I bought the Aquatalia Taylor bootie at the NAS and after an incident the other night, I am doubly, triply, quadruply glad I did. I don't know if these are still available anywhere, but if they are and you live in a rainy climate and do a fair bit of walking, I would HIGHLY recommend them.

I was en route home from a rural New Brunswick retreat with a writing friend. I flew into Montreal and trained from Montreal to Kingston. The weather in Montreal was glorious -- warm and sunny. By the time we got to Kingston I noticed a bit of rain, and thought I was very clever to switch out my leather jacket for my rain slicker before disembarking.

What I couldn't know what that this was the worst storm I'd ever seen! Lashings of rain (not to mention lightning, thunder, and high winds) and the rain coming down so fast that drainage systems could not handle it and the puddles were at least six inches deep. Even with 2 inch heels, I was walking in water up to my ankle bone and there was simply no way around it. You had to go through. And I did.

I couldn't sit in the station and wait before going to the car because just as I was getting on the train I'd had a text from my DD and a call from the school -- she was in a bit of an emergency situation -- and I needed to get home to her ASAP. (Things worked out okay; it was not a health related concern but an emotionally draining situation for her.)

Guess what? I was wearing the Taylors -- and they kept my feet completely dry!!!

I would not recommend that treatment, of course, but they seemed to recover just fine and were great yesterday in yet another downpour. Here's how they looked even though I was carrying an umbrella.