My Shoes

If you know me, you will know that I love shoes, especially high heeled, expensive shoes.  I hate to admit it because Sex In the City made the obsession a little too cliche and pop.  Note that I am of the Imelda Marcus shoe craze not the Carrie Bradshaw craze. Probably not any better.

Anyway, I tend to buy shoes when I am sad, happy, sick, feeling ugly, feeling pretty, bored, ... you get the point.  I even remember people and events based on the shoes I was wearing.  I cannot tell you the names of girls I went to high school with, but I can describe the strappy white sandals I wore for my graduation.  My bridal shower shoes were an amazing white suede pump.  When I was 9 months pregnant, carrying 65 additional pounds, I wore black sequin sandals with a 3 inch heel to a holiday party.  I clearly remember my first pair of Manolo's purchased with great friends at the NYC store.

Doesn't matter if they are Michael Kors, Betsy Johnston or even Kim Kardashian...I love shoes.  Although I may like Christian Louboutin the best (don't tell my husband he has no idea how much I pay for these things!)

I bring this up because I have several events to go to this weekend and need to pick a shoe so as to decide on an outfit.  My shoes dictate my dress/suit.  Because I have a broken toe (thanks to the idiot troll at The Snooty Fox) I have been wearing each pair for as much time as possible daily.  Need to be sure I can walk without crying.  So I have been running up and down the stairs, to and from the garage wearing jeans, pj's or sweatpants but feeling fabulous in any of these amazing shoes.  This by the way is not helping my toe feel better and has been highly discouraged by my sister the podiatrist.

These are the top contenders.

Not the newest or the most expensive.  Certainly not comfortable but they each make me feel good and for no other reason than I love them!

PowerPoint: Friend or Foe

The NY Times ran a great article on the military's obsession with PowerPoint.  Just wanted to add "No kidding!"  This has been obvious for any manager or sales exec for several years.

What started as a tool to help people understand your argument through bullet points and graphics, has become a time sucker and a distraction.  It has also become a way of over simplifying things to the point of embarrassment.

It seems consistent though with our sound-bite mentality.  Quick and to the point so we can move onto the next tasks.  Superficiality has become a "way out".  No need to be educated about a topic to make a solid decision, instead read the headline, follow a character -limited tweet, or view the scroll at the bottom of the news story.  Good enough right?

I applaud the military for realizing the dangers in replacing real work with the facade of a graphic. Maybe if the financial companies spent less time making beautifying bogus products, we would have a different Wall Street.

That being my rant, I still would not even think or doing a presentation without PowerPoint for fear of being seen as ill-prepared or lacking in cleverness or boring.

BTW - check out HBR's tweet on the subject http://blogs.hbr.org/silverman/2010/04/powerpoint-is-evil-redux.html#comments

Wild Kingdom Continues

Below you will find the most recent beast terrifying my city dwelling.

For the record, this typically cute fuzzy bunny is making me crazy.  He appeared a few days ago and has decided that he will greet me every morning.

Oh at first, I thought how cute.  Nature is beautiful and I am lucky to be a part of it.  An appropriate sentiment when you have time, not so much when you are in a hurry.  See this bunny likes to sit in the middle of my driveway while I am attempting to leave or return to the garage.

During this photo, he was next to the driveway and did not leave until I was about a foot away.  He then scampered through the yard presumably to eat my flowers (not too much of a problem seeing as they die after a few days anyway).

However the next day he was directly in the driveway.  I wanted to him and he ran away.  I enter the car to back up and he is back in the driveway.  So I have leave the car running, go up to him and he leaves.  The following day I am driving into the garage and have to stop as he is in the middle of the driveway and not moving.  I beeped the horn, yelled and flashed the lights.  Nothing.  So I leave the car walk to the bunny and he leaves.

This has happened half a dozen times.  My sensitive side worries that I will be racing to or from the driveway and simply not see him.  Rabbit stew for dinner.  My cynical side has the same fear with the horror of having to clean up the carcass.

I doubt if I could catch it nor do I want to try.  Anyone have any ideas for eliminating bunnies from the blacktop?