sock it to me

first, a quick update: remember those bright-green winter-hiking boots that were the source of such sturm und drang for months? and how they eventually dropped in price, but ultimately didn't fit right?

well, the retailer from whom i'd purchased (and subsequently returned) those boots had a MASSSIVE sale over the weekend, and the price of the boots dropped to $30 (!!!!!!!!!!!). THIRTY DOLLARS. for boots that were originally $300. WHAT?! for $30, i'd put up with a slightly wonky fit, or maybe order a half-size up... but, sadly, by the time i found out about the sale and checked the store's website, only one gigantic-sized pair was left for sale. fin.

now,  moving on...

SOCKS!

as noted in a previous post, my time in self-isolation has left me missing the act of browsing in stores. meandering. perusing. window shopping. and, as the weeks have gone on, i've also come to yearn for random impulse buys. nothing extravagant or anything, just the odd item you toss in your shopping basket because you stumbled upon it and it looked cool or fun or useful or whatever.

so it was that, one day a few weeks ago, i clicked on a facebook ad for a sock company that had some kooky socks. i poked around their site but wasn't overly impressed. the socks were expensive. they weren't a canadian company. blah blah blah. onwards.

thing is, when you click on ANY facebook ad, the site's algorithms take note and your FB feed soon becomes populated with ads for OTHER companies offering the same (or related) products.

click on a petsmart ad? suddenly become inundated with ads for pet valu or petco or etsy shops selling coffee mugs with "i love my beagle" on them.

click on a winterlicious ad? find yourself drowning in ads for every restaurant in your city that's participating in winterlicious.

and so on.

unsurprisingly, therefore, it was only a matter of minutes before my facebook feed found itself targeted by sock-company ads. but, much to my surprise, one ad in particular resonated with me.

it was an ad for a company called soxy. they were having a "pay what you want" (!) sale on ALL their inventory as a way of keeping their employees working. the socks in the accompanying image were STUNNING in their bizarrely patterned beauty -- bright colours, cool patterns, everything right up my fun-sock-loving alley. (it's their products which are pictured above.)

so i clicked on THAT ad. their click-bait-sale ad worked.

and it led me to the company website: a magical land of gorgeous, unique, lust-worthy socks in a dizzying variety of colours and patterns. i'm a fan of all things geometric, and their selection was vast. i lost myself for a good hour just browsing all the options.

then i checked out the "pay what you want" sale. turns out, customers have four options: 45% off, 25% off, 10% off or full price -- and for any full-price sale, the company said it would donate a free pair to healthcare workers. not a bad deal, i thought. not to mention a clever way of ensuring their virtual doors stay open.

the socks themselves are not cheap. a single pair runs about $12, with bundles ranging from $35 (for three pairs) to $55 (for five pairs). still, $11 for a pair of socks is steeeeeeeeeeeep (for me, anyway). i typically buy my stripy or patterned socks at dollar tree. if i decide to splurge, it might be on a $2.50 pair at walmart. but $11? nope.

still, there was that 45%-off option. if i bought two $55 bundles and applied the discount code, my order would come to $60.50... so, just over $6 a pair.

plus, i'd qualify for free shipping (phew) AND i'd get a free bonus pair of my choosing (yay!) thrown in just for being a first-time customer. 11 pairs of socks for $60.50 would drop the per-pair price down to $5.50. not a steal, but not too bad considering the sheer beauty of the socks i'd chosen. plus, i reasoned that i could give my mom and YB each a pair to boost their spirits. and, heck, we're eye-deep in a pandemic -- we deserve some expensive fun socks!

but nowhere on the site did it indicate whether the company was canadian or american, nor whether the prices were in CDN or USD. with the exchange rate being abysmal, those are two key factors for any canadian shopping online these days.

eventually, after putting the bundles in my shopping cart, i discovered the prices were in USD... because those three letters suddenly appeared next to my items in the cart.

ah. okay, time to redo the math.

using the exchange rate at the time (+38%), plus the foreign-transaction fee a credit card company would then apply on top (1%), my USD$60.50 order would suddenly balloon to CDN$84.10. throw in the sales tax (i figured around 7%) and i'd be at about CDN$90.

CDN$90 for 11 pairs of socks means each pair would be just over $8.

suddenly, a lot less appealing.

also, receiving a $90-in-value order from a U.S. address would also mean i'd be hit with duties.

FFS. why even bother at this point?

i abandoned my sock plan and moved on with my life.

but those soxy ads kept popping up in my FB feed. those beautiful socks kept tempting me. taunting me. every day. multiple times a day. i told YB of this saga. she laughed and said, "if you want the socks, you should just buy them anyway. it's a pandemic. no one is going to judge you."

i hemmed. i hawed. much like those expensive green boots, could i really justify (to myself) paying roughly $10 a pair for SOCKS that i don't really need????

as a writer, i fell back on old habits: research. i did some digging and found out the company was started by two friends in... TORONTO! socre! maybe the socks would ship from canada, then, and i'd be spared the duty! i started to reconsider.

to be 100% sure of what to expect, and to avoid any sudden added expenses i might incur if i went ahead with an order, i decided to contact their customer-service department to inquire about the shipping origin. so, i sent them an email and waited. i got an auto-reply within a few minutes, advising that they'd received my email and someone would get back to me within two business days.

five business days passed and i didn't hear anything from anyone.

so i sent a follow-up email.

no response.

that was more than a week ago. i started to sour on the whole idea. who wants to buy from a company that doesn't respond to your inquiry -- AS a prospective customer ready to buy the stuff they're selling! -- after two attempts over two weeks?

in the interim, i started to read the comments on the ubiquitous FB ads that were still filling my feed. while the majority were complimentary ("i love these socks!"), there were some that could be filed squarely in the "disgruntled consumer" category. in fact, there were a few from people who said they ordered socks, the price was charged to their credit cards, but no socks had been received. in fact, no socks had been shipped even though those orders had been placed a couple of weeks ago.

zero response from the company to any of the comments. zero response from the company to posts from customers asking questions on their FB page.

and, as of this posting, still zero response from the company to my two emails.

as someone who's worked in content marketing for the past eight years, i can tell you that a company that ignores its customers on social media is making a critical error. if you have a social-media presence, you're supposed to use it... otherwise, your lack of response is viewable by everyone (like me) who checks out your posts. and you start to look a bit sketchy. or, at the very least, apathetic to your customers.

in the end (yes, we've finally reached it -- thanks for hangin' in!), i didn't buy the socks.

i didn't feel like supporting a company that, it turns out, isn't *really* a "small, family-run business" (as its FB ads declare), but a multi-million-dollar corporation. and one that, apparently, doesn't actually care whether i buy from them or not, anyway.

[TL;DR -- i overthink everything. and i saw some really pretty socks online, thought about buying them, but didn't.]

found art: a photo essay

yesterday, during my daily walk through the neighbourhood, i took a slightly different route and stumbled upon an alleyway full of enormous, stunningly beautiful graffiti.

toronto has many well-known, oft-photographed "graffiti alleys" -- the most famous of which frequently plays host to rick mercer's rants (that particular rant is seven years old but still timely!) -- but i was unaware that this one existed. and so close to home, no less.

so, i pulled out my little point-and-shoot and tried to snag some images. it was hard to capture the full splendor properly because a lot of the art is on the south side of the alley, which means it's backlit almost all of the time. but here we go...

this first shot is of a series of garage doors, each in a different style. i'm not sure if one artist painted them all or if each one was created by a different person, but i found them all striking.
(there was no way to shoot them head-on due to space, so this was the best i could manage.)

another garage door. i'm not really sure what's happening between these two -- are they dancing? fighting? was she dancing and he's trying to stop her? -- but i liked how simple and stark
this piece was compared to all the others in the vicinity.

these flowers are actually huge. if you look closely, you can see the cables running from the top-right corner, which will give you a better sense of scale. they covered a two-storey wall.

see what i mean about backlighting? alas. the owl and the adjacent colourful swirls were
really cool, especially juxtaposed against the swimmer and her friends.

i loved how the metallic staircase cut through the swirls and the dragon, and how it was all framed by the second-floor-deck fence. the garbage and recycling cans
tucked in the bottom corner were a nice touch, too.

speaking of garbage and recycling bins... i liked how these ones were lined up under that gorgeous flower. (lucky tenants: each one gets his or her own bin!)

this one is my favourite because it's just kind of there, randomly, along a stretch of fence.
obviously painted by whoever painted all the other swirls in the other pieces.

and those shots are just a sampling. the alley only runs about a block but is filled with art. it was a lovely discovery.

pot-pourri

• social isolation is starting to make me irritable, i think. as time drags on, and i'm holed up at home week after week, more and more things are starting to annoy me. silly things. friends posting too often on facebook, or sharing incorrect information, or linking to iffy sites/businesses without first verifying they're legit. i scroll through my feed and find myself mentally judging people more harshly than i should.

• at the same time, i think i'm slowly growing desensitized to the trauma and sadness of the global situation. i'm no longer moved by videos of things like healthcare workers doing choreographed dances or clips of grandkids visiting their grandparents through panes of glass. i don't go outside to clap for frontline workers every night at 7:30 (to be honest, my entire neighbourhood is totally silent -- it seems no one is out there making noise at the designated hour). i no longer seek out news about the pandemic, and barely watch CNN anymore. it seems i've grown a bit numb to it all, especially the grief porn that flooded the airwaves for a while, wherein every news outlet was trying to out-sad the competition by finding the most tragic COVID cases to share with the public. oh, and for the record, i'm so over hearing "lean on me" and "amazing grace" sung by... anyone.

• yet, weirdly, i find myself moved by some of the commercials circulating out there. it seems advertising agencies have (for now, anyway) found their sweet spot in targeting me as a consumer. so, while i don't really tear up at the news, i do find myself getting misty because of, say, the Uber ad (asking people to stay home and *not* use Uber), or the IKEA tribute to "home," or the apple commercial highlighting creativity. i think it's partly due to the message and the smart use of the right music, but also me being impressed with how inventive advertisers can be when they can't actually shoot anything (with pro equipment) themselves at the moment, and have to rely on shared footage shot on mobile devices.

• gracie is stressed, i think. she, like me, is sensitive, and i think she's picking up on my discontent and the general uneasiness of the world at large. for the past couple of weeks, she's been on and off her food -- some days, she eats normally; other days, she picks at her food all day and doesn't consume a full serving of anything. i need to order a new flavour (salmon) of her wet food from petsmart to see if that'll hit the spot. i know she's just being fussy and that she DOES have an appetite -- if i sprinkle crushed treats on her wet food, she *will* begrudgingly eat it. but i test drove a single can of salmon several weeks back, just before everything shut down, and she loved it. and, of course, she will ALWAYS eat treats on their own. so, we'll see.

• on a more positive note, i'm working on a drawing to send to a creative friend, who's started hosting crafting-for-kids videos on youtube and who invited his viewers to submit drawings to accompany a fun poem he wrote. so, yesterday i sketched my image, and today i'll ink it and colour it in. i've already told him to expect a contribution from me, so we'll see if it makes it into the follow-up video.

• as the weather gets nicer, the sidewalks in my neighbourhood are getting busier, making my almost-daily walks more challenging in terms of avoiding others. i loooove long stretches of empty sidewalks, not sidewalks cluttered with parents wheeling strollers, kids on bikes, couples walking dogs and the like. so, on a whim, i decided to seek out solitude and explore the industrial wasteland nearby. it's filled with lots of factories and warehouses and construction sites, but is virtually devoid of humans. the other day, i ventured through and felt like i'd struck gold: NO ONE WAS AROUND. occasionally, a car or truck would rumble past on the road, but the sidewalks were virtually barren, save for the odd worker popping out to get a coffee. BINGO. it's not the most scenic route, but -- despite the industrial nature of the area -- is, strangely, much more serene than the residential streets i'd been frequenting. hopefully, the area remains a walker's secret for a little while longer.

shopping mauled

yesterday, i threw out my lower back.

while standing still.

i was at the kitchen sink, finishing the dishes, and was about to head out towards the living room. i started to take a step and BAM! my lower back totally seized up. i hadn't done anything extreme, hadn't moved or twisted or turned in any kind of weird way... it just happened.

and i know why: because, earlier in the day, i'd gone grocery shopping.

more specifically, i'd stood in line repeatedly and for extended periods of time while grocery shopping.

and, as often happens during film festivals (where standing in line for an hour or more is de rigueur), my lower back gave out from all that standing.

*sigh*

shopping of any kind used to be fun. grocery shopping. shoe shopping. clothes shopping. whatever.

once upon a time before the world went haywire, i loved going shopping. not to buy things -- because i'm not a shopper so much as i am a browser -- but just to wander. to look. to be out in the world. to see what was new. to people watch. to grab a snack. to spend time with my mom. heck, YB and i love shopping so much we'd actually drive to another country just to do it!

it was a source of stress relief.

now, it's just a source of stress.

gone (for now) are the days of on-a-whim walking to one of the four major grocery stores in my neighbourhood to pick up a few essentials. or one essential. or no essentials. or spending a saturday out on a mini road trip with YB, hitting up shops in newmarket or markham or mississauga or port hope, just for kicks.

shopping has morphed into an ominous, time-consuming, military-operation-esque undertaking.

now, i have to plan: what do i NEED to get? which store is least likely to be insanely busy? which one will have the shortest lines? which store is most likely to be well-stocked, so that i can get everything in one place and not have to repeat the whole lining-up process someplace else?

i have to write down every single i need to get, and then consult that list frequently while in store, because shopping has become so overwhelming and psychologically chaotic that, without the list, i'd completely forget EVERYTHING the minute i'm (finally) allowed through the store doors.

there are signs and tape and guidelines posted everywhere. "line up over here," "maintain a six-foot distance," "cashless payments only," "don't touch items and put them back," "now stand over here," "no, HERE"... and so on. hours are restricted. items are limited. shoppers are all wandering around anxiously -- some wearing masks and gloves, others not, everyone looking much more tense than they would have been, say, six months ago. occasionally, there's a sense of camaraderie when encountering someone else as you both wait to get in or check out -- "isn't this crazy? how long have you been waiting? oh, it's my turn! stay well!" -- but it feels like most people are now too nervous to engage with a stranger in the cereal aisle, even momentarily and from a safe distance.

huge swaths of store shelves are empty. did you need flour? tough luck. it's gone and it's been gone for weeks. want pasta? you have a 50/50 chance of it being in stock when you arrive. rice? nope! salt? maybe. eggs, milk, bread? so far,  no issues (knock on wood)... but if any of those things are on sale, you'd best get there early or risk going home empty-handed.

speaking of sales, i no longer have the desire to seek out the best deal. and, as a life-long frugal shopper, that's really tough for me. i LOVE a bargain. i love seeking out the lowest prices. in the past, i'd go to multiple stores to get specific items (on sale) at each: frozen fish at loblaws, sweet potatoes at sobey's, ice cream at longo's, shampoo at no frills... etc.

now, because i've grown to dread shopping, i choose the store that has the greatest number of sale items and just do all my shopping (for everything) there, higher prices on non-sale items be damned. i'm positive i'm spending more as a result (paying more than 99¢ for a package of pasta PAINS me), but after finishing at one store, the thought of having to repeat the process somewhere else is not at all appealing.

then there are the lines. lines to get in. lines at different counters. lines to pay. so much standing. yesterday, between two stores and four lines, i probably wound up standing in place for over an hour. (i should note that i did run into some neighbours in the parking lot of store #2, and wound up standing outside with them, chatting -- easily ten feet apart -- for an additional half hour.) i do not like standing in line. my lower back does not like me standing in line.

did i mention i don't enjoy grocery shopping right now?

and i'm not alone. no one, it seems, is enjoying grocery shopping anymore. after several weeks of staying at home and having YB or me do her shopping for her, and despite every medical and governmental official telling seniors to please stay at home for their own safety, my mother decided to suit up (mask and gloves) and do her own grocery shopping last weekend. we'd cautioned her that it was not like the shopping experience she knew -- things would be VERY different and decidedly unfun. she decided to go anyway.

so, she went. i encouraged her to please go during the dedicated "senior hours" so that she'd at least be spared the longest lines and most stressful shopping times. she agreed, did her shopping, got everything she wanted... and then said she wasn't going again until things were back to normal(ish). one trip was all it took to scare her straight. she did not enjoy it. at all.

who can blame her? it's not enjoyable. on the upside (?), it has served as a super-effective deterrent to me leaving home to shop.

this pandemic has sucked on multiple levels and for many reasons. but turning me into a giant stressball whenever i have to get milk or restock my juice supply has probably been one of the suckiest.

pardon me while i get the heating pad and some tylenol.

oh, fer... what fresh hell is this?

when i'm stressed, my body does weird things.

as previously discussed, my digestive system goes all wonky and behaves as though it's trying to kill me with pain. that's been a pretty reliable barometer of stress for me over the years. but then there are the seemingly random, bizarre, inexplicable side effects that have run the gamut.

during the height of my work-related stress a number of years ago, i had myriad ailments... all caused by stress. there were the oral mucoceles -- teeny-tiny little water-filled blisters (about the size of sesame seed) that would form on the roof of my mouth, way at the back, usually after i ate something salty (like chips) or zesty (like tomato sauce). with my tongue, i could feel them appear. there was no remedy or treatment save for patience: they'd arrive one at a time, then eventually vanish after a couple of days. then another would appear. and so on. i can't remember when it all began or when exactly it ended, but one day they just didn't show up anymore. and haven't since.

there was that area on my back -- middle of the left side, sort of around the kidney -- that would randomly go all pins-and-needles tingly, like when one of your extremities goes numb and then "wakes up." the tingliness would be fleeting, lasting less than a minute, and there was no rhyme or reason to when it would appear, though it seemed to pop up more often in the mornings. long story short: i had a bunch of tests, went to a neurologist and the best guess anyone had was that maybe i was momentarily irritating a nerve somehow.

those tingles also just went away one day. they still happen on occasion, but not very often.

then there was what my useless former family doctor (dr. textbook) misdiagnosed as ringworm (!). it was a rash on my left forearm, just below the elbow crease. it had started as one teeny red bump but eventually grew to be about two inches in diameter. i jokingly called it my "stress rash."

i nonetheless went to dr. textbook to get a proper diagnosis.

she took one look at it -- from across the room -- and told me i had ringworm.

what the WHAT?! how on earth did i ever contract ringworm????

i was panicked. if you don't know a lot about ringworm (as i didn't at the time), lemme tell you a few key facts: it's a fungus, it's very contagious and you basically have to wash everything you own in scalding hot water all of the time in order to kill it and prevent anyone else from catching it. you also have to apply fungicide to the affected area to kill what's already living on your skin.

so, dr. textbook prescribed a fungicide and off i went.

i applied it, washed all my clothes and bed linens in eight-thousand-degree water, and made sure to keep my arm malaria far away from anyone. i was nervous about sleeping over at YB's place, or even sitting in her living room in short sleeves, because i didn't want to infect her or larry (since cats can catch and spread ringworm, too).

for weeks, i was hyper-vigilant... and the rash kept growing. AND spreading! a similar rash appeared on my right forearm, then another patch near my right elbow. what the EFF?!?

i went back to dr. textbook, who seemed perplexed (shocker). she referred me to a dermatologist and said maybe it wasn't ringworm, after all. gee, YA THINK?!

while i waited for my appointment with the dermatologist, i consulted dr. google, who suggested (via multiple websites) that my rash might actually be eczema.

eczema requires moisture moisture moisture moisture. know what ringworm needs? to be DRIED OUT.

so, i started saturating all the rash spots with moisture -- specifically, coconut oil. and, very slowly, the rashes started to shrink and looked a lot less angry. by the time i saw the dermatologist, the rashes had improved dramatically. the dermatologist took one look at them and said, "that's not ringworm. it's eczema." (so, basically, i'd made them worse while following dr. textbook's guidance.) he said to keep doing what i'd been doing with the coconut oil, but to come back if the rashes were still there in a month.

they weren't.

and, knock on wood, they never recurred.

all this to say: when i'm under stress, my body often sends up attention-grabbing signal flares.

so it was that, earlier today after i'd finished lunch, i thought i had a piece of rice stuck under my tongue. i tried to maneuver it out *with* my tongue, to no avail, and then realized: what if it's not a piece of rice? i felt around with my finger -- there was a smooth round bump. i immediately went to the bathroom mirror, raised my tongue and there it was: a blister -- about the size of a small kernel of corn -- filled with blood.

fer cryin' out loud. where did THAT come from?!?! it wasn't there this morning, i don't remember "injuring" that spot in any way... argh.

i consulted dr. google, who informed me that blood blisters in the mouth aren't a big deal and will resolve on their own. and while reading the various reasons one might form -- among them, scraping your mouth with crunchy food, or undergoing chemotherapy -- there it was: stress.

and so i wait. ::: eyeroll :::

things i miss right now

• hugs... actually, human contact of any kind

• hanging out with YB and larry

• wandering through a shopping mall or a grocery store just to wander

• press screenings

• eating at a restaurant

• sunday lunch at my parents' house (and the dessert and the leftovers)

• planning for florida

• not feeling tense anytime i'm within ten feet of another human

• not immediately wanting to scream at other humans who are not at least ten feet apart from each other

• having my hair cut

• lobby or hallway chats with my neighbours

• turning on the TV and hearing about news that isn't virus-related

• work... routine... a schedule... normalcy.