My Favorite Shoes

Size 10 and a half double or triple A is no fun. Ever. Never. Most of my childhood shoe shopping expeditions ended with no results except tears and something ugly for my feet. The good side of all that is that I don't care what I wear on my feet anymore, simply do not care. Oh, later I did discover Ferrigamo shoes, and bought myself a $300.00 pair, but decided not to take the matching $1000 purse. It was after that that I discovered Nordstrom's rack; I try to make it by there every 5 years or so. Now internet shopping makes the whole shoe shopping thing easier, if the shoes I ordered make it to me before the end of the season that is...

I always try to avoid second hand shoes, they are smelly and are already formed to some other possibly deceased person's foot, but these, my favorite shoes – came off the give-away rack in Casa Grande last summer. I would never have chosen these if they were not free, they are so cool and trendy, and pricey, that they wouldn't be for me, besides – they weren't really my size...but I tried them on and I knew they were mine! My magic size 8 Keens! Kayaking sandals, super grip soles, waterproof! How fun!

They are just the thing for summer in Ukraine, I can wade through flash floods, in less than an hour they are dry again, and they look really cool.

Well, here we are way up in the Carpathians for a few days to get away from the terrible heat down on the flatland. We have a cute little log house, Simona's upstairs in the loft, I'm downstairs on the couch, no internet, bad phone service, just perfect for us.

The first evening I left my Keens on the porch and got ready for bed; over on the hillside I saw a little, white rat-terrier like dog who was industriously chewing up a piece of rope. I tried to get his attention by mewing like a cat, growling like a dog and yipping like a puppy. He did glance in my direction but was very busy chewing up his rope, after which he scuttled off in the direction of the chicken coup as if to go and steal some eggs. Feeling rather foolish, I headed for bed. After a few chapters of Harry Potter in Ukrainian I turned out the light. In the dead of the night I had to get up and go out, on the way back in I took a prideful glace at my Keens, and there was only one shoe! That miserable rat-terrier was now chewing up my beloved second-hand kayaking sandals! I found my flashlight and searched the porch, all around the log house, nothing. Went back to bed, mourned my lost shoes, decided I have too many pairs of shoes to care...couldn't sleep, got up again to look some more, brought my one shoe that was left inside, still no sleep, read more Harry Potter and finally, feeling like I'd lost my wand drifted off to sleep.

The next morning was rainy but I got up with a purpose to hunt down that dog and find what was left of my shoe and give it a proper burial, perhaps throw the dog into the river. Over on the side of the hill where the egg sucker had been flossing his teeth I saw my poor shoe, ran to retrieve it and could not believe my eyes to see that it was all in one piece, perfectly undamaged!

My Magic size 8 Keens!