{"id":10637,"date":"2015-12-22T07:13:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T12:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=10637"},"modified":"2015-12-22T07:14:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T12:14:18","slug":"booted-wind-down-and-run-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=10637","title":{"rendered":"Booted Wind-Down and Run-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we approach Christmas, things are winding down at work and at home, we’re preparing a run-up to family gatherings. For me, booted, of course!<\/p>\n

What boots for what occasions at work and at home?
\n
\nAt the office, where I am about the last man standing as most everyone has departed already for holiday travel (and using “use-or-lose” leave), I continue to wear dress cowboy boots with dress slacks, shirt, and the occasional necktie (but only when I am at the daily briefing with The Big Cheese.)<\/p>\n

A funny aside — I have mentioned before that there is a relatively new guy on the office staff who is ultra-conservative in his manner of dress. Every day he wears a business suit with dorky dress shoes. While everyone else on a day-to-day basis wears “business casual” and denim on dress-down Fridays, he continues to dress up. He drank the “dress-for-success” Kool-Aid and it will take much longer than I thought for him to relax.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I was rather dressed up, wearing a white shirt (which I generally avoid), red tie, navy slacks, and Lucchese black cherry crocodile belly boots<\/a>. I saw New Guy in the hallway, and he said something about how nice I looked until he took a good look at my boots. He shook his head.<\/p>\n

I told him, “thanks… sorry you don’t have a pair of these boots for yourself. I can fix that if you ask.” He didn’t say anything, but I could tell that he wasn’t going to take the bait. Sorry, kid, some day you’ll come around to learn that dress boots look good with dress clothes, and that dress shoes are boring and clone-like. I’m no business clone by any means.<\/p>\n

When I arrived home after work, I was met at the door by my spouse who had a pretty good day on the first day of his mother’s visit with us for Christmas. He gave me a kiss and hug hello, and followed me to the bedroom while I changed clothes. He asked me to get a couple things for him at the store, so considering that it was damp, I pulled on jeans, flannel shirt, and my tan Chippewa cowboy\/work boots<\/a>. Why those boots? I dunno… they were there.<\/p>\n

When I returned from the store, I changed boots once more, since the soles of the boots I was wearing were dirty and I had to wash them off. This time, I chose a pair of plain tan Justin cowboy boots<\/a>. Why those boots? They were lonely.<\/p>\n

I prepared dinner. My twin brother and his wife arrived home from a visit with a niece. We sat down at the kitchen table — thankfully our kitchen table seats six so there was plenty of room — and enjoyed our meal. Just as we were finishing, I heard a knock at the front door. <\/p>\n

\"rp_Xmas08.jpg\"[old photo of my spouse, his Mom, and me. I didn’t have my camera available last night, and my twin refuses to appear in photos.] <\/p>\n

I answered the door, and was greeted by seven lovely senior pals who came to serenade us with Christmas carols. My mother-in-law was both incredulous and impressed. We invited them into our Living Room, gathered around the Christmas tree, and sang along (well, some of us did; my spouse and his Mom just watched.)<\/p>\n

What a spontaneous great visit of joy! I so love my LOLITs! (Yep, most of them were wearing tennis shoes. Giggle.)<\/p>\n

After the caroling visit, I bid my friends farewell, and promised to see them again tomorrow and on Saturday when we will go grocery shopping.<\/p>\n

I then changed to my evening “grubbies” of sweatpants, sweatshirt, and socks. I sat with my brother and his wife for a while to visit, and then we all watched one of those sappy Hallmark Christmas movies. By 2030, it was time for me to bid goodnight… work calls still at oh-dark-30. I left my little family in our basement rec room to watch yet another sappy movie. (The next Christmas movie I will watch is It’s a Wonderful Life<\/em>, my favorite.)<\/p>\n

Life is short: be booted well at work and for spontaneous visitors!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we approach Christmas, things are winding down at work and at home, we’re preparing a run-up to family gatherings. For me, booted, of course! What boots for what occasions at work and at home?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,4,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boots-at-work","category-home-life","category-joy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}