Name your flavor

Some say green, some say red, some say purple. It's true. No one seems ambivalent about which flavor of gatorade they prefer.

I've always preferred the original green gatorade. To me, it just doesn't seem like gatorade at all if it isn't green.

Recently I discovered that a member of my family only drinks red. How could someone in my own family want red gatorade? Red gatorade. Such an oxymoron. Like a monochromatic rainbow. Or a yellow sky.

And purple gatorade? What's the world coming to?

Sole man

I've been thinking about shoes.
When I was growing up, I heard several things about shoes:

• "The surest way to know the measure of a man is to look at his shoes. (If you see a man in a $1000 suit wearing shoes with worn-down heels or in need of polish, you know the nice suit is just a facade.)"
  
• "If you would truly know an indian, you must walk a mile in his moccasins."


• "Never wear white shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day."

A strange assembly of injunctions all centering around shoes.

When I was a kid, I was blessed to have two pairs of shoes. One dress-up pair that were saved for special occasions and one everyday pair (last year's dress-up shoes if they still fit -- although they rarely did.)

We lived in hot west Texas so going barefoot was a good alternative, I thought. My mom had rules about that, however -- "no going barefoot til after May 1." (That always seemed unfairly arbitrary to me.) We did go barefooted most of the time during the summer -- at home. We were never allowed to go barefoot in public. It just wasn't done.

My most memorable childhood shoes were my ballet shoes. First, I had the classic ballet flats, and then later I had my first "toe shoes" with the glorious satin ankle laces. These shoes were my first "special purpose" shoes and were an extravagance. When I wore them, I was transformed into something graceful.

The shoe store that sold the ballet shoes had a machine in the back of the showroom where kids could stand and it would tell the salesman what size shoe was needed. I've wondered over the years exactly what that machine was. (??)

When I was in high school, my favorite shoes were a moccasin-type shoe called a "squaw boot." They had soft soles, extended up to the ankle bone, and had great fringe around the top. As I recall, I wasn't allowed to wear them to school, but I wore them everywhere else for a long while. I loved them because they were comfortable -- and because they proclaimed my individuality and independence. (Not my mother's shoe -- or anyone else of the older generation! After all, it was the 1960's.)

When I was in college, I bought a pair of navy-blue, lace-up shoes, a kind of oxford, that widened at the toe. My steady boyfriend liked them and dubbed them "duck shoes," and I wore them until they finally just fell apart. I even have pictures of myself in a frothy cinderella-style formal and the duck shoes. They were fun because they were somehow unexpected and helped me defy stereotypes.

Also when I was in college I had a pair of rust-colored suede boots that extended up to mid thigh. They had the usual zipper from the ankle up the calf, but they also had laces from the knee to the top. At the time, they were scandalous! A daring purchase.

Now why would I remember random pairs of shoes?

Maybe one reason is that -- unlike most other things we wear -- we can actually see our shoes.

Where's the beef ?

Life is filled with irritations.

• Sales calls during dinner.
• Road construction that reduces traffic to a single lane.
• Zippers that jam.
• Getting gasoline on your business clothes when you fill up on the way to work.
• Out-of-stock items.
• Office 2007.
• Plastic forks that break off in your food.
• Bubble packs that cannot be opened.

But the one I want to discuss is: Grocery store reorganizations. When I was a kid, the grocery store in my town stayed just the same until they added on to the building, making the shopping area twice as big -- only then did they move things around. And I honestly think that they just rotated the aisles 90 degrees and gave everything more space.

But in recent years, the grocery store nearest my house has "reorganized" the store about every 18 months or two years. Just when you learn where to find the peanut butter, it's suddenly gone from that location, replaced by organic pine nuts or something.

And you know what happens then: up and down every single aisle, some more than once, like a culinary Diogenes with his lighted lamp, until I finally locate the peanut butter in its new, seemingly random location. I hate that! And then the same routine for finding paper towels. Augh.

An aside -- yes, I know that it is a good marketing tactic to get me to walk up and down every aisle and actually LOOK at what is on the shelves. But if I am irritated, does that cancel out the marketing advantage? What if I just want to find the canola oil quickly and leave?

And if they were improving the logic of the locations, putting like-items together, that would be understandable. But no. Last night I found the peanut butter on the aisle with the cheese. And I never did find the cooking oil, so that's still on the list. It's probably in the automotive section. (We won't even talk about why there is an automotive section in the grocery store!)

I never thought I would order my groceries online, but I think I'm a step closer!

An elevator chuckle

Each spring I attend a work-related national conference. Since I have attended this particular professional conference for 20 years, I know many people from all parts of the country, and I'm in the habit of saying hello to folks who have on the conference name badge. This is particularly true in the hotel elevators since we are in close proximity for a few minutes.

Often when I talk to these "strangers" I discover that we have met, or that we have mutual friends, or that we attended the same session at the conference and heard the same speaker. In any case, we always seem to have something to talk about for the few minutes it takes to get to the elevator stop.

One day at the conference I had been especially busy, carrying out my assignments, attending sessions, and generally doing all the things I was supposed to do. As I headed from the convention center back to the headquarters hotel, I was thinking about the speaker I had heard earlier that day at a general session: Sidney Poitier. He has always impressed me with his crisp articulation, perfect pacing, and rich intonations -- and that day he had not disappointed me! He did a masterful job of presenting to the crowd.

As I walked the short distance back to my high-rise hotel, I savored the great stories he had told and marveled at his carefully crafted, amazingly effective delivery. What a professional he is. It's even more amazing because that day he had been talking about how little education he had as a young person.

Still thinking about him, I joined a group in the elevator at the hotel and said hello to the man standing closest to me. Because we were in a very nice hotel, the elevator had all the latest technology. A deep, luxurious-sounding woman's voice crooned, "Recreation Level, fourth floor" and a musical bong punctuated the information.

The man next to me grinned and said, "That sounds good: recreation level. I would enjoy stopping on the recreation level." I grinned back and nodded. Then I laughed and said, "Actually, in more honesty, I'd prefer finding the nap level." He laughed and as the elevator door opened on his floor, he moved out.

Only then did I notice the man on the other side of him. He chuckled, looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and then said in his very familiar, perfectly articulated voice, "Nap level . . . I really like that." Apparently, we were stopped at the floor where his room was located too because he moved forward, following the first man off the elevator.

Mark it on my calendar. It was the day I made Sidney Poitier chuckle.