The Big Melt

The roof over my workplace is a flat, black field of tar.  Every winter it gets hidden under a permafrost of ice and snow.  And every spring, just like the roads, it expands, heaves, and opens a delightful variety of leaky spots.

It has become so predictable that on Friday, when I saw rain in the forecast for Saturday, I rolled up my sleeves and cleared out the storage room that tends to get the worst soaking.  All my extra boxes of paper stock and other water-sensitive stuff came up off the floor, or moved into the conference room.  The shipping boxes may look ugly squatting in a corner of the conference room, but I have 1,000 branded tote bags in stock for next month's trade show, and I am not going to see them mildew, no sir.

Last year was the worst flood in five years.  The ceiling tiles were saturated to the point of collapse. At eight o'clock in the morning I found myself shovelling the ceiling (which had turned into a kind of thick, lumpy porridge) into garbage bags, using an actual snow shovel.  Is that in my job description?  Of course.  Everything is in my job description.

In other getting-ready-for-spring news, I bought a new pair of shoes.  I didn't actually want to replace the shoes I keep at work to change into from snow boots or rain boots, because they are so cute!  But they were, despite being quite sensible flat lace-ups, hurting one of my feet.  (Probably because I bought them half a size too small because they didn't come in half sizes and the size up was too roomy.  Fie on you, shoes that do not come in half sizes!  I turn my back on your for evermore.)

Determined to find shoes that fit properly, I visited Walking On A Cloud.  I was willing to spend mucho dinero to treat my feet right.  I tried on a few pairs of shoes that were reasonably cute.  But they didn't fit right, mostly on account of being too narrow in the toes and the heel.  I don't get it.  My feet are not shaped like loaves of bread.  Yes, they are a bit rectangular, but a B width has always been sufficient.  Anyway, I thought: forget about style, maybe I should just bite the bullet and go full grandma.  After all, I only get one pair of feet, right?

These are arguably cute, in a hipster kind of way.  But they didn't fit either.  The right shoe was just a touch too small, and they didn't have the next size up in stock.  My mind boggled: how was it that I was in a store full of fancy orthotic shoes, willing to drop over $150 for one pair, and I couldn't even find anything that didn't pinch or flap in the wrong places?

I finally found a pair I liked in SoftMoc.  They don't have crazy arch support.  They don't try to cradle my achilles tendon.  But they're definitely cute, and they definitely fit.  They're roomy and flexible, which is basically what I wanted.  Guess how much they cost?  $60.  Yeah!