Footwear Tragedy

Well wasn't I the grumpy babbler tonight (it's a rhetorical question like life). After enjoying dinner and cards at Curly's with Excel, Elton, Curly, and Knobby, I returned home and brought some things in from the car in spite of the almost complete darkness of an almost new moon and mostly cloud cover. That's when the grumping started. I found both pairs of my sandals shrunk in the heat of the car over the past two days. There are many reasons for the frustration I vented because I depend on those sandals every day every time I take a step because there are still bare concrete areas in this space and the summer heat is only hotter with socks and shoes or sneakers or any footweat requiring socks or covinring the feet. Alas, they were great $10 sandals while they lasted and finally really broken in. I stuck a 2x4 halfway in one to see if stretching is an option. I might price a pair (or even one) of those wooden shoe stretchers, but the poor things are not just shrunken, they are curled upward even more than these (mine are nothing like these except in the greater curl)...

They were a cushy rubber, comfortable yet perfect for wet (I shower in them when I am showering on a dirt or dirty floor or tub), great for dry days, but obviously not great for a 120+ degree car for a day or two. They were contoured for me feet and well broken in. Comfort. Reliability. Vesitility. Even safety. All gone with the wind. Dammit! Well, actually gone with the sun, but who's counting.

I was doing so great with money too. Pretty good with calories and that calorie reduction did not continue tonight as I ate a huge cheesburger and a hot dog. Back to chicken and tuna and salmon tomorrow, which is actually here already but this is still Wednesday's entry. Cards was much fun as usual tonight. The evening was great. The day was interesting, if mindless, I was online and I took a nap (see previous entry). All the while the poor sandals were cooking in the car. When I think of today, whatever day it is, I shall recall a wonderfully vegetative day and a fun gaming night. Then, my footwear tragedy.

I was so disturbed (who me?) that I went out to shop for footwear. I also needed a few other items for my coccyx, but that's another story (it's almost all better, by the way, but I will continue treatment and modified cleaning and body care for a while). Since Wal-Mart was all that was open, I went there and came back with four wanna-be sandals and a bunch of other stuff I mostly needed totalling about $80. The budget director is not at all happy and I am right there with him this time (a rare unity). The four sandals have their merits, I suppose, but they can't compare, at least not in their virgin (not broken in) formm to the old sandals which were the right material, the right cushioning, and the right sandals for the right price. I shall mourne them if they cannot be re-stretched back into wearable dimensions.

Wait, the sun is actually coming out (I can hear Little Orphan Annie singing)... I found them.

Mudda Fadda kindly disregard this letta :)