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The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant


mlroseplant

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Nothing much to report lately, other than I've been trying my best to walk more, so I walked to the grocery store to get a couple of small things. It's not far, only about half a mile away, but it is necessary to cross a busy highway in order to get there from my house. To this day, I still don't like crossing that highway, especially when I'm wearing shorts (and heels of course). Walking across the long line of cars waiting at the stoplight is not my favorite thing. However, on the positive side, I did get an unsolicited compliment on my shoes from the cashier serving me at the grocery store.

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23 hours ago, mlroseplant said:

Nothing much to report lately, other than I've been trying my best to walk more, so I walked to the grocery store to get a couple of small things. It's not far, only about half a mile away, but it is necessary to cross a busy highway in order to get there from my house. To this day, I still don't like crossing that highway, especially when I'm wearing shorts (and heels of course). Walking across the long line of cars waiting at the stoplight is not my favorite thing. However, on the positive side, I did get an unsolicited compliment on my shoes from the cashier serving me at the grocery store.

Yet another unsolicited "I wish.  .  ." comment yesterday. I'm on a roll, I guess. Or maybe I've actually learned how to walk after all these years, who knows?

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The weather has turned colder over the past weekend, and it has done so in the peculiar way of the Midwest U.S.,  where I started off the morning in shorts, and ended the day in clothes with far more coverage. I took my Sunday morning constitutional in these Nine West wedges, which are a bit of a departure for me. For one thing, they're sub-4 inch (though not by much), and for another, they actually have an ankle strap. No way! So that got me to thinking, I ought to do a bit of a shoe inventory, just to see how many mules I really have.

It turns out I currently have 76 pairs of high heels, 43 of which are mules, and 30 of those are open toed mules! So more than half my shoes are mules, which doesn't surprise me, but what did surprise me is that I have only 39 pairs of sandals, which is barely half of my collection. It's not really so much that I think I have too few sandals, but perhaps I have too many enclosed shoes. I bought quite a few pairs of pumps at the beginning of the year because the opportunity presented itself. In nine months, I believe I have worn exactly one pair out in public. I can think of at least half a dozen pairs I could cull, and it would affect my life minimally, if at all. To be fair, much of the time when I would have worn my new pumps was during the "lockdown."

In other news, I had to go to my church to prerecord two weeks' worth of hymns which will be played for the next two online church services. I shall be interested to see if my feet are cut off in the video. I think the people at the church are to the point now where that wouldn't enter into the thought process, but you just never know. I took a picture when I got home (minus my tie), and it's actually not too bad. I am just horrible at posing for photos. I told my friend Binh, who seems naturally great at posing, that she was going to have to help me. Those gray sandals, I'm still not sure about. I like them in theory, but I wish they were less clunky. I will say that for a pretty cheap pair of shoes, they seem to be fairly durable and comfortable. I think they look ok with pants, but I don't think I would ever wear them with shorts--they're just too huge.

Now that shorts season seems to be over, at least where a good number of us live, many of you will be putting away your sandals for the season. I'm going to keep wearing my sandals as long as I want, regardless of my other clothing. I went to the grocery store after I got done with my church duties, thinking that I see chicks with sandals and long clothes all the time these days. At the store, I counted no less than ten women wearing sandals while at the same time wearing a jacket of some sort. Ten. And I wasn't there very long. So I guess this is acceptable now, I'm going with it. Have a nice week!

GrayWinterPose.jpg

NineWestWedge.jpg

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I am sorry to report that my BCBGirls Bonny mules (pair No. 1) have finally yielded up the ghost. It wasn't spectacular, but it was highly inconvenient. At least it wasn't embarrassing. A few short nights ago, I got a wild hair and decided to go for a 5 mile walk in my Bonnys, which is something that I've wanted to do for some time, being as I have touted them a number of times as the best walking shoes ever. Previous to this, I have only walked 5 miles at one clip in high heels twice in the past. Once, in May 2014, was in my Söfft "Belecia" sandals, which these days I consider to be a mid-heel, and the second, in December 2015, was in my Simply Vera Wang "Velma" booties, which are comparable in height and steepness to the Bonnys, but I was in a lot better shape back then, being enthusiastic about racking up as many miles as I could in heels.

As of late I have been walking a lot more than for the past several years, and I decided it was time to award the best walking shoes ever with the 5 mile badge, so I set off sometime after supper, with no particular destination in mind, but I wound up on a bike path which leads to another town about 11 miles away. My plan was to continue walking until my GPS read about 2 1/2 miles, then turn around and head for home. Unfortunately, about a mile and a half in, it became apparent that something was wrong. I was beginning to get this rubbery, squishy feeling in my right heel. I hoped it was just my 'magination.  .  .runnin' away with me, yeah. However, by the time I could get to a place where I could lean up against something in order to inspect my shoe, it was obvious that something was very wrong. I couldn't identify the exact problem because it was pretty dark by this time, but the heel was flexing waaaay more than it should, especially for a wooden heel. I then had a choice to make: Should I walk the mile and a half back home barefoot, or should I try to limp home on this broken heel? I opted for the latter for a couple of reasons I won't get into right now for the sake of brevity.

If I walked carefully, the heel would not flex, but even trying my hardest, every 20th step or so, that heel would flex and go all wonky. I'm obviously not as smooth of a walker as I think I am. Time to eat Humble Pie. It was a long walk home, and the worst part was that I had to cross a busy highway to get there. There was no way I was going to walk in front of a line of cars at a stoplight with a broken heel, so I chose a crossing with no stoplight, waited a considerable time until there was a sufficient gap in traffic, then dashed across on tiptoe, keeping all weight off the heels. At that moment, I regretted not having taken ballet as a kid. I made it back home several minutes later and assessed the damage. As you can see in the picture below, it chomped my heel tip all the way down to the wood, and I had just had those reheeled fairly recently! But alas, it doesn't matter because what had actually happened was not that the heel had come loose, but rather I had broken a shank, something I have experienced several times in the past. I don't need to do an autopsy to determine that. So.  .  . bye bye Bonny No. 1, with a mere 51.7 recorded miles, though I would be willing to bet that if you include incidental mileage, the number would be twice that. I wore these sandals pretty much everywhere, all the time in the summer for the better part of 5 years, as @HappyinHeelscan attest to.

Luckily, I have two more pairs in reserve, both of which are much better looking than No. 1, not having endured years of use and abuse (yet). Bonny No. 2 is now fully broken in and is nearly as comfortable as Bonny No. 1 was, but is currently sitting on a shelf awaiting a reheeling. Bonny No. 3 has only been worn around the house so far, and the leather is still quite stiff and leaves red marks on my feet after a while. As I've mentioned elsewhere, this particular model of sandal requires a considerable break-in period. In the meantime, I have been wearing other shoes, which I suppose is a good thing, being as I evidently have 76 pairs (now 75, sigh).

BonnyFail.jpg

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19 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Hard to see the shank damage, did the shank split like a log or dislodge from the sole at the top?

I said I wasn't going to do an autopsy, but I'm glad I did. Not only can you see what happened, but I was quite surprised at the stoutness of this shank. All of the other ones I've broken have been tiny and fragile compared to this one. So.  .  . how did I manage to break it? I'm only 140 lbs., or 64 kg, and I'm not particularly hard on shoes of any kind, how did I manage to do this? The memory suddenly comes flooding back.  .  . sort of. I do remember a night in the late winter/early spring when I went to practice the organ at the church. It might have involved snow and ice, I don't really remember clearly.  It definitely involved slipping or tripping on something, but I remember both of my shoes flying off my feet fairly spectacularly. I think that is the incident which probably started the break in the shank, which progressively got worse over the months of walking that I've done since then, until it finally broke completely in half.

I mean, that has to be it. That shank is so surprisingly stout compared to all of the other shanks I have broken over the years. Ha, all of the other shanks I've broken. Wow, I kind of sound like the shop gorilla, don't I? I'm not sure if that's a regional term, but for sure I'd better explain for our non-native-English speakers. A "shop gorilla" is a person who, either because of carelessness or incompetence, is constantly breaking tools or damaging equipment. I've done a couple of things over the years to earn that title temporarily, but walking in high heels surely couldn't be one of them. In this case, I really think this one incident is the root cause of the eventual failure.

In any case, it's been a pretty good year, shoe durability-wise, this is my only catastrophic failure for all of 2020. Last year, I bet I had half a dozen shoes that broke. I know that sounds bad, but I still say it all comes from walking in shoes that were never designed to be walked in. And not only that, I don't walk slowly. I'm sure that puts stresses on my shoes that the designers never even considered. Not to mention unforeseen violent stresses, such as the one that occurred in the early part of this year.

BonnyShank2.jpg

BonnyShank1.jpg

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A few years ago I bought a pair of platform heels, put them on, took two steps and they came apart in the arch/shank. Sent them back and ordered a second pair. I wore them a couple times and they came apart too. I really liked them, so out to the shop! I carefully pulled back the inner sole and saw where the heel and arch was nailed to the platform, yup, just a couple nails to carry a 180 pound guy. I pulled the nails and ran in a couple screws and they have held up fine. I bought a similar pair of the same brand and they had the same issue, repaired them too. My wife has a matching pair but hers have held up fine. I wonder if it is the way I walk, or maybe just the weight difference, she is a whole 100 pounds.

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Ha, i see. Believe it or not I did once too. In my case a pair of Pleaser slitettos. Those shoes are made for hard use, stripper quality and designed for men to boot, yet  I broke one.

A little metal fatigue, like you said heels are not really dedigned for heavy walking.

Missing a screw head, it break too or never installed?

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2 minutes ago, Jkrenzer said:

Ha, i see. Believe it or not I did once too. In my case a pair of Pleaser slitettos. Those shoes are made for hard use, stripper quality and designed for men to boot, yet  I broke one.

A little metal fatigue, like you said heels are not really dedigned for heavy walking.

Missing a screw head, it break too or never installed?

HA! I knew you would ask that, should have answered it in my original reply. There were originally three screws holding the heel on. I was simply curious how long they were, so I removed one. It was remarkably long, maybe inch and a half. I think these shoes are actually fairly durably built, I just wore them for years and had that unfortunate incident a while ago. I'll let you know in another 5 years how well the second pair holds up.

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7 minutes ago, Jkrenzer said:

Ha, i see. Believe it or not I did once too. In my case a pair of Pleaser slitettos.

Quite an accomplishment to break a pair of Pleasers! They are built to take a beating!

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6 hours ago, Pumped said:

Quite an accomplishment to break a pair of Pleasers! They are built to take a beating!

I never said i was easy my on heels. I wear them even when doing lumber work, yard work, mason work etc. My neighbors think I'm nuts, but I'm harder on my heels than I am on my sneakers.

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1 hour ago, Jkrenzer said:

My neighbors think I'm nuts, but I'm harder on my heels than I am on my sneakers.

My neighbor's friend (dog walking buddy) asked me yesterday why I wasn't mowing my lawn in heels.

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mlroseplant,

Ah yes I remember those sandals! You really do run the sandals until the tires (heels) come off. Still, you have 75 other pairs waiting for a walk!! Besides that sandal weather in Iowa will soon be coming to an end. We're headed for a freeze tonight so I went out and harvested all my grapes (Niagara cultivar) and came in with around 15 pounds of grapes. Not bad for a first harvest of 3-year-old vines. I plan to add more vines next year. HinH

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8 hours ago, Cali said:

My neighbor's friend (dog walking buddy) asked me yesterday why I wasn't mowing my lawn in heels.

It's been a while since I've been out that way, but I didn't realize you had lawns to mow in California. I always figured you guys just put out green colored throw rugs in front of your houses. 😆

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I should have said weeds. I save my water for my fruit trees and vegetables.

During a severe drought year, one of my neighbors spray painted her dried out yellow lawn dark green.

Those green throw rugs make excellent backyard putting greens.

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Well, howdy there high heeled people! Well, and then Jeff. Howdy Jeff. The weather here lately has been unseasonably warm, so I have been able to wear some things I thought I had put away for the season. First thing yesterday, which was Sunday morning, for whatever reason, I decided to wear some low heels. Not Jeff low, but they're kind of low for me. I walked 2 1/2 miles in them, at a pretty good clip, and I don't mind telling you that I was pretty pooped out by the time I made it back home. I'm not in the shape I used to be in. I have walked further, and in higher heels recently, but not at that pace. I was movin'. It was kind of fun, wearing lower heels for a change, but I don't plan on making it a habit. As far as the t-shirt goes, you'll often see me wearing this Breast Cancer Awareness shirt, and the reason is because I have about 25 of them. I also have quite a number of rags in the garage that look remarkably like the same t-shirt. I do, in fact, change my shirt from time to time.

I actually wore three different outfits yesterday, but I'm only going to post two of them today, because of the data limit. The second picture is me being thrilled that I can fit into those black shorts again. I have dropped like 7 pounds in the last month. I was so thrilled that I wore this outfit to the grocery store to pick up some Essential Items, such as food. I have been hesitant to wear stilettos with shorts in the past, but I'm over it, I guess.

SofftFastWalk.jpg

BlackShorts.jpg

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20 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Good look in both pair. Plenty of coolers, anything good to drink??

Like the black stilettos and shorts. I did stilettos and shorts on Saturday out and about. Love the free feeling.

Haha, the coolers. Those were drying out from the previous day's farmer's market. My wife sells egg rolls, so no, nothing in there to drink!

20 hours ago, Cali said:

Next up for you is shorts with knee high stiletto boots. A look I like to wear a few times a summer.

Methinks you are winding me up a little bit! I'm used to it. For one thing, if I were going to do that look, I'd have to find some boots that actually fit my chicken legs.

__________________

As promised, here is the third picture from Sunday. It's an outfit I wore to record two weeks' worth of hymns with our church organist for the continuing online services. I was going to wear an entirely pink outfit, but decided that as this is a public broadcast, the pink pants were too tight for such a venue. Plus, they needed to be ironed, and I was running late, as usual. I decided on this outfit instead. Pretty boring, except for the shoes, which are cheap Chinese knockoffs of the same Steve Madden sandals you can see in my black shorts picture three posts before this one. I couldn't tell you a brand name because it has been long ago obliterated, and it probably doesn't matter anyway. They are ever-so-slightly pinkish, but it sure does not show up in this picture. So I guess we'll call them nude patent. These are the only shoes I own in this color, and I rather like the color. I know there are others on this forum who will violently disagree.

Despite their cheapness, I have become rather fond of them lately, and experienced no discomfort standing in them for a couple of hours while we recorded music. The last time I wore these sandals to do something similar, I did feel a certain degree of discomfort, so I think that my recent training binge has done some good, endurance-wise. The heels are just a tidge under 4 1/2", or about 110 mm, no platform. Despite their not being made of leather, they have stretched out some recently, and I may have to think about adding some padding in there to take up some room.

InsteadofPink.jpg

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Yes I remember the warmth we had last Friday 9th of October when I officially recorded 84F/28C at my house/station. Spent the day doing yardwork in short shorts. I'm busy doing tasks/projects before we leave for South Carolina and from there to Arizona. This was an incredible growing year for just about everything. The dent (field) corn around our house reached 10.5 feet/ 3.2m in August and my first grape harvest was a success. I did enjoy wearing different sandals this year and posted a number of photos here. HinH

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  • 2 weeks later...

What a difference two weeks have made! The temperature dropped precipitously about ten days ago, and it has stubbornly stayed there. It has also been extremely windy most of the past week, and it has either rained or even snowed on the majority of the days. As a result, I haven't done any walking lately. I've become such a wimp. However, on this morning, I made myself take a walk, even though it was 34º (1º C) and slightly breezy. And yes, I wore my True Religion mules, because why not? I have made it an aspiration to wear sandals as long as possible into the winter, though I probably won't wear them once we have continuous snow cover, which I hope is not for a little while. It's way too early in the season for it to be this cold every single day for this long at a clip. At any rate, I'm glad I made myself do it. It's good for me. Once I make it past that first couple of blocks, I always wonder why I hesitated in the first place. Being cold, up to a point, is just a state of mind.

I wore a very similar outfit (I think it was even the same shoes) to visit the grocery store the other day, when temperatures were in the 30s, and it was very windy. I was curious to see if there were any other sandal wearers in the store, as there had been a couple of weeks ago. On this occasion, there were a few gals bundled up in coats wearing sandals, but every one of them was wearing either Birkenstocks or those awful sports slides with socks. Every single one. I was the only bare toed person in the store, and I was the only high heeled person in the store, with the exception of a couple of low, block heeled boots, "low" meaning 2" or less. It's lonely at the top!

TRSandalsInCold.jpg

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It's been an interesting week. I missed two days of work, thinking I had finally caught The Virus. But no, I didn't instead. My sickness and fever was evidently caused by something else, and I recovered in less than 24 hours. The second day I stayed home from work, I arranged to get a Covid test at a location near Costco, and it also happened to be my wife's day off from her work, so we decided to go shopping right after my test.

It has been unusually cold this fall in our area, so I decided to wear a sweater with my Mark & James platform wedge sandals. I'm not crazy about them, I'm not 100% sure why I bought them, they always seem to me to be borderline ridiculous when I'm looking at them on the shelf or holding them in my hand, but they are comfortable, and in the few photographs I have taken, they seem to look far less extreme on my feet than they do in isolation. Probably the reason I was ever attracted to them in the first place is because they are really, really tall--5 1/2", to be exact. They also have the thickest platforms of any shoes I own, at 1 1/2", for an effective 4" heel. I typically prefer a platform of 3/4" - 1", but lately I have been buying mostly single sole shoes. Tastes do change somewhat over the years.

The only reason for wearing wedges, in my humble opinion, is practicality. I do not like the massive look of wedges in general, and these have got some mass to them. What saves them for me is the fact that the heel is relatively narrow compared to many wedges. Another negative for me is the leather sole, which is totally ridiculous in the real world. I don't dare wear these if there's even a chance that it's going to be wet--they would be ruined in a New York Minute. The leather sole also makes them rather slippery on the polished floors of your typical supermarket. While I did not suffer any near misses, I walked with less confidence than I might have liked. Still, I had a delightful afternoon with my wife, which happens too seldom these days, and during our time together, I received word that my Covid test was negative.

This picture was taken just after sunset, which explains the somewhat strange lighting. It does not explain the wrinkles in my neck, which continue to rear their ugly selves if I am not super careful about which way I turn my head.

Mark&JamesSweater2.jpg

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