What kind of shoes?

I remember a time in the 70's as a young athlete when we didn't know whether to pronounce these new sports shoes with two syllables or one -- Nike.  My very first pair of sport shoes were basketball shoes, but they were low-tops and they were white leather with a black Pony logo.  I remember the exact spot I was in at the athletic shop...... such shoes were only at specialty sports shops back then and not available on every corner of the mall like they are now.   I've had my share of Converse, Asics, and Nike, etc.  I've also had heels and nice dress shoes/boots for church and work throughout the years, but my favorite kind of shoe to shop for, purchase, own, and wear are athletic shoes.  LOVE them!   It is in such shoes where I am me, Windy.  I wonder what kind of shoes that you feel most comfortable in or are enamored by....... or do you prefer bare feet at home?

What's the big deal about shoes, do you have a fetish, Windy?   No, I do not, but I would like to talk about the metaphorical shoes we sometimes wear.  The best way for me to describe how my body and brain react to new-to-me information, certain kinds of over-stimulation, and inconsistency/change  is this:

Pretend you go to a grocery store that you have never been to before.  As soon as you walk in, take the myopic glasses that are about 3 times your own prescription strength and put them on your beautiful ttwd face.  (They're in your purse already because I put them there! We're imagining!)

Immediately your world is off kilter.  Even though it is only your vision that is being distorted, your head starts to get fuzzy and hurt behind your eyes, you almost immediately have a hard time thinking of what you're even looking for because your brain is so over-focused on not being able to see your environment in focus.

Now, unsteadily, you reach for a grocery cart.  Take a few steps until you realize that you just picked a cart with a bum wheel.  You now have to decide whether to take the cart back and get a new one or keep going.  You keep going because it's too much to think about.  So you and your lopsided cart can only see things close up and way too big.  Visually, you're taking everything in that is within a ten foot reach, but you can see nothing but blurry colors and general shapes beyond that.  Be careful when you're reaching for that big can of white premium chunk chicken otherwise you'll accidentally grab the tuna in oil and no one wants a greasy tuna casserole for dinner tonight, I'm assuming.

Has that slightly nagging nausea kicked in for you yet?  Now slam into somebody's cart on accident, apologize, and have it not really be accepted by the stranger.  Now look down at your list, close one eye to see if you can make out any words whatsoever through the thick glasses.  You can't.  So you're thinking you will to do the rest of your grocery shopping by memory of what you wrote on the list.  Then you realize that you didn't write the list.  Your significant other did....... and you are only vaguely aware of what was on the list.   Did you notice the most annoying elevator music playing yet? 

Now, take off the glasses because we don't want you throwing up in the grocery store.  Things start to look a lot better, but it will take your body the rest of your shopping trip, a careful drive home in the car, some variation of Dramamine, and a cat nap once home to feel like yourself again.  Whew!

Life for me holds times where I feel like I am wearing those awful glasses, but mostly it has felt like I just took them off and my body and my mind are trying to readjust to the stimuli in this world whether it be natural, or created or caused by man.  It's about having the sensory feeling that I have worn somebody else's prescription trifocals all day while still trying to fully function to a satisfactory degree, and to correctly process and interpret the actions and words of others.  It affects my perceptions and my emotions and often puts me in a position of self defense.  What is a true threat?  What is not?  Who is friend and who is foe?  The horizon cannot appear in my field of vision soon enough to settle my equilibrium in both a visual and emotional sense.

I decided decades ago that  if I am going to search for anything in my life, it would be consistency and safety.  The rate at which some people changed their minds, weren't honest about their motives, can't figure out where they're going in life and stay there for at least a little while has shaken me to my core from the time I was just a little girl.  It helps me when people do what they say they are going to do and completely puts me in a spin when they don't.  Add that to my equilibrium issues, I need sure footing both physically and emotionally.  Who doesn't?

While most of my family, friends, and acquaintances throughout the years see me as strong in character and in the face of some health adversities, I realize that there are some people in my life who may think that I overreact in my writing, that I seem to feel things too deeply, that I am too sensitive, or that I feel threatened when there is not really a danger.  Maybe they're right.  I don't know what it is like to be anybody else.  I only know what it feels like to be in my own body, mind, and spirit.  But, we all need to be careful in thought and in words because we don't truly know what most people are dealing with in their lives, with their families, and with their physical and mental health.  And to that, I ask,  "If you imagine walking 18 grocery aisles  in my dizzy shoes, how do you think it would alter your perception of the people and things around you?"

Now, I'd like to ask about your shoes.  Maybe some of you would compare times in your life where you're walking around in 4 inch heals that you like to wear out for a nice dinner with your man, but maybe you feel unsteady and that life is a little wobbly for you at times and you'd like for others to understand that analogy in your life.   Or maybe you feel you've spent too much time feeling like you're wearing an old pair of bowling shoes.... ones that too many people have worn and are now all slippery on the bottom and have no traction whatsoever.  Perhaps you like to wear nice sandals or flip-flops and love to feel the heat of the sun on your feet because it connects you to nature and you feel warm inside because of it and that makes you feel at your most authentic self.   Etc.......

What shoes would you like others to put on to help them understand you a little better?

Put on your Thinking Cap

Please join me in remembering when we were in kindergarten or grade one when we heard our teachers say for the first time in a quiet yet steady encouraging voice, "Okay, children, let's put on our thinking caps."   My little mind scrambled.  Did yours?  Thinking cap?  Is there one in my desk?  Little curious butterflies flit around in my tummy.  Is a friend holding it for me in her plastic purple zipper pencil case?   Remember how we sat on our hands to contain our excitement?   Is the teacher going to pass them out?  No one ever took the time to tell any of us that we even had a thinking cap!  Thanks a lot Mom and Dad!  But, almost immediately, our young minds quickly assimilated that this was an imaginary game even though we wished very very hard that those thinking caps might somehow turn out to be very real.  I don't know about your teacher, but mine was especially convincing at pantomiming the putting on of her thinking cap, AND, she even tied the bow under her chin!  I imagined that hers would be a thinking rain cap and I didn't know what mine was, but I was certain it would not be one of those dumb white swimming caps girls with long hair had to wear at the public pool in the 70's.  Those were embarrassing!

Telling us to put on our thinking caps was our teacher's way of saying, "We're going to learn something new, and I think you're smart, so let's figure this out together!"  Somewhere around 4th grade, however, this game became embarrassing instead of fun.  We worried about what our friends would think if we did the motions of putting on our thinking caps along with the teacher.  Would they think us babies?   So the thinking cap fantasy went away along with the belief in Santa Claus even though we might yet follow that Elf on the Shelf around the house for another few years just because it was still fun and no one was there to make fun of you.  Your older brothers and sisters might give you  hard time, but even they most likely still got a kick out of finding the little fellas hiding around the house every morning during the month of December.

Sometimes I'd like to lend my thinking cap to other stupid people and yes, I include myself there because I don't claim to know much although I know I am less ignorant than many current  members of Congress.  I think all voting polls across America should pass out thinking caps before we get to vote in 2020.  Forget the voter ID laws this year........ I say if you show up with a thinking cap that you took the time to make yourself, that should be enough to say you care enough about the importance of voting.  HA!

I also like the idea of borrowing a thinking cap or lending one to a friend or even a stranger.  That way, your friend can see exactly how you're feeling about a certain situation if she is struggling to understand. And here is the thing -- if you hand your special hat to your friend, relative, etc. and she can't seem to fit it on her big fat inflated sense of self or little skinny, narrow-minded head, then that is a sign right there that the two of you should go your separate ways.  In the very least, we should be able to partially tug down someone else's hats on our head and appreciate one another's points of view.  Should husband and wives be able to try on each other's thinking caps for size?  I'm not even going there tonight........

Maybe sometimes the hat you borrow or give will be tattered and worn. This could be because the person has grown weary with more thinking than does Winnie the Pooh when he has misplaced his pot of honey.  Or maybe it looks brand new so you think perhaps the person doesn't think very much at all and must have never even worn it.  However, looks can be deceiving. Perhaps the person wears it all the time, but just takes really good extra care of it, hand washes it only, and never ever sticks it in a warm dryer or tries to climb through Rabbit's door hole that is smaller than one's honey-stuffed tummy.

Even though I only write a blog and I am not a published author (yet!), I often have to put on my thinking cap and allow myself to think both whimsically or sincerely and deeply depending on the topic.  In the meantime, I want this hat:

But some of you might want this one:  

If you're slightly annoyed with this post and you don't care what I do with my thinking cap, then I imagine that you can guess that I don't give a fig where you can gingerly (wink) stuff yours. 

It's Like Comparing Apples......to Storm's Balls!

At times when I have been a little flustered at home, Storm will approach me and gently lift one or both of my boobs with his hand(s) and he asks me, "Does this help?"   And my answer is always, "Yes, it does, Honey," because as far as I am concerned, the man can touch me whenever, wherever, and however he wants.  He and I have always openly shared anything about our bodies with one another.  Storm especially likes seeing such parts; we often flirt and joke about them.

While preparing Thanksgiving treats, I can't remember the context, but I smarted off to Storm with a teasing tone as I said the word, "apples." He immediately responded with, "I'll show you some apples!"   (We have FOREVER been making that kind of verbal joke.  One of us is always saying that we're going to show the other one some body part called by the name of something innocent, such as apples.  You can imagine what is compared to a banana and I will tell you that I often call my own boobs avocados.)

I respond to him, "You don't have apples, you have plums. "  I add, "And they don't smell like apples."
Him, "I've got crab apples."  He pauses and then, "Do they smell like crabs?"    GEEEZE.  No, they just smell like guy's  balls although I've only been up close and personal with Storm's and no one else's, so I am assuming there is a similar scent with all guys.   I did learn what they smelled like in not such a good way (is there a good way?!)  when I was in high school.

I was a teacher's aide for my coach for one period of the day.  He needed a video tape of the game or something from the boys' locker room, so he gave me the key and I went to fetch it.   There was no danger of anybody else being in there because it was during the school day plus it was locked.  I had never been in there before.  It was similar to the girls' locker room, but a lot larger to accommodate all the football players at once, I imagine.  But, that wasn't the first thing I noticed.  After turning the key in the lock, I walk in and look around to see where the coach's office within that locker room was and I walked into an invisible wall of something that I had never smelled before, but somehow I instantly knew what it was.  Well, sort of.  I thought it was testosterone because our girls' locker room did not smell like this.   I wrinkled up my nose, power walked through the cloud and muttered,  "Ugh!  Disgusting!" 

Since that day, I find it difficult to see a football game on television without thinking of what their locker room smells like immediately after a game.  BLAH!  All those balls and wieners bouncing around.   I'm sure they all clean up just fine afterwards, but underneath that clean soapy and male cologne post shower atmosphere lies that testosterone and male sweat smell that lingers in those locker rooms and on their football shoulder pads, and God knows what else!  The team manager never got much respect in any sport that I knew of, but the ones who manage football teams and their stinky equipment definitely should earn a varsity letter!

Before I segue into the second part of this post, I need to explain about this guy we used to know.  I'm going to change his name though to something fictional.   Let's see...... actually, I am just going to call him Chris Matthews because that is who he reminds me of from MSNBC news.  He looks like him, except he's bigger and he has dark hair, and his mouth runs just as fast as Chris Matthews' does and somehow only manages to make about half the sense .... and he is just the loudest motor mouth known to mankind.

So Chris Matthews and Storm used to play on the same men's fast pitch softball team.  Storm was often the pitcher and Chris was often the catcher.  But, Chris is a heavy guy and couldn't handle the stress on his knees every game, so during those times, Storm would be the catcher.

This would be an important time to point out that during this time when this specific thing happened, Storm and I were only dating. Once we were married is when I found out about it and put an immediate end to such an event ever occurring again!

When Storm was getting ready for his softball games, he'd put on his jock strap, which as  new wife, I was never exposed to such things and not having any brothers growing up, I thought the jock strap was absolutely hilarious looking.  When he put it on, I laughed because I expected them to look something like men's underwear, but instead, his buns were just bare with these straps wrapped around them in order to hold everything else in the front.  Except Storm didn't wear a cup.  I asked him why would he wear a jock strap with no cup and he said it was to keep his balls and wiener from flopping around.  Okay... whatever....... but then he said, "Except when I play catcher, then I wear a cup."   Me, "Well, why don't you have a cup?"   He said he just uses the one in the TEAM bat bag.  EWWWWWWWWWWW!    Heck, no!!!!! 

So that memory from over 30 years ago revisited us today.  Because of all the joking about his apples, plums, and balls, I said, "I can't believe your balls have been in the same place as Chris Matthews' balls have been!"

And Storm choked on a laugh, "You've had Chris Matthews' balls in your mouth?"   Ah, GEEZE.   We couldn't stop laughing, but I did stop smarting off for the evening!