The Case of the Missing Shoes




Thirty-five pairs of footwear;
thirty of them are (were) mine.

  Remember that inventory photo I took of my many, many shoes? Well, most of those shoes made their way here to Ottawa - in matching pairs, even - and have been stowed on shelves. However, five pairs of those shoes have vanished without a trace. I dug through every bag, nook and cranny, every pile of hastily stacked crap that had been pulled out of packing boxes. Sadly, this tale does not end as happily as our previous mystery. The shoes. Are. Gone.

Shockingly, the FBI does not seem to be responding appropriately to the seriousness of this situation: I am within hours [about 40, in fact] of starting a new job, where I am expected to wear something other than crocs and sandals (it being fall, after all), and I have a single pair of work-suitable shoes!

Now, some of you [men] may think that I would be able to find suitable footwear amongst the remaining 25 pairs of shoes. You [men] would be wrong. [There were indeed two pairs of dark-brown flat loafers; one pair has been donated.] There is only one pair of dark-brown pumps in that pile. One pair of tan pumps. They both happen to be numbered among the missing, and both happen to be essential elements of my fall wardrobe.

So I had to go shopping. [Grin.] I've been on a "clothing diet" since I quit my previous job, so it was kind of a kick to be on a fashion mission. And I got lucky. Look, cute new shoes:

Now that I look at them side by side,
they do bear a certain likeness to each other.

This whole shoe thing has reminded me of the first book I ever read on my very own, when I was five years old. It was a book of poetry, and one of the poems was about shoes. I clearly remember the photo that accompanied the poem, and it was rather like the inventory photo at the top of this post. It may explain my fixation with shoes. Blame it on budding literacy.

In any case, I'm hopeful that the lost shoes have gone to the same place as our missing area rugs (which never did turn up), and that they are enjoying a second life with someone who really needs them.

P.S. Here's a snapshot of what our weekend was like:

This is what Sunday afternoons are about.