Valentine's Day Postprandials, Part Two

 (Continued from Part One)

 Death wish?  Me?  Impossible.  I couldn't have a death wish; I'm having too much fun to want to end it all.

Yet, right at the top of my shopping list was one item of incontrovertible evidence.  As I drove down L Street toward Spenard, I thought about all this and what it meant.  I remembered my last shopping trip to Anchorage, some six weeks ago.

I'd needed a new pair of indoor shoes, something easy-on, easy-off, with no laces.  I pushed my shopping cart  past the shoe department at Fred Meyer's and saw a bunch of sale signs, along with bright gold coupons for additional savings.

And there they were, the perfect indoor shoes, marked down for sale, plus an additional discount with the coupon.

 Cool, snazzy, and unusual.  No laces, no Velcro straps.  Slip on, slip off.   And, if I happened to forget and wore them outdoors, the soles were waterproof.

 There was just one peculiarity about these shoes. 

These are the new rage.  They're called "fitness shoes" or "wellness shoes."  They're also known as rocker-style shoes "because the negative heel (lower than the toe) and curved bottom results in a gait that, the companies claim, improves posture and creates a natural instability that forces your buttocks and thighs to work harder."

"Natural instability." On sale or not, I don't need rocker style shoes to give me "natural instability."     Whatever athletic abilities I once possessed have long since been left on playing fields of many kinds.
 

That might have something to do with why my tour guide in Tibet almost fainted when I climbed up this rock wall .....







...to photograph these flowers:

The shoes also are supposed to increase calorie burn, and since my get-ready-to-hibernate-for-the-winter metabolism has resulted in regaining half of the weight I lost last summer, I'm all for increased calorie burn.

Once at home, I slipped them on.  Ahhhh. I've never put on a pair of Dr. Scholl's shoes yet that didn't feel wonderful.  I survived five hours of walking around, up and down stairs, in and out of the garage.  I didn't fall once.

Nothing to it, I thought.

Then I started a shopping list for my next visit to Anchorage, the one I was reading now, the one with the evidence pointing towards a death wish.

I reached the store I needed and walked inside.

"May I help you?"  asked a nice young man as soon as I entered.

I told him what I was after.

"For yourself?" he said.

"Yes.  I need another concussion," I replied.  He laughed and led me to the right area of the store.  That's where I chose these:

The clerk and I walked up to the cash register with my selection, where I handed over my credit card and and a handful of those foil-wrapped Valentine's Day chocolates.  They brought a smile, a very soft, tender, slightly abashed smile.

Then I stopped a lady with two children and gave her some candies.  Another lady with three kids got a handful, also.  "Here," I said.  "If I don't give these away, I'll eat them.  Happy Valentine's Day."  Well, does one really need an excuse to give heart-shaped candy to strangers on Valentine's Day?

Then some to another clerk.  Everybody in the store was smiling as I walked out the door into the sunshine.

Death wish?  I don't think so.  Just some more adventure and memories of a childhood spent ice skating on the pond behind our home in Woodland Park.

That's me pulling the sled with my two little sisters on it.  My younger brother is in the fur hat in front of me.  Don't know who the other kid is.  That's funny....the big bank on the top right doesn't seem to be as tall as I remember.  Must be an optical illusion.

(to be continued)