Emily Wolfe

Anna knew She had to have a new pair of shoes today, and Carlo had helped her try on every pair in the store. Carlo spoke wearily, “Well, that’s it. That’s every pair of shoes in the place.”

“Oh, you must have one more pair. . . .”
“No, not one more . . . . Well, we have the cruel shoes, but no one would want to try . . .
“Yes, let me see the cruel shoes!”
“No, you don’t understand, you see, the cruel shoes are . . .’
“Get them!”
Carlo disappeared into the back room for a moment, and then reappeared carrying an ordinary shoebox. He took off the lid and re moved a hideous pair of black and white pumps. But this was not an ordinary pair of black and white pumps; both were left feet, one had a right angle turn with separate compartments that pointed the toes in impossible directions. The other shoe was six inches long and was curved inward like a rocking chair with a vise and razor blades to hold the foot in place.
Carlo spoke hesitantly, “. . . Now you see . . . they’ re not fit for humans . . .” “Put them on me.”
“But… “Put them on me!”
Carlo knew all arguments were useless. He knelt down before her and forced the feet into the shoes.

Cruel shoes, cruel world. I love Steve Martin almost as much as I love shoes.

I have, and always have had, a weakness for shoes. Flip-flops, stilettos, wedges, and ballet flats. Designer and bargain basement. My parents did not believe in brand names and in my youth I used to scour the racks of PayLess and Target for the most classic and verstile (and least bargain-looking).

When I got my first job in high school my first purchase was a pair of Tommy Hilfiger’s. They were a cross between Jack Purcell’s and K-Swiss – and I literally wore them every day of my junior year until the fell apart. In college I discovered Nine West’s beaded flip-flops, then Juicy ballet flats, followed by Coach wedges and so on.

My tolerance for the discomfort of the particular shoe can be directly correlated to the cute-ness. I can tolerate the most excruciatingly painful of shoes (thank you ballet for forcing me to squeeze my feet into horribly painful wooden toed shoes for days and weeks and months on end) if they look good, or better yet if they make the outift.

So imagine my shock and displeasure when, after waking very early (and throwing on an old and long worn out pair of flip-flops) last sunday to catch all of the World Cup coverage with the fam, I happened to break several bones in my foot .

How did I accomplish this? Well, while trying to prove to my husband that I could beat him in a foot race with him running up an escalator and I running up a staircase I lost a flip-flop, and lost my footing, and subsequently kicked a concrete step with maximum force while traveling at (my) top speed.

So here I am … stuck sporting this:

Touché cruel shoes, touché.

It’s official – the impossible has happened. Somewhere in the world pigs are flying.

Whatever illusions I had of being somewhat fashionable have been shattered. I’ve crossed over to the dark side.

What, might you ask, is the dark side? Uggs – quite possibly the world’s ugliest and most unflattering shoe ever designed.

And I’m afraid to say that they’re here to stay. My time in the south has ruined my tolerance to even the mildest of cool temperatures, and my feet have never before been so snuggly warm and comfy. So, my apologies fashion world, but I’m afraid that from here on out my winter trips to the arctic north of the Mason-Dixon Line will require these puppies:

Every spring/summer we load up the car, put the dog in the back seat and make the cross-country drive from New Orleans, Louisiana (husband’s hometown) to Seattle, Washington (my hometown). Every trip we try to take a different route to see new sites and cities.

We’ve seen and done a fair bit on these drives to Seattle and they’re becoming an annual “vacation” that we really look forward to (the same can not be said of the drive back to New Orleans – there is something wretched about going back – it seems to take 1,000 times longer). We’ve watched a taping of the Jay Leno show from the floor seats, visited old college friends, spent an evening strolling the boardwalk on Huntington Beach, visited Disneyland, toured the Reagan Library, discovered out favorite wineries in Napa (that’s you Casa Nuestra, Ehlers, Hall & Pina!), taken in local markets/street fairs and seen just about every rest stop and billboard our routes have to offer.

(@ The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, June 2008)

Back on June 6th we hit the road for Summer 2009. We made it in 3(ish) days, with overnights in Dallas, Texas (Thanks James & Amy!), Cheyenne, Wyoming and Missoula, Montana. We hit just about every Chick-Fil-A on the route (so that husband could get his fix before entering the Chick-Fil-A-less Northwest, spent several hours visiting my sister over lunch in Bozeman and saw snow(!) in Wyoming in June!

(Snow in June!)