If These Shoes Could Talk: Shoe Shopping in NYC

MICHAEL Michael Kors

Seaside Wedge Sandal

New York City

June 2009

It's Monday! That means it's time for "Conversations from My Closet"...

I am a girly-girl to the core. There is very little I love more than quality girl time and shoe shopping. When you mix the two, I am in girly-girl heaven. Once a year, I try to plan a girls weekend. Lately, I have been lucky enough to have such a weekend more than once a year. I have been planning a "sister" weekend for Christmas shopping with my sister and 5 sisters-in-laws. We are all great friends, so this counts as a girls weekend. My oldest and dearest girlfriends are all far from me, two are about a hour away the other two are in California. It is a real treat to plan a weekend together. The last weekend was in New York City in June of 2009. I hadn't visited there since I was pregnant with my first child, and it was also a visit with my girlfriends. I was so excited to see my friends and explore the changes in the big city.

Patti and I arrived from the East coast and Kelly came in from the West coast. Instead of waiting for our West Coast friend in the hotel bar with a cosmo, we threw our stuff in the room and headed straight to Macys in Union Square. There are at least two floors of shoes and that is where I made my bee line. I was determined to find something that I couldn't buy in New Hampshire. I soon found that my taste did not match my wallet and that my taste did not match my lifestyle, so I took my expectations down a notch. I bought a the pair of Michael Kors sandals pictured above. I could afford them and I could actually wear them in my N.H. life. What I love about these is that they say, "You are both practical and fashionable." They conjure up images of cabanas and drinks with umbrellas, but they are perfectly acceptable to wear on the playground or the soccer field. These say, "You love fashion and it has a place in your everyday life." This is not always what I am looking for in a shoe, but this is what I spoke to me on that late June afternoon in NYC. I'm glad they did because I love them.

I had a wonderful time reconnecting with my best girlfriends. We did drink cosmos in the hotel bar (after shoe shopping), we wandered Greenwich Village (we found it is no longer the "cool" place to be- that is now the Meatpacking District), we ate fabulous Italian food, Mexican food, and vendor food (a girl's gotta eat when shopping). We watched the Cuban-American Pride parade (such people watching I have NEVER seen), we wandered in and out of shops on 5th avenue in which we couldn't afford a used hankie, we watched a fabulous off Broadway show called "Love, Loss and What I Wore." W got really crazy and saw a midnight showing of "Sex and the City 2" where people actually talk back to the characters on the screen. (BAD movie, by the way...very disappointing but entertaining with a NYC crowd.) We packed in all that we could during our 48 hours pass from reality including the most important thing; staying up and talking until the wee hours of the morning. It was just what the girly- girl soul requires every year or so.

I have my fabulous summer NYC flip flops to remind me of that wonderful weekend. Now when I wear them they say "You have fashionable taste, great friends and good times." They sure as hell beat a NYC snow globe as a souvenir. I am looking forward to planning a girls weekend in Chicago this fall. It has been two years since we have all been together and I am positive that I will find renewal, connection and another pair of absolutely fabulous shoes. I can't wait!