Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"Excuse me, ma'am - who are you and what have you done with my wife?"


About three hours into our favourite Friday night milonga, Man Yung turns to me and remarks, "What's wrong with you? You have been dancing strangely all night!"

I, on the other hand, thought I had been dancing great. My legs couldn't look better in my lovely (newish) red suede leopard print Comme Il Fauts. In fact, I thought it was Man Yung who had been dancing rather strangely - all this gratuitous pushing and shoving when I thought I had been following perfectly and just gliding along!

Well, this decidedly non-complimentary stance that Man Yung was taking vis-a-vis my dancing "strangely" (in his opinion) does not dance harmony make. We were just about to top our escalating "heated exchange of salty Cantonese expletives" with a good ol' fashioned "fistfight" when I suddenly realized one thing.

It was the shoes.

We have been dancing rather "seriously" for the past few months (translation: We've been taking advantage of all the free time we had before my evening graduate classes started again, in fact, taking advantage of it so much we've been dancing until my feet hurt), so I have been dancing in tango shoes with heels no higher than 3 inches.

But what's a girl to do when she's got a closet full of Comme Il Fauts with heels not only 3 inches, but also 3.5 inches, and 4 inches high? You have to wear them sometimes, right?

And just by wearing a Comme Il Fauts with 3.5 inch heels, suddenly I was dancing like "Dynasty", or "Valley of the Dolls" or perhaps even "Desperate Housewives" (according to Man Yung), instead of plain old boring Irene!

If half an inch in heel height can turn me into a completely different woman, just imagine the transformative possibilities of the following....

FOUR inch high Comme Il Fauts

SEVEN inch high Comme Il Fauts (but they don't make shoes like these the last time I checked - pity because these would be perfect for pole dancing)

LEFT shoe at FOUR inches, RIGHT shoe at THREE inches (good for Milonga)

RIGHT shoe at FOUR inches, LEFT shoe at THREE inches (good for Candombe)

FLIPPERS (excellent for Swimming and for Colgadas)

CLEATS (to be really, really GROUNDED)

ONE shoe ON and ONE shoe OFF


I think I may actually be able to save a bundle on Halloween costumes this year!