My heart just about broke when I saw the other woman holding my shoes. I didn’t have $6 on me yesterday when I first saw them at the thrift store, so I came back with Bruce and the girls the next day. But the spot where they had sat was blank. Then…then I saw another woman carrying them around. Dammnit, I thought. Just my luck. But a few minutes later she put them down, unwanted. Yay! I snatched them right up. The shoes in question were the Land’s End knockoffs of Merrell Jungle Mocs. They looked like they’d never even been worn. Oh so happy was I to finally have another pair in my hands again. You see, years ago I had bought a pair of gorgeous black Merrell Jungle Mocs, but as lovely as they felt on my feet…there was the toe issue. I think I have one toe about 1/8th of an inch longer than other. This is a terrific problem to have, because it means 7 1/2s will always be too small, and 8s and 8 1/2s will be too big. At least on one foot. This wasn’t Merrell’s fault, but I was so sad to have to mail the damn things to my sister (who has been wearing them ever since). Anyway, you know those Land’s End catalog ads that say something like “Why pay $100 for the real thing?” Because they don’t suck like the knockoffs, that’s why. The knockoffs always suck compared to the original. The heels feel like you’re walking in wood clogs. I’ll probably still wear them for errands, but I’m sure glad I didn’t just burn up $30. Oh! And I bought back a pair of my socks that it appears I accidentally donated weeks ago.

I sure won’t be springing for the real mocs anytime soon, not after our latest car repair total. For both cars it was–kaching!–$1117. The van had some maintainance that was due, and the other got a rather extensive brake job. The mechanic said it was essentially functioning on one brake. I imagine the 20% grades in San Francisco last month had something to do with finishing them off. After we got it back from the mechanic, Bruce told me that the brake light had been coming on for a while. Free advice: sometimes it’s cheaper to get things fixed before the light starts coming on.

If we had known the cars were going to be so greedy this month, we might have waited on a pair of these for the girls. The squeals of joy tomorrow morning will be immense, I’m sure, and hopefully will partially numb the pain of our bills this month.

No new Dreamweaver 8, either. Dreamweaver was stuck in the 90s for quite some time when it came to CSS, and the new version looks much better in this regard, which would really help. But I think I’ve kvetched enough about this. Anyway, I have a bigger complaint: I recently purchased a little tool called WA Import to help me learn from the CSS Jedi Masters.* The theory is that you can go to any site and import the thing completely intact–graphics and all–right into Dreamweaver to look at their code and techniques. Supposedly a little easier and less messy than doing a “Save As” in the browser. Sounds great, right? Except that it doesn’t work. On most sites it will only suck down the index page and that’s it. I could do that in Firefox. It’s also pissing off Dreamweaver’s command menu, rendering it untouchable. Grrrrrrr. And you know what else? This is hilarious. The extension prevents you from downloading just one site: theirs. Interesting.

The girls slept through the night for four blessed nights last week, for the first time in months. I have no idea why they suddenly paused their sleep-deprivation experiment. I was so stunned and full of energy I began hatching plans for everything. Travel! Business! Redecorating! Classes! But no sooner had I actually begun enjoying the concept of being able to see straight than it was back to the usual. So many of the tricks I read in books only work with one toddler, which is irritating. Kind of like finding the perfect shoes…that will never, ever fit.

* Not to thieve, okay?

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