Zerp percent humidity leads to good hair days

The interesting thing about today was not the abundance of incense-burning stores, but rather the fact that I walked for seven straight hours- up the hill, down the hill, up the hill again- and never once broke a sweat. Not even like a pre-sweat where you feel the back of your neck getting hot and the hair around your neck (at least mine, anyway) rebels against the smoothing effects of a straightener and ringlets itself out of sheer defiance.

This was a nice change of pace after the 85% humidity of Central Arkansas.

Midway through the day I found myself wandering through a store full of shoes. Shoes on sale. Racks of shoes. On sale. But as much as I love seeing Irish green flats with delicate bows, I have a foot thing. Not like a nasty foot thing, just a foot thing that usually requires a special order. That is, unless I happen to get lucky and some poor shopkeeper has taken pity on the Big Foots with bony heels and narrow widths. Try finding a size 10AAA. Just try.

I'd changed out of my polka dot flats earlier in the day because they were rubbing the ragged cut on my foot that stems from where Butterbean mistook my dangling foot for a ladder. Always the girlscout, I had planned for this event and packed my favorite (and only) pair of black flipflops. These are the same flops I purchased three years ago from the discount bin at Walmart. In those three years they survived several stints as a cat chew toy and that time in Mexico when ::cough:: someone ::cough:: dropped a lit cigarrette while lounging in a beach chair. This person may or may not have been slightly intoxicated. Either way, the heel of the flop has sported a character buiding half-hole since the summer of 2004. It's safe to say that it was time for The Replacements to roll in.

Because I am vacationing in a land where people do not judge you on the basis of your designer jeans but rather the brand name of your polar fleece, every store we visited had multiple selections of "shoes." Some of these "shoes" are made specifically for walking on creek beds. Others are made for rock climbing. And still others are made for the hippies to buy and wear to Phish-esque shows as they normally have to park way far away, and that's a lot of walking for someone so high.

Attempting to aid in my flop relacement, the girls first convinced me to try on a pair of flipflops made by Choco. Every time I heard this I thought of the Choco Taco at Taco Bell and I just couldn't bring myself to pay fifty bucks for something so ugly.

Later I tried on a pair made by Teva. At twenty bucks this was far more reasonable and far less ugly. So I puchased them just as the store was closing, immediately running outside for a ceremonial trashing of the rubber foam that has carried me from Mexico to Dallas and from Dallas to Asheville. They now lie borken-heartedly in a dumpster off Lexington Ave. I will miss them.