In Russia they still wear fur

Okay – yes – I know it's wrong! But seriously, does this not look like the most fabulously warm and decadent coat you've ever seen in your life? It never gets cold enough here to wear a coat like that, even if wearing fur was not heinous (unless it's your own) ... but I can imagine whistling over the surface of some icy tundra in an open sleigh, under the clear black starry sky, with the smell of horses and pine trees freezing in my nostrils ... wearing this coat.

Anyway. I found it here, while googling around for winter boots. This site (do click the link!) is SO much fun – you can put together all kinds of amazing fantasy outfits and find fabulous clothes and shoes and other things that you might never otherwise run across, because you don't even know they exist and therefore cannot look for them.

So I spent some time playing around there, but I still haven't found the boots I'm looking for. Will I know them when I see them? Yes. Do I know exactly what I need? Mmmm ... kind of. I know they must be black, no laces, zipper maybe (I'd prefer no zipper), at least a 1-2" platform, and anywhere between lower-calf and mid-calf height. They should be reasonably waterproof. Round or square toe, not pointed. Not too fancy. Any buckles or other visually complicated details would have to be at or below the ankle. On second thought, no buckle would be best, I think. MAYbe a harness ring, as long as they're not too stiff.

Is this a shallow and boring blog post? Yes. That can be a good thing though. My tolerance for drama has been put to the test this week and found lacking. Also, I just found out I'm going to be working not only the rest of this weekend but most likely all of next weekend as well. So a little bubble-headed frivolity is feeling like just what the doctor ordered.

For example, these.


And actually it's kind of interesting, thinking about these shoes, and posting a picture of them ... because I know the perpetrator of last weekend's sexual assault reads this blog, and normally I wouldn't think twice about posting a picture of some high-heeled leopard-print fetish shoes, but now – I am thinking twice. And I'm feeling myself inhibited by the knowledge that to some people, my posting of a picture like this might be taken as permission or an invitation to view me as some kind of fetish object. Which, just for the record, it is NOT.

P.S. Just to be obnoxious, here are a few pictures of boots I've considered and rejected. These might have worked despite the zipper, but they're only made for men and my feet are too small to wear men's sizes.



There really isn't anything right about these, except that I just love them. Unfortunately, they only come in little girls' sizes. And they cost $400.


These could work if I could find them in my size. Are Doc Martens waterproof though? I can't remember. Somehow I think they're not.


These, I don't know ... they're a little too short, and I've had boots kind of like this before and they never really got comfortable, even after years and years of trying to break them in. I finally sent them to the Goodwill last winter.



These looked interesting, if a little space-ship. They're Earth boots, so I know they would fit my foot (not an easy requirement to meet), but I think they have a little too much going on up around the top. And I'm not so sure that grommet thing at the ankle would not fill up with water at some point and leave me slogging around in wet socks all the rest of the day.

Looking for something a little less butch (not that I have anything against butch boots – obviously!), I pondered these ... But they're suede, they're not quite black, I don't know how durable they'd be, they're made for snow and may be too hot, and they cost around $300, which is more than I wanted to spend. They would look nice with certain dresses and skirts, though. There's also a shorter version made of "butter-soft calfskin," which is beautiful but not durable enough. I am hard on boots in at least six different ways.



For something completely different, I considered this stretchy microfiber boot .... I dunno. They could be fun. Sorta fancy, sorta krazy, at least for me – tall and skinny and somewhat polished and possibly presentable ... not much like anything else I've ever worn. But are they durable? And comfortable? Hmph. Probably not enough.

It's possible I may end up with these. They've been in my shopping cart for a couple of days and I just can't bring myself to order them ... kinda expensive, and I'm pretty sure they're too tall. They also look like they might be a little too "nice" for all the abuse I plan to put them through. But I might order them and at least just walk around the living room a few times, just to see.


Or, maybe I'll just get another pair of my favorite old standby brown riding boots and call it a day. I've worn a pair of these almost every day for the last two winters. They're about worn out though, and even if I do get a new pair (which of course I will, I love them), the problem is, they're a little short for some outfits, and the brown just doesn't go with everything. I wonder if they come in black? Hrm.


I could go on and on, but I'm kind of getting exhausted just thinking about it.

Friday fashion

And speaking of fashion: I haven't totally given up on my Friday fashion coverage, though I'm considering changing the name to "occasional Friday fashion coverage."

This girl I saw in a bookstore a couple of weeks ago when it was raining – they were setting up for a reading and she was prancing around the shop in her kitty cat slicker and umbrella, singing a song that goes like this: "Meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow, MEE-OW!"

A few hours later I saw her and her mom again in the Thai restaurant across the street, and she was still singing the same song, only this time the words had something to do with "If I had a wish that I could give to you ...."

The thing is, she was a tiny person singing, but she didn't sound like a tiny person. She just sounded like a person, singing. A beautiful, clear, round voice. It was really something kind of special. And very sweet, on such a rainy night.

An enormous beret

Well, I've kept my eyes peeled all week and have not seen anyone to inspire a fashion photo this week, so instead I offer this: the biggest beret I've ever seen, perched atop a big hairdo I suspect is pretty fancy once she takes the hat off.

Soon it will be chilly and cold again – beret weather – and I am so ready. I had a meeting halfway up the mountain this morning, followed by work, followed by shopping and a party on the opposite side of the valley and finally a long ride back to the base of the mountain (home) in the dark – a good 20 miles by the end of the day, and most of it was hot as hell. I actually set a personal record for most sponge baths taken in public restrooms in a single day. There's definitely an art to getting clean in one of those places without actually touching anything – a critical skill because who knows who's been in there, you know, Touching Things.

Except the restroom at my office, in which case I know exactly who's been in there. Not that that makes me feel any better.

Anyway – I had a good time at the party and even allowed myself to have one bite of an exceptionally fudgy brownie, knowing I would work off at least a few of the carbs during my half-hour ride home. I also had six 1.5" square crackers with pâté, a big plate of salad and about a half a glass of white wine. I'll be curious to see what my blood sugar is like in the morning.

Everything's tight on this one

She looked so young to have been wearing such a tight facelift! But maybe she wasn't as young as I thought; hard to tell, with such surgery. It seems my Friday fashion photography is becoming limited to stealth snaps of tourists; they're the only ones usually wearing anything interesting enough to notice. And in fact this outfit isn't even all that interesting; it's just the most unusual thing I saw all night. Oh well – there's always next week!


Here is another dusk image from the skyline series of camera phone pictures I've been collecting. I've realized that this is my favorite time of day right now – those few minutes where you think it's finally gotten too dark to see, but then you look at the horizon and realize there's still just a thin rim of light still shining up from beyond the curve of the planet. I love watching that light disappear – and then there's another few minutes after that, as your eyes adjust to the dark, when you can start to see that there's actually a lot still visible in the darkness, as well.

This brings to mind one of my favorite poems:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

I love taking Tater on long walks at night, in dark places – like our road, which has no artificial lighting except people's porch lights, few and far between. In contrast to the daytime, when I never know who might be watching me, at night I feel safe and protected. I suppose in a way it's like a child who covers her eyes and says, "Now you can't see me!" But I feel comforted by the darkness all the same.

It's funny I should come around to feeling this way. As a child I was terrified of the dark. I remember making my parents promise to leave the hall light on, and to make sure I was sound asleep before they went to bed.


I also went to a bike festival last weekend. The turnout was fairly small, but I saw a lot of friends and some very cool bikes, and got to test-ride several different weird new concept bikes including my first-ever recumbent and a semi-recumbent three-wheeler built like a scaled down La-Z-Boy recliner.


This guy was my favorite thing all day. I love this contraption for carrying a large dog – or any other cargo – on the back of a bike, using the tray from an old metal wheel barrow. I wanted to ask him to stop so I could see how he attached it to the bike, but he never slowed down, just kept riding up and down the venue with the dog in the back, and I was too shy to try to flag him down.

Small creatures

First of all, thank you to everyone who emailed me to express concern over my last, quite dramatic post. Just when I think that nobody's reading this thing anymore, I suddenly find out that a lot of people still are – and they are (you are) lovely, wonderful, caring people.

I'm okay. The thing that happened wasn't really such a huge shock or revelation, but more just an unwelcome deepening of my understanding of a situation I already knew about ... And if that's too obscure an explanation, I'll just say that I've been reminded of how important it is to me to try to stay present and aware in my own life, and that that is really the most important thing that happened. And it's not a bad thing.

Moving on: Last winter, in an attempt to keep ourselves warm at night, Mr. A and I bought a few of these furry bears that are stuffed with flax seeds, which you heat up in the microwave and snuggle up with in bed. They worked great, but over time their fur went kind of flat and they started exuding a strange (flax-like?) smell whenever we heated them, so we stopped using them. They were still cute, though, so we kept them around thinking we might give them away next time someone with a kid came to visit.

Then this morning I noticed the mice had gotten to them. They'd chewed little holes right through the fur and extracted a cup or more of seeds, which they'd hulled and eaten, leaving a huge and surprisingly neat pile of feathery chaff on top of the Yoga Journal on which the bear was sitting. So I'm back to killing mice again. Sad day. They're so cute, but so destructive. Not only of stuffed bears, but also linens, furniture, walls ... not to mention, they pee constantly wherever they go. Filthy creatures!

Also, on my way to work I accidentally killed a dove with the car. It was standing on the road with a bunch of its friends, who all flew off as the car approached. But this one last dove just kept standing there and standing there, and I kept thinking, "He's going to take off any second! They always do!" And then, he didn't. I hit the brake at the last possible moment, but it was too late. I heard a thump on the bottom of the car, and when I looked in the rear view mirror there was a big pouffy cloud of fine brown feathers trailing out from behind the car. And the poor little brown body, lying on the asphalt. Sigh. He will make a nice breakfast for some larger bird today, I imagine. And maybe there was something wrong with him already – why else didn't he fly away with his buddies?

Finally, I will report that I'm very glad the low-rise jeans thing is coming to a close soon. Yesterday at lunch I saw a supremely curvalicious young woman sitting at a cafe table, with a full three inches of crack exposed at the back of her jeans. No doubt she looked fabulous in them standing up. But man. The crack action was something I just really did not need to see.