Today we celebrate Mother’s Day! To all the moms in this world, thank you for watching, protecting, teaching us every day we are alive.

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Shoeblog fans, I am doing my patriotic duty. No, I haven’t joined the military or gone into international relations.

I’m serving jury duty. Yep. That favorite exciting American pastime.

OK, really it involves a lot of sitting around waiting for your name to be called, and I for one, am hoping to do something actually useful when that happens. But in the meantime, I’ve come prepared with my laptop and have caught some excellent shoes.

Yes, even for jury duty, New Yorkers put their best-shod foot forward. This time, it’s these adorable orange loafers.

You’ll have to excuse the poor quality of the photo. No recording devices are allowed into the court building, so this was with my cell phone’s camera, not the finest of precision instruments.

Offhand, I don’t recognize these, and the woman wearing them said they were a gift, so she doesn’t know where they came from. If you know who they’re by, feel free to jump in and say so in the comments. But no matter what company makes ‘em, these are some seriously cute shoes that uphold that dearest of values: “Liberty and justice and good footwear for all.”

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Spring has finally sprung here on the East Coast, but rain is on the way for this weekend.

And thus is inaugurated this year’s discussion of warm weather rain shoes.

Until now, I’ve been partial to the Kelly from Kate Spade, especially in this pretty chocolate/lemon color combo (which is only $116 at Zappos).

But another solution has just presented itself. SWIMS. Yes, that’s right. Like the watery sport. But these aren’t your typical water shoes.

No. SWIMS are Norwegian-designed galoshes like your grandpa used to wear in old man fuddy duddy fashion. But don’t think you’ll look like gramps when you slip these on over your cute but non-water-resistant footwear, because these are CUTE.

The women’s style comes in 5 colors (liquorish, pearl, bubble gum, chocolate, and lemon), and will keep your own shoes protected snugly and safely in the rain.

Of course, they won’t help with high heels, and they recommend going up a size if your shoes are super long and pointy in the toe. But this makes a great deal of sense, if you ask me. Instead of hunting down one pair of shoes to wear with your rainy day outfits, you can just slip these on and keep your shoes matched nicely with your outfit.

Pricewise, they’re not that terrible. The site (which ships internationally) has them for 75 Euro (at the moment, just under $120), which is about what you’d be paying for those cute Kate Spades up top. Only these can go with all your other shoes, too.

Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it.

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You have that special someone in your life–someone who loves the shoes, possibly as much as you do. She has a shoe collection the size of a small bedroom. You sometimes fantasize about this woman’s shoes. But clearly, you can’t buy her a pair for her birthday. The fit is too personal for you to assume to be able to buy a pair for her. But a gift card is way too impersonal, too. What to do?

Fortunately, you remember that she also likes clean shoes:

Mrs. BrusShoe, the happy shoe brush in the form of an iconic red stiletto, has a handsome price tag ($230–I know, I know), but it will surely make the shoe lover in your life pretty happy.

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Dear readers, I have officially come to the end of my shoe pictures from Japan.  And it’s only appropriate that that end be the most common trends of Shoes on the Street.  I have to say that while I envy the Japanese women (and men) some individual shoe styles, I don’t envy them their constant wearing of pointy-toed high heels.

Case in point, these two pairs.  Please note that both were observed on women who were clearly walking around Kyoto sightseeing.  Yes, that’s gravel in one and uneven stone steps in both.

Ouch!  My feet hurt just thinking about walking around in those shoes all day.

Same thing goes for these sandals, which I’d expect to see on someone’s feet for a night out on the town (a mainly seated night out on the town, if they were on my feet), but were also being worn around a park full of temples and shrines.

Apart from the heels thing, the other major trend (which I’ve already mentioned) on the feet and legs of Japanese women everywhere is decorative socks and stockings.  I bought myself a bunch of them, because they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and styles.  Here are a few in their natural habitats.

I was head over heels for this pair (and the shoes are nice, too), which reminded me in a major way of those John Galliano lacey socklets that I loved last year.

This pair is pretty basic black, but check out the embellishments on the shoes themselves.  A frilly sock on top of that would just be overkill.

And this last photo was a woman who was wearing black knee socks with a double frill of lace around the top edge (think garters), but what I loved about the shoes is that they’ve got a little click-clacking charm hanging down from the underside of the sole right at the heel.  If you look at the larger version, you can see it more clearly.

And there it is, Shoeblog readers out there.  Shoe photos of Japan brought to you by Jitterbugbaby.  I now return to my regularly scheduled Stateside shoe-scoping, and will keep my eyes open for fun international shoes only via the miracles of teh intarwebs.

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