What kind of shoes do you like?

Tell us about your preferred size(s)? Colors? Heals (short/high)? Practical, flashy, economical, expensive, etc.?

Where do you shop for shoes?

Do you prefer shopping at the Department Store? Second-hand store? Discount Store? Flea Market? Internet? Where? Tell us about your typical quest for shoes...

What information do you use to make your dating selections?

Girls, can we talk about our love for shoes? If we had the space and the money, let’s face it, we would own hundreds of shoes! Really! Tell me you don’t get a rush when you walk into a mega-shoe store like DSW? It is exciting, overwhelming, yet so stimulating! Couldn’t you spend hours just looking and trying on shoe after shoe? Admit it, the shoes make the outfit! Even the plainest dress will look fabulous if you wear the perfect pair of shoes. Your oldest jeans and a t-shirt are hot with the right boots. Your whole attitude can change just by switching your shoes. You know that I am right. For fun, just fill in the blanks to complete the following sentences: I can be funky in my _________ shoes, PHAT (pretty hot and tempting) in my _________ shoes, playful in my ________, casual in my ___________, arrogant in my ___________, or comfortable in my ____________. Why do we all love shoes? Let me quote a famous line from a movie, “clothes make me look fat, but shoes always fit perfectly!”

I remember watching each of my daughters discover that there was something “magical” about their feet very early on. Upon hearing the news that, “It’s a girl”, my mind leaped with joy. I thought mostly about all of the frilly things that I would be able to buy for them. Like the other mothers, I couldn’t wait to adorn their feet with ruffle socks and dainty shoes in every color of the rainbow. As visitors came to greet each new baby girl, they reinforced the importance of her shoes. Much attention was spent wiggling her feet and commenting about those “cute little shoes!” By the end of their first year, each daughter was introduced to the function of shoes as she learned to walk. Her shoes gave her the extra support she needed to gain freedom to roam around the house. They empowered her to walk with confidence and eventually to run without fear. By age two, my daughters had surmised that shoes came in different colors, shapes and sizes. They soon developed their own sense of style, likes and dislikes. My oldest loved the bright primary colors, while my youngest only wanted pastels. Both girls became increasingly harder to shop for as the year went on. I often wondered, what had they learned about shoes and what information were they using to make their selections? As they approached their dating years, I wondered the same thing, "What had they learned about dating? How were they making their selections?

How do you decide who to date and who to marry?

Who would have imagined that I would find myself dating again over the age of 40? OK, at age 45…alright, closer to 50 years old? The world had changed after the divorce; the children were now old enough to ask questions. Where are you going? And, who are you going out with? How long will you be gone? How well do you know this guy? Be careful, it is dangerous out there! These were the questions and the cries of my older children. My preteen daughter, on the other hand, was far more curious about this “thing called dating.” She wanted to share her theories and to test them out on me. I feared that I was much too old for counseling, but life has a way of continuously teaching us all despite our age.

For months I tried discretely to hire the babysitter and proclaim that I would be going out for the evening. I deflected the questions regarding my itinerary by posing rhetorical questions like, “hey who’s the parent here?” Then the day came, when my 10 year old bluntly asked that most difficult question of all, “How do you decide who to date and who to marry?”

CATS


South Gate Stage is the first school (University or Secondary or non-professional theatre) to present a production of CATS in California.

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