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The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant


mlroseplant

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Another week, another outfit that is kind of the same as every other week. I'm not very creative when it comes to what to wear. The only thing of note is that I won't be working a farmer's market in these Mark & James platform sandals again. They weren't horrible, and I did not have to use my backup shoes, but with their giant platform, they felt very unstable and awkward to walk in.

On the other hand, I got three compliments during the evening. To be sure, they were all from women who were a little bit out there for their own personal style. One in particular was sporting very colorfully dyed hair, very loose jeans with giant holes in them, and fingernails that were every bit of an inch and a half long, sharpened to needle-like points. It's funny that I consider myself to be quite conservative in my presentation, but evidently, I'm "out there" too.

FMMark&JamesShorts.jpg

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22 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

Nothing conservative about a man in heels buddy.

I dunno. I suppose it depends upon your point of view. Everything about me is fairly conservative, with the exception of my shoes, shorts, and probably politics. I'm really a very boring guy.

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Church outfit of the week, which again, looks pretty much like everything else I wear. It seems the only things that change are the colors. Oh, and the new sandals, featured elsewhere on this forum. I did get some comments on the shoes. I mean, how could you not?

CoachGoldWorn.jpg

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mlroseplnt,

 I’m surprised these wedges were not cumfy and felt unstable at the farmers market. They’ve always been my top choice for wearing outdoors at a wedding, a picnic, or even walking around your place. Of course we all now know some shoes simply don’t feel as good as they seemed in the store. I wouldn’t stop wearing wedges generally. I’ve enjoyed wearing them with jeans, skirts, and dresses and none of mine are under 4”/10cm. Several members here remember  seeing my wedges. It’s part of my style as your shorts are of yours. You’re different from me but in understandable ways. If we weren’t then we would live in a bland and uninspiring world. I’ll take the multi-coloured hair girl or the shorts-wearing guy with wedge sandals whether I agree with all their views on the world or not. The creativity and freedom to express thru style is what life is about. HappyinHeels 

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It was a sad day in the world yesterday. My BCBGirls Bonny mules, my favorite pair of walking shoes, yielded up the ghost by shank failure. As many of you may know, it's not totally bad, because I still have three identical pairs in reserve. Two down, three to go. I was slightly disappointed that the right shoe failed at only 115.6 miles, but I suppose that is actually pretty amazing considering the design of the shoe.

I only wish they had lasted another 10 miles, which would have made them, at least temporarily, the most durable heels I've owned. As it is, that honor is still held by my Nine West oxfords, which are still kicking, and actually remain quite presentable if you polish them up. The Bonny No. 2s, on the other hand, were not really presentable. They were pretty much trashed, and I would never actually wear them in public, if you don't count walking around the neighborhood.

I guess we get to start on Bonny No. 3 now. It will take a while for them to get soft and pliable like the No. 2s were. And it will be interesting to see if they last about the same amount of time and mileage.

Bonny2DeadSide.jpg

Bonny2DeadSole.jpg

Bonny2DeadToetoToe.jpg

Bonny2DeadTop.jpg

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Mlroseplant,

 I remember seeing you in those Bonnie sandals so I know they were special. Given the narrow vamp and no ankle strap I think these mule sandals did well for you. 116 miles is 322-325000 steps for me and you’re only about an inch or so shorter so the sandal lasted for a distance almost stretching from Des Moines to Omaha. Keep up the great gait work 👡HinH

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This is what shank failure looks like--for the second time. The heel was plenty tight to the sole, even after all that walking and a fourth set of heel caps. That little strip of metal is key to the structural integrity of many heels, and certainly of this model. The failure was in exactly the same spot as the last pair, and on the same shoe (the right). I am a bit surprised about that, as this pair was never subjected to trauma, as was the last pair.

I had an incident with Bonny No. 1, overstepping the bottom stair and doing violence to the heel. Bonny No. 1 didn't fail right away after that, but it was soon after at only about 50 miles. The fact that Bonny No. 2 failed in the exact same way somewhat puzzles me. Also, the fact that it was on the same foot gives me a little cause for concern. I need to examine some of my other shoes to see if perhaps I'm walking funny on that foot.

At any rate, the first picture is what happened to the heel (exaggerated for photo purposes--it wasn't actually that bad while I was walking the last tenth of a mile), the second picture is the shank of Bonny No. 2, third picture is the shank of Bonny No. 1. As you can see, they broke within 1 mm of the same spot. How weird! I'll start working on Bonny No. 3 right away, to see if there's a pattern.

Bonny2DeadCrookedHeel.jpg

Bonny2DeadShank.jpg

BonnyShank2.jpg

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It's the weak spot. Every mechanical thing has its weakest region based on the stresses in the part. You are fatiguing the metal with every step. Bonny no. 1 apparently had a large stress cycle that shortened its life. I'm not surprised it's on the same shoe, we all walk differently on each foot. In my case the heel tips always wear faster on my left shoe. It could also be just random, i.e. flip a coin. If it's heads the 1st time it's still 50/50 each time you flip it again that it will be heads, no pattern until it happens 3 or more times.

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Uneven loading on the heel and torque from changing from gas pedal to brake pedal.  I can feel and see this on some of my heels from driving.  And 99%+ of the time I'm driving in heels.  (Experimental based science.)

What is unknown is the condition of the shank in the left heels.  Do they show stress or not.

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On 7/23/2022 at 5:49 AM, Jkrenzer said:

It's the weak spot. Every mechanical thing has its weakest region based on the stresses in the part. You are fatiguing the metal with every step. Bonny no. 1 apparently had a large stress cycle that shortened its life. I'm not surprised it's on the same shoe, we all walk differently on each foot. In my case the heel tips always wear faster on my left shoe. It could also be just random, i.e. flip a coin. If it's heads the 1st time it's still 50/50 each time you flip it again that it will be heads, no pattern until it happens 3 or more times.

We're working on No. 3 right now, but it's going to take a while to wear the new ones to failure. 116 miles sounds kind of impressive, but it took me about two years to do that. I do have other shoes, after all, and I'm lazy.

18 hours ago, Cali said:

Or it could be from driving.

 

15 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

 No real physical loading driving, engineer response after scientists comment. Yuk Y uk

 

13 hours ago, Cali said:

Uneven loading on the heel and torque from changing from gas pedal to brake pedal.  I can feel and see this on some of my heels from driving.  And 99%+ of the time I'm driving in heels.  (Experimental based science.)

What is unknown is the condition of the shank in the left heels.  Do they show stress or not.

I'll go ahead and put this to rest. I didn't drive in these shoes. I'm not saying it never happened, but certainly not enough to make any difference, even if we assume that the act of driving somehow made a difference. To answer the other question, I did, in fact, tear apart the left shoe on Bonny No. 2, just to see, and there was no visual sign of damage to the shank. Not that there wasn't damage, but I don't have instruments to measure it. I did have a little fun playing with the heels to see just how important that little metal strip is for keeping everything in place as it should be. Bonny No. 3 feels much more solid under my feet, so I'm guessing that even the left on Bonny No. 2 was flexing more than when new.

Ships still sometimes break in half at sea, so I suppose it's a bit much to expect a mass produced silly fashion item to last indefinitely.

Edited by mlroseplant
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Time for the latest installment of Farmer's Market Outfit Of The Week. I try not to repeat too often, but I'm sure it happens. I know I've worn the Michael Kors tan wedges before, the shorts before, and the olive t-shirt many, many times. So even if this is not a repeat, it's close.

It was a beautiful even here in central Iowa last night. Low 80s for temperatures to start off, a good breeze, and plenty of sunshine. In fact, I want to say it's the first truly decent weather we've had all year on a Thursday night. The State Fair hasn't started yet, so the people came. And they came, and they came, and they came. By my estimation, we sold about 750 egg rolls last night. Once again, my outfit and shoes did not seem to negatively affect business.

Despite my lack of time to do anything, I got three comments. One from a six year old girl early on who pointed out to her mother that I was wearing high heels. And that's it. Either it was that uninteresting, or the mother shushed the daughter hurriedly. I didn't actually hear any shushing, but I was kind of busy at the time. Number Two was from a customer, a woman about my age who asked the usual question of how I can work in those heels. We had a short conversation about heels during our financial and culinary transaction. She said she actually still did wear heels for special occasions, but she said she could only do about THAT high (held her fingers about 2 1/2 inches apart). My wedges are 4 1/2 with small platform, making them right at about 4 inches steep.

Number Three was when I was going to fetch my car from a nearby street so we could load up and go home. Two college age girls were walking behind me somewhat when I heard one of the shout out something. I didn't pay that much attention, but evidently she was yelling at me. What I finally was able to discern was, "You look fierce" and "I like your shoes." I thanked her and her friend, and went on my way. Both were very attractive young ladies, and both were smiling. I sure didn't feel fierce, I felt like I just got run over by a truck, but whatever.

I must be gaining some stamina, because the last time I wore these shoes, the balls of my feet felt quite uncomfortable by the end of the night. This time, they were just slightly ragged, and now the next morning I can hardly tell I stood in 4 inch heels for nearly six hours.

FMEarthtoneMKwedge.jpg

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Here is my church OOTW. I seem to do the blue thing in slightly different permutations on a fairly regular basis, and here is what I came up with this week. FSJ blue mules, Buffalo pants (Costco), polo shirt from Vietnam.

The only notable thing that happened today is when I was getting out of the car after coming back home. As I was unloading my stuff, a wasp started harassing me. I had a bass case in one hand, and my bucket full of music/equipment in the other. I wound up stabbing the top of my foot with my own stiletto heel. That felt awesome. At least I didn't get stung.

BluBlockerPolo.jpg

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21 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

Do you all get red wasps up there?  I’ve never had a black/blue wasp even get anxious, unprovoked, but the red ones cannot be trusted.  

We don't have red wasps up here. The only black or blue species I can think of we call mud daubers, and they are pretty mellow. Most of the rest of them are yellow and black striped, and can be aggressive at times, especially during this time of year we're coming into soon.

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Farmer's Market OOTW. I have a couple of interesting notations. First of all, I am just not too sure about these shorts. I've had them for a while, but have never worn them before because they were too tight in the waist. I have recently dropped a few pounds for reasons I can't really explain, and now they fit OK. At least in the waist. Looking at them in this photo, I feel everything else is too big, and cut too fully. I don't know, I just don't like them all that well. Except for the full sized pockets. No dumping change when you sit down in these shorts.

This week, I got in a conversation right off the bat with one of our early customers about my shoes. It was the usual "I don't see how you can do that and remain a normal, upright, pleasant person" kind of exchange. Since the market hadn't officially opened, I had a little more time to talk, and I attempted to explain how I approached wearing heels from a different place than most women, talking about social constructs and expectations.  .  . I'm not going to do that again. I'm sure there are some people out there who are interested in such things, but they are probably few and far between. She was pleasant enough, but obviously had no idea what the hell I was talking about, or didn't care. Which is fine. She can marvel at my endurance in high heels without understanding how I got here.

So, I wore my favorite Bonny mules for the first time to the market, just to see if they were really as comfortable as I always say they are. The Bonny No. 3 is not fully broken in yet, so I did bring a backup pair of shoes and a couple of Bandaids just in case. I wound up using the backup shoes, but not for the reason I imagined. As it turns out, both heel tips came loose before the end of the night. Not a big deal, I think it's because they are New Old Stock shoes, and the wooden heels have probably dried out and shrunk somewhat over the years, losing their grip on the heel tips. Same thing happened with Bonny No. 2. But I had to finish the night in low heels. :((((((

FMBonnyLooseJeanShorts.jpg

Bonny3LooseTopLift.jpg

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Very attractive sandals, have fun with them.  I don't get all philosophical when someone asks about my heels. Usually it's a compliment, and I just tell them thank you, it's something I do.  If the conversation goes further, I will oblige with further details, but most of the time the comment / compliment is merely to take note of that fact that I am wearing nice looking shoes.  

As for folks reacting to or noticing my heels, when I first began wearing heels wayyy back in the 80's, I did get more comments from folks.  But for the past few years, it has been very rare to get a comment.  Maybe folks are getting used to seeing a guy in heels?  Not likely, since I sill have NEVER seen another guy in heels, or gals flats for that matter.  It's a lonely life - smile...  But I will handle the challenge..  sf   

Edited by SF
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"Why should girls have all the fun!!"

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20 hours ago, SF said:

Very attractive sandals, have fun with them.  I don't get all philosophical when someone asks about my heels. Usually it's a compliment, and I just tell them thank you, it's something I do.  If the conversation goes further, I will oblige with further details, but most of the time the comment / compliment is merely to take note of that fact that I am wearing nice looking shoes.  

As for folks reacting to or noticing my heels, when I first began wearing heels wayyy back in the 80's, I did get more comments from folks.  But for the past few years, it has been very rare to get a comment.  Maybe folks are getting used to seeing a guy in heels?  Not likely, since I sill have NEVER seen another guy in heels, or gals flats for that matter.  It's a lonely life - smile...  But I will handle the challenge..  sf   

Part of the reason I did it is because I had the time, and the other part is that she (the woman who commented on my shoes in the first place) kept going on and on about how she could do little heels, but not ones like I had on, and started describing her exact symptoms, and HOW do you work a farmer's market in those things? So I started to explain how. Evidently, it turns out she didn't really want to know how. And that's fine.

Since you mentioned it, SF, I actually saw a boy in gal's shoes that night, but had forgotten about it until now. I'd say this kid was probably 11 or 12 and otherwise dressed like your typical boy that age--athletic shorts that were on the loose side, t-shirt, short hair, but with sandals that were obviously intended for a girl. Not frilly or anything, but very thin straps and very thin soles with a 1/4" heel on them. They fit him perfectly, so I'm guessing they weren't borrowed from a sister or a cousin.

Edited by mlroseplant
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I got my Bonny sandals glued back together with a minimal amount of super glue, they shouldn't cause me any problems for the next 25 miles, which seems to be the average life of the stock heels on these things.

In other news, I got some new Michael Kors sandals, reviewed in the "New Sandals" section. Here is the outfit I chose to wear with them. I've done the "grayscale" look before, but this is a slightly different take on it, since I have gray sandals now!

GrayScaleMKSuede.jpg

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Second try with my Bonny No. 3 sandals. I experienced no troubles from them this week. We did experience a slow night, though. It was the first day of the Iowa State Fair, which did not help turnout at our market, and it was bloody hot, as evidenced by the sweat marks on my shirt.

The Bonny No. 3s are just about broken in now. Given how long this process acually takes, I am surprised that I ever kept Bonny No. 1. These sandals are incredibly stiff when you first get them, and it takes quite a bit to get them to soften up. In addition to that, when I got the Bonny No. 1, my toes did not really want to bend in the way that they need to bend in order to wear these sandals. I do not really remember, other than the mere passage of time, how my toes got more flexible in that direction to the point that I had forgotten how uncomfortable these things were when I first started wearing this model some 8 years ago.

Included, since it was such a good snapshot, is the brains behind this operation wearing her high viz sandals, which are NOT high heeled.

FMBonnySecondTry.jpg

KindPeopleshirt.jpg

FMHighVizShoes.jpg

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Not much to tell this week. Our choir director was gone this week, so we played with a substitute pianist. It was fine. No comments. The only thing of note is that the no-name, Alibaba type sandals that I am wearing in this picture are pretty high, very skinny, and yet at the same time very stable and very comfortable. They had a brand name on them once, but it has been worn off long ago, and it was a name that you never heard of.

ChOOTWPink&Purple1.jpg

ChOOTWPink&Purple2.jpg

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I like the Bonnie sandals.  As for the “brains” high-viz sandals, not so much, but a cut pic nonetheless.  

It’s wonderful to have a supportive wife...   smile..

sf

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"Why should girls have all the fun!!"

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's been several days since I posted anything, and that's ok. I have nothing new to post, outfit-wise. I'm continuing to recycle what I've worn. The fewer stories I have to tell, the better for all of us.

I got gushing compliments from a Costco employee yesterday about this outfit, different variations of which I have worn many times. I call it my "earthtone" outfit. I chose to pair it with my Söfft "Calvados" sandals partially because I realize my lower heels are not getting any love lately, and they are good solid shoes that never bite me back. I should appreciate them more, especially given the fact that the Costco employee mistook them for high heels. Speaking of high heels, there was only one customer in Costco at that time who was wearing actual high heels (there were a few others with mid-heels like me), and that was a 10 year old girl.

In other news, the records say that I have been remarkably lazy for the past year in the fact that I have not walked as much as I used to. The last month that I walked a truly significant amount was May of 2021, when I walked 37.2 miles. So far this month, I have walked only 15.1 miles, and most of that was in the last week. My legs and ankles are out of shape. The good news is that my 2 mile route no longer wipes me out muscle-wise, after only one week of getting back with the program. Pictured here are my True Religion mules, which are effectively right at 4" in height (5" with a 1" platform).  I have them in for new heel tips at the moment. The old ones lasted about 45 miles, which is pretty decent.

EarthtoneShort.jpg

WalkTrueReligion.jpg

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