The Single Greatest Pair of Shoes in Beverly Hills

In March of 2001, Hubcap and I would head for the hills in celebration of my first 50 years on this earth. We stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel, met a former co-worker who was working for Larry Kasdan at the Polo Bar for cocktails, saw The Vagina Monologues. All very posh. Very chi chi. Then we got a call from our daughter Allison in Dallas, who was about to be married at the end of April. Seems she hated the wedding dress personally designed for her by a certain San Antonio seamstress who shall remain anonymous. So in the midst of shoe shopping for the MOB, we actually bought a dress for her (what were we thinking?) and had it shipped back to Dallas. She didn't care for our selection (no surprise there), and ultimately blew her budget on a last-minute purchase from Neiman Marcus that fit her like a dream.

But I digress. It was somewhere around that time that pumps went from having moderately pointed toes to the more extremely pointed toes that only a diva could love. I might have been known to act like a diva a time or two, but I guess I can't claim the title because I can't -- and couldn't -- wear the shoes. And the more we looked, in store after store after store, the more the dogs barked.

Finally, finally, finally, I found a pair of sandals I liked. Make that loved. Shiny black patent, small heel, somewhat reminiscent of the first pair of fancy dress shoes I had in the fourth grade after years of wearing cloddy corrective oxfords. So home I went after my shoe shopping spree in Beverly Hills, a prestigious shopping bag tucked under my seat with the single greatest pair of black patent sandals from my new favorite source for shoes -- Mephisto.