Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I have put new flat shoelaces, and new insoles, in my (quite old) winter shoes, but it's now dark out, and I am not going for a walk and risking stepping in a snowbank in the dark.

I think of these as my boots, because they're the best I have - but they don't come very far up my calves, and if I step in a snowbank snow will get in at the top.

I have, not very hopefully, ordered another pair of boots from Zappo's, after the ones I had delivered in December didn't fit, but in the meantime I have these. I'm not planning on going much of anywhere, because the omicron variant and the current burden on hospitals and health care are scary, but I do want to spent at least a little time outdoors.

I got two things by mail order recently: my handmade boots from Catskill Moccasins, and a power conditioner for my computer.

A little while ago, I sat down with the "care and feeding of your new boots" page open, including the diagrams of how to lace the boots. I followed the instructions, got to the top of the boot, and had about a meter of lace left, and a diagram that seemed to suggest just tucking it underneath. So, instead of putting on my new boots (which are tight at the moment, or at least the right one is, but the company says they stretch a little after a couple of days' wearing) and starting to break them in, I have emailed the company to ask "How am I supposed to tie this?" I'm guessing there's supposed to be a bow of some kind, but the details are not clear. If I don't have an answer to my email in a couple of days, I may experiment again.

The power conditioner (aka uninterruptible power supply), reasonably, requires a three-pronged outlet. This is an old building, so we needed a two- to three-prong adapter, which I didn't realize until after the power conditioner arrived. Last week, in the second store he tried, cattitude got two (2) such adapters. This afternoon, he tried to install it, only to find that the tab faces the wrong way. Both adapters in the package are the same shape. So, we need to shop again, for one that either faces the other way, or has a wire instead of a tab. (We will each be tucking one of the wrong-way ones in our daypacks, for comparison while shopping.)

I am a bit grumpy about this. If we hadn't had a really nice walk in the park, I would be really grumpy. As it is, I'm thinking in terms of melon or berries, tea, and maybe Scrabble. (Neither of these is an immediate problem: I do have shoes, and while I bought this hardware after the power glitched once, that's once in the year and a half I've had this computer).

ETA: I have now rubbed neatsfoot oil into the boots, with only a little difficulty with julian_tiger. (He sat and watched but basically behaved once I tucked the laces under my leg.) I washed the floor when I was done, because of course the oil soaked through a couple of layers of newspaper. More newspaper next time? I would guess that almost everyone who does this is doing it either outdoors or in a barn or mudroom, not a city apartment; whether I do the same when it's time to rub in mink oil for winter will depend on weather/how long I put this off. I used an old T-shirt for the purpose. Given that I will be needing to do this a couple of times a year, and Cattitude has a similar pair of boots on order, maybe I won't clean out the T-shirt drawer, or at most limit it to the tattered ones, not those I'm merely bored with.

I went to a nearby shoe store today in the long-shot hope of boots. The salesman was both helpful and informative, but had nothing that fit me (a lot of shoe companies don't even make things in my size, and in the wonders of modern capitalism, if it's snowing steadily, the stores are full of spring stuff). He did, however, suggest that if my feet were suddenly colder and the boots didn't leak, I might have too little air circulating, or be cutting off my blood circulation. He suggested not wearing too-thick socks. I will be cautious about how I lace and tie the boots (they tend to loosen as I wear them, so the temptation is to start with them as tight as is practical), and not try to tuck my pants into them. If that works, I will be set at least until spring, possibly for a few years. (Knowing that the best time to get boots is around October only works if you realize in October that you need new boots. If being careful about lacing etc. doesn't work, I am going to put "buy boots" in the Palm for October.)

On the way home, I stopped at a local florist, and bought cattitude roses. I thought about getting just yellow roses, but instead got a pre-made bouquet of yellow, orange, red, and purple. He was especially pleased with the purple. (I had somehow gotten out of the habit of buying him flowers; when I realized this, I decided to do something about it.)

Just now, he stopped at the restaurant/cafe downstairs and got cannoli, at my request. Cannoli filled to order are a Good Thing, one of those good things that makes you impatient with the inferior version. Many an otherwise good cafe fills the cannoli ahead of time. Once filled, the shells start getting soggy. When I worked at ACM, I often walked over to Ninth Avenue to get lunch; there's a place on Ninth around 46th Street that, among other things, does cannoli right, with or without chocolate chips. (Pozzo's Bakery, closed Sundays.)