Month: July 2024

On a lazy Saturday evening, we make our way to our favorite Italian restaurant, Volterra.  As we approach the front door, all their blinds cover their windows, and we briefly wonder if they opened for business today.  However, we push the door and walk right in.  We arrive early to enjoy Happy Hour at the bar.  The hosting station where they greet guests separates the bar area on the right and the main dining room on the left.

The hostess leads us to our table.  The bar area holds about a half a dozen tables in addition to the bar itself.  They lay out this section intimately, and from our table, we can see everyone in the bar.  We glance through the menus; this includes the menus for dinner menu, Happy Hour, and today’s specials.  After some talking and negotiation, we make our selections, and we end up making a selection from each menu.

Continue reading “A night at an Italian restaurant” →

Many years ago, I struggled with foot pain.  I had repeated bouts of plantar fasciitis and occasionally instances of gout.  Many have described me as having a high threshold of pain, but for this, I suffered.  The best way that I may describe the degree of pain:  if you’re sitting down, but need to pee, you contemplate how long you can wait until you need to stand up and walk to the bathroom.  It is that painful.  I got custom (molded from my feet) insoles for my shoes.  Every time I changed shoes, I’d meticulously take them out of one pair and put them in the other.  Additionally, they didn’t work reliably enough; those insoles may have halved the number of occurrences.

I decided to try something completely different; I got a pair of Vibram Five Fingers.  I took the plunge and started the minimalist shoes trend.  They have incredibly thin soles, like 3mm thin.  They force you to land on the balls of your feet.  Though one feature that made them even more distinctive.  As the name suggests, each shoe individually wraps each toe.

Continue reading “Aversion, tolerance, and toed shoes” →