My Flip Flop Fetish

My name is Susanne Brent and I'm addicted to flip flops. In my defense, I  live in the desert, or as one flight attendant  said on a recent trip as we were about to touch down in Phoenix, "we are now landing on the sun." The mild, oh hell mostly hot, weather makes wearing closed-toed shoes uncomfortable and sweaty. Here in Arizona we like to let our tootsies breathe.

Still, I've noticed the longer I live in Arizona the more flip flops I purchase. Each time I shop, I look for more flip flips to buy. I started to survey my flip flop collection, and started worrying about my habit.

Pictured above are my favorites. Now mind you, I'm not breaking the bank with my, um, addiction.  I don't spend much on my flip flops. The highest I spend is $15, usually much less. I bought the ones with touches of blue in Colorado, the pink ones at Sears while shopping for a toaster, and the ones with jewels (you can't see them sparkle in the photo) I have kept for two years. That's a long time in flip flop years.

 These are my flip flops that were once my favorite, first-tier flip flops, but now second tier. They are tired. I have a lot of great memories with them, and I just hate to let them go. I wear them to the pool or slip into them getting the mail, or throw them in my car so I can put them on after hiking and set my toes free.

These are the flip flops I wear when I do something in my back yard, like water the plants or hang laundry.

These are the flip flops I wear when I step outside the front door to put out the trash or talk with a neighbor.

As a kid, I used to go around barefoot all the time. The older I got, I realized my feet looked more like hooves, dry and cracked. I never went for pedicures but on a special occasion when I did, the woman in charge of painting my toe nails would make a tsk tsk noise and say something to her coworkers about my feet. I'm guessing, though I couldn't really tell as she was speaking in Vietnamese. As she scrubbed away she looked annoyed, and when I looked at my feet compared to the other women getting a pedicure, mine did look pretty nasty.  She would always tell me about a certain lotion I could use. Hint. Hint. My barefoot days ended, and now I'm a regular client at the local salon.

These are my sad flip flops. They are the ones that I don't wear in public anymore as they are too old, their sparkle dimmed, their color faded. I only come across them now and then when I open up my outside storage room door. I should just throw them away.  And yet, I hate to part with them. I can get rid of pictures, couches, cars, but I have a hard time letting go of my flip flops. These are my neglected flip flops.

Finally, these are my most favorite ugly flip flops. I know they are bad, but they are so comfortable. I slip them on and feel as if I am walking on pillows. The green snake pattern matches nothing I wear, but who can resist comfortable feet.

There was an article in the paper recently about flip flops getting dirty easily and then look too ugly to wear. It suggested soaking them  in a tub of water and powdered laundry detergent then using a toothbrush and soap bar to scrub them clean.

I don't know about you...but I can't imagine spending my free time scrubbing my flip flops with a toothbrush. However, after seeing these photos I better do something as all my flip flops look as if they need a bath. Sigh. Maybe it will be easier just to go shopping! Any excuse to feed my flip flop fetish.

Cleopatra's Daughter

I've always been fascinated by Cleopatra. I've imagined her looking like this drawing even though I'm not sure if they had green eyeshadow in those days or, for that matter, red lipstick. I've seen statutes of Cleopatra and she doesn't look quite as beautiful as the drawings, or not as gorgeous as Elizabeth Taylor who played her in the movie a long time ago, but it's said she was attractive. Still, it was more than her beauty that intrigued me. She was a powerful leader way before women's rights. She lived a dramatic life and had a tragic death. All the stuff that makes a great novel.

A friend gave me this book when it first was published and even though it was a difficult read, nonfiction and dense with historical details, I enjoyed the book. After completing the book, I felt as if I had taken a Cleopatra 101 class. I plan to read the book again certain I missed some of the rich details in the first read. Author Stacy Schiff is a smart cookie herself.


I attend a writer's inspiration group, just an hour a week, where we do prompts...simple and fun, and no pressure to be perfect. Sometimes I think people who come for one or two visits to the writer's group, don't understand the beauty of its simplicity. How can writing be such fun?Example: this week our prompt was to write about root beer. Sure we eat a lot of sweets and laugh a lot, but we write, and that inspiration seeps into the rest of our lives without even knowing. Just that hour a week allowing yourself to imagine, play with words and ideas, can stimulate all sorts of ideas for a writer in his or her daily lives.

One day I began to think -- what if Cleopatra had a daughter?

Then Raquel came to work at the restaurant as a server. The minute I met Raquel I told her I wanted to write a book called Cleopatra's Daughter. She inspired me! I told her she would be the young woman I would imagine to fit the role. She looks as if she could have been Cleo's kid. Raquel is a college student at Arizona State University. Raquel's not just beautiful, but she's smart and fun and a pleasure to work with each night. Anyway, she giggles when I tell her I think she could be related to the the Queen of Egypt. But it's interesting how as writers, or artists of any form, can be inspired by our world, whether nature or movies or even coworkers. If we keep our heart's and mind's open and take just a small amount time each week to play with our creativity.

Now I just need to find  Mark Anthony's son.

A Trip to a Former Place and Time

During college, I lived in Denver just a few blocks from the Platte River. Behind the 1920s brick bungalow where I lived was Muddy's Coffee House. It served super strong coffee and home made pastries. The coffee shop was housed in a run down building with gorgeous high ceilings and creaky wood floors. It included a small book store, a shoe-box sized theater, and a shop which sold cheap jewelry, and kites. It was a mecca for young people like myself who wanted to get a caffeine buzz, hang out,  discuss the meaning of life, or at least what you thought the meaning of life was in your 20s, and sometimes study. The college was just down the hill. It buzzed with conversation and jazz music.

Though the expensive downtown high rises of Denver glittered a short distance away, the people who populated  Muddy's Coffee House until wee hours of the morning were young and broke and punkers or hippies who thought they would never sell out their souls to corporate America. Right.

I worked in the kite shop next to Muddy's. The kites hung from the ceiling and danced when breezes drifted through the door.  I drank a lot of coffee, did my homework, discussed books and love and life with people who drifted in the shop with steaming cups of coffee. I also played Scrabble with my boss, Marv. He beat me every time, but who cared as I was getting paid to play Scrabble. I was on the verge on graduating with my journalism degree, and the sky was the limit.

Now, twenty five years later, I look back at that time and wish I could revisit both Muddys and my younger self again. Don't we all have such a place or time like that where we felt as if anything was possible? I hope you do.

Muddy's is long gone, its building refurbished and now law offices. My former neighborhood in Denver is now high-priced apartments, young people who drive BMW's, and trendy, expensive restaurants, like any big city.

Maybe you can't go home again, but maybe, if you are lucky, you can find in your own backyard pieces of what you left behind or lost. Near downtown Phoenix is a funky coffee shop named JoBits. It's on 8th Street, and the neighborhood reminds me of what my old neighborhood in Denver once looked like, sorta run down. The building looks nothing like Muddy's, but the minute I walked inside it smelled the same. There were young, hippie looking people at the counter drinking coffee. Hip hop music was playing. Not my favorite, and  my aged body won't allow me to drink strong coffee anymore, but that's okay. I ordered hot tea and ate a delicious pecan walnut pastry. My friend Tracy and I sat outside beneath the trees and played Scrabble.

She beat me. We laughed and talked and I relaxed and found something in myself that I think I might have lost in my busy, ambitious life. The inside of the coffee house was shabby and odd and wonderful.

Don't see art work like that in Starbucks, do ya?

 

Across the street was a book store, Lawn Gnome Publishing. Not only do they sell lots of paperbacks, but they publish, as well. And yes it has a lot of adorable lawn gnomes on the sheleves beside the books.

We walked around the block and there were vintage clothing stores, inexpensive and run by bright and ambitious young people. Here is a picture of a garden between the sidewalk and the street, just a few blocks from Phoenix's high rise buildings. Gotta give the kids credit. In one of the backyards was a stage where they perform plays.

 

Sure, this wasn't Muddy's. I was in Phoenix. Not Denver. I'm not 24 anymore. Gasp Fooled ya, didn't I. Or maybe not. Still, on 8th Street I was reminded me of that time in my life when I felt as if all my goals and dreams would come true, when I was less fearful, more adventurous and rebellious. Any time I start worrying too much, forgetting my younger playful and risk-taking self, I just need to take a drive to downtown Phoenix. I age faster when I think too much about  retirement plans and health insurance instead of following my heart and writing dreams.

This was in front of one of the houses across from the coffee shop. Don't ask me why. I just love that it was. This street has no Homeowners Association, that is for sure.

 

Life is too Short to Have a Clean House

I know there are some women who really like to clean house. These are the same women who enjoy bleach and Brillo pads and buying the latest vacuum cleaner. It would have to be some amazing happy drugs to make me enjoy scrubbing a floor.

Sure... I want to have a clean house, but without the work. Duh.  Even if you have maid service, lucky you, stuff still gets dusty and dirty in between visits. There are always dishes that somehow appear in the sink. Suddenly a fork, then a spoon, and before you know it a stack of plates. The minute you finish one load of laundry there is another and another and another. Unlike this smiling gal above this is my attitude toward cleaning.

I'd rather be revising my novel or writing my blog or shopping for a purse, or hiking, or anything then be holding a scrub pad and wearing yellow rubber gloves.

I have stopped wearing my glasses in the house. This keeps me from seeing dust on my baseboards. In fact, I'm glad all my friends are aging. See that line of dirt on my baseboard....ugh. I take off my glasses...and gone!Anyway, soon my middle-aged friends will not be able to see the dust on the refrigerator or the spots on my stove. I once visited the home of an elderly woman, Frances, and her toaster area was littered, thick, with crumbs,looked like a brown ant hill. Frances didn't see the mess, and what she didn't see didn't hurt her. I bet all her old lady friends couldn't see the crumbs, either. Husbands begin to go blind, too. It's a win-win situation.

 

This is my dirty office window. In my defense my office is on the second floor, and I live in Arizona. You know the place with big dust clouds followed by a spattering of rain. A mecca for car washes. I climbed on a ladder once to clean the window and it was dirty a day later. I haven't bothered to risk my neck again. Still, I feel guilty about this window. Not guilty enough to actually clean it, mind you, but still I feel, well, embarrassed.

 

My shame about the dirty window ended yesterday when I was watching a video of a middle-aged woman who is dying of cancer. She has a honest and heart felt blog about her journey with breast cancer. She has probably just a few months to live.... if she is lucky.  Her words about life were touching and profound, but I couldn't help notice that while her house was tidy, the picture window behind where she sat looked sorta like mine. This woman has had a deadline put on her life. Did she care if she had a smudged window? Of course not.  No! She was talking about love, for  her husband and her kids, life, and not one word about spending time with a bottle of Windex in her hand.

 

I read a quote recently from Erma Bombeck, who died awhile ago, but wrote a lot of funny stuff while she was here with us. She said next time she'd never worry about inviting people over to her home even if her carpet was stained and her couch was old. Smart lady, Erma. I'd rather be wearing a string of pearls and writing any day then scrubbing the toilet.