In Which I Ponder the Ultimate Fate of My Altra Lone Peak 6 Trail Runners

 Wow! Look at the length of that title! Might be a Gods Are Bored record! Long story short, I'm at a crossroads with my beloved Altra Lone Peak 6 Trail Runners. It's decision time.

A little background information first.

My feet are the part of my body that scream "She's a witch! BURN HER!" I have bunions, hammer toes, and fallen arches. Between 2009 and 2021 I didn't have one single pair of comfortable shoes. I had to size up two numbers to find anything that would fit over my gnarly feet.

Finally, in desperation, I went with The Fair to R.E.I. to look at their shoes. If there's no R.E.I. in your hood, let me introduce you: It's an outdoor goods emporium that manages to be rugged and bougie simultaneously. Not my kind of shopping experience, necessarily, but desperation will do that to you.

Fair and I went to the shoe department, and a nice outdoorsy kinda guy listened to my foot woes and disappeared into the stockroom. He returned with a box. When he unwrapped the goods inside, Fair exclaimed, "Ew! Don't buy those, they're hideous!"

Undeterred, I tried them on. It was like Dorothy landing back in Kansas with Toto in her arms. Ugly they might have been, but Altra Lone Peak 6 Trail Runners were the absolute tits.

EXHIBIT A: ALTRA LONE PEAK 6

Fair wasn't lying. They aren't things of beauty. But they are joys forever.

Altras are lightweight and arch-support-free, with zero drop and roomy toe boxes. The price point is competitive. The colors are a bit ... umm ... intense, but oh well! When you have witch feet, you'll settle for any hue.

And boy, did I settle. I settled right into those Altra puppies like I was born in them. I was such a satisfied customer that I joined the Altra fan page on Facebook. There, when I wistfully commented that I wish I could get Altras in black leather, I was led to Altra Torins. In shiny black leather. The best old lady teacher shoes ever.

So I had a pair of Altra Lone Peak 6 and a pair of Altra Torin 5. Then I bought a second pair of both. Then, in an uncharacteristic burst of self-indulgence, I bought the Altra Lone Peak waterproof hiking boots. For Anneland, and boy oh boy are they perfect.

This is where the Ultimate Fate part comes in.

It's November. That time of year when the Philadelphia Mummers Parade is coming into view.

Last year one little thing marred my Mummers Parade bliss. My feet hurt. The shoes I bought at the thrift store and painted gold might have been two sizes too big, but they still bit my bunions savagely.

My first pair of Lone Peak Trail Runners have given me two good years and are still rocking on. But I need a pair of gold shoes for the parade. Once I douse the trail runners in gold spray paint, they won't be good for daily use anymore. But they will give me many awesome struts on Broad Street...

It's a quandary.

I have until December 31, 2023 to make a final decision. I'm inclined to sacrifice the daily use of my first pair of Altra Lone Peak 6 Trail Runners on the altar of having a super comfortable pair of golden slippers to strut in during every Mummers Parade for the rest of my life.

Sacrifices, sacrifices! Let no one say Anne Johnson doesn't sweat for her art.

Can't Even Joke about the New Job

All hail, and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Put on your best frown, because there's nothing funny here tonight.

Today I was in a teacher's meeting with a few of my colleagues. After lunch as we were settling in to yet another wrestling match with curriculum, I turned to them and said, "Well, I won't have to do this much longer. I got a new job, $1500 a week to be a paid protester."

Their jaws dropped.

"Yes," I continued. "It's $1500 a week, and all I have to do is march in protests and go to Congressional town hall meetings and disrupt them."

And my colleague, holder of a master's degree, said, "Really?"

And the young student teacher, working on multiple certifications, looked at me and said, "Really?"

They believed it.

Sorry, but that is scary.

My colleague said that she believed me because I am trustworthy. I've never told a lie before, so why would I start now?

Then the student teacher took out his phone and started punching in numbers. "That's $71,000 a year," he reported.

"Yes!" I said. "Now multiply that by all the other people who have been 'hired' after the Women's March: 500,000. Not even George Soros is that wealthy."

Tonight I was going to come into this space and tell you readers all about my "new job." I know you wouldn't have believed me, because my job description would have gotten more outrageous on here. But I'm so shaken by the belief I saw in my colleagues that I can't even joke. They believed that such a job, at such a salary, could be possible.

Oh my goodness, this is a hard time to be funny.

I was also going to write a blog post about how Donald Trump tortures puppies. Again, satire. But have you heard that federal records on animal welfare were deleted from the USDA web site?
How can I joke about something that might be true?

When the situation becomes sufficiently grim, satire is no longer possible. It could very well be that we are reaching that point.

Oh, and I might as well add that it was 75 degrees here in Snobville today, and my forsythia is blooming. This is not satire.

Conversation

Just now I had to go and check New Jersey's abortion laws, because a conversation I had today made me wonder if I had just slipped into Alabama without knowing it. Still a little shaky, but believing the Kaiser Family Foundation when it tells me that New Jersey does not require an ultrasound before an abortion.

I had a conversation with an acquaintance. I'll call her Davida. We've known each other a long time. The conversation went something like this:

Davida: Guess what? My son's going to be a father!

Anne: Really? Is he going to marry the girl?

Davida: No, but he moved in with her. They were fighting for awhile, but I kicked him out because he was drunk all the time, so he moved in with her. He's pretty shocked about the responsibility. But the girl says he's being nicer to her these days.

Anne: Does he have a job?

Davida: Yes! He works three days a week! He got his degree ... finally. And the mom is almost through with her college work too. Get this: The girl's mother tried to get her to have an abortion. I even talked about it with the girl's mother. I said, "Wow, that's a little life in there!" But the mother wouldn't hear it. She took the girl to the clinic, but they had to have an ultrasound, and when the girl saw the ultrasound, she couldn't go through with it.

Anne: I didn't think that was the law in New Jersey.

Davida: It is! But anyway, the girl is keeping the baby, and my son is just going to have to get used to the idea. He'll have to get a full-time job. Well, after all, he is 25.

Anne: Not making any predictions here, but it sounds like you're going to wind up with a lot of child care.

Davida: Oh no! I'm not going to give them a dime or spend one hour taking care of that baby! It's all on them. I told my son, "All that money you spend partying with your boys is going to have to go toward taking care of that baby!"

Anne: How about the girl's mom?

Davida: Well, she's just furious. She doesn't want a thing to do with it all. This girl hasn't ever gotten along with her mother. That mom isn't going to help out at all. Just think! She wanted the girl to have an abortion! Can you imagine?

---------------------------------

At that point, I had heard enough about this little domestic arrangement. The part that puzzled me was the ultrasound. I just looked it up. New Jersey doesn't require an ultrasound. So, did the girl lie, or did the clinic misrepresent the law?

Either way, I feel like I just heard the pre-narrative of another poor human soul who will enter this world in less-than-ideal circumstances. Oh well. All I really wanted to do was to ascertain the laws of my state, because when our governor isn't rooting for the Dallas Cowboys, there's no telling what he's up to.

I suppose in due time I will meet this little tyke, since Snobville's a small town and I do run into Davida a good bit. But I needn't worry. Davida won't be hosting a baby shower. No way. Not one penny for that "little life in there" -- before, during, or after!

"War Is Hell"

On "trash night" in my neighborhood, I always see people driving around in vans and trucks, doing their trash-picking. And in a place like Snobville, let me tell you, I do my share as well. I've never bought porch furniture -- picked it all. I've gotten a couple of nice book cases that way too.

My daughter The Heir is an avid trash-picker. She'll root through anything that isn't clearly garbage.

Last week, Heir found herself in Chestnut Hill (a part of Philadelphia). She saw a sign for an estate sale at a house. And there were boxes at the curb.

Heir spied a box with a photo album on top. When she opened it up, she found it to be full of photographs ... of the Vietnam War. She looked around to see if there was anyone to talk to about it, but no one was about. So she brought it home. She's sure it wasn't overlooked and thrown out by mistake, because it was right on the top of the stuff in the box.

There are 40 snapshots, a couple of them in black and white and a couple of old-time polaroids. Most of them are the kind of color snapshot you see from that era. Some are dated. Some have names on the back, making them traceable through the National Archives.

Most of them are in country. Chinook helicopters, platoon on the march, base camp, soldier holding a machine gun. Others are from the city -- a tall man with a pretty Asian woman half his height. A few of little kids and signs.

There were two postcards in the album. The first was a picture of Boathouse Row in Philadelphia. On the back it said, "Remember this place? We're thinking about you."

The other one is a picture of the Sydney opera house in Australia. On the back it said, "I'm losing my mind, but at least the beer is good. War is hell." Postage was waived.

War is certainly hell. But I find myself wondering how much hell awaited this man when he returned. Did he have anyone who loved him, any family to whom he might give these historic photos? I guess not. Then again, someone organized the estate sale. Did that person just not care about the photos? Heir is a very cautious person. She would not pinch something she thought someone put out by mistake.

In any case, Heir now has a small cache of primary source documents on a much-maligned conflict. We might be able to find the commander whose name is on the back of the one photo, but I'm almost afraid to research it. I already know two people on The Wall.

Last year Heir found a stack of photographs that were mostly habit-clad nuns smiling in little clusters. Scattered amongst the nun photos were shots of naked women in erotic poses.

It boggles the mind to think of the photograph collection Heir might amass by the time she's in her prime. Makes you think. Who will want your photos when you're gone?