First fete and feting footwear!

So it's here...the advent of my personal feting season...and a whole two and a half weeks later than I thought it would...apparently my PCA (Pre-Carnival Anxiety) wasn't so bad this year! Let's hope with my renewed sense of calm my PCD (Post-Carnival Depression) will also be lessened!

Tonight is Stumped...a cooler fete in the carpark of the Oval

 Cricket grounds.  There will be big soca stars performing sans band and so flippin' far away from where I'll be I can't say I'm going for the show.  What I am going for is the big lime of triathletes as if it's anything like what was portrayed of last year's version in the facebook pics posted last week, we'll have a rockin time! Unfortunately those pics have precluded me from wearing the best cheapie, slightly ghetto, cooler fete top I have, sigh, so I've had to rummage around in my

daughter's cubby holes to find some colourful shorts as my next best cooler fete top is black...and I just don't do monochrome for carnival!!

Shoes were the next issue....a group of us decided we'd wear Converse, fake or otherwise. Cool, I thought, I'll wear a pair of my daughter's just as I did on Carnival Tuesday last year.  However, a year on the low tops are ripped and dirty. As for the equally bedraggled high tops: I recollect them rubbing a painful blister on my heel by the end of that walk intensive day....and I don't wish for that particular malady right now with the plethora of other foot issues I currently seem to be suffering from.

So I went to Payless...the local cheapie shoe source in an attempt to buy another fake pair of Converse.  However, to my horror, on top of only having two miserable styles to choose from they looked awful and very fake. I ummed and ahhhed and tried on other cheap colourful sneakers....I glided across the shiny tiles of the mall corridor to Francis Fashion Shoelocker, the next cheap sports and various other clothes store, and managed to find some extremely comfortable and quite funky Sketchers. However, needless to say, they didn't have my size.  They might've had in their Arima branch, but there was no way in hell I was driving so far East through a whole set of carnvial fete prep traffic and general Saturday busy-ness just for some shoes I may try on and decide against, especially as they can bring them up for me in good time for the next cooler fete, whenever that may be.

   

Back to Payless I went, broadening my horizons in terms of types of shoes I was looking at, realising as shooting pains zoomed through my toes at ever diminishing intervals, foot comfort is more of a priority this year...and found: some really comfy shoes which were marginally less ugly on than in the box; some colourful sneakers which were also kind to my feet; some flat sandals. A male friend of mine with impeccable taste in women's clothes came and vetoed a few pairs, telling me the funky sneakers would only work with white shorts, which every woman is supposed to possess, although I don't, (although 3 of my crew proved the point by wearing said white shorts at the party) ...so I eventually settled on the very flat sandals.  This was a slightly risky purchase as I don't tend to do too well with overly flat shoes...but these seemed to have a little padding and they were cute and simple, and BLACK...so worth the $160.

Just imagine my joy when out of the blue I was offered two pairs of hardly worn, outgrown Converse for my daughter who has the same size feet as me! "They're beautiful!" she gasped as her face lit up like a Christmas tree shortly before I hoofed the light blue ones, which she agreed went better with my threads. I stuck in my arch support insoles and after paying lip service to wearing the sandals I'd just spent how long buying, stuck my feet into a very comfy zone.

So geared up, I realised that this fete could hit the on button and throw me into full carnival mode where soca is constantly attacking my thought waves and excitement grows with each passing day. It's an odd affliction, affecting a large number of Trinidadians to a greater or lesser degree at this time of year, and irritating the remaing Trinis who find it verging on offensive that people would spend so much money on the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure! ...but that's a subject for a whole new blog...

So did it? Am I now in full carni mode?? Hell yeah!! ...and not just because as I reached the party I was met with a Cafe Patron shot! I had a ball jumping, winin, dancing with my friends and them, seeing my beloved performers on their distant stage....and just feeling alive with the vibes emanating from thousands of people with the sole purpose of freeing themselves from all possible stresses.

Having slept two hours I'm now in the process of running down money and organising tickets...actions which occupy a greater and greater amount of my waking hours at the same rate sleep is becoming expendable. The soothing focus music has been replaced with the 'soca on steroids' radio station: Slam 100.5. Chuckles have started to escape from my mouth as I remember various wine related antics, I'm mentally organising my season's wardrobe, excitement is now intact for my next fete next weekend....and having scrubbed the Converse down so they are back to the immaculate condition in which my daughter received them, I will now be heading to the Converse store to buy my very own feting footwear...unless I get the Sketchers....