During my recent trip to Las Vegas, we took a window shopping stroll through the Wynn, where my in-laws were staying. I was calm, cool, and collected until I saw this, and stopped dead in my flat, equestrian-chic boots:

Spellbound, I dropped Paul’s hand, and floated toward the open doors of this store, my eyes and mouth wide open. I may have stopped breathing.

“It’s, it’s…” I silently opened and closed my jaw, willing the words to form in my throat and come out. They didn’t. I lovingly fingered the stately black plaque on the wall, and peered around the corner.

The salesman looked at me, and smiled. I tripped into the store, breathless, and out came each and every word I had been trying to produce for the last minute. All at once:

“Ohmygosh! It’s—you’re—they’re! Manolo Blahniks! They’re so beaaauuuutifuuuul! Look! Oh, feathers! Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh! Could I, um, take a picture? Please!”

Too amused by my reverence to be concerned about the accompanying threat of hyperventilation, he kindly let me snap away to my heart’s content.

I was particularly fixated on these feathered beauties:

As I lingered over them lovingly, cooing, my brother-in-law Justin strolled in.

“Justin!” I gasped. “Look!”

Justin is an acclaimed jewelry designer in New York, and isn’t quite as bowled over by encounters of the exquisitely feathered kind as I am—such things are de rigueur in his beautifully decorated world, but he’s sweet enough to humor me.

“Wouldn’t they tickle your toes?” he asked.

I turned to face him.

“Honey—I haven’t felt my toes in years.”