It's 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning at our local Starbucks, though it feels a lot like 8 seeing as how Daylight Saving (* that's Saving and not Savings, as I've been saying ever since I learned to speak English) Time is over and we've gained back that hour someone borrowed last spring. It's definitely the day after Halloween, though, and everyone's talking, about the various doings and dramas of their evenings, about tricks played and costumes worn, about plans for an even bigger bash next year.

So I'm doing the Sunday crossword in the NYT when suddenly the sound level takes a dip and there's this pair of shoes, third-date shoes, morning-after shoes, these-come-off-last shoes.

And then the line moves on and there's the dad and his kids:

And a tourist:

And a Malibu mom:

But it's the shoes that aren't headed for CostCo later on, the shoes that won't be running laps or running errands, those are the shoes that have everyone in the place thinking...something.