This morning, it was with great sadness, but also relief, that I divested my closet of 100 pair of shoes and eight pair of boots. All were exquisite and in pristine condition. I loaded them into my shopping cart and dragged them in three trips to the Housing Works Thrift Shop on 17th Street where the proceeds from my beautiful shoes will be used to help homeless and (probably shoeless) people with AIDS.
Like Carrie Bradshaw, I had a $40,000 collection of designer shoes--100 pair of $400 shoes. While Carrie paid retail for her Manolo Blahnik's, Christian Laboutin and Prada, I bought mine at a discount at Anbar's on Reade Street because they were "last year's model." I paid $2000 for the same works of art that adorned Carrie's closet. To say the shoes were magnificent does not do them justice. My shoes were to shoes as Monet's Waterlilies were to impressionist painting. Deep purple suede with four inch spike heels. Lucious red leather with cuban heels. Teal ballet flats with a black patent leather bow. Animal lover that I am, I'm mortified to say I had shoes made not only from adult animals, but from baby animals as well. How I loved my spotted pony loafers, my gray calfskin boots and my baby crocodile oxfords. I was able to buy them only after convincing myself that the pony had been near death,the calf had a brain injury and the baby croc was stamped plastic.
Those of you who know me are thinking, "Manolo Blahnik's, Prada? I don't get it. All I've ever seen her in is Reeboks and maybe Saucony for special occasions."
You're right.
Although Carrie was a fool to pay twenty times what I paid, at least Carrie hobbled in them to the nearest taxi. I bought them, adored them, fondled them, exhibited them, displayed them, protected them. But I couldn't wear them. Whether because or in spite of their beauty and delicacy,these masterpieces were instant instruments of torture.
In Anbar, before making my purchase, I would put them on and walk around the store. Ignoring the stabbing pain between the third and fourth toe on my right foot and barely noticing the blister forming on my left heel, I would lie to myself, "They're actually pretty comfortable." I would purchase them, sure they'd be a wardrobe staple.
When it came time to actually wear them, I could only fantasize,
"If I'm carried on a litter, I might be able to make it to a cab." But I knew that wasn't realistic. I don't take cabs.
I now realize that amassing beautiful but lethal shoes was a compulsive disorder. I should have regarded Anbar as a shoe museum where the shoes were on exhibition for viewing only. Instead, I foolishly regarding it as a place to purchase footwear. Wiser now, I can say with certainty that I will never again purchase another pair of cripplers from Anbar. But that's only because they closed for good last month.

Why I'm Like Bob Dole

Before Bob Dole broadcast his erectile disfunction in prime time, impotence was a shameful secret. His disclosure made it acceptable to publicly divulge not only one's sexual inadequacies, but one's physical, emotional, skeletal and hormonal failings as well. These confessions, which used to be considered "TMI," are usually used to sell a product, but they also have salutory effect of making us feel our problems are shared by others. As you may have guessed, I'm about to discuss a problem, little spoken of, but much experienced: the after effects of diet ice cream.
In the beginning was Skimpy Treat. Resembling ice cream, but having only fifty calories for twelve ounces, it was sold out of a tiny deli on 40th Street, midblock between Broadway and 6th Avenue. It came in twenty four ounce cups, forty eight ounce cups and sixty four ounce vats. Every day at noon, there was a line of fatties stretching from the door of the deli to Broadway. Except on Sex and the City, nobody buying diet ice cream is thin. I'd get the twenty four ounce, take a leisurely walk in the neighborhood, retire to my office, close the door and wait. Within fifteen minutes, the symphony began. Toot...toot...toot,toot,toot...toot, toot. Delicately put, an atonal twenty minute percussion and wind symphony. Because a twenty four ounce portion produced twenty minutes of cacophony, I never risked the forty eight ounce for fear of setting off an air raid siren. I suspected that the people ordering the sixty four ounce schissel were involved in the demolition business. On the days I had afternoon meetings,out of consideration for my colleagues, I ate an egg salad sandwich.
Sadly,for unknown reasons, Skimpy Treat disappeared. Fortunately, it was soon replaced by Tasi-D-Lite. Even better than Skimpy, Tasti, with eighty calories for a "small," tastes like Carvel. Because there are Tasti franchises all over Manhattan, there are no lines. It comes in 107 flavors and you can get it topped with chocolate fudge, rainbow sprinkles, heath bar crunch, peanut butter chips or even fruit, if you're feeling virtuous. I want it every day, but it requires planning. It would be inconsiderate to have it before dance class. One plie and I'd empty the room. It would be counterproductive to have it before an oral argument. Who would hear my voice? It would be insane to have it before a job interview. Need I say why? So I have it Saturdays on my way home from dance class. I'm sure I offend the cat, but he hasn't complained or moved out.
You may view my confession as TMI. You may view it as loony. I view it as a public service to those who have shared my pain and thought they were alone.

Staring Down Death

I'm risk averse. On the infrequent occasions when I engage in a dangerous activity, I take reasonable safety precautions. Before hammering a nail into the wall, I don the steel toed boots Verizon issued me so I could safely climb telephone poles during the anticipated 2003 strike. I take the precaution because the slightest distraction could cause me to drop the hammer on my big toe, ending aspirations for a ballet career in my next life. (Verizon's reason for giving me the boots has never been clear. The main danger of working on a telephone pole would appear to be falling off it. Should that have happened, a parachute would have saved my life. Sixteen pound boots would have propelled downward to my death. But perhaps they had their reasons.) While my Weight Watcher's triple cheese lasagna is heating in the microwave, I busy myself in the bedroom closet, just in case the Enquirer articles about brain damage caused by proximity to microwaves prove true.
Yet, every morning and evening, defenseless, I flirt with death. I enter the kitchen and extract the 9 inch calcium pill from its Duane Reade bottle. It is, I've been advised. vital to avoiding shrinkage. Not that kind of shrinkage. The kind that would reduce me from my current 4'11 to Thumbelina. I place the calcium pill on my tongue and take a swig of orange juice. The pill gets caught at the back of my throat and I start to gag. Terrified, my thoughts race, "Am I dying?" "Should I perform the Heimlich maneuver on myself?" "Wait, I don't know how to perform the Heimlich." "Why did I pay more attention to my turkey burger than I did to the Heimlich poster?" After what seems like an eternity, I cough the pill into the sink.
Should I try again? I do a quick risk-benefit analysis. If I don't take it, I may fit into a toddler 4. Although that's a smaller size than I currently wear, something I would usually view as a positive, here, it is definitely a negative. If I do take it, I may choke to death in in my own kitchen. No one will find me for days and the cat, having no one to feed him, will gnaw at my corpse.
I feed the cat. I mull. I watch a Frazier rerun. I check my living will. I tell myself not to be a wuss. People perform life-threatening tasks every day. Look at firefighters. The bombsquad. The lox slicer at Fairway. If they can stare death in the face, so can I. I re-place the pill on my tongue. I take a swig of the orange juice. The pill gets trapped again in the rear of my throat. After several desperate "chs," it pops out.
Was this what you thought was coming? No, you thought I would give you a pretty ending. I'd swallow the pill, my bones would not deteriorate and you'd continue to be able to see me with the naked eye. Instead, I gave you reality. When they make multi-colored chewable Flintstone 600 mg calcium pills with D, I'll try again.

Ain't Nature Great

I know my limitations. Years ago, when I was trying to impress a prospective beau, I attempted to prepare Julia Child's coq au vin. While the shallots and bacon were browning, I became engrossed in the outerwear section of the L.L. Bean Catalog. I vaguely smelled a pungent aroma, but it wasn't until four fireman appeared at my door, that I realized the dish would not be a success. Now I impress prospective beaus with my prowess at selecting just the right rotisserie chicken from the Associated deli counter.
For a long time I tried to balance my check book. I painstakingly reconciled the checks I wrote with those listed on the statement. They were always a perfect match. What never reconciled was the balance in my checkbook and the balance on the statement. Some months I was pennies off. Some months I was $727.37 off. I spent days I could have been bringing peace to the world trying to find my error. Now I simply write my checks and hope to stay out of jail.
Friday, I had a reminder of a limitation too painful to acknowledge. I signed up for a twilight walking tour of "flora and fauna" in Wagner Park. I love to walk. I love flora. I love fauna. The weather was glorious. Jim, the ranger, distributed binoculars and introduced Helen, the lay birdwatcher, to give a lesson in their use. My heart palpitated in panic. I suddenly recalled Costa Rica.
"Look up; there's a sloth in the tree."
"Where? I don't see it."
"Right there. Follow my finger."
"I still don't see it."
"You can't miss it."
"Oh, now I see it."
Only I hadn't seen it. I just got tired of sounding like a blind idiot.
Sloths don't move. They sit on the same branch for a week, so inanimate that moss grows on them and insects use them for vacation homes. Birds, on the other hand, don't stop moving. If I couldn't find a stationary sloth, there was no possibility of my locating a yellow bellied warbler.
All the binocular use lessons help me not one bit. Focus the middle piece. See a clear circle. Adjust the right eye piece. Useless. What nobody mentions is that in order to locate a creature through binoculars, you first have to locate it with the naked eye. And my naked eye is extremely near sighted, even with my $1000 bifocal, toric, superstellar, 4000x magnification contact lenses. Ever the optimist, I try to locate the rara avis, knowing that I have as much chance of finding it as Tom DeLay has of winning a cha cha contest.
Despite the threat of repeating the Costa Rican experience, I was delighted that I had no difficulty spotting the first fauna of the walk.
"Here's a bumble bee," said Ranger Jim. It was on its back on a leaf, directly at my eye level. "It may be drunk."
Helen, who seemed quite knowledgeable in all things bird and bee, said, "I think it's dead."
The second fauna was a flying grackle which I did not find worthy of even trying to locate through the binoculars.
Then, God smiled on me. Robins were nibbling on the lawn three feet from me. A cardinal hopped on the concrete fifteen feet away.
So I didn't see the yellow warbler that everyone oohed and aahed at. I got fresh air, walked a total of 25 feet and experienced nature at its fullest. It's not like a missed a Hugh Jackman sighting.

It's A Small World After All

I feel blessed to live in an age in which I can fly to South Africa in less time than it takes for the M105 bus to travel from the 86th Street to 14th Street. I am grateful to have stands on every corner with bananas from Honduras, canteloupes from Chile and calendars from 2007. I am delighted that my pants are Sri Lankan, my jacket Laotian and my shirt Turkemenistian. In fact, right now, I'm nodding my head from side to side, singing, "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears..."
But, at the risk of sound like a whiner or a communist, I must tell you, it's not all good. Our subway cars, made in Japan, have seats suitable only for tiny Japanese tushies. Most of us with good, solid American tushies spill over the ridge between the seats. Consequently, only two of three seats are occupied by commuters. The in-between seat holds either a small CVS shopping bag or a Yorkie. Because our clothes are made in China, where a large woman weighs 79 pounds, I, even after six months of weight watchers, am busting out of extra large. I don't know what comes after that. Gunny sack?
But those are de minimis complaints. The one I'm about to tell you is so de maximus that it has driven four of my acquaintances to renew their relationship with black russians. If you've ever been at your wits' end because the word document you just spent 9 hours working on disappeared or you were billed twice by the same company for a purchase you never made once, and you called the "contact us" number, you've felt my pain. A lilting,polite and utterly incomprehensible voice answered from a country where English was not learned at one's mother's knee. You explained your issue to him and he gave you very intelligent, explicit directions in Hindi. Already crazed when you called, you are now apoplectic. Trying not to sound un- p.c., you ask to speak to someone else who you have a prayer of understanding. It won't happen. They all went to the same school. Four hours later, your document still lost, your bill still unresolved and phone battery down to one bar, your helper says,"And have we resolved your problem to your satisfaction?" You answer, "yes, thank you," as you're thinking,"Are you fucking out of your mind. You need to die."
Did I mention there were pros and cons of a small world?

On the Road Again

I haven't blogged for over a week, but I have googled. I haven't twittered or texted either, but then, I'm not that kind of a girl.
I have no doctor's note for failing to blog. My excuse is simple and noble. I was required to perform a vital, and, possibly perilous, mercy mission, viz:[I don't know what that means exactly, but it's in the Maxwell House Haggadah at least 20 times]riding shotgun in a rented Sebring next to J-e, to provide her with confidence, directions and sucking candies during the most harrowing drive either of us had made in 20 years--120 miles on the I-95 to South Hadley, Massachusetts.
A mercy mission of this nature would arise nowhere but NYC. Only here do we go to the DMV, stand in line and cheat on the eye test to renew a driver's license that we use only to verify our identity to the cashier at Duane Reade. After years of leaving the driving to others, we're petrified to put a car in drive. I have not driven since 1976 and would take the wheel only if my driving companion were rendered totally paralyzed by a stroke and there was a gun to my head. If only one condition were met, I would take my chances.
Although I am useless as an extra driver, except under the conditions outlined above, I used to be somewhat sought after as a navigator, although my utility was limited to holding the map. I understand north, south, east and west in the City and I never get lost there, but on the road "north" could be anywhere. I know Massachusetts is north of New York, but unless the road has an "N" before or after it, I can't tell which way it's going. I am terrific, however, at asking directions fluently in four languages. Unfortunately, in the unlikely event I understand the reponses, I can't remember the directions past the first, "turn left at the 2nd light," when five more maneuvers were directed.
Fortunately, on our trip, J-e did not have to rely on my navigational or linguistic skills. We had Mandy. She whispered directions to J-e in a breathy, sexy voice that would have made her a star on channel 35. Neither J-e nor I being techies, we could not get her to speak up. We spent the ride up saying, "Did she say turn at the second right or left?" And when we did hear her say "turn left in 400 yards," we had no idea what that distance meant. Who, other than carpet installers, measures distance in yards.
When we reached Massachusetts, J-e performed a sex change operation on Mandy. Mandy was now Richard with a loud voice and British accent. Being able to actually hear the directions, even if many were Richard recalculating the directions after our 11th wrong turn, rendered our trip home significantly less harrowing than our trip up.
I feel a little bit bad at having been twice replaced, first by Mandy and then by Richard. But it was nice to arrive in Massachusetts without a detour to Pennsylvania and to return to New York without crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Why did we go to South Hadley, Massachusetts? All will be revealed in a future post. Promise.

Birthday Thoughts

I have friends who would rather eat squirrel brains than face a public acknowledgement of their birthday. I think they're nuts.
I am of the opinion that my birthday should be a national holiday. Most years it is. Americans get off from work. They wile away the day barbecuing pork, chicken or tofu, depending on their arterial condition. They culminate the day with fireworks displays in my honor. They used to give me a parade down 5th Avenue, but either because of a competing Pakistani day parade, or because of my communication to the Central Labor Council that it was appreciated, but not really necessary, the parade has been cancelled indefinitely.
This year, perhaps because of the sorry state of the economy, the country did not close down for my birthday. This failure was more than compensated for by my friends' and family's spontaneous demonstrations of birthday love.
Well, not exactly spontaneous. It's taken years of training to insure that my nearest and dearest call to sing me "happy birthday." Of course, I understand that circumstances may arise rendering such a call impossible. A friend could be marooned in Luang Prabang without cell service. It might happen that a relative is erroneously incarcerated. Someone could be undergoing open heart surgery. In all those cases, a card will suffice until their circumstances improve.
But yesterday, my birthday, no one was unavoidably prevented from making my birthday perfect. I was serenaded twenty-two times. I received 20 cards-- some with actual postage stamps. I received fabulous gifts that, Lord be praised, I don't have to return. I was feted at lunches and dinners and when I got on the scale this morning, I had only gained a pound. Even the weather was perfect.
So when I looked in the mirror this morning and found a new wrinkle, I smiled contentedly and thought, it comes with the birthday. And if you believe that, there's a mortgage backed security I can sell you.