Brick Dancing

I attended a fancy dinner last night.  I don't go to fancy events all that often.  I got all fancied up.  I wore my fancy clothes and I even wore my new fancy high heels.

My feet aren't accustomed to high heels.  Not with all the radial retread, steel-belted tenni-pumps I've been wearing lately.   A week ago after dropping my son off to school my mother-in-law and I went to the fitness store I frequent.  And there was a store selling lightly-used clothes next door.

She and I went in and she found me some shoes.  Shoes I would have never, ever picked up.  Shoes with (and I do not lie) five-inch heels.   I have never owned shoes of such altitude.  But they were so comfortable with a nice fat heel and truthfully, one of those inches was a freebie because the toe was about an inch platform too.  So we decided I couldn't possibly manage to carry on without them.

I had new cool, crazy fun shoes for the fancy dinner.  I knew they'd hold up to the evening.  But would my legs?  Would I disgrace my family by falling on my face?  It was a distinct possibility.  Had I known at the outset that there would be a large set of stairs to descend, I would have called in sick without hesitation.

As I put them on, I noticed they were barely worn.  This is a recipe for disaster with heels.  I don't know if the men know about this, but we ladies in new shiny-bottomed, spiky, wobbly shoes can cut down on our chances of bodily harm by scuffing up the soles.

The first time someone told me to take my brand new shoes out on the concrete and twist around, kick like a chicken and generally mess up the soles, I thought they were crazy.  Five minutes later, I understood as I slipped all over the carpet.

So last night before we left, I went out under the deck and did some fancy brick dancing.  After that, the dinner went well, my calves sustained me, even through two glasses of wine.  So now, my fancy shoes are back in the closet, awaiting the next fancy function.

The Big Boy Update:  It's a big boy update day.  Multiple things.  First of all, this morning during the nap that wasn't happening, I went upstairs to find him straddled across the top railing.  I convinced him to get back in and then we got up.  Our days are numbered on this whole crib thing.  From a verbal standpoint, he's saying so much, we can't keep up.  Yesterday he said to me while trying to put a nozzle onto the vacuum hose, "Oh, this.  How?  Help."  I understood it because I could see how he was thinking it through.  How that particular piece went on the end and how when he couldn't figure it out he asked for help.  All within a ten second span.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Doggie.  Standing Up.  Straw.   First, she can say doggie.  She likes the dog, she likes to laugh at the dog and she can say "daaah-geeee" consistently.   She didn't know how to suck out of a straw yesterday, but with some practice at lunch today, she figured it out.  And even better, this morning, she's started to do the release and stand for a few seconds before falling or dropping to crawl.  It looks like walking may be entering her mind soon.

Fitness Update:  Mr. Smells So Good.  Several days without running and both my neighbor and I were nervous we'd make our long run weekly goal this morning.  We made eleven miles, but it wasn't our easiest run.  The strangest thing happened as we were approaching the last leg and eagerly looking forward to the watering area coming up; there was a fit, shirtless, sweat-covered man that ran past us.  That isn't exceptional, we run past many people during our runs, some twice as we run around the same loop in opposite directions.  But in this case, after he had run by, we both got this amazing delicious smell of fresh flowers, bushels-full of berries and honey, and it came from him.  Was it from the one item of clothing he had on?  His sweaty shorts?  It was so intense that as he ran one way, and we were delightfully sniffing his wake, we were able to follow the scent... backwards for the next minute.  It wasn't a laundry detergent smell I'd ever encountered, and if there is a perfume they make that smells that good, I want it because while not a feminine smell, it most definitely wasn't a masculine one.   Suffice it to say, we hope we run past, no, behind, Mr. Smells So Good at some point in the future.

Someone Once Said:  The capacity of humans to believe in what seems to me to be highly improbable—from table tapping to the superiority of their children—has never been plumbed.