Self-care: the footsoak edition.

Over the past month or so, my feet have been wearing out. They're tired and sore deep down, like in the bones deep down. And I think that this development is not a good one; I've watched friends go through foot problems, and it's just no good. I realize that striding all over town in one's high-heeled boots is silly, and so I stopped doing that in December (though I've done it once in 2008). Wednesday night's post-feast dancing (in my fairly low-heeled dress shoes) helped matters not at all. Last night, my friend said to me, "Were your legs sore today?" "No, but I had to bandage both my big toes," I replied. Turns out that our waltzing (and various other displays of light-on-feet-ness) did a number on his calves while it was doing a number on my feet--though my feet seem to have suffered more in the galumphing portion of the evening.

Tonight, when I go to dine at high table at Trinity (!) (and have my second haggis of the year, I hope--we're angling for another Burns Night feast, see, though one with Trinity's famed port, rather than a ceilidh, afterwards), I will wear flat shoes and then put on my fancy heels once we're there. To make matters as good as possible, I've spent a good chunk of this afternoon soaking my feet in my friend's washing-up basin, which turns out to be larger than mine and thus better suited for resting one's sore feet comfortably in borderline-scalding water. (Immobilizing oneself with one's feet in water is also a good way to get reading done, particularly if one is having difficulties with distractability lately.) And I have applied mass quantities of my fine new Neutrogena Refreshing Foot Balm. And now I'm just hoping that I'm not broken.

Now, I've already gone outside to take pictures of the sunset for you, but unfortunately (cf. the previous two paragraphs) I'm not really up for chasing it out onto the strange footpath that runs past the college (which I've now discovered is called Rifle Range Road). And so I keep taking shots from my balcony, and then while I'm uploading them, the colors get better. I suspect I'll just keep doing this for awhile. You know that the reason it's so exciting is that it's nearly 5 p.m. and the sky is not only still lit up; it's even still lit up by the sun, albeit an already sunken one.

Sailors' delight indeed.