Glass slippers

Going to show that it always works to have desperately low expectations, we did not end up despising every minute of our all-day childbirth class on Saturday. Earlier that week Phillip confessed that he really wasn't looking forward to it, and I would have smacked him except I was feeling the same way. Mostly because we didn't want to get up early and waste a Saturday sitting in a classroom watching stomach-turning videos. But I figured that having read everything the Internet has to say on the subject doesn't necessarily mean I should receive class credit, so off we went. And it was not terrible! We were so pleased.

Even so, I should say I spent most of the class coveting the shoes of the girl sitting across from me.

First I coveted her hair (thick, blond, in a perfect 'messy' ponytail) and then her clothes (probably purchased from a store that is not Target or Motherhood Maternity, in a color that would make me look ill, fitted in all the right places yet comfortable enough to sit cross-legged) and then her shoes. Oh God, her shoes.

The fact that I cannot find a picture of these shoes online is killing me. But they were flats, like ballet flats, but sportier and without so much instep showing. They were a brownish gold color except for the tops, where white leather swooshed over the toes and three or four pearly-pink stripes swooshed over that. They were comfortable sporty-looking neutral-colored flat shoes that you could wear, without socks, with cropped pants, to work. In other words, SHOES I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SINCE LAST YEAR. The reason I cannot recite the Seven Cardinal Movements is because I was too busy staring at these shoes.

(But this is why we have the internet. Behold: the Seven Cardinal Movements.)

So all through class I am hissing at Phillip, "Let's go shoe shopping after this!"

Phillip, since he likes shoes and buying stuff in general, was all for it. Except he wanted to go to REI. So we went to REI (me thinking that REI might actually have the sporty flat shoes I'm looking for) but I forgot that I hate REI.

Have you heard of REI? I know they're not just in the Northwest, but I think the first one was in Seattle (and my mom of all people happened to work there in college.) REI is the store you go to for things like hiking boots and sleeping bags and tents and kayaks and carabiners. But I had never heard of things like carabiners until I moved to the Pacific Northwest and met all these outdoorsy people, and walking into that store is like walking into my dorm sophomore year. REI is packed to the gills with Young People Wearing Fleece, all of whom you will find inspecting horrifically expensive camping gear and snow jackets. The store itself is a monument to the Great Outdoors, with a climbing wall in the building, a fake waterfall outside and a faux ski lodge look. And, this being Seattle, you can buy an espresso at the stand right outside the door.

When we were in college REI used to have the Garage Sale. The Garage Sale was a ginormous clearance event where the staff hauled everything into the parking garage and opened the doors to the salivating hiker types at five in the morning. People used to camp on the sidewalks the night before and it was kind of a Thing To Do. And while I got up extra early one year and waited in line at Tower Records for Lilith Fair tickets, I could never see the reason for sleeping on the sidewalk just so I could get the first crack at marked down Tevas. (Which isn't to say I never benefitted from the garage sale. I gave one of my friends orders to find me low-top walking shoes and a traveling backpack I could take on my Europe trip, all of which she scored for me, plus a few extras, for, like, $50. And I got to stay in bed.)

But REI just makes me feel... like I'm missing out on something, even though I'm pretty sure I don't care about whatever that something is. And also that in order to not miss out, I need to spend a lot of money on brand name gear. As if snow caving is more fun when your waterproof shoes cost $400, even though we know that snow caving is never fun, because HELLO, you are SLEEPING IN HOLE IN THE SNOW. Harrumph.

You thought this was going to be about my childbirth class, didn't you?

Of course there were no shoes I would actually wear at REI and we left as soon as I could tear Phillip away from the outdoorsyish laptop bags.

Yesterday, then, I found myself at Nordstrom (ha, I "found" myself at Nordstrom!) scouring the tables for the perfect pair of sporty flat shoes. The shoes I saw at my class were nowhere to be found, because they were Holy and Perfect Shoes and not available for the likes of me. And after a little bit of hair-pulling and asking Phillip a hundred times which ones he liked, I ended up with these. They are decidedly weird (and if some of those shoes online had been at the store I probably would have bought those instead) but I think they're neato. And they make me feel like I have a little cloud strapped to each foot.

Shopping is such hard work. But after I bought my shoes I found two (two!) maternity shirts I can wear to work that 1) do not display my cleavage for all the world to see 2) do not make me look like I belong in an aquarium and 3) do not hang from my shoulders like a tent. SUCCESS. I went to congratulate myself with an Orange Julius, but they have CLOSED THE ORANGE JULIUS. Have you ever heard of a mall that didn't have an Orange Julius?! This is a travesty! Call your congressman!

Perhaps I will write about my childbirth class. Maybe. But it will require shaking off the denial I conjured up as a defense mechanism during the nineteenth video- the one after the epidural but before the c-section.

Comments

[Jenny Ryan]

Oh man. I don't even like shoes, but now your description of The Perfect Shoes has ME lusting after them too! :P

[Arwen]

A husband? Who likes to go shopping? Does not compute. Where did you find this anomaly of an adult male human?

Also, a husband who likes shoes? I have forced my husband to buy exactly four pairs of shoes since we got married nigh on five years ago. (Including a pair of brown and a pair of black dress shoes, neither of which he owned previously, preferring instead a pair of bizarre maroon ones which he wore indiscriminately. They were AWFUL.) He likes to wear his shoes until they look like he pulled them out of a dumpster. They will have cracks in them so big that precipitation just breezes in without even an ID check at the door, and he still acts like I'm torturing him when I force him to go to DSW with me to get him a new pair of Skechers or whatever. I shudder to imagine what shape this man would be in, sartorially, if he had not married me.

Do you realize we are meeting in less than two weeks? I am muy excited. (Although still a little stunned that you called me an Internet rockstar. I am so not an Internet rockstar; I am more like an Internet "girl who plays folk songs at the local coffee shop on Thursday nights." Totally gratified to be called a rockstar, though.)

Kisses.

[orangepaas]

I really, really like those shoes! I wish they were not $85 so I could buy a pair. Dude. I need new shoes though, because I discovered that once I was not constrained to wearing only flip flops due to my feet swelling, my feet had grown a half size. Do not, I repeat, do not invest anymore money in shoes, lest this happen to you!!!

[E.]

Really cute shoes! And, sit down before you read this, we have NOT had an Orange Julius in any of our 4 local malls since I was in high school. They all shut down and moved out in the late 80's. Yes, I am old. And now I am old and craving an Orange Julius.

[MrsMarcos2003]

Am I the only person in America that hates Orange Julius? I never understood the appeal!!