We talked about dinner. We thought about getting some snacks because we invited some people to float with us tomorrow. I suggested we eat at the snack bar at Sam’s Club while we got snacks and fruit. Off we went. When we turned the corner onto Radio Dr., we saw Jeffrey and Johanna coming from the other direction. What fun. Why? I don’t know, but I was very excited. I took a picture of them behind us over my shoulder. I am sooo bad at backwards camera that I am surprised the car is even in the shot.

We did Sam’s. We skipped the snack bar in favor of fast food, because so much is nearby. In the parking lot, we decided eating a pastry from the tray we got for tomorrow would be a fine dinner.

Two days ago, Maren sent a text with picture of shoes that said she and Mollie thought I should have. I agreed, because they were SUPER CUTE (two cute shoes!). But I don’t need any new shoes. I have shoes. Strictly speaking, I have a LOT of shoes, because I think I still have every pair of shoes I have gotten since I was an adult. (That could be an issue. But it’s not. It’s fine.) I thought quite a bit about not buying things, because the world doesn’t need me to buy new things. After 26 hours of thinking that, I went to the Mall of America last night to see if they had my size (they didn’t in Woodbury). Not only did they not have my size, they didn’t have the shoes! They had other shoes by the same maker, but not the ones picked by Mollie and Maren. I tried on several other shoes and Keith loved them all. He is very positive about new shoes. He loves shoes. He said get not Mollie/Maren ones, but we found out I wear a half size up from usual in these shoes and Woodbury did have that size in stock.

After eating our pastry in the Sam’s parking lot, Keith asked if we had time to go to DSW for shoes before Tom and Louise’s. It was 6:31; I said yes.

Now, there are a couple problems at work here.
A. I seem to think that because Tom and Louise live several miles away from me, and that since Sam’s Club is several miles from my house, that those two places must be very close to actually next to each other and DSW. (DSW is actually kinda near Sam’s. Tom and Louise’s is in the-not-that-direction.)

B. I seem to think that driving to DSW, parking, trying on the shoes, deciding on the shoes, checking out, and getting back into the car will take less than ten minutes. (The space: time continuum and I are not friends, apparently.)

C. I seem to think that I will go into a shoe store and walk directly to one pair of shoes, confirm size, and walk back out. (This is straight up just some kind of no-fun fantasy world.)

We were late.

I got three pairs of shoes. Keith had a coupon that made the third pair free, so, I had to. Sorta. We had a fashion show and even Tom was enthusiastic about how cute they were, and he didn’t even have to be.