Sandal Season

[swestrup]

There have been a number of posts in my friends list lately about this mysterious thing they call Sandal Season. I was thinking about this last night while I hauled the recycling out to the curb.

Now, I do own sandals, but I don't wear them much at all. Both pairs I have are as much trouble to put on or take off as shoes, and so I often prefer to go barefoot, if I'm not going far. A case in point is the thrice-weekly hauling of trash or recycling to the curb.

Since I generally hate shoes, I never wear them in the house. Even my slippers, which were purchased to keep my feet somewhat warm in the depths of winter, go missing for years at a time since I am loathe to wear them. When I work a 9-to-5 job, I usually take my shoes off as soon as I get in, and walk around in stocking feet all day. This has only ever been a problem when going into the electronics prototyping part of one company I worked for, where you had to be careful not to step on sharp little electronic parts that had been dropped and were lying with their pins sticking up.

Anyway, I was thinking of all this when walking barefoot to the curb last night. My view of the seasons is a bit different, because of this, I guess. As I was walking across the concrete plaza that forms the courtyard in front of the house, I noticed how the ground was actually warm underfoot. Just a week or so ago, I was walking through puddles of cold water caused by the recent rain showers. A week or so before that and I was walking barefoot through a quarter inch of snow and slush.

Now, despite what some folks are currently thinking right now, I'm not insane. There comes a time every winter, often in December, when the snow is more than about 1/4" (.5 cm) deep and/or the temperature has dropped significantly below freezing when I reluctantly start wearing shoes for my little sojourns to the curb and back. As soon as seems halfway reasonable though, I stop putting on shoes in spring and going barefoot again. And as is typical of what winter hardening does for one, I am willing to walk barefoot in far colder temperatures in spring than I was during the previous fall.

So, I may not have a concept of Sandal Season but I do have a concept of Barefoot season, but we've been there for at least a month now.


And so there you have it. More minutia about me.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grey_knight/]

Ah, the child-like freedom of bare feet. I used to run around almost all the summer bare foot - got so I could run on gravel without flinching (the transition from a paved driveway to gravel was always bothersome...not so much give, there..)

And now? Feet solidly encased to pound the concrete jungle. Bleargh.

[ellenk.livejournal.com]

I LOVE going barefoot. When I was a teenager I used to go barefoot everywhere all Summer long. And I've been known to go outside to pick up the newspaper barefoot in the snow.

I like to wear thong-style sandals when it's warm enough because they're so easy to kick off. I don't know about Canada, but in NY there's some stupid law against driving barefoot, so I wear them into the car, then kick them off but keep them handy in case I get pulled over for anything.

I used to go rock-climbing barefoot. Now that's hard-core.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

I used to go rock-climbing barefoot too. I always felt more secure that way.

[galialuna.livejournal.com]

I am always barefoot inside the house and in my back yard(when the weather is nice). I don't even know why I bother buying slippers...must be cause I like to waste money.

[unsane1.livejournal.com]

Flip-flops!