I got new ink on Saturday, much to the distress of some of my friends. “It’s your freakin’ ARM, not a t-shirt” was one of the comments, along with the suggestion that if I needed the reminder, then, well, that’s what the album is for.

And so it is. But this is more than just a reminder, it is my own personal pop-up timer. When the day arrives that I can no longer read it and understand what it means, that’s the day to put me down. I do not want to live out the end of my life like my mother: a delicate little eggshell whose mind is the yolk which has been blown out.

This was not an easy tat to acquire. The surrogate daughters and I made appointments with our regular guys up in Delray Beach. But then the RLA and I saw a guy at the local TJMaxx who had the most delicate, beautifully rendered lettering on his arm, and he told us about Calvin. We made a few recon visits. I loved Calvin’s vibe and his skills with typography. When a graphic designer wants a type tattoo, there is a lot of pressure on the tattooist to have mad skillz with hand lettering. It was obvious that Calvin has those skills. I made an appointment. The RLA and I dicked around with type. Calvin added swashes and flair.

The Number Two Surrogate called up north to cancel our other appointment. Oh, yeah, said the girl on the phone, Your mother wanted that Bon Jovi thing, right?

I… she said… wha… I…

Bon FUCKING Jovi? Are you kidding me? I’m not sure I can ever forgive the insult. JON FUCKING BON JOVI? What, next they’ll think I want a portrait of David Lee Roth on my ass? JON BON FUCKING JOVI? Do I LOOK like a refugee from a rehab house for 80s skanks? Bon Jovi? Please.

There is from New Jersey

and then there is from New Jersey. 

I am so undone by this, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let Scott ink me again. Jon Bon Jovi. I weep. I mean I understand that Scott and his receptionist are eons younger than me and maybe all aging rockers look alike to them, but Springsteen is not Bon fucking Jovi. There is a world of difference between… Well, you know what? I can’t finish this sentence because the ONLY Bon Jovi song I could identify is Living on a Prayer, and that alone makes me blind with indignant rage that anyone would think that I, me, Miz Fucking Shoes, who has been up against the amps at a Ramones show, walked out on Frank Zappa for inordinate amounts of miscellaneous guitar ramblings, seen Bob Dylan, the Band, the Who, the Stones, Ike AND Tina Fucking Turner back in the day, ditto Johnny Cash, Dire Straits and Stevie Ray Vaughn, who has talked baseball backstage with George Thorogood (he’s a National League guy) would be so impressed with Bon Jovi that I’d want some of their insipid lyrics tattooed on my arm.

Jon Bon Jovi. Really?

Yeah. I don’t think so.

The lyrics in question.

Miz Shoes has been working on her family genealogy for years now, and has uncovered a missing relative or two, but nothing earth-shattering. As a clan, there have been some small re-connections. It’s been slow work, and done in fits and starts. There is one branch of the family, though, that seems to have been pruned from the tree of man. My mother was the only child of her mother, a lovely (based on the two photos we had of her) woman who died in the flu pandemic of 1918, when Mummy was merely 7 months old. I am named for her. I have visited her grave in Newport, Rhode Island, but there is no record of her death in the Rhode Island databases. Lillian was herself the only child of her father, but she had numerous half-siblings, all of whom had a different last name. I have found the immigration records for the siblings and their mother, but not for Lillian. I have found the marriage records for my grandfather and his second wife, but not for Lillian. I have seen my mother’s birth certificate, but there is nothing in the Rhode Island databases of her birth. I have found census records from 1910 when my grandfather was single, and from 1920, when he was already married to my grandmother.

In researching the Ellis Island database, I found Great Uncle Jake’s immigration papers. He was headed to New York to his relative, Morris Rube. Well, Rube was Lillian’s maiden name. I found in the Polish records the marriage of my Great Grandmother and her first husband, Rube, and there was some fuzzy oral history about Grandpa being a cousin somehow to Lillian. Morris Rube had to be the connection.

I found Morris Rube in the 1910 Census. He had a wife named Ida, and four children: Bessie, Jacob, Leo and David. I found a photo in my parent’s home of three young boys and on the back was written “Morris Rube’s sons”. And that is the end of the trail. The 1930 Census shows no children at home. There is only one WWI draft registration. I can’t find anything else. No marriages, no deaths, no WWII military records.

In the Jewish Genealogy websites, I can’t find anyone else looking for the Rubes. None of the extended cousins on my Grandfather’s side know of them. They are my personal lost tribe. I throw this out to the magic of search engines and the interwebz. Where are the descendants of Morris Rube of Yonkers, New York?

Today is day two of training for a new system for the office. It comes off the shelf as a way to manage IT projects. It was designed by a bunch of guys specifically for managing code writers. It has all sorts of vocabulary to learn, most of which come from sports or script writing, and none of which pertain in any way, shape or form to advertising. Everyone in the room is certain that this system will reveal the failures and incompetence of everyone else in the room.

I spent yesterday taking notes in a sketchbook. The notes were for a logo for The Coolest Person In the World, and not for the system, but who’s counting? Lunch was provided by the hotel, and if that spread was indicative of the meals they offer to guests, then I am amazed that anyone gets out alive, or at least not hungry. We had a choice of processed ham and American cheese on plain, soft commercial white bread, processed “turkey” and processed Swiss cheese on the same WonderLoaf, or a wet Caesar salad/chicken wrap. There was a sweet cream soup of indeterminate origin. Some thought it might have been squash. To round out the vegetable portions, there was wet, creamy cole slaw. Today I have packed a lunch.

I also forgot my sketchbook, which means I might have to pay more attention to the training.

There is another person I often see on my morning commute with an inimitable sense of style. He is deft with a pair of scissors, and almost everything he wears, he has altered. He is fashion-forward, as they would say on Project Runway. Michael Kors would say that there is a clear sense of who this designer is, although he might not be able to figure out who “the girl” is to whom this is geared.

I took a few photos surreptitiously. He has these head scarves in a variety of materials. One morning I watched as he made one.

And here are his high-top sneakers, carefully crafted into very on-trend gladiators.

The leather jacket has been cut away and its closures replaced by self-fabric (or leather) ties.

Another day on public transit, and another life story that I’ll never know.

Human beings, it is said, are creatures of habit. Miz Shoes can attest to that, as she has ridden in the same seat in the same car (more or less) during the last 17 years of her commuting life. And because work hours are pretty typical, she has seen a lot of the same people day in and day out for the same 17 years.

There is a woman on the afternoon MetroMover who fascinates me. She is a kewpie doll of a woman: short, prone to wearing short little skirts. She is possessed of a tiny button nose, puffy lips and a blonde bouffant flip (none of which appear to be hers by birth, but of acquisition). She wears t-strap pumps of moderate heel that look like jazz dance shoes and sheer support hose. Her face is a study in botox and eye lifts. I’d would love to take a picture of her, but there is just something about her that is a little scary.

The other day, another woman of Miz Shoes non-acquaintance, but similar work schedule got on the shuttle at the same time as Kewpie Lady. This other woman has spoken to me once or twice, unsolicited, and displayed a sort of innocent mild looniness, so it seemed safe to approach her with the following question: How old do you think that woman with all the plastic surgery is? She is a cipher to me.

Well, with that question, we went from cordial impersonality to Miz Shoes was the Crazy Woman on the Train. The Other Woman looked around and said “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.” Really? Because there are not a lot of crazy Kewpie Dolls with Too Much Plastic Surgery on this shuttle. “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.” and she scooted a little bit farther away.

So this has left me free to imagine Kewpie’s life story. And this is what I have decided. She is, indeed, a woman of a certain age, but she was not always. In her youth, how ever far away that really was, her name was Juan, and she was the star of a cabaret show where she portrayed Charo. Juan was fabulous and made a fabulous living as a drag queen Charo, enough to retire from the life, and have the ultimate surgery. Unfortunately, this did not work out the way he had hoped (i.e., he was not asked to marry by some handsome millionaire playboy), and so Juan-Charo has had to go to work as a secretary in a steno pool somewhere here in downtown Miami.

Yesterday was the old man’s birthday. He would have been 93. In May, it will have been seven years since he died. It doesn’t get easier, it just gets farther away. I miss him every day. I hear his voice in my head every day. I hear his advice. I heed his advice. The nurse practitioner for my mother called me yesterday, just to tell me what I already know: that Mummy is on the downside of the bell curve and declining. She’s been switched to soft foods. She’s losing weight. She’s not in pain, nor is she of this world, really. I am so glad that Daddy never saw her like this: it would have killed him.

My SisterGirlCousin went to see Daddy yesterday and lay a stone on his grave. She says that she let him know she was standing in for me. I’m sure he understood.

My current obsession, let me share it with you.

It’s been so long that Miz Shoes doesn’t remember when it happened, but at some point in January or December, the faithful big-screen hi-def TV blew a component which rendered it unwatchable. (The color wheel fried its bearings or some such nonsense, and it screams like a banshee. The picture is still perfect.) Here at the Casita des Zapatos we missed the Superbowl (quel horror!) and more importantly, the ads. This week we missed the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which, as faithful readers know, is Miz Shoes favorite thing in the world. We sit on the sofa, the dogs and I, and read aloud from our AKC book of dogs as the breeds go by. One of our neighbors took pity on us, so we did get to see the second night and best in show awards. How about that Irish Deerhound, huh? Ain’t she a beauty? First time in 135 years that one took BIS. The PBGV was lovely in the hound group, and we all agreed that the Doberman couldn’t hold a candle to our own Miss Rosie the Pony.

In any event, there is no television in the house, which means no movies. No streaming movies, no dvds. Nada. Miz Shoes is suffering from severe withdrawal. Miz Shoes has often said that she’ll watch anything with sprocket holes, and not having Netflix is killing her. The RLA has vowed to fix this his own self, downloading pages and pages of instructions and an hour of video how-tos. It remains to be seen.

On the other hand, there has been an decided increase in studio time and productivity, as is evidenced by this entry and the fact that my little Etsy shop is getting updated tonight. Closets have been cleaned. Cooking has been done. Feh. I’d rather bee watching Farscape.

Ahem. A little Doberman haiku.

Rosie’s tail is short,

So she chases her hind leg.

She catches it, too.

Miz Shoes was obliged to go for some blood tests this week, and advised the snarly young woman who was doing the blood draw that the best bet for getting blood from this particular stone would be a butterfly. The sullen tart didn’t argue and proceeded to stab Miz Shoes in her inner elbow. Repeatedly. Poking around trying to get a vein that didn’t roll. After a minute or two of this, Miz Shoes suggested that the vein in her wrist, although she knew it would hurt like a motherfucker, might be a better option, as having been tied off for several minutes now, it was standing out like a rope.

The nurse-like blood taker was happy to abandon the useless elbow, and WIPED OFF THE NEEDLE WITH AN ALCOHOL PAD AND JAMMED IT INTO MIZ SHOES WRIST! The same fucking needle. The next day I called my doctor’s office to suggest a review of policies and procedures, not to mention universal precautions. Sometimes, it is hard to remember that I do not live in a third-world country, where needles are a precious commodity. I did point out to the office manager when she apologized for any inconvenience Miz Shoes may have suffered, that we weren’t talking about inconveniences, we were talking about health-care regulations. Blood-draw needles are not, Miz Shoes pointed out, made of gold-plated latinum. The reference went way over the office manager’s head, but the veiled threats about regulations and laws didn’t.

Mix Shoes has had a few rough days at work, at physical therapy, at life. Tonight, upon leaving work late, and having worked straight through lunch, I made a stop at the bodega on the ground floor of my office building. They’re new, and they sell wine and beer, which means they may last longer than the usual six months that restaurants in that particular space last. It was with little hope that I stopped in on my way to the train.

I don’t suppose you’d sell me a glass of wine to go, in a styrofoam coffee cup with a lid, would you? Well, bless Miz Shoes soul, they did. I had a lovely ride home, sucking down my generic red plonk through the sippy lid. For an added treat, the RLA took me to the Middle Eastern joint for supper, where I indulged in carbohydrates, to wit: gaymeh and tardig.

I am now thoroughly fuzzy brained, and thoroughly happy.

Tomorrow night we will be dining with cousins who have escaped the current snowpocalypse. They insisted on Joe’s over on South Beach. I am probably the only person in Miami who would rather not eat there. Yeah, the food is good, but damn. I have no patience for the pretentiousness. Or the monstrous waits. Well, there is always the bar.

Miz Shoes is terribly sorry about letting this blog languish unloved, unread and unupdated for so long. Things have been in flux around the Casita des Zappatos for months now, and it has had a negative impact on this blog.

Around September Miz Shoes decided that she had had enough of her bad self, and went on a diet. Miz Shoes has lost 35 pounds, and the clothes that were once destined for Mild Burning Symptoms sale have come back to the closet and her fat clothes will be sold off. Also, shoes. Miz Shoes is determined to thin the herd there, as well.

In October, we lost the Noble Dog Nails, only to gain Rosie the Pony. Rosie (or Rosalita, to be formal) is a red Doberman and it is hard to remember that this is just a puppy when her paws are like demi-tasse cups and she weighs close to 60 pounds. But a puppy she is, so shoes have been eaten, hats have been eaten and Jojo, the Dog of Very Little Brain, has been terrorized. Rosie tries very hard to be good, but she’s still a lot of rambunctious puppy.

Next, Miz Shoes was given a lateral transfer at work, meaning that there is actual work to be done most days, and those heady times of hanging around updating my blog and knitting while at the office are long gone. The good news is that Miz Shoes is enjoying it.

In December, we took our vacation with the Girl Cousin, who may now be known as SisterCousin, because it sounds funnier and has an unhealthy closeness to our actual familial tree, itself somewhat intertwined in ways that are illegal in most states. Those relationships occurred in the Old Country, where life in the shtetl made choices slimmer. She refused to indulge my lust for the pink Minnie ears, despite them sporting BOTH a tiara and a princess veil. We had to make do with matching picture frames.

Over in the studio, Miz Shoes bought, stained and assembled The Mysterious Miss Cherry Blossom, an Ashford Country Spinner on which to make art yarn. Sadly, there has been little time to indulge on her.

And that, dear readers, brings you up to date on Miz Shoes life and hard times. She promises to do better in the coming months.

I’m blowing out of here for a week. The Girl Cousin and I are going on vacation together. (With our husbands, it isn’t girls on the town… at least, we aren’t planning on that.) In talking over our trip, we realized that we have somehow managed, despite our years, to have never gone on vacation together before.

Believe it or not, this came as a surprise to us. We always spent our summers with our mutual grandparents in Newport, RI. We have shared memories of Grandpa’s vegetable garden, of Grandma’s raspberry bushes, of the Big Rock, of the corner candy store, of our cousins across the street, of our Aunt Annie’s terrible, horrible cooking. Except, we went in alternate months, because our parents couldn’t leave the store at the same time. Shared memories, yes, but not shared vacations.

So here we are, about to embark on a trip to, of all places, Disney World, and for Christmas week, of all times. Christmas IS a shared memory for us. Having sore feet and legs on Christmas Eve is something we know well, and so do not fear the Disney lines. We used to work the wrapping table at the store during the holidays. Between us, I think we got it down to less than thirty seconds a box and no more than three pieces of tape. EVER. More than three, and you faced the wrath of Max.

For the past month, I have been torturing her with pleas that we need to buy, and wear, matching Minnie Mouse Princess ears. Neither one of us is exactly sure how serious I am.

You’ve been warned. We’re off to see the Mouse. There may be ears involved. Pictures to follow.

Thirty years ago today, I was living in up-state New York, in Saugherties, and the then-significant other and I headed down to Kingston to get a hotel room, because the Dolphins were having a winning season, and the only way to catch the game was on cable. We didn’t have cable, hence the field trip.

I was sitting on the bed, watching a nail-biter of a game, when Howard Cosell came on and said that John Lennon had been shot. Then he came back on and said that John was dead. I grabbed the phone and called Jayne, The Coolest Person in the World, and we sobbed over the phone on each other for what seemed like hours.

It was unthinkable that John was shot. It is still incomprehensible.

I met Yoko Ono six years ago at a White Party event (where I was wearing a mermaid costume…one of my finer moments). I wanted to tell her how my heart ached for her, how I admired her grace and her strength and her passion in keeping their message of peace alive in this day and age. I think I managed to ask if her hat were Phillip Tracey. It wasn’t. But it could have been.

This may be apocryphal, but it is still my favorite John Lennon quote: “I would have been a fisherman if I could, but I can’t because I’m a fucking genius.”

He was, and will always be.

And with that winner, Project Runway has not only jumped the shark, they have kissed, petted and humped the shark. Wearable? Really, NinaGarcia, that was the best you could say about that sad, monkeyshit brown mess? I quit Tyra, and I can quit you, too.

When you, NinaGarcia, said that the object of this competition is to sell clothes, you gave it away. Project Runway has sold its soul to the devil of mediocrity and the free market proletariat. To make money for the masters and not excite the souls of the rarified aesthetes? After tossing around the word aesthetic all season like a ping pong ball at a tournament in China?

MKors, you are better than that. You cannot in this or any other world make me believe that you responded well to that shiny black leather coat worn open over the mildew-stained granny panties. Or the intentional hat-hair.

Who would have ever guessed that poor, tragically-styled Jessica Simpson would have been the voice of reason, sanity and fucking taste? Please read that sentence over again and recognize to what depths this show has sunk, dragging the loyal viewers along. But no more. MizShoes quits.