mlroseplant

@Jkrenzer, I'm glad you've finally gotten the opportunity to wear you heels more openly at work. I often wonder what it would be like to wear heels to work every day, and I've never quite been able to wrap my brain around it, as I really can't wear heels in my industry. I've thought about some jobs I could do which would allow me to wear heels, but that would just be stupid. Why would I give up a good paying career I actually like for the opportunity to be shunned and ridiculed? I'm 90% kidding, of course, but sometimes these thoughts do bounce around in one's head.

As long as you don't call me "late for work." It's funny about nicknames. They can't really be forced, either for good or for evil, they just sort of happen. My name started out years ago as "Ground Squirrel," probably because I was in charge of site grounding (or "earthing," and some of our brethren say). It was my first real foreman gig, and they about near ran me to death. I pretty much hated every minute of it, but I survived and became a. . . I don't want to say better person, that would not really be accurate. Let's say I because a more mature person because of that experience, and I still have the name to remind me, albeit within mere months of its inception, it was truncated to just "Squirrel." Still no word from the doctor. If I don't hear something today, I guess I'll have to call him myself.

Welcome to Squirrel's thread, where the topic can go all wonky, and nobody cares. I say Squirrel's thread because I just realized that no-one has called me "Melrose" in at least 15 years, yet the name persists on the internet. However, the name "Squirrel" is quite alive and well, and I seem to be unable to escape it. I even went to an entirely different job with an entirely different company, and I still didn't escape it. Oh well, it's not a horrible nickname, and it is perhaps somewhat descriptive. At any rate, I got a couple of things. Number One, I had my MRI on Friday. I don't know anything yet, of course, so I'm not totally sure why I'm bothering to tell. I still can't move my foot correctly, but perhaps it's a little better than a few days ago. It's hard to say. Number Two, I wore some actual high heels for the first time in a while. By actual high heels, I mean those with more than a 4 inch difference between heel and toe. Man, am I out of practice with those things. I have really let myself go. Hopefully, I did not look like too much of an idiot walking in them. It's not so much the first 50 steps that are hard, it's the last 50. At this rate, I'm never going to be able to make that high heel walking video I had planned, because I will be unable to actually do what I'm telling people to do. Don't let this happen to you! Like the liquor ad says, just keep on walkin'.

Well guys, it's been a rough couple of weeks. I have developed a condition called, quite descriptively, "drop foot." I have lost some control over my right foot, and am unable to walk normally. This happened suddenly. I woke up one morning, and was like that. The doctor seems to think it's got something to do with a pinched nerve in my lower back, so I'm supposed to get an MRI tomorrow morning. The condition has gotten incrementally better over the past couple of weeks, but still persists. With my luck, I'll come out of it completely by tomorrow morning, and the MRI won't show a thing wrong with me. Of specific interest to this group is that wearing heels allows me to walk completely normally, at least from my perspective. I suppose it make total logical sense from a physics perspective. Assuming a level floor is 0º, I am unable to lift my right foot off the floor much more than a couple of degrees, with the heel still touching. I am able to push down normally, and can return my foot to 0º pretty easily. Preload the angle of my foot by -25 or -30º, and voilà, I can walk just fine! I was unable to convince the doctor that this was a good solution to the problem. As of this date, I can go as low as a 2" heel to correct the problem. Last week, I needed more like 2 1/2 or 2 3/4" before I could walk completely normally. It IS getting better, but very slowly.

At this point, it's time to start looking for the backup to the backup! It would still be interesting to know exactly what happened, but I suppose we'll never know. If it happens again with the second pair, then we'll be on to something. I once had a pair of sandals I liked so much that I purchased three different pairs, and all three failed in the same way in surprisingly short order, usually right after I had spent money on them at the cobbler. I see a pair for sale from time to time, but thus far I've managed to avoid a fourth mistake.

Um. . . have you seen what's happening in Texas lately? Outside of the subject of heels, about 99% of your post is just simply a rant. We're not supposed to be talking about that shit on this forum anyway. Give it a rest.

Indeed, the first U.S. President to wear long pants was John Quincy Adams, fully a quarter of the way into the nineteenth century. What the hell happened? I have no bones about wearing fairly short shorts, even with heels, but I am certainly not wearing anything other than long pants in a dressier, more formal setting.

This was a new one on me. I've broken a lot of shoes in my time, but never like that! Krenzer's explanation makes sense, but I wonder how it could have managed to tear so cleanly? I would think the tear would have been much uglier looking. Also, I wonder if the damage at the bottom of the heel occurred at the same time. I'm guessing probably not, that's something pretty normal that happens to stilettos if you actually wear them. I do not think it would be wise to attempt a repair with a wooden dowel, that would just snap in half again in short order, and even so, it has broken already where the original steel tube or rod ended anyhow. To remedy that would require a bit of engineering. You can fix anything if you're willing to throw enough time and money at it, it now becomes a question of whether it's worth it. I really don't see how it will ever look right without replacing the entire heel, if you can find one to match.

Back when Jeff B was around, I used to give him a little bit of a hard time about his 4 inch heels, because in his size, they appeared to be almost kitten heels in pictures. My shoe buddy, by comparison, wears a size 36, and for her a 4 inch heel is substantial. The side by side comparison is almost comical in its difference. For me, being right about in the middle of these two ranges, 4 inch heels are high enough that I definitely know I'm wearing heels, but low enough to wear all day in the real world without any ill effects.

I guess I must have been feeling brave last week. Brave and thin. Somehow or other, five years after I bought them, I am finally able to fit into these little black shorts that have been sitting in my dresser drawer for all that time. At any rate, I wore this outfit to the Big Farmer's Market last week, which did not seem to be a big deal at the time, but in the harsh light of Sunday morning, with the bright sky messing up the exposure of my photograph, I suddenly felt kind of radical. This is what you get when you read too many fashion articles that tell you that your fashion choices are basically trashy looking. I will say this, however. On that particular evening, I got not one, not two, but THREE compliments on my shoes. All in one night. One of the compliments was a flyby, but two of them were a stop-and-talk-about-it type affair. In one case, I wound up giving a brand and model name, and recommendations on how to go about finding these things, which I am sure are not made anymore. So I guess I must have done SOMETHING right. I will note that all of the compliments were about my shoes, and not about the rest of my outfit. This may mean something, or it may not. Particulars about the shoes are: Söfft Calvados, they are sort of a pewter color, I guess, if it's not obvious from the pictures, and this is my third pair of this particular model. I have these in black and nude/beige. 3 5/8" heel, 5/8" platform. I can get away with wearing these at the "big" farmer's market, because it's on a city street. I would not attempt these at the other farmer's market we go to, which is on grass. I have my other specialized shoes for that, featured elsewhere. Shorts and t-shirt are from Walmart, nothing special. In case anybody is interested. I am also really bad at posing for pictures.

Thank you for your kind comment. However, it may be that you have the two of us mixed up. My wife is the one with the anklet. She has worn one since long before I met her. It is a heavy, 18k gold affair, and I think the only time it’s ever come off is when she was in the hospital 12+ years ago when our son was born. What I can’t figure out is how we are the same size now, at least nominally. As you can see, our feet are quite different in structure. I have actually written a standup comedy routine, part of which addresses that very subject. IF I ever get the chance to actually do it. I had it ready a year and a half ago, but then Covid happened.

I purchased another pair of Söfft low wedges, this time in a sort of coral/salmon color. It was unclear from the picture on Poshmark exactly what I was going to get, but I was wanting to expand my color palette. They were such a lovely hue in person, so what did I wind up doing? I gave them to my wife, who desperately needed a pair like this. This also afforded us the opportunity to wear matching shoes for the first time ever. Unfortunately, nobody noticed until I pointed it out to them.

I have never taken a tumble due to uneven surfaces, but I've eaten it due to a low coefficient of friction, and right in front of people, no less. The plastic heel tips that are OEM equipment on many shoes can be treacherous on polished flooring! Once replaced with hard rubber, no problem, unless snow and ice are involved.

My 12 year old and I follow this brass music guy on Youtube who is from NZ. We are always laughing about controlling one's "eeah flow" (airflow), and the review of a horn that is in the key of "eef." (F). He made one video in a Southern American accent, which was actually pretty accurate. It was, of course, supposed to be humorous, and it was largely successful, but not nearly as funny as all the comments saying, "It's so weird to hear Trent with a normal accent."

I guess it is pretty well known that I am not a big fan of hosiery, and certainly never with any type of open toed shoe. However, I do wear trouser socks with my closed toe shoes, either pumps of oxfords, when dressing more formally. Modern fashion notwithstanding, there is something jarring about having bare ankles sticking out the bottom of your pants when you're wearing a jacket and a tie.