Red Boots: Why so Hideous?

If you’ve noticed, I completely skipped over not just the (pathetic excuse of a.. heh) holiday of Valentine’s Day, I adamantly avoided posting anything the week following it too.  Let’s just say it’s not a favorite holiday of mine. But we shall save that dissection for another time.

At the moment there is another topic near and dear to my heart of a related thread.

Boots.

Inexplicably, the way women have a special relationship with the coca bean (aka chocolate), women have an illogically strong attachment to their shoes.

They’re headliners of 

Movies: “In Her Shoes”, “The Devil Wears Prada”, “The Red Shoes”

Music: “These Boots Were Made For Walking”, “The Christmas Shoes”, “Blue Suede Shoes”

And Books: “Going Away Shoes”, “Cruel Shoes”, “Secrets of a Shoe Addict”

It could be the way it they turn an already shapely woman’s leg into an elongated silhouette of desire that stirs longing in the loins of men. It could be the sudden infusion of feeling maturity and sensuality that strapping on and strutting around in sexy stems evokes.

Maybe it’s the association with glitz, glamor and the fantasy of elegant living necessary for having an excuse to even wear the fashionably sizzling but otherwise entirely impractical shoes. Or possibly it’s the sensual urge to slip into a pair and then dance- be it slink, sway or sashay across a dance floor.

Check out this dance clip from a Hollywood classic film set to a modern hip hop song. You could say it puts a whole new spin on how we view the movie dancers from previous generations. I dare you to not be impressed.

If that one moved you even a little…take a look at this one. It’s an impressive blend of yesteryear and modern sexual energy, prowess and skill. You can’t watch dancing without noticing feet and what is on them.

And then there is the unique draw of boots. A fine example of “clandestine”, boots are often more about what they cover and how they draw attention to what is not covered.  

Although boots vary in height, type of heel, adornments and intended use, most people will agree that boots command attention. They are both strong and statement making; adding a particularly erotic edge to femininity and a certain rough polish to male footwear. They bridge elegant and bohemian.  

Regardless of the reasoning behind the footwear obsession, I’m caught up in it boot, heel and slipper.

Buy them on sale, take care of them when you have them, and pick styles that are classic and timeless and your shoe collection will last you a long time. In some cases, a decade or longer.

I confess to owning over one hundred pairs of shoes, nearly half being boots and most of which would be worthless worn while walking in dirt, puddles, grass, gravel or pretty much any surface that isn’t flat, paved or smooth.  

But I don’t care. I find or create opportunities to wear my sexy shoes and am therefore always on the lookout for new hotties to add to my collection.

And as anyone who has a compilation of anything knows, variety is the name of the game. After all, the only way you can justify having a massive hoard of anything not requiring precise duplicates (like ammo) is for each to be distinctly different.

So it’s acceptable for me to have 11 pair of black shoes, so long as among them are sandals, stilettos, ankle boots, mid-calf boots, thigh high boots, knee boots, cowboy boots, hooker boots, dress boots, dress shoes and business suit shoes. Right?

Aside from style, fit and material one of the definitive ways for ensuring distinction is color.

There are the striking color differences like: Black, white, brown, peach, pink, purple, turquoise, orange and green. And then there are the subtle shade differences found between cream, champagne, buttermilk, tan, beige, taupe, and ivory.

Few and far between colors are absent in the common assortment of style, shape and function of different shoes, that do not look great on the foot and compliment clothing for some “going out” fun.

Except Red.

Call them the red-treaded step-child of the fashion industry.  

For some ungodly, indiscernible reason when it comes to red boots, footwear designers are bound and determined to take what should be the epitome of the lustful siren call and turn it into something utterly hideous.    

Red is the color of passion, fire, intensity and desire. People flush when they’re aroused. Red is the color of life giving blood and is used in both warning people to stop and tantalizing them to proceed. It is also a very common clothing color found in specialty costume, evening wear, business attire and everyday living.

So why on earth is it so nearly impossible to find sexy red boots??

Either the boots try too hard to make it look like the owner is selling their body, they’re associated with a jolly winter holiday or they’re just designed to convince everyone that it is inconceivable for anyone to look good in them. I present to you some of the worst of the offenders I found in a quick perusal online. I challenge you to find worse.

 

I don’t understand this because I have actually seen sexy red boots online and on people. But of course, just as my pulse quickens I get excited only to have my hopes shattered by finding out they are “out of stock” or “currently unavailable”.

Meanwhile all the butt ugly, I-can’t-believe-anyone-actually-made-these boots are everywhere. Some of them aren’t even red. The impudence of such imposters. They’re burgundy, bleached maroon, rusty plum or practically orange.

Don’t get me started on the styles!

And then they are fringed, studded, be-speckled or made of what looks to be canvas, linoleum or duct tape.

Because god-only-knows that anyone daring enough to wear a red boot must also want them to look like their shoes were raped by three vastly different ethic groups or designed by fetish fanatics on very heavy medication.

Oh wait, those would be considered Lady Gaga inspired. Same difference. But seriously…   

WHAT GIVES??

(sigh.)

(deep calming breathes.)

Never the less, I shall remain hopeful. So I troll the malls and scour the web, hoping against hope to find a sexy (but daytime presentable) pair of red knee high boots: solid cherry red, unadorned, with a thee-inch heel and a natural foot shaped toe. You would think I were asking for the unattainable.  

Until I find said shoe to induct into my ensemble, I will take comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my pursuit for footwear that announces your presence, projects your personality and inspires your adrenaline. 

Heart shaped candy holiday-free.   

(A tribute to boot lovers everywhere, here is the trailer to a film I thoroughly enjoyed.)

Why Guns Are Better Than Men

While browsing Facebook today, my page News Feed showed that one of my guy friends "liked" a post on of his FB friend's page. It was entitled "Top Ten Reasons Why Men Prefer Guns Over Women".

Oh really? A few years ago I found a post like this about men preferring dogs over women. Of course I had to write my own response to that. And I'm a gun owner myself. So naturally I wasn't going to pass this up.

This is what they had come up with:

Top Ten Reasons Why Men Prefer Guns Over Women. And here we go...

#10 - You can trade an old 44 for a new 22.

#9 - You can keep one gun at home and have another for when you're on the road.


#8 - If you admire a friend's gun and tell him so, he will probably let you try it out a few times.

#7 - Your primary gun doesn't mind if you keep another gun for a backup.

#6 - Your gun will stay with you even if you run out of ammo.

#5 - A gun doesn't take up a lot of closet space.

#4 - Guns function normally every day of the month.

#3 - A gun doesn't ask , "Do these new grips make me look fat?"

#2 - A gun doesn't mind if you go to sleep after you use it.

And the Number One Reason Why Men Prefer Guns Over Women..... 

#1 - You can buy a silencer for a gun
 ********

Uh huh.

How cute. 

I can do better.

So this is what I came up with:

 Top 10 Reasons Women Prefer Guns to Men

#10 - You can use your 22, 38, 44, 45 and whatever else is in your collection one right after the other and it will only make you hotter and more desirable to men.  

#9 - You can take your gun into as many clothing and shoes stores as you like and it will never complain or get impatient.

#8 - Most guns have a wide range of accessories in different styles and colors to suit your preferences so you can mix and match till your heart’s content.

#7 - A gun can go to bed with you every night and you can completely ignore it, and it will never get offended or bother you.

#6 - You can try out your best friend’s and sister’s guns without breaking any “loyalty coded” so there won’t be any hard feelings afterwards.  

#5 - Guns don’t watch sports, have poker nights, go to happy hour or collect car parts.

#4 - A gun does exactly what you want it to as soon as you want it to, regardless of whether you’re on your period and hormonal or not.

#3 - Guns never pretend to be more powerful, smarter or worth more than they actually are. And if they say they have an 8 inch barrel, they really do.

#2 - Guns function smoother, faster and more efficiently with age. If any of their parts get old you can replace them or modify them to your personal tastes.

And the number one reasons women prefer guns over men….

#1 - Your gun will never, ever leave the toilet seat up or ask you to make a sandwich.

 Nothing personal, but I think my list is better...

Temptation or Torture

You want it. But you can’t have it. It’s not yours. In fact, it never was.
But it’s there. In your life. In your way. With entirely too easy access.

You could try to take it. You might even get away with it. It’s possible you won’t get caught. But if you are found out, there WILL be consequences. Maybe serious ones.

Is it worth it?

How do you decide?

Over three week ago, I ended up with an extra $1,000 in my checking account.

The day I was paid at work, I deposited six small checks into my bank account through an ATM. One of the checks was read incorrectly by the machine. As soon as I saw the balance I knew something was wrong. It miss-read a $175.00 check for $1,175.00. The machine showed me the total for the deposit but didn’t give me the chance to verify the check amounts. Unless it deems that is has trouble reading a check, the automatic process passes over the verification part and goes straight to asking you if you have any other transactions you want to do.

This wouldn’t have happen if I’d used the ATM I typically frequent, which requires you to deposit and verify one check at a time. But I happen to be on the other side of town that day and used one of the newer ATMS that accepts multiple checks.

As a small business owner, I rely on cultivating and maintaining a good working relationship with my clients. I certainly wouldn’t want to make a client think that I was trying to cheat them of an extra grand.

I printed a receipt and immediately called the 800 number to get this fixed before anyone was the wiser. The associate I spoke to was very kind and seemed very efficient. They thanked me for catching the mistake and told me they would adjust the balance. I thought that would be the end of it.

Fast forward two weeks later, and the $1,000 was STILL in my account. I received a letter the following week saying that while the discrepancy was being investigated they had temporarily put $1,000 in my account. But a week after that it’s still there!

With the economy being rough, the holidays upon us and business being slow, the temptation has been there to dip into that extra thousand. Just treat it like an interest free loan. Maybe hope that they’ll forget about it in all the holiday fuss and fanfare.

But what if I do that and they suddenly decide the investigation is over and they yank it back out? Then my account will be overdrawn and I’ll be hit with overdraft charges. Or worse, penalized for fraudulent spending.

I’m sure the “investigation” is just part of the bank’s policies. But it almost feels like the money is being left in my account for an absurdly long length of time to tempt or torture me. Kind of a thumb to the nose at me over what is just a teeny sparkle on a drop of water in the bucket that catches just the condensation from the overflow that banks experience daily.

Several times a week I do my online banking, gauge my spending and determine the allocation of funding. Lately, I find myself sitting there hungrily thinking about how I would spend an extra $1,000 dollars.

It’s going on a month now. How long can this “investigation” take??

This isn’t the first time I’ve been tempting by something that I wanted by couldn’t have. Through the years there have many temptations that far exceed a small stack of cash. Unlocked cars in empty parking-lots, dropped personal possessions, poorly monitored merchandise in stores and less attentive women’s husbands and boyfriends.

We’ve all had opportunities that maybe we didn’t go looking for, but fell into our laps anyway.

So how do you decide how to react? Weigh the pros and cons? Try to justify your need vs. your want? State that others have more of what you want and since no one else is claiming it, you might as well?

Maybe you turn to religion for moral guidance. Assuming that your own personal moral compass that you were born with isn’t working, maybe asking for divine advice is the answer. Maybe a close friend or family member serves as a confidante.

But more often than not, I believe we already know in our hearts, our guts, our higher brain, what is right, what is moral and what is correct.

We can fight it, negotiate and struggle with truth, but at the end of the day, if you’re going to look yourself in the mirror and like who you see, you have to make the right choice.

After all, you state the true nature of your character by how you act when you think no one is watching. We ARE the sum of all our actions and choices. And that means living with integrity.

So it goes with the money taunting me in my account. It will sit there untouched for however long it takes my bank to get their act together and remove it.

Because while I want it, I can’t have it. It’s not mine. In fact, it never was.

End of story.

OUGH

I'm guessing there are some things all writers have in common. A natural inquisitive nature, a strong desire for self-expression and some fascination with language.

Maybe it’s the flow of words. Or the meaning behind those words. Or the joy of just playing with words. Some days I toy with alliteration. Other days I focus on using as many words as I can with four or more syllables. Other time synonyms or antonyms are fun to explore.

Today for some reason, "ough" stuck out. And this is what became of it:

Thoughtlessness brought
what ought to be wrought
by those who aren’t doughty
but frough and without
honesty throughout
but suffer a drought
of happiness and fought
what should be lovingly sought.

Four little consecutive letters. Yet add vowels and consonants to the fronts or backs of them and you have different sounds performing an entirely different concept.

Fascinating.

Why is that so intriguing? Beats me. Ask a different writer. Maybe they know.

Favorite Things

These are a few of my favorite things...

The Slavery That Continues

The last bottle of celebratory cheer has been popped; the final slice of American pie eaten; the spectacular blaze of fireworks faded to ash. The weekend after America's 236th anniversary of independence from England's tyranny comes to a close.

And as the good people of America are full of holiday eats and patriotic pride, tucking away their Americana decorations till the next holiday, I suggest our thoughts should turn not to the next summer bonanza, but the freedom we enjoy that others still do not have.

And some of them, a shocking number actually, are Americans who were kidnapped in other countries, many to never return home or see their families again. Others are foreigners tricked or stolen and shipped to other parts of the world, some even into the States to work primarily as sex slaves.

I'm not referring to something that happened long ago. This is something that is happening now, all around the world. Sex slavery is a multimillion dollar industry.

Unless there is awareness drawn to problems, the problems continue to go unchecked. And this is a huge problem.

Slavery of ANY kind is morally and ethically wrong. You do not need a religion or theological view to know that all humans deserve kind, just treatment and that The Golden Rule of "treat others as you want to be treated" supersedes all ethnic, cultural, gender or age lines.

We are all part of the same human family. A person’s value can not, should not be monetized and exploited.



The only way we can with a clear conscious enjoy our holiday of freedom and independence is if we are actively working to make sure that everyone has those same rights and luxuries.

To be who we want to be. To live where we want to live. To have command of our lives and our bodies. And to enjoy life’s pleasures and struggles as we see fit with the people who care about us.

Now that would be something worth celebrating.