Coffee Break: Danby Loafer
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This “travel loafer” from Cole Haan is getting rave reviews — and some colors just went on sale.
I like that the shoes are lightweight but cushioned, and reviewers are singing the praises of them for comfort.
The shoe is $150 full price, with some colors marked down 33%. You can find them at Nordstrom, as well as Zappos (love that light green), and Cole Haan.
(Psst – I've noticed a trend with travel shoes — should we do a roundup? The Vionic Uptown collection and the Tory Burch ballet flat come to mind. We have of course rounded up foldable flats in the past.)
Sales of note for 5/15:
- Nordstrom – 3800+ items in “new markdowns” — I kind of wonder if they've started marking down stuff for their Half-Yearly sale that usually starts the week before Memorial Day. Good deals on Veronica Beard, Vince, Reiss (esp. coats), as well as Wit & Wisdom and NYDJ
- Alexis Bittar – Vault sale! 100s of re-issued archival styles up to 70% off, plus 25% off all full-price styles too
- Ann Taylor – Extra 40% off sale
- Boden – Up to 50% off with new styles added
- J.Crew – 40% off your purchase and 50% off dresses
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 50% off clearance + extra 20% off orders over $125
- Lands' End – Up to 60% off sitewide + extra 60% off sale and clearance
- Loft – 50% off your purchase, and 5/15 only: take 60% off the LOFT Versa collection
- Mango – Weekend exclusive, 30% off everything, and free shipping with $260+
- M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Supergoop – 20% off sitewide + free Glow Stick (also, free shipping with $50+)
- Talbots – Extra 40% +15% off all markdowns, plus Summer Fridays One Day Sale (5/15), $19.50 pocket tees and $29.50 relaxed chino shorts.
- Theory – 25% off sitewide
- TOCCIN – 30% off select items with code! (You can't stack codes, but on full price items try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off!)
- Vivrelle – Looking to own less stuff but still try trends? Use code CORPORETTE for a free month, and borrow high-end designer clothes and bags!
We’re planning on going to Japan in 2027, I’m estimating about $25k for the 4 of us for 2-3 weeks. We’re currently on Chase Preferred… should I sign up for Chase Reserve instead? We don’t travel a lot for business so it’s mostly just the Chase points to consider (to date about 240k).
What are you hoping to use points on? Airline tickets? Hotels? The time to book travel for early 2027 is now, so you don’t have a ton of time to accrue points. Generally I feel like the Reserve isn’t worth the annual fee unless you’re going to take advantage of a lot of the perks like the airline lounge access and the luxury hotel credits.
we’re thinking june 2027 (i know it’s going to be hot but kids are out of school then) – should i be looking now? yikes
If you’re wanting to travel on airline points, generally the best times to book are right when the flights go on sale or very last minute. The flights go on sale about 11 months out, so it’s not quite time to book for June 2027 yet but it’s coming soon. The very best deals are often last minute (like days before the flight) but that requires a lot of flexibility and has always been too stressful for me to do, especially with kids.
An acquaintance of mine joined an AI company early and her equity is likely worth somewhere around $30-50 million. For some reason, this is making me feel really bad about myself. Does anyone have advice for not getting into the comparison trap?
If you’re in the ballpark of comparing yourself to her you’re doing awesome! That is so far from my own frame of reference I couldn’t even think to compare.
yeah I don’t know if this is good or bad but it wouldn’t even really occur to me to compare because my life is so different. Especially if that person was just an acquaintance. I could see struggling with jealousy if a close friend or sibling got that kind of wealth suddenly but for an acquaintance I truthfully don’t think I would even think twice about it.
People join ICE, mercenary companies, and drug cartels for the money, too, but they don’t make me feel bad about myself.
+1
+1
I hate AI but I feel like this comparison is maybe sliiiightly unfair.
I like Lake Tahoe so disagree. AI is an environmental disaster for limited benefit.
Okay, some drug cartels actually do provide goods and services that benefit their community.
Some? Old-school ones? The mob used to at least keep order, sort of as a shadow government.
Now it’s just chaos. No impulse control.
This.
That sort of thing at that scale seems more like luck to me. It’s like some real estate transactions – there was a guest who was a real estate market analyst on the podcast Odd Lots and he said that a lot of individuals are just in the right place at the right time and got lucky. I actually knew academics who worked in AI in the mid-80s and retired with quite a bit of money, but not in the millionaire level because it was too early. I wouldn’t feel bad about myself if a friend won the lottery or put $1000 as a throwaway investment in bitcoin when it first came out, even if I might feel a bit of envy about the resulting lifestyle upgrades, but that doesn’t seem what you are describing. So thinking about it like a stroke of luck?
Yup. I used to live in the Bay Area. Start-ups are essentially gambling. For every person who makes tens of millions in an acquisition, there are hundreds more whose startups failed and who now have to start over basically from scratch. It’s great for those who succeed but I don’t really view it differently than winning the lottery. It’s “good for them, not for me.” I’m way too risk averse.
Also I’m not sure where you live, but it if it’s anywhere at all techy there are probably literal billionaires in your orbit so at some point you’ve gotta just make peace with coming into contact absurd wealth. I left the Bay but enjoy the stories from my friends who still live there about the five figure birthday parties for 3 year olds.
Look closer at what is making up the “For Some Reason” and use that to move beyond the bad feelings.
Or, join an AI company early and see how it works out.
Those are basically the two choices for moving forward. Option 3 is to stay feeling bad, so that one is suboptimal.
i have a friend who worked for uber eats. i try to remember that most things in life aren’t scarce. like her walking into life changing amount of stock ops has nothing to do with how much i make or how successful i am. also think it’s helpful to remember that i would never think less of a friend who was less financially well off than me so….
I was so confused thinking you meant your friend drove around delivering food.
no i mean came into millions of dollars in stock ops
same! I think normally you’d describe someone who works in corporate as working at Uber since Uber Eats is under the Uber umbrella.
Many startups also fail so it means you have to be a personality type who deals well in high risk and maybe high reward scenarios. I don’t particularly like that much risk so probably wouldn’t weather those kinds of environments well.
I do my own really cool stuff that I get paid nothing for and wouldn’t be able to do if I worked for an evil company that owned my soul and all of my time.
I also remind myself that the money is not actually real until she sells the options. How many people sell at the right time?
Yeah; this can be a hard one. A former colleague is this person except from a prior tech wave. I think it’s time to own your own decisions. I am very risk averse and went with a different path. No major upside but no major downside and that is the best thing for me. Be happy for her that it worked out!
More than once in my life, I have felt envious of another person only to later learn that their apparent good fortune was precarious at best, or a result of illegal activity at worst.
The comparison trap is entirely human. It hits harder for acquaintances because you don’t see the daily grind that it took to get there and it comes out of the blue. Like, you are along for the ride of your closer friends writing a book, but when one of your university classmates ends up on the best seller list, it comes out of the blue. For me, my sister will always sit me down and list all the reasons why I am a bada$$ when I’m down on myself.
Would love to hear your experiences with using a low dose testosterone cream in perimenopause. Did you notice a change, and if so, what was the change? Positive? Bad side effects? My doc has offered to prescribe a low does cream through a compounded pharmacy. I’m 47, my symptoms are fatigue, zero libido, zero motivation, lots of anxiety. She says at a low dose her patients typically don’t see side effects like hair loss and acne, but of course it’s always possible. I’m already on progesterone, and tried estrogen but that made me feel so much worse so I’m holding off on adding it back for a bit (it may be that it was swinging so wildly in peri that I ended up with too high values by adding the patch).
Wouldn’t it be simpler to have a cup of coffee or a stiff drink, depending on the activity need? I feel that 50+ is where the polypharmacy risk begins.
Yes and 1000% better on fatigue and brain fog. The only way I can explain it to people is that I went back to feeling like my brain was working again. It hasn’t helped my libido though, and I take a higher dose than the starting dose for many women which is a tube of gel for 10 days. You typically have to have your hormones tested regularly for testosterone, and I’ve never been wildly out of range for normal for women so no side effects.
Those symptoms are so far from specific, I’m not sure why I’d even think they were perimenopause and not something else. I guess I’d want to try some other things first that I consider less risky, if not more work up.
I saw a person who posted on IG that she had Stacy London (from What Not to Wear) come over. She tried on everything (including shoes) from her closet and it seemed to work well as a honest second set of eyes and a way of rediscovering how to make outfits and shop your closet.
If I were rich, I’d want that also. I don’t have that candid friend with style and the ability to pair things like that. Has anyone found this sort of thing IRL?
40+ body flux just has me stumped and there is nothing good in stores anymore beyond just the of-necessity replacing basic work pants and jeans in current size/cuts.
One thing I also notice as 40+ is that I am old enough now that I wore most of the current styles when they were current before, so I want something that is fresh to me. But am having a hard time finding things i respond to.
All to say, i feel your pain.
You might like checking out Kim France’s blog, Girl of a Certain Age. https://kimfrance.substack.com/ She posts lots of shopping round ups, and she is i think in her late 50s? Some nice options there, even if there’s only a 15% crossover for my body type, i get ideas there for sure.
Another one I like for finding new brands is The Stripe, https://thestripe.com/ she does a great weekend roundup and I’ve found nice brands from there, even though again it is only a small crossover of stuff that would work for me directly.
Also, JoLynne Shane https://jolynneshane.com/ does try-ons, which is helpful. It is a fair amount of jeans + tops, but also some dressier pants and outfits. https://jolynneshane.com/
do you see Tamsen Fadal at all in your social media feeds? she just had a reel where she and a stylist went through her closet… i think this is a common service but maybe i’m wrong.
ok i just checked her instagram she also had stacy london come over in addition to her stylist https://www.instagram.com/tamsenfadal/reel/DYFSFvOycPt/
A blogger I follow uses someone for this service in Dallas, so they exist! (The blog is Lag Liv. I think she tags the person in Instagram posts.)
I think it’s time you looked for a different mix of stores. If you post your shape people can give you some good ideas on where to shop. I also check Veronica Beard every season. Those pieces don’t fit me, but the styling gives me great ideas.
I have an IRL friend who’s an online stylist who does some of that – just helping you update, refreshing what you have and deciding what pieces don’t serve you anymore. She’s a normal person who buys Old Navy for her kids and Nordstrom brands for herself and everywhere in between. WhereLifeMeetsStyle.co is her IG.
Isn’t this what a personal stylist does?
I’ve actually had Angie from You Look Fab come and do that for/with me, and it was as amazing as you’d expect.
To continue the eldercare/aging conversations from this morning and yesterday: We are currently going through an eldercare situation in my family, and toxic positivity is costing our elderly person a lot in terms of quality of life. Our person is 91 and has recently been in and out of the hospital with various issues. Their mobility has precipitously declined, and it’s obvious that they are entering a new chapter. Our person, their spouse, and some of their children seem to be delusionally positive. After each hospitalization, the crisis has miraculously passed and everything has returned to normal! Let’s just bring our person home and let them pretend that they can safely live in their home with very little assistance, almost no PT, zero OT, no grab bars, no mobility aids, etc. Then everyone is surprised and dismayed when two weeks later they fall and end up in the hospital again.
No one will listen to me when I say that we need to confront our person with the reality that life is changing, ask them what their priorities and desires are, and then put in place services and modifications so they can live the best life possible given the circumstances. (Our person has plenty of money and insurance to pay for these things.) I suppose one could argue that our person is getting exactly what they want, which is denial. But I suspect that the denial is born from a true desire for dignity, and the denial is working directly against dignity.
When I hit that point I sure hope that my family will have the courage not to go along with denial, and will strive to help me continue to live the best life possible.
That sounds rough. Is there an adult or elder care social worker you could pull in to help navigate this?
We are trying with the hospital case worker on discharge planning this time around. The point of my post was really to warn against toxic positivity and denial when it comes to eldercare planning.
You don’t say where you fit in here. Are you a grandchild? An in-law? If you believe this denial is borne out of a misguided desire for dignity, I think you can say something privately to the person and their spouse once about how things could be different with additional supports. After that one time, don’t say anything else – you’ve said your peace.
We are going through the same thing with my family. With the fact that it is very much a know your family situation, two things worked for us. First, taking each grandparent out and talking to them separately. Key is whoever does this needs to be direct on the questions. In our case, grandma was completely clear on what was going on with grandpa, and was willing to answer the tough questions (e.g., I know I don’t have long with him, I don’t want to fight with him over a walker). Second, encourage the delusional ones to really spend time with the grandparents – preferably, as a sleep over at their house. Turns out actually seeing the condition of the shower really helped move the needle.
Does she have any friends she likes and respects who rely on mobility aids, etc.? Can she get recommendations for the best PT or OT from people she knows? I realize at that age she may literally not have friends who can support her. I don’t know if any of the health issues she’s facing are the kind that come with support groups.
In any circumstances, it can be really hard to feel like you’re entering the category of people who have special needs and who often get looked down on for it. It is almost ludicrous the lengths many young people will go to just to avoid using mobility aids, and then when they finally come around and are forced to try them, they realize how much sooner they could have been benefiting. I’m sure there’s only more denial when it’s an end of life decline.
Let’s say your grandmother co-signed your student loans because your parents refused. You are current on the loan. When happens if she dies? Do I just keep paying and the lender loses another person to go after if I stop paying? Or do I have to refi or pay it off?
I would just keep paying. How would they even know she died? Easier to keep it a secret
What exactly makes a loafer a “travel loafer”?
Do I need to know anything about having an interview recorded with BrightHire? I think I’m fine with it – just recording it so they can review it later – but the email from BrightHire says it’s good for DEI (“promotes equitable hiring”) and that made me think it’s more than just recording software.
Why would an interview be recorded if a human were actually going to watch it?
More than once in my life, I have felt envious of another person only to later learn that their apparent good fortune was precarious at best, or a result of illegal activity at worst.
Parents of older kids: if you live in an area where graduation parties and open houses are a thing, where did you host it? Your own home? A party room? Many people in my part of the Midwest host at their houses, though the party room option is becoming more popular. There aren’t many of them, though.
I’m about 1 year out from making this decision. We have a great backyard that would be perfect for a graduation party, but the weather is always an unpredictable wild card. Also, the idea of having people coming in and out of my house does not fill me with great joy. (We host family get-togethers pretty frequently but a graduation party feels more daunting.) Party rooms are hit or miss — in my observation, the atmosphere isn’t conducive to people staying very long, which is both good and bad.
I don’t think we’re going to be the family who invites the entire neighborhood, tbh.