Spinster: Happy Birthday to Me

The last day of September is not just the end of a month. It's the end of a year. My year. It's my birthday. And this year I celebrated it with the end of an era.

The fact that I celebrated, acknowledged the occasion at all, is a switch for me. I don't even call them birthdays. This year was the 11th anniversary of my 26th birthday. Why did I stop at 26? Well, the short version is that I sort of died inside, but I'll spare you all that woe and angst today. I tried to do something on my 27th, but all I remember is my sister disdainfully sneering at me when I said I didn't know where I wanted to go. (The fact that I hadn't lived in St. Louis for years, worked 5-6 nights a week, and my friends were living elsewhere at the time failed to meet her notice.) So that was the last time I asked her to go out with me for my birthday. How long do I plan to be 26? Until I stop getting carded. I don't mean the gesture kind, I mean the real thing. Last week at the grocery store the clerk really didn't believe that I could be old enough to buy vodka. She was genuinely surprised when she read my license. She said, "Sweetie, whatever you're doing, keep doing it." That ranks as a real "carding" and thus I am still 26. My friends and coworkers will swear to you that it must be true, since I stopped maturing at that age as well. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. Hey, I died!

Anyway, back to the end of an era. No, not the friggin stadium. I'm talking about something else that is downtown that will be going away very soon for the sake of something bigger and better. The Macy's people have bought out the Famous Barr people. The beautiful downtown Famous Barr store will soon no longer be the same. There's a story here....

I went to catholic schools in grade school and high school, which necessitated the annual "buying of the uniforms." When I was a kid, waaaaayyy back when, you had to go to the downtown store to buy them. It was a madhouse - kids everywhere, mothers tugging jumpers over the head of whiney girls, coddling little boys into trying on pants behind a rack because the dressing rooms were full. Evaluating schools based on how attractive or ugly their uniforms were was a favorite activity (which required running around each rack and making those decisions quickly, because mom wasn't "having any of it.") It was an adventure. Anyway, I was the oldest so my sister was usually spared this in getting my hand-me-downs, but I went through it every year. My grade school changed the uniforms for girls once they reached the 7th grade - jumpers were replaced with skirts. This was a Very. Big. Deal. That year sis was left at home and Mom and I went on our own. After the skirt buying there was lunch at Papa FaBarre's.

Back then they served a Turtle Soup (probably mock turtle, but even so, they don't make it anymore) that I loved. This was before my childish palate grew to appreciate the wonder that is Famous Barr's French Onion Soup. And that year I decided that I was grown up enough to eat something weird and well, grown up, on my sandwich. I had brown mustard. Guildens. I was hooked. So, after a very grown-up lunch and buying a very grown-up skirt uniform, we went for a walk downtown. Waaay back then there were flower stalls on the sidewalks. (You hear that, Mayor Slay? Remember those? Bring those back. And the Christmas Windows....) My mom bought me flowers. I still remember how that bunch of white mums smelled. It was one of the best days in my very young life.

So, when my parents asked what I wanted to do for my birthday this year, I took the day off and we went to lunch. We looked at the old exit signs, the kegs on the walls, the old dusty trophies on the bar, the ceiling fans still powered by belts, and most importantly the booths with the heavy velvet curtains that seemed so huge and mysterious when I was small.

(Yes, the pictures are a little blurry. I can't seem to hold my camera still. I'm probably dying of some horrible neurological disease and this is the first tell-tale sign, but I'm not going to think about that right now.)

After lunch we headed over to the City Museum. I've been trying to get my parents there for years. I, myself, haven't been there since before they added the Enchanted Caves, so I was looking forward to seeing new stuff. I was really afraid that it wouldn't be their thing, that they'd appreciate that it was cool and funky but just wasn't them. I even paid so that it wouldn't sting so much if they hated it. But they didn't hate it. They wandered in the architecture gallery for a long time, and chuckled over the shoestring factory. They appreciated the mosaics almost as much as I do. We saved the Enchanted Caves for last. They are very, very, very neato. And I got the best birthday present that I could have wanted inside. We were in the chamber with the dragons carved into the walls, and I was going through one portal when my dad said, "No, I don't want to go out! I want to go up!" He sounded like he was six. He was having fun. Fun. My dad. Pure, unadulterated, gleeful fun. I had to hide for a sec until I wasn't teary anymore. Now, don't get me wrong. My daddy is a funloving guy. But his kind of fun is usually mature fun - travel, photography, appreciating really great architecture. He loves holidays and gardening. He's very imaginative, but it stops just short of what I would call whimsical, which was why I wasn't sure they'd like the C.M. I was wrong. They loved it. I felt a pang when they said about 30 times how much fun it would be to bring kids there. They were speaking specifically of sis and I when we were small, but I still feel so badly that my life didn't work out so that they could have grandkids. They'd be the best grandparents on the planet. They are the best parents. So, happy birthday to me, and thanks, Mom and Dad, for everything.

Comments

First, happy belated birthday.

Also have to agree somewhat re: staying at 26 - I've decided that I'm going to be like Jack Benny. No matter how many birthdays I have from now own, I'll always be "29".

(It also helps that I have one of those boyish-looking faces).

Posted by: Gordon | October 07, 2005 at 06:41 AM