The Trouble with Boots

Okay. I promise that I really will, at some point, write about my time in North Carolina and talking to Amish people and maybe even something about writing. But right now I'm still jet-lagged and spacey and feel like I about killed myself putting out 315 words yesterday. Not good.

So, although I can't get myself to sit down and organize the Amish pics I've got, I can riff on shoes for a moment.

Women's boots to be exact.

See, when I got my book advance, we stuck the bulk of it in savings but earmarked a small portion for "mad money." I really wanted a pair of tall boots, but had never been able to quite get myself to spend money on them. This is partly when I was still in my cheap shoe/bulk buying phase, a time when $20 bucks was a lot for a pair of shoes. Beautiful days, effectively ended by my physical therapist who insisted on supportive footwear.

(Actually, she really wanted me in running shoes, but I just couldn't get there. Wearing a beautiful, hand-knit lace sweater with running shoes? Why shouldn't I just wear pleather while I was at it!)

The Born shoes have really worked for me, so I went to the Born website (which features Nordic models with really awesome sweaters and blond dreadlocks) and found a pair of boots. Beautiful boots. Beautiful, really leather boots, with hand-stitching and a not-too-high heal. I called the local nice-shoe store and they ordered them in.

Which took forever. Seriously, I think they put them on the slow boat from Finland. I had dreams about these boots. They didn't fit right, they arrived and they looked completely different...something was wrong. I checked the website again, and they looked the way I remembered. And when I'd returned from North Carolina, the shoes had arrived in the store. I went down, zipped them up and...

They were too large in the calf. Waaaayyy too large. As in, Scandanavian women clearly have calves of unusual size.

Danny bought me the Anniversary Sleeping Beauty DVD, and we listed as Briar Rose opined that "if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true." Well, I dreamed twice that there was something wrong with the boots. Sleeping Beauty totally called it.

I tried a couple other boots at the store. Same problem. Danny explained that night that I have unusually narrow calves for a woman. He knows this because he studied ski boots. But where most women's calves, apparently, curve out, mine stay the course to my knee.

Not to be discouraged, we (my mother/untiring shopping companion) went to the newly opened DSW store this morning. SAME PROBLEM. And if the calf fit, the shoe was incredibly uncomfortable. After DSW, she suggested Miss Meers in Oakway. Long story short, there are two pairs of the same Franco Sarto boots (same boot, different size) winging their way from the Corvallis Miss Meers store for my consideration (cool store, by the way. Great shop, especially if you're a shoe snob).

There's a bit of grieving. I really, really wanted leather boots, but the real-leather ones are the ones most likely to be cut for the women with Amazonian calves (whom I now envy).

Boots come Tuesday. Hopefully I won't dream of them. Will post more later.