Goodbye, old friends. You've been a real and lasting pain, but I'll miss you.

My Pentecostal grandmother kept a hamper of fancy shoes and dresses that my cousins and I would dive into every once in a while when we were little girls.

Mind you, she was Pentecostal. They weren't high heels, but they were fancier than anything she wore during the day. This grandmother made all of her own clothes, wrapped her long hair in a bun and her only nod to makeup was a paper box of loose powder that I think she used for church. Oh! And she wore a broach or some kind of a pin on her church dresses.

But we still loved dress-up from that little hamper. My favorite item was a pair of shoes that had to be fake snakeskin or crocodile low, chunky heels with a buckle.  They might have been worn out and hideous even when new, but I must have loved them because I remember the hamper and I remember those shoes.

I've been thinking about those shoes as I consider bidding farewell to some shoes that my grandmother would never have worn.

I started wearing serious heels when I started working as a news reporter. I was 18 when I started getting paid to report. I had reached my full height by then, so I was not just young, I was short and the heels were a power boost. I had heels in every color, height and fabric. I had real snakeskin shoes that I remember wearing to Mesker Park Zoo. Not that I'd go into a snake exhibit, but I did want to show them what I was capable of should they ever escape and slither after me.

Years of wearing heels coupled with a gene pool that runs deep into bunions and bad knees have taken an obvious toll. This weekend, I decided I could wear these beautiful, red suede bootie heels to a fancy event. I've had them a couple years but never worn them out. They live with the other heels in my collection, on the high shelf in my closet.

The spikiest heels I own were debuted in New York City when I staffed a media event and thought I needed to fit in. The black and white ones went to an Oscar party. In those days, I wasn't smart enough to sneak a pair of flats along.

I made it about 30 minutes at the fancy weekend event before I limped upstairs and put my boots back on. I knew I wouldn't make it all night. I DID think I'd make it longer than I did.

Table 37 at Taste 2019.

I would toss the shoes and some fancy dresses into a hamper, but the chance that I'll have a pack of grandkids wanting to play dress-up is as thin as those Stuart Weitzman heels.

I'd give them to Ali but they're size 8s and she's an 11.

I've considered donating to Dress for Success, but they're not really

Here's just the girls. I would have been as tall as Karin
 had I kept my red shoes on.

business-y.

Jeff claims they still have plenty of life left in them and that they won't hurt at all if I just relegate them to horizontal use. Because he's helpful like that.

My guess is that next time I host Book Club, I'm going to see if the young bloods in my posse can wear them. Maybe we'll skip the books and just play dress-up.


In other news, Jeff and I visited Ali for Parent's Weekend recently. She's still doing amazingly well in West Lafayette and should receive part of our leftover Halloween candy in her latest care package. It was a monsoon when we drove up and so we skipped out to shop and have gourmet grilled cheese before coming back to a really competitive -- and looonnng -- volleyball game.

Ali was going to Rocky Horror Picture Show with some friends and shockingly, didn't invite us to go a long. We had super fun, though, and I'm kind of glad the rain chased us off campus so we could just hang out together. Jeff scored a new Purdue sweatshirt for his birthday, and Ali and I conspired to also smuggle home a Purdue bumper sticker for him.

Jeff's always represented Ali's school via bumper sticker. I'd get a tattoo before I'd put a bumper sticker on my Mustang. It doesn't mean I don't love or support her. I just wear it in my soul rather than on my car.

Here's us at the volley ball game. We had trekked about six miles through the Tippecanoe County Mall before criss-crossing campus to get to the game, so we were a little damp. And I was super glad I was wearing flat boots.