Yay! The Shoes Are Back - and Do They Have Stories!

MY black Dansko clogs are back home where they belong and Katrina's shoes are with her. At yoga tonight we exchanged stories of where they had been.
My shoes went on MAX light rail to her house - a journey they didn't expect - where they waited patiently while she cared for her cat that had just been spayed. (They must have felt honored to be in the company of such a responsible pet owner.)
Then the shoes kept her company as she started a new book, "The Wicked Lover." I read the first page on Amazon - and my, oh, my! Sounds like a great bodice ripper to me. If only my shoes could read. Well, one thing at a time.
During yoga the shoes must be placed in a rack outside the room since the floors are soft, cushiony jigsaw puzzle pieces made only for walking barefoot and laying on. So I'm sure Katrina's clogs and my clogs had a good chat. I'm not sure my clogs care for cats, but I didn't mention that to her.
Her clogs may not have cared for the restroom in the Chinese restaurant, where I took them. Oh, well! Cest la vie. It's good to have your own shoes back - ones that fit just right. Katrina said mine were a little too tight. I found her left foot is bigger than the right - or the shoe is, anyway. We both agreed, however, they are comfortable shoes.
Here is something I found today while trying to round up some order in our home office. It's a strip of self-portrait photos I took in about 1988. I scanned them in from a contact sheet that I made when I was doing a lot of photography and had my own enlarger and darkroom, aka my bathroom. Enjoy - femminismo

From Haircuts to Insects to Trees ... and back.

ON TUESDAY, my esteemed hairdresser did her magical tricks with my head o' hair and transformed me into someone else. (Well, not really someone else, but someone who felt like someone else!) The head massage during the shampoo was the topper - no pun intended.
Earlier in the day, at noon, a friend invited me to attend a yoga class with her, and since it had been a while since I'd gone - and I've been feeling guilty about it - I went. I knew it was the right thing to do.
Boy, was it ever! It was the last class of the semester and covered the "restorative" poses, so I didn't have to work hard but did get muscles stretched out and was soooooo relaxed.
I visited an old friend after getting my hair done. She will be 99 years old this June. She was my seventh and eighth grade teacher and one of the most important women in my life. So, all in all, it was a day restoring body, mind and soul.
There are flowers unfolding everywhere in the garden and this year I am so happy to see the aphids have left the lupine alone. I see, however, that the flower has another evil buddy with a taste for it. They must be some type of boring insect, since they come up the stalk and leave a trail as they munch the flowers off and scar the stem. Anyone have any ideas? Do I need to catch them at night. I did not see any evidence of the varmints in the daylight.
One last picture and then I will go off to work. There were all these green "spinners" from a small maple tree in front of our office. I couldn't resist documenting their attempts to propagate, but I fear they will find no amenable conditions on the concrete sidewalk. We talked about how we used to play with them when we were kids: spinning them from a high spot or tearing them apart (since they are slightly sticky inside) and "gluing" them to the bridge of our nose. Have fun whatever you do today - femminismo