I've always wanted boots

Rubber rain boots to splash in muddy puddles.


Cowboy boots fit for swaggering and greeting everyone with a "howdy."


Black leather ones to my knee with just enough of a heel to look sleek but not slutty.


Snow boots that fit just right without being bulky.


Instead I get this...This is definitely NOT the kind of boot I wanted, but this is what I got.

I have a stress fracture in my heel. Maybe it's from too much running (according to non-runners, this must be the reason), maybe it's from a vitamin D deficiency (this from runners who know such things), maybe it's from trying to run after a three year-old in shoes that look cute but have no support (my own theory). Whatever the reason, I'm stuck wearing it every day for a month!

Yes, I feel like a dork, especially since it's my heel that's hurt, and the boot goes all the way up to my knee! It's like wearing an ACE bandage for a splinter.

Monday I had my annual eye exam and as long as I was out, I had a few errands to run. So there I was, hobbling around in a boot and those great eye doctor sunglasses, lugging Lucy's carrier and dragging Daisy through a baking goods store, trying to read the labels with my poor dilated eyes that couldn't focus. As I went from store to store, I was just hoping that I had my own kids because I couldn't see to the end of my arm. In that condition, I was fit only to shop at Wal-Mart, but that's not where I went. Oh, no, that's not where I went.

I am trying very hard not to leave the house, in part because my pride is wounded with Darth Vader strapped to my leg, but also because the boot (the way Daisy says it rhymes with "foot") is on my right foot, making driving not only illegal, but impossible. I have to take it off to drive and put it back on wherever I go. I've become one of those honking moms in parking lots, head out the window, screaming, "Come on, will ya? I've got dinner on the stove. Don't make me come out there and get you!"

The worst part is not being able to run (or walk or spin or do the elliptical) for a month. I am limited to the recumbent bike and the pool for exercise. I tried swimming for the first time yesterday morning and I am a disaster in the pool. My arms were flailing and I was gasping for air. But I have pink goggles (or rose-colored glasses) so I'm determined to try again tomorrow. Without the spurts of dog paddling. My consolation is that at 5 in the morning, no one is walking past the pool wondering what that grown woman is doing clinging to the lane divider for dear life.

And I can be assured that no one will steal my boot from the pool deck.

But I kind of wish they would.