I Want These Shoes

Saturday, Madame E and I went shopping. We didn't plan it out or anything; it was spontaneous. I had dropped the girls off at Grandma and Pop's and stopped by Madame E's house to drop off her perscription she had left at my house a few weeks back. She lives in my hometown, which is about 60 miles south of us. My plans were to say hello and visit for a while, have lunch and then skeedaddle back home to Doc and see a movie or something. Madame E's plans were to have lunch with me, visit for a while and then paint her dining room.

We headed over to the Flaming Pit, a local barbeque/Greek restaurant for lunch. Madame E had never been there before and I'm not sure I had either. I just knew it was a place my grandparents liked to go to. And it was totally what I expected/remembered it to be. It is sort of like a diner/greasy spoon, yet they serve beer and wine. Most of the patrons are ederly. There is a salad bar and accoustic tiled celings. It was perfect.

We settled into our burgundy vinyl booth and began to catch up. It had been a few weeks since I had seen her and I've sort of gone underground recently. I have been communicating much with anyone, really. I've been very busy at work and under a great deal of pressure. I was thankful that my Mom and Dad were available to take the girls on such short notice. I'm sure, if they hadn't taken them, I would no longer be eligible for Mother of the Year.

Anyway, E and I ordered hot wings and fries and diet cokes and settled in for what would turn out to be a really long wait. But it was OK. She had a lot of interesting things to say. Once again, her insight into human nature astounded me. I won't get into any details but she was able to characterize something very astutely after being privvy to the situation for a very short time. Whereas I had had years of trying to make sense of the matter and only had a patched-together theory, something along the lines of "Different strokes for different folks."

After we ate our fill, we settled up at the cash register and made a pass through the world's smallest ladies room. Seriously, I barely had room to change my mind in there. E asked me if I'd mind stopping by JC Penney's as she would like to find a new pair of dress shoes in case she got called for an interview. It sounded good to me, so I called Doc and let him know I'd be delayed.

We went over to Canton Centre, formerly Mellet Mall, found a great parking spot and entered Jacques Penney, as my Dad calls it. It was nice and cool and not too crowded. We wandered around the shoe department and nothing really jumped out at us. I was looking for a new purse to replace my summer purse, a Preston York lime green leather bag. I need something autumnal/wintery. I just don't know what it is yet. We scoured the purses and came up empty-handed.

We wandered through the women's clothing and marveled at some of the things that were on the clearance rack; a purple zebra-print dress took the cake as the worst waste of fabric. It was fun to wander around and not be in a rush to get home or to be distracted by having toddlers circling. E was looking for a pair of black, boot-cut jeans in her size. It's somewhat tricky for her, because she needs pettite.

Having had no luck at Penneys, I convinced her to walk over to my favorite store ever: Kaufmann's. We wandered the mostly empty corridors of Canton Centre Mall. It was truly depressing. I swear, the only businesses between J.C. Penney's and Kaufmann's was a beauty parlor and a head shop. This place, in the 70's and 80's had many stores, a food court, a cinema, a bank, and restaurants. Now? Nothing. They built a Super Walmart on the grounds in hopes that other stores would eventually follow. I hope they're not holding their breath.

We did wander through the head shop, though. We expressed relief that our fella's weren't with us. The place was silly with knives and swords and nunchucks. We would not have been able to drag them away. The place also sold E's favorite brand of incense, which she was glad to discover, since she had to order her last batch from Pennsylvania.

This store also offered the most hideous t-shirts with airbrushed designs. You could have Eminem or J-Lo emblazoned on your chest. You could also choose your school team mascot. I saw my alma mater up there: a Golden Eagle, flexing his bicep (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think eagles have biceps), which was tattooed with some macho slogan like "Fear Me!" It was sad, really. And the worst part of it? There were people waiting in line to buy these attroci-tees! ::shiver::

We moved on to Kaufmann's and it was there that I encountered my dream shoes (see picture above). They are beautiful and look great on me. I have black dress shoes that will do, but these shoes? Made my heart go pitter pat. I did not buy them, though. What I really needed was new loafers for work. The ones I currently have are sad indeed. So, I found these in shiraz (burgundy color):

They are comfortable, stylish and durable enough to wear in the weather we're about to have around here. I also tried on these and loved them:

Madame E rolled snake eyes again and couldn't find anything she liked. So we headed over to Payless Shoes. We walked into the store and were immediatly struck with the most awful smell of vinyl. It was really strong. But we got used to it. We wandered up and down the aisles, she looking for dress shoes and me just looking for something sparkly and fun.

As we were shopping, there was a mother and a her teenaged daughter looking for high heels for her homecoming dress. We kept passing each other in the aisles and eventually we started chatting. I told the girl I liked the shoes that lit up. She liked them too, but they weren't high-heeled enough for her dress, which was really long. I didn't tell her that she could have her dress altered. She seemed set on the high heels.

Eventually, E found a cute pair of navy blue leather loafers with a small silver buckle on them. She couldn't believe how comfortable the were, but she wasn't sure she should buy them. I thought they looked really great. I believed she should get them. She wasn't sure what to wear them with. I explained that navy blue leather shoes are very versitile. These went well with my wedding gown:

She was still all, "I don't know," and I turned to the mother who happened to be standing next to me and said, "Don't they look cute on her?" She said, "Oh, yeah, those are nice." I convinced her that they were too comfortable to pass up. As I was continuing to sing their virtues on the way to the cash register, a sales girl piped in with, "And, we almost never get navy blue shoes in." Sale, Mr. Humphreys!

Still no black dress shoes to be had for E. So we drove on over to DSW, then Famous Footwear, where I again encountered my dream shoe and again resisted buying it. It was a test for me. I'm trying to keep my retail therapy to a minimum. I was trying to prove to myself that I could show some restraint. In a last ditch effort, we headed over to Walmart.

By this time it was nearly six o'clock, the time Doc expected me home. I called him and told him that we would be leaving soon. He wanted me to Bring E back home with me so that we could have a party. Yes, three people can be a party. Snob. Anyway, I told him I'd try and went to find E. I had picked out some winter jammies for my girls and she was trying to find, well, some undies.

Eventually, we wandered the entire store. We kept thinking of things we needed. A floorlamp! An audiobook! A watch battery! New jeans! Well, E found her black jeans in her size and she convinced me to buy two trendy new skirts for the fall. Again, the purses were boring, boring boring. When we left the store it was 7:15. Phew. We were bushed.

As we headed out to the Jeep, I tried one more time to convince her that she should come home with me. She refused, noting that she had to finish painting while the weather was still good and she was planning on reuniting with the Dark Lord, aka Big E, next weekend. I told her I'd let her off the hook if she promised to tell Doc that I begged, pleaded, cajoled and generally twisted her arm before I gave up. She agreed.

On the way back to her place, I said, "It's been a long time since I've shopped til I dropped!"

"Me too!" she said.

And that was about all we had to say for the rest of the way home. I dropped her off and headed home, thinking about how nice it was to spend the day shopping with a girlfriend. It sort of cleared the slate of all the awful things I've been going through this past couple of weeks. Thanks, Betty.