Remember my Hobbit toe? To refresh your memory, it’s the one I dropped the tile on—and yes, I know the participle is dangling, but so is my toe. Today I snagged it on a pot stand. It needed ice, elevation, a buddy bandage along with a gin and tonic, but I wasn’t able to tend to it because it was Sunday and I sing in the choir and we’re short on sopranos.

You know how I feel about feet. Verrry important feet are. I don’t think feet like being put into shoes. I never had a pair of shoes that didn’t hurt. The orthopedic shoe store staff take one look at my feet and shake their heads. I don’t have grotesque feet if you don’t count the dangling Hobbit toe. But to a person, orthopedic shoe store helpers try to shoo me quietly out the door muttering something about European shoemakers not manufacturing shoes for feet like mine. Well hell, why not?!  How hard would that be?

The only pair of comfortable shoes I ever owned were doomed from the beginning. They looked like nuns’ shoes when nuns still wore habits--sturdy black lace-ups. But god, they were comfortable. I went to Scotland in those shoes, in November no less. There are three words for Scotland in November: cold, damp and miserable.

My feet were pain-free and toasty warm the entire trip due to the metal shank in the soles plus some quite thick orthodic insoles. I could have remained in Scotland for two additional days for the cost of those shoes. I just couldn’t get past the nuns’ shoes look.

On a different note, the Le Masion chickens are molting and I wish I were. We have two little fat red hens that live on site. They lay four small brown, free range eggs per week. They can’t keep up with the demands of the residents who get no competition from me. I don’t eat eggs except in cookies and cakes. I recoil at the thought of putting a hard boiled potential chicken embryo in my mouth.

Few things are more pathetic than a molting bird. You can see their skin. It embarrasses them, and unless you have a heart of stone you can sense their humiliation. I won’t go to their hen park (more about that another time) with my apple cores until the majority of their new feathers have come in. As for me, I'm not molting in the strict sense of the word, but when it comes to the uglies, I win.

I have a discipline when it comes to my hair. I do nothing to it without serious study, research and reflection. There is no spontaneity. Being a teen during the Big Hair Era in Texas scarred me hair-wise for life. I don’t have Big Hair hair. Consequently, I learned it is a futile, futile thing to attempt to make your hair do something it doesn’t want to do. It will have its revenge.

I suppose as a result of emotional trauma, I forgot my hair rule. In a moment of unbridled optimism, I had my hair dyed, or colored, or whatever. The results were tragic.

I inherited my mother’s beautiful grey hair. It’s glossy, wavy, and a serene silver color. Not anymore. Well, that’s not exactly true. Two inches of roots are. The remainder includes streaks of pale wheat hues, some almost, but not quite, brown ones interspersed with some blue streaks. Who knows what happened. I’m convinced it’s Revenge of the Hairs.

As females of similar misfortune, the little red hens and I have a strong bond and mutual respect for the trials of the other so I don’t go to their park and peer at them, and they don’t complain that I won’t eat their eggs. It’s a relationship that works for us.