chicago: the lazy wrap-up blog post

Yeah, I never got around to telling the rest of my Chicago stories, then this weekend I went to Oregon and now I'm just totally behind. So here, I'm finishing off Chicago with one big post.


On Saturday we went to the Field Museum. They've got a real big dinosaur there.


A highlight of the visit: Chicago's Fluevog store isn't far from Grrrbear's house. It's in an old movie theater. I bought boots. They needed stretching (the guy almost pulled me off the chair getting the left boot off my foot) so I'm actually receiving them tomorrow - Grrrbear picked them up last week and shipped them to my office.


Clockwise from top left: Grrbear's girlfriend, Grrrbear, me.

Saturday night I went to former colleague S.Ball's wedding, the reason for my trip to Chicago. It was in a former billboard factory that now houses some guy's collection of sports cars. The guy also rents it out for events. The ceremony was on the top level, where they painted the billboards (so it had really high ceilings and natural light). Like how I cleverly made this photograph anonymous by shaking the camera? Totally on purpose. Nothing at all to do with the low light.


I wore my awesomest pair of shoes. In fact, I planned everything else I wore around the shoes. The other shoes in this picture belong to two very excellent people from my former employer.

I maxed out on wedding partying at about 11:30 and caught a cab back to Grrrbear's. I got in a little before midnight and was like, hey, sweet, I'm in time for Weekend Update! Stupid central time. Saturday Night Live was just ending.

And that is all. It was a quick trip but good fun.

hostels are for kids

I was pretty sure I was too old for hostels, but now I know for sure. I didn't have a place to stay in Warsaw, but a friend had told me about a hostel where he'd stayed before that had private rooms and a great location. I figured, hey, one night in a hostel, I can do it. So I walked there and it was full. (Who goes to Warsaw in February?) But the girl at the desk found me another place nearby. I had a private room and even a private bath, but this is what the bedroom floor looked like:


I was scared to touch the floor, or any other surfaces for that matter - those crocs stayed on all the time, including in the shower. The mattress was totally hard and had cigarette burns, the sheets had holes, the duvet had hairs (I put two covers on it, but still, ew). So if you ever go to Warsaw, I can't really strongly recommend the Tamka Hostel. (To be fair, the bathroom was clean, the common areas were pleasant and the people at the front desk were super nice.)

So, yeah, I guess my standards in accommodation have risen as I've aged. Also my standards in conversation - I met the most boring Australian girl in the common area. I was like, wow, talk about yourself a lot, don't you, early-20-somethings?

let the blogging commence

I'm back home, and I have pictures! I took nearly 1,200 (yikes) so you will be seeing a verrrrrry small selection.

A brief vacation overview: I was away for a little over two weeks. Most of that time I was in Berlin, but I spent last weekend, Thursday to Monday, in Poland. This trip had large quantities of history, music, good people, and reading. Also, sleep. And art. Also, a heck of a lot of drizzly rain.

It turns out Berlin is a pretty casual-dressing town, so I didn't feel conspicuous wandering the streets in my giant white sneakers. Unfortunately, wearing my giant white sneakers was not enough to keep my feet from hurting almost all of the time. Stupid feet.

public shoe store

Saturday afternoon I went to the coolest shoe store around. It's been in Clarendon, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, since 1938. This is a picture of the guy; his store is mentioned at the end of this article. He's a podiatrist and he knows what shoes will make your feet not hurt. Also, he was able to tell me that the pain in the ball of my foot is probably not caused by a cracked bone, which it hadn't even occurred to me to worry about.

The store looks like it's been there since 1938 - there's hand-lettered signs in the window, shoe boxes lining all the walls, terrible overhead fluorescent lighting, and you sit in chairs with mustard-yellow velvet upholstery. You tell the guy what you want, he looks at your feet and comes back with the perfect shoe. Perfect in comfort, if not always in appearance.

I told him about my nasty plantar fasciitis and he brought me a new pair of Etonics that make my feet want to cry for joy but are entirely unsuitable for nice clothes. After offering me a few pairs of black orthopedic shoes, he dug up a pair of SoftWalks and grudgingly agreed to let me buy them for work. (He also put some arch supports in my Norwegian dance shoes but only after I promised to wear the Etonics whenever I walk. So I think I'm going to be a pretty obvious tourist as I march through the streets of Berlin. Sigh.)

Public Shoe Store, people. Go while you can. (He's in his 70s - this can't go on forever.)

cousins on facebook

One of the unexpected bonuses of Facebook: reconnecting with distant family members. My cousin (actually my dad's cousin's kid, so whatever that makes her to me) M.Dav lives in Kansas, which means I see her once every, oh, 5 to 20 years. But we're buddies on Facebook, so she let me know she was coming to town for a conference, and today we got together for brunch 'n' scrabble. (Actual, real-life scrabble, rather than the usual scrabulous.)

I had what I think was my best scrabble game of all time. Not only did I play all my tiles twice, I also played a wide range of other outstanding plays. End score was Towwas, 483; M.Dav, 225. If only I could've made 15 more points, it would have been truly awesome. (I had two points in my hand when I went out.) This is M.Dav pretending to look depressed over the final board:


We also went shoe shopping at a comfort shoe store in My Little Town (which is the kind of little town that has independently-run comfort shoe stores that also stock a lot of local-made jewelry and guatemalan handcrafts) and, because M.Dav has the same family foot issues I do, she was able to recommend some excellent shoes. My feet are very excited.

It's stylish!

A conversation with work friend Barkley on her first day back from vacation:

Barkley: Is that a new bag?
Me: Yep!
Barkley [surprised]: It's stylish!
Me: I got new shoes, too!
Barkley: I know, I noticed them this morning! You've changed, Towwas.
Me: Yeah, you were gone a long time.
Barkley: You didn't get a boyfriend, too, did you? 'Cause then I might have to break up with you.

I'm dumb

The scene: Dearborn, Michigan. After lunch. I'm walking off with my dad, having just been dropped off by J.Vo and A.Vo. Suddenly, I remember something.
Me: [running back] Wait! Wait! We have to take a feet picture!
J.Vo: Even though there's just two of us?
Me: Yeah, even though you're not a blogger and it's just two of us.
J.Vo: I'm a blogger.
Me: What? Where? [panicked - does J.Vo have a blog and I don't read it?]
J.Vo: You read it and leave comments all the time!!
Me: Oh! I- wait. Oh!

Seriously. The best I can come up with is that, in my brain, the actual person of J.Vo and the blog of J.Vo are somehow separate entities. And while part of my brain realized that a foot picture was required, the other part had no idea what we were doing. Maybe it's early dementia. Sigh. Also, see that stain? I need new sneakers in a big way.

I saw the baby!

Here she is: the baby!

A little self-portrait I took. (Miss Shirley was wayyyy too tired to work the camera.) Note my shoes. Subtle, aren't they? I can't tell you how cute she was with the little head and the bundle of fabric. Yep - she's my new favorite baby. Here's a picture that actually shows her face (looking at her mom - awwwww):

sorry

If you hadn't already given up on me, fashion-wise, it's time. I now own TWO pairs of crocs. It was so sad every morning when I had to take off my in-house crocs and leave for work, that finally I gave in and ordered a pair of black mary jane crocs, which, I swear, are way more presentable than my other pair. At least I should be able to wear them to work and change there without feeling like I'm commuting in clown shoes.

In fact, here is an anecdote to show you how relatively acceptable they are. Last night I gave them their first outing by wearing them to a party with a very snazzy dress. After I'd been standing around for a while talking to some of my fellow science writers, S.Vix said, "Are those your new crocs?" And! one of the others, who hates crocs with a passion, said she'd noticed them and didn't realize they were crocs. So I think they're way more acceptable than these.

embarrassing photographs

I submit to the fashion police this evidence of my crime:


Yes. I wore crocs outside of the house. However, since I wore them at a weekend workshop filled with people who think it's ok to wear shorts with dress shoes and white sport socks pulled halfway up your calves, no one was really in a position to judge. These are the shoes I wear for dancing, and I think their awesomeness makes up for the crocs:

(I got them in Norway in February, and I love them.)

laundry

Robin Givhan says not to wear Crocs. The lady has a Pulitzer - she speaks with authority. In my defense, I have not yet worn them outside of my building, and the only time I've worn them out of my apartment was down the hall to the laundry room.

Tonight I was hanging out with some science writers of the female persuasion and mentioned that I've only done laundry once since I moved in 2.5 weeks ago. Most of them thought this was weird. Help me out here - is three weeks a decent interval, or is this final proof that I own wayyyyy too much clothing?

loon shoes

Since Grrrbear's loon shoes didn't make it into the blogcon '07 picture, here they are! He helpfully took out the Minnesota-shaped insole to show us all. They're really pretty cute, if "cute" is a word I'm allowed to use for man shoes.

shoe redemption

I hope these brown suede ballet flats, which arrived today from Lands' End, can make up for the ugliness of my other recent shoe purchase. Yes? Is it working? Will you speak to me now?

crocs r us

J.Bro doesn't know what crocs are [UPDATE: this is not true]. And him this big-time fashion blogger [UPDATE: this is still true]. Mine will be arriving at an REI store near me in two weeks. I discovered this weekend that if you order stuff on rei.com, you can get it shipped to a store for free. I also discovered that REI is having a sale, and that they're giving away coupons all over the place (A 20% off coupon during the sale if you're a member and a 15% off coupon if you sign up for gear e-mails.)

Anyway, crocs are the ugliest shoes ever, but they're soooo comfyyyyyy.

CORRECTION, 5/09: Omg! I'm an idiot! It wasn't .Bro, it was .Po! I take it back! I'm dumb! It makes much more sense to me now! This whole J.Po/J.Bro thing keeps messing me up, now that the Po-ster has returned to blogging (and hooray for that). It's just a good thing Jennifer Lopez doesn't blog, or I'd be confusing people all OVER the place.

sko

One of my favorite pictures from Bergen. "Sko" rhymes with (and means) "shoe."

boots

For the Christmas show this year, we have to get shoes along these lines - old-fashioned boots in black leather that come up over the ankle with little or no heel.

Finding shoes for the Christmas show is totally stressful. My first year I was convinced I wasn't going to be able to find shoes and they wouldn't let me be in the show. (I ended up finding a pair that the costume ladies were willing to allow about a week and a half before we opened.) I used the same shoes again last year, but they really didn't come far enough up my foot, and once during a rehearsal my dance partner lifted me right out of one of them. Oops.

This year, though, my trusty, comfy flats won't cut it. It has to be boots. They suggested trying thrift stores, so I looked at Value Village today, but all the ankle boots have zippers. We have to have laces. And somehow I don't think my hiking boots are going to cut it with the costume ladies.

Why couldn't Early Americans wear black flats like everyone else? The most likely possibility is that I'll find a pair of boots, and they'll be totally uncomfortable, and I'll be stuck with them for eight freaking performances and countless hours of dress rehearsal. Ugh. (Not Ugg.)

summer feet

Earlier this summer, when my feet started getting blistery from summer footwear, I thought, eh, they'll get used to it eventually. I got little blisters on the top of my foot from one pair of shoes, rubbed the tops of my toes with others, made some really impressively large blisters on the bottom of my heels with my wooden flip-flops, and so on. Finally I feel like my foot skin is kind of healed and toughened, and it's September. Just in time for 8 months of sensible winter shoes.

Maybe the problem was spending June off somewhere else where all I had was Tevas and sneakers. Next year, I'll have to start on the summery shoes in May.

more bargains

This morning I took my ancient Greek sandals to a shoe repair place. By "ancient Greek" I mean, I got them in Athens in 1998. Last year I wore through the stitching that holds the sole together, and this week I finally decided to do something about it. I took them to a shop I've walked by many, many times, next to the Silver Spring metro. It turns out the owner is from El Salvador and knows how to say "How are you?" in Greek. (I was like, uh, I don't speak Greek. I was there on vacation.)

So I ask him how much it's going to cost to stitch up the one sandal, clean the leather, and fix the worn heels. And he turns the sandals over in his hands, hmmms, haws, and says 20 bucks. And I say, come on, the shoes only *cost* 20 bucks. And he says ten. And I say fine. And he says, no, you know what, I'll do it for free.

So tomorrow I will pick up my repaired sandals. I guess now I have to be a loyal customer of this shoe guy. He'd better do a good job.