Why some people should not be permitted to mobile blog

The first thing y'all must realize about me is…well. This is probably better expressed in story than mere words.

Today, I wore a pair of very nice little sandals. They might even be considered "kicky" – if you do not have a particularly fashionable definition of the term. (They might also be considered "somewhat juvenile" or "gee whiz, woman, did you let your six year old dress you today?" or possibly even "hahahahaha, I can't believe she actually bought those, ohmygah, and did you see how proud she was of them?!" – especially if one takes into consideration the hot pink toenail polish, which I put on last night when I realized, in rapid succession, that…
a) I hadn't put away the laundry and
b) had nothing to wear tomorrow unless
c) I cared to wear Girl Clothes which naturally meant I needed footwear
d) …other than tennis shoes…and furthermore…
e) I can't find my super-comfy sandals but hey
f) here's those metallic blue things I got from…that place…that time…gosh when was that, and where, and why? Oh well anyway, they're cute and comfy and if I squint they kind of go with the only clean shirt that goes with one of my clean skirts, right? right! but gads, they're
g) open toed and
h) ack, toenails! So…ugly…eyes…burning…! Therefore…!
i) I went digging for nail polish, of which it turned out I had three choices, which were
1) formerly mauve, now "solid hunk of colorant + oily stuff that won't mix back together anymore", or
2) formerly…uh…dunno, please see colorant + oily + won't mix problem, above, or
3) hot pink "minute dry" nail polish I actually bought for Denizen manicures but surely it's better than the whatever-you-would-call-THAT currently adorning my toes, right?

I am not convinced I actually did the right thing. But the world will never know, because the…yellowish-orangish-I-surely-hope-that's-polish-because-toenails-should-NOT-be-that-color thing I had going on before is buried under three layers of goopy "minute dry" in extra hot pink.

Because that is how I roll, people.

So the polish I wasn't sure about, but the sandals, those I liked. Cute little kicky things, all…girl-like…and…stuff…

At least, that's what I thought before I wore them today. Soon, however, I realized that they are actually crappy little sandals. They pinch my feet horribly. And there do this…thing…where they dig into the arch of my foot all funny…seriously, I had blisters by 11:00 and I hadn't even left my desk. (Although granted and in their defense, at 11:00 I had been wearing them for seven straight hours.)

I had by that time downgraded them from "cute" to "rotten, ill-fitting little monsters," and I wondered why on earth I had even bought them, seeing as how they were so obviously a pair of real stinkers.

At 4:15, I was standing next to our team developer's desk waiting for my turn to pester him about Something Very Important Indeed. I was already charging past the ten hour mark on the workday, perilously close to missing the last train to the last shuttle to the last train and I was fidgeting in my stupid, ugly, painful, idiotic torture implements of death and despair.

Angrily, I looked down at my aching feet. Because what the HECK, sandals?!

It was at this point…over twelve hours after putting them on…that I noticed something. Something subtle I'm willing to bet had been noticed by many people and which had probably already been tweeted and blogged and Facebooked and MySpaced and written in forty-foot letters on every communication satellite in Outer Space.

There are Grubdjuroians "bfffirting" it right now, people.

Go ahead. Guess what it was.

Yeah. Got it one, folks: They were on the wrong feet. For. Over. Twelve. Hours. I had even looked at them (where "looked" is pronounced "glared"), several times.

But not noticed they were all left-right, right-left.

This is the person you are dealing with on this blog.

Just so we're clear.

Now, with that out of the way…about those pictures down there in the weird post entitled "sent from my Treo"…

Now, maybe one would be tempted to think, Gee, I wonder if this is some kind of 'performance blogging art'! or possibly some new, avant-garde blogging technique! Yes, yes, I think I'm FEELING the…wordless…pathos…of the…minivan…and…boxes…

Or they might think it's meant to make you think. Or a secret code that only the chosen few understand.

Yes, they might think that…if they didn't know me at all.

I suspect it will surprise nobody here, though, when I say that the Story of Those Pictures is this: They happened to be in my cell phone's memory, for who knows how long. And I was trying to send them to my archive folders on Photobucket, because I needed to clear up the room on my Treo, because since I run my whole entire life on the poor thing, it has a way of getting low in memory.

Instead, I apparently sent them to my blog. And had no idea I had done so until I saw a very confusing comment in my email.

"So-and-so commented on my…post entitled…what-now? I don't remember that one…maybe it's old or something…boxes of shoes, say WHAT?!"

And now, children, I want you to just pause for just one more little moment to consider what might happen if I had a Twitter account as well.

I'll give you another moment to get over the searing visions of global communications breakdowns. Don't worry. I'm pretty sure Twitter has safety mechanisms in place to prevent what you're thinking from actually happening.

ANYWHO. So, what the heck are those pictures?

Well. The first one I took when I arrived home from Fagundes a couple weekends ago with (I kid you not) 911 pounds of beef and pork. That's what those boxes are. One whole steer, and one whole hog. I took the picture and have this whole long rambling story to share about that day, which I'll get around to any second now.

But for the moment…hey look! Pictures of boxes! With meat in them! That all had to go into a freezer! Right that very moment and even though it was over a hundred and fifty pounds more than I had been expecting!

It was awesome. Also, if I may make a recommendation: Don't open any freezers around the Den until further notice. At least not without a "catcher" standing at your elbow, in case of meat avalanche.

The next picture my husband actually took. Note that it says if you buy one summer sandal, you get another summer sandal 100% free.

…let it settle for a second…

If you buy one sandal…you can get another sandal… 100% free…

And then ask yourself: how much is a sandal? I mean, are they, say, half the price of a pair of sandals?

Being blessed with two feet and being rather fond of having matching shoes on them (all [copious] evidence to the contrary aside), I've never bought a sandal. So is this an awesome sale? The Gift of the Century? I am the wrong person to ask…

(I know. The husband and I, we are both just waaaaaaaay too easily amused. We must have giggle-snorted over that one for a good ten minutes.) (We were on a date. Together. Alone. Alone-together. No children. We could have been standing knee-deep in a flooded basement with nothing but forks to bail it out with, it would have been a laugh-a-second.)

That last one is the 4:48 ACE train roaring into the station in a cloud of noise and brake dust. If you stand on the platform and just stare at the tracks as the train comes in, that's what you see: A blur of gray and blue.

It always amazes me that something that big, that forceful, that fast-moving, can somehow manage to actually stop at the end of the station. It also fascinates me that something capable of such violence, such grand and terrible noise (which between the HEY-hey-hey, waaaaaaaaake-UP!! whistle that blows shortly before it arrives at the station and the metallic screaming from the wheels and brakes as it arrives, is impressive), can then turn right around and provide such a gentle and (relatively) quiet ride for its passengers once we embark.

Standing on the outside looking in, it's a bright, barreling, noisy blur in the darkness.

From the inside looking out, it's a merely adequately lit, gently rolling, muted trip…past people sweating and stalled in endless, nose-to-nose cars on the freeway, in the dust and heat and bother, poor lost souls.

And that, in not a bit brief, is what was up with those photos.

Because I am nothing if not not concise.