me + Richard Armitage + rain, or: A whole post to say I’ve decided to buy new shoes

[An interlude post while I think more about The Lodge.]

The shoes I’m talking about. So, no, I didn’t burn them. Although I suppose I could, now. I hate waste.

Intermittent rain punctuated the drive to Chicago. Happily, my fourteen-year-old car is still watertight! I’ve owned a few that haven’t been, over the years. In order to avoid the parking stress, I downloaded an app to my phone (maybe only the third one, ever) that let me reserve and pay for a parking space in advance. This turned out to be a better move than I had realized, because even though there was no Cubs game, Dead & Company were playing at Wrigley Field the same evening, which is only about ten blocks away from the cinema. The app parked me in a covered, private space about four blocks from the Music Box Theatre, where I’d been before for Armitage, but by the time I got there, rain was coming down good and solid. Not “raining cats and dogs” but the kind of rain that will drench you in about ten minutes. I had thought to bring my umbrella but not a raincoat. Of course my sneakers got soaked after only one crosswalk. I’d planned to have a late lunch at Julius Meinl anyway, and rather than walking around, I ended up just parking myself there for several hours, eating and reading, while I drip-dried. Viennese coffeehouses are moocher-friendly places.

But my shoes never got dry and I squelched everywhere I walked. And I thought, “Figures.”

Because several Armitage trips have been accompanied by liquid sunshine. The first night I was supposed to see him, The Crucible got rained out. When Babette and I went to see Brain on Fire at TIFF, it was pouring, too. It was humid and rained several times in NYC during my Tribeca Film Festival Pilgrimage pilgrimage. There was also the one day I tried to get to The Hobbit in the middle of a snowstorm and after digging my car out and getting to the cinema, discovered that they’d canceled all showings that day. And there was heavy snow in NYC during one of the December shows of LLL that I was able to see in 2016. Even though I usually wear black boots to the theatre, these tennies went on every one of these excursions and they got wet every time. Although of course they got wet lots of other times, too. But what is it with Armitage trips and precipitation? I realized when I got to the motel after the show that these shoes really need replaced.

But I love them! I bought them, along with two pairs of Ecco sandals, right before I moved to Florida in August 2011. The sandals are both still in great shape; it’s only these that have let me down. Of course one might argue that eight years is a good run for a pair of sneakers.

But you know how I feel about buying new clothes. I had actually resolved to get new ones way back in March. But maybe I can wait till the back to school sales? Or maybe I should just go ahead and pay full price for some purple ones?

~ by Servetus on June 17, 2019.