After 4 weeks with the new kitten, I have scrapes and scratches all over my body – but she’s still pretty adorable. She doesn’t do it on purpose – when she deliberately touches skin it’s with velvet paws. It’s just that gravity sometimes gets the best of her – yesterday, after I finished erging, she jumped from the back of my couch onto my leg. A short distance, and I didn’t mind since I was done working out …. until she started to slip backward and tried to hand on. I now have parallel scores across my left thigh. Ow. Oolong puts up with her reasonably well; Ted’s theory is that she’s viewing Pinot as her own personal Cat Entertainment TV channel.<\/p>\n
We’re taking them to the lake house tonight; here’s hoping this goes as well as their first trip there. (Might or might not. This time we’re in the truck, and they’ll be in the back seat where they can see us and we can hear them – last time they were in the back of my hatchback, a little further away. Not putting them in the truck bed, even with the camper top, after what happened to Macchiato there.<\/p>\n
But what prompted this tardy update is realizing my bootiversary is this month (probably already happened). In October of 2009 we were on a driving trip to Tasmania, after competing in Sidney in the Masters World Games. While in Hobart, I tried to buy a pair of the classic Australian boot, Blundstones – but the guy in the shoestore didn’t want to sell them to me. Blundstone had recently moved their manufacturing out of Tassie to Korea. He recommended a pair in similar style by Rossi instead. I’m wearing them today. Not the same style. Not even the black pair I later ordered because I liked my original brown ones so much, but that original pair I bought. They’ve been all over Europe and pretty uch any other chilly place I”ve traveled, and they’ve been my most-frequently-worn footwear for the cooler half of ten years now. I took them to the cobbler last year to be polished and spiffed up a bit last year because they were pretty scuffed, but I am still on the original soles.<\/p>\n
When I posted about them on FB, someone mentioned the Sam Vimes Economic Theory of boots. Much as I believe in that theory, that’s not the only thing at work here. If you happen to be in Australian and can buy a pair, you’ll spend about AUD$130, which is around $90 US right now. (Of course they’re more if you buy them from a US importer<\/a> – a good reason to travel to Oz every decade or so!) That’s not cheap for shoes, but it’s hardly pricy designer range either – more like what you’d pay for a brand like Keen or Merrell, if not on sale. And those are good quality shoes – but they don’t last me a decade!!! So I think my bootiversary is worth noting, and when these do finally fall apart I will be finding an importer to order a new pair from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After 4 weeks with the new kitten, I have scrapes and scratches all over my body – but she’s still pretty adorable. She doesn’t do it on purpose – when she deliberately touches skin it’s with velvet paws. It’s just … Continue reading