08 January 2016

Confused

Memories of past winter skies. Rain is preventing me from taking new photos this week.

January 8, 2008 — sunrise over the Renaudière vineyard outside Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher



Day before yesterday, we drove over to Romorantin to do some shopping. As we were walking through the parking lot of a big supermarket, I looked down at my feet. I was wearing two different shoes! The blue and gray left shoe from one pair, and the brown and tan right shoe from another. Both are comfortable, and I couldn't feel the difference. That was, as Walt said, my fashion statement for the day.

We did our shopping and nobody in the crowded store seem to notice my mismatched footwear. Complètement gaga, ce mec-là....

37 comments:

  1. Ken, You made me laugh, I have done the same thing, only I went to work in a law office with one brown and one navy shoe. We had big clients that day. Thankfully they were focused on their own issues and not my fashion statement. :)

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  2. Keep taking the dried frog pills,Ken...
    You'll be fine in time!!

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  3. LOL. I remember a friend of my parents came to dinner once wearing odd shoes. When it was pointed out to him he was completely unfazed. He didn't feel that it was an issue in any way :-) He was somewhat the nutty professor type though.

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  4. I love that, as we get older, the edges can blur so much. It's not losing touch with reality - rather the inability (or need) to closely focus on it anymore. My husband retired only a couple of months ago and I, who was a college lecturer and led a life completely ruled by timetables and academic terms (semesters), now rarely know what day of the week it is.

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    1. We end up doing things by habit, and not thinking about them much. With the shoes, I reached to the side to pick up and put on a pair of shoes I haven't been wearing much recently. Then I got distracted and just grabbed the other shoe from under the chair I was sitting in. I never looked down again until we were 25 miles from home.

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  5. It's just dark/gloomy mornings with the blinds down and not putting a light on when collecting shoes. You are not ready for the Home yet. Lesley

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  6. Ahhhhhh, hilarious!! Thanks for a good, hearty chuckle this morning!

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  7. :)
    They noticed, they were just to polite to point and laugh at you ..

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  8. Maybe, but men at my age, as you probably know, become invisible. Women too.

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    1. If you are "at that age" ... they would just mark the shoe confusion down to your mental confusion LOL
      I will really hate it when I become invisible. Maybe that is why old women wear bright colors and the wrong lipstick ? :)

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    2. And õld men end up in clown costumes! Or clothes that went out of style years ago.

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    3. I can confirm the invisible bit. It started when I got to fifty.
      I have been known to get annoyed and shout "am I invisible or what?!" when being ignored and sure enough, people look at me as if I've just landed.

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  9. I've just seen a photo of Helana Bonham Carter on the Golden Globe red carpet. She has one red and one green shoe. (Mind you she looks as if she has got them on the wrong feet as well) Have you started a trend?

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    1. If I'd had the shoes on the wrong feet, I would surely have noticed my error before getting into the car. Nothing like pain to make you pay attention to your feet and footwear.

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  10. I've just seen a photo of Helana Bonham Carter on the Golden Globe red carpet. She has one red and one green shoe. (Mind you she looks as if she has got them on the wrong feet as well) Have you started a trend?

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    1. For Helena Bonham Carter, that was conservative lol .. but I bet you are right, she was copying Ken.

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    2. Okay, which one of you commenters is HBC incognito?

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  11. My father did the same thing one Sunday morning, and he only noticed as he was opening the door to church. Well, he, my mother and me got the giggles, composing ourselves we entered the church only to succumb to them again and again during the Mass. I still smile whenever I think of it.

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    1. Giggling in church is frowned upon. At least in church you dad was sitting in a pew, I assume, and not walking around, calling attention to his shoes.

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  12. I did it once and stood in front of 8th graders all day! They were not too different - a navy and a black in the same style. (When I find a shoe I like, I buy it in every color!) The worst story I heard was from a teacher friend who was Teacher of the Year in Oklahoma. She was invited to a fancy lunch with the governor and his wife. She had a great time, got home, looked at her feet, and realized she had on two different shoes and they were not even close!

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    1. It sounds like we really ought to start this as a trendy fashion statement. Then nobody would have to feel embarrassed about wearing mismatched shoes by mistake. It would become what they call in French un look d'enfer!

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  13. I'm not surprised that no one noticed your shoes. I've seen what kind of clothes are for sale at the weekly outdoor French markets. They probably sell mismatched pairs of shoes.

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    1. Ditto. Who would want to look at somebody's shoes after noticing all the ugly ones that the sell and people buy.

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  14. Oh, I love this, Ken.

    Could be worse. My grandma once wore the right pair but on the wrong feet and didn't even notice they didn't fit well.

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  15. Comfort rules! Thanks for your tale and the stories it evoked telling us that you are not alone. It is sometimes helpful to be invisible, non? We just have to keep laughing at ourselves. During the dark days of Christmas shopping last month, I headed to our mall around 8pm and thought I was turning into the mall (we do have a series of new signs due to the opening of the new road behind our house), but I realized I was on I 20 heading to Atlanta LOL. Luckily there's another exit just a few miles away.

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    1. I agree wholeheartedly, Evelyn. C'est le confort que nous devons privilégier à notre âge. I do see men in the supermarkets here wearing bedroom slippers. I wonder if they've gone out in their pantoufles by accident, or if they are just thumbing their nose at convention. That's life out in the country, parmi les seniors... The haute couture of Paris seems light-years away.

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  16. Ken

    You are following the football players during World Cup 2014 - Puma gave blue and pink soccer cleats to its sponsored players.

    I have done that a couple ot times: swapping snow boots for indoor shoes in the office where i keep two pairs during sluch/snow season. Ending up wearing black and brown shoes on different foor :-)

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    1. Mine were basically one blue and one brown. They're not even colors that go together. Maybe I had forgotten to comb my hair that morning and other shoppers and the clerks were too distracted by my hairdo to even notice that I was à côté de mes pompes.

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  17. you look fashionable typical teenager from high school

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    1. Oh, I thought I had invented that look. I'm often late to the party.

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    2. I buy almost all my clothes from charity shops....and now vide greniers.....
      I am always late to the party!!

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  18. Ken, I did this also, as a young professionelle. I did not notice until it was pointed out to me while walking to lunch with a friend. It happens at all ages I guess. But slippers!?

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  19. Oui, bedroom slippers at Intermarché. I think I remember realizing a time or two in past years that I had put on mismatched socks... but not shoes! Maybe I just didn't have so many pairs of shoes when I was younger.

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