The shoe is on the other foot

Enzo and me and a "string-haltered camel." This blog is for women only.

When I was seventeen, I bought a pair of really cool black velvet thongs with little turquoise flowers sewed on the thong at Baker's shoes in downtown Denver. The last time I strolled through downtown Denver, I couldn't help but notice that all the nice old department stores were gone. Downtown was a rehabbed area that catered to tourists, with souvenir shops and cheap eats. No doubt an excellent place to buy a Broncos tee shirt, but all the department stores of my youth had packed up and left for the suburbs. The old Daniels & Fisher tower still stood, once the tallest building in Denver. (I never told anyone this but my young friends and I used to spit off the top of the tower). The May-D&F, gone! Neustetters gone! Denver Dry Goods gone! Lerner shops, all gone. The tower still stood, a graceful memory of times past.

Those thongs, which might have cost $5.99, lasted for years and carried me through all sorts of romantic situations. I think they were the first shoes I ever bought on my own.

Let's talk about feet. Mine are rather difficult. Somewhere between narrow and medium with cute little hammer toes. Always difficult to fit. Long foot, short toes, between widths. You get the picture. I was the only kid in first grade to still be wearing high topped leather baby shoes. Once I ran away from my mother (whose wrath I still recall) in downtown Denver in a passionate, public argument about loafers versus tie oxfords.

When I was a sweet young thing I wore very high heels and walked, in the words of my father, "like a string-haltered camel." If I had grown up in the south like he did, my prose would be so colorful that by now a whole string of novels would be mine. But I digress.

Shoe styles came and went over the years and I slavishly followed them until the big clunky shoes of whenever which made me look like Minnie Mouse. Skinny ankles and clunky shoes don't cut it. A few years ago, when all these slides, mules and shoes without backs arrived, shoes that would fall off your (my) feet at the drop of a hat, I regretfully bowed out of the "fashion" shoe. This was not such a big deal as it would have been in days of yore, because I slave away in a "business casual" office and oxfords and flat shoes look good with slacks and a jacket. Sitting in the home office writing this blog I am barefoot. Low pumps carry me down Huntingon Avenue to Symphony Hall from the Pru Parking Garage and to the occasional fancy restaurant.

A few years ago I found a shoe brand so comfortable it was like slipping my foot into a houseshoe. Enzo Angiolini. Cheap, too. O.K., inexpensive. Now everyone has a different idea of cheap. Since my foot has always been difficult, cheap is anything under $80.0o. Enzo makes nice flats to wear to work or to stroll down Newberry Street. A week ago the New York Times carried a Bloomie's ad for some really cool Enzo sandals: white and gold and bronze. I fell in love, envisioning a easeful sandal, both affordable and stylish.

Yesterday, Significant Other and I trekked up Route 9 to Chestnut Hill Shopping Center, in Newton, one of the glitzier malls in the area. The Enzo store didn't have the shoes in yet, this being Boston and not NY, so we hied ourselves over to the shoe department at Bloomies. What can one say about Chestnut Hill Bloomies? A little bit of Manhattan price and style deposited in one of the thirteen villiages of Newton. I declare 2005 a good shoe year, with lots of footwear without an open heel for your foot to fall out of or twist and break your ankle.

I confess I haven't bought department store shoes for a while. Let's just stay that yesterday I suffered sticker shock. The cute little numbers, casual shoes that one would be tired of after a couple summers, colorful things to window shop in the Hamptons, cost anywhere from $250.00 to $450.00. What happened to shoe prices while I was off writing books? What formerly cost $195.00 is now $300.00. So 2005 is a good shoe year if you have a fat bank account and loads of discretionary income. For me, it's back to DSW shoe warehouse and the end of summer sales at the Wrentham Mall.

I did buy the Enzo's. They were 15% off, and soooo comfortable. I'll be the lady in the gold sandals with a smug smile.