Ruby Slippers

My friend MKA gave me ruby slippers for Christmas. These shoes will go down in history as one of the shiniest, sparkliest, most thoroughly successful random-yet-thoughtful Christmas gifts in history.

Here they are, for your admiration. 100% red glitter!!!:

This photo, expertly taken by me, is of my own feet shod in ruby slippers at the end of a long festive evening, the wedding of two good friends of mine. The wedding was beautiful, the reception was fun, and I had a lovely time with lovely friends all while wearing lovely shoes. The reception was held in the New England Aquarium and I was very entertained to hear more than one male guest say something like, “I like this wedding reception – no dancing! And I’m learning about fish!”

I myself didn’t learn about fish so much as find myself slipping into a fish-induced hypnotic trance, watching them swim around, and around, and around the big central tank. They were in a big hurry to get somewhere, that’s for sure. A number of things occurred to me:

1 – Do they ever change direction? These fish were all swimming in a counter-clockwise direction at top speed. It would have been so great if one of the fish – the big sting ray perhaps – had just suddenly rebelled, and led a counter-revolution, so that they all started going clockwise instead.

2 – Babies like fish. The few infants at the reception were quite mesmerized. Quite like the guys who didn’t like dancing, actually.

3 – I don’t know what they feed the sharks in that tank, but those guys were some very fat, happy and slow sharks. Every other fish in the tank was at least 15 minutes late for something, but the sharks just dawdled along, looking almost drugged and blissed out. I suppose they have to keep them well fed so they don’t turn into fierce hunters of the deep during the middle of a school trip. That may be a little too ‘natural’ for most aquarium goers.

4 – What time do penguins go to bed? The penguins were fairly cranky with us party-goers, and I kept imagining the early-to-bed-early-to-rise crowd led by a couple of crusty old penguins named Conrad and Maude who would occasionally swear and cackle at the well-dressed crowd, things like, “Hey! Could you keep it down over there! I don’t come to YOUR bedroom and raise the roof, do I?” If they could have thrown shoes, they would have. Fortunately, these penguins were shoeless.

Unlike me. I was wearing the best shoes in town.