Sorry, Mom...

When I was a little girl, shopping wasn't done at malls (or, as I prefer to think of them, mauls). Instead, one dressed up, with patent shoes and white gloves, and went downtown (on the bus) to the department stores. We favored Hutzler's but shoppers had the choice of Hutzler's, Hecht's, Hochschild Kohn's or Stewart's...all independently owned. We dressed up, as I said, and had lunch there...either in the fancy restaurant (oh, their Welsh rarebit...yum) or across the street in the Annex Coffee Shop, which was more like a diner. Conveyor belts carried the covered plates out from the kitchen to the counter waitresses. Each cover had from one to three holes in it because there were three bays to the counter as it twisted across the room...

Anyway, on one of those trips when I was eight or so, we went downtown to get me new dress-up shoes. There were lots of black patent shoes, some white patent, and oh my, one pair of gorgeous red patent shoes. I fell in love with these shoes...they had straps like Mary Janes, but those straps could swivel back and tuck behind the top of the heel so that the shoes worked as slipons, too. There was red grosgrain ribbon around the edges of the shoe and a large bow at the toes. They were a gorgeous shiny red.

And my mom said no. Absolutely not. Nice little girls didn't wear red patent shoes in my mom's world. So home we came with sedate black patent shoes.

Well....


Sorry, Mom.

I got myself some new shoes yesterday. This red pair may be my favorites. But I also got these, which will show off my handknit socks nicely.


And these, the fluffy linings of which will keep my feet nice and warm.