Happy Birthday, Emelye!
Last Friday, Emelye and Murdoch drove in from Lincoln to celebrate Emelye’s 40th birthday.
I’d like to think I know something about great ways to turn 40. Thanks to JDR, I was laurelled on my 40th. So to me, turning 40 was a spectacular celebration, one very affirming of friendship, wisdom, and happiness.
Anyway, I was really delighted that Emelye was willing to share her birthday celebration with us. Her pick? We needed to celebrate by going down the Big Damn Slide at the City Museum. She picked the best of weekend s for her birthday; St. Louis was unseasonably lovely. Perfect temperatures for running around like kids.
It has been years and years since I’ve been to the City Museum, and it has expanded a lot. The outside rooftop park was a delight! I’ve never been on an old Ferris wheel on top of a downtown building before, for starters. And the slides-wow, the slides! The giant preying mantis was creepy for sure. And climbing up to the airplanes suspended above the building was exhilarating. The schoolbus hanging over the edge of the building was fairly full of teenagers looking for a dark spot, so wasn’t as scary as it could have been.
We started out the night with a fortifying dinner at Lemongrass. We were joined by Emelye’s dear friend from college, Matt; he’s a lot of fun! After dinner, we had really delicious gelato at a new place nearby the restaurant. I had hoped that Kasha and Ermenrich could meet up with us, but they were doing their SCA duty by helping out with a demo on campus at Kirksville first. They didn’t arrive in time for dinner with us, but they arrived in time to walk around the outside for 45 minutes, trying to find us. (Although I gave them cell phone numbers for Emelye and Murdoch, the phones were tucked safely away in the coat check. Ooops!!!) Their patience paid off, and they spotted us crawling around and called to us. Yay! The party got larger! And let’s face it, with both Murdoch and ermenrich , the entertainment value of the floor show shoots way up. J
The BDSlide is a 10-storey corkscrew slide that starts on the rooftop and ends on the first floor, dumping people out inside the cave complex. It was a blast! (The BDSlide is exactly 3 Hail Marys in duration.) And after 11 pm, the museum turns out (most of) the lights, and we’re left to fend for ourselves with flashlights. What a hoot! We played hard the whole time, and closed the place down at 1 am. (Not bad, considering it had been another 65-hr work week for me, and our usual wakeup time is 5:30.) It was the sheer adreneline rush that saved me. And the joy of being with such fun people!
Saturday, we slept in, then went to the Lomeir sculpture park. Confession time: I’d never been before. I always meant to, but never quite got around to it. It was a lovely day, so it was very pleasant to walk around, making up names for the various pieces of art. (Nuclear Holocaust was a favorite. Oh, wait-they all looked like that, well, except for the bubble poodle and the construction sites.) I have to confess that as art, it was a bit of a let down after the City Museum. The Museum had more art, and we got to climb on it. At the Sculpture Park, we didn’t get to slide down any of it, although many pieces looked like we could have.
We came back home for snack time and Guitar Hero. How does it get better than for a music laurel and her apprentices to spend quality time together on GH? Actually, we proved the point that musicians tend to suck at GH. pkelfin pointed out that it’s more like dancing than it is playing instruments.
Rested, we headed to Miss Saigon’s for dinner. We had a very large party: Elsbeth and Friedrich and kids joined us, and mmmm rats! The super cool art history teacher whose name I can’t remember right now. We had a table of 12, and I don’t know that we could have found more pleasant company. It was a lovely time!
After dinner we headed down to 55 and Lindburgh to go to a roller derby bout. My first! Emelye and Murdoch have been fans of the Lincoln team (No Coast Derby Girls), but I’ve certainly never been to a game before. I was filled with misconceptions.
It was the most fun I’ve had in ages! I don’t know if it was the merry mood, the good company, the plethora of people-watching options, the clever skater names/numbers. I was soooo far out of my normal element that I think it just pushed me over into the brink of sheer joy, in a wonky sort of way.
It was the championship bout between two local teams (St. Louis has four teams-who knew?): The M-80s and the Stunt Devils. I saw on their website that the M-80s have a player called the Overland Offender. Her number is 63114 (the Overland, MO, zip code). Brilliant! David and I are both from Overland, so how could we not cheer for her team?
The place was packed! Who knew? It was so packed, that, arriving late as we did, there were no chairs left. It was so crowded that there seemed to be more people standing than sitting. Barely any space to stand in the back. We arrived during a bout of men’s derby; frankly, they were kind of lame. I was beginning to think it had been a mistake to go. But then as the women’s bout was fixin’ to start, Emelye plopped down on the floor in front of the chairs (very close to the skate zone). We all joined her on the floor, and we had a spectacular time! The bout was very close the entire way through, which added to the fun. In the end, our team lost, but only by a few points. Also by the end, I was completely hooked. Here it is-a sport I care about. A sport I can sit through the entire game and be sad when it’s over. I’m already working on memorizing the names and numbers of favorite players. So this is what it’s like to be a sports fan…
But I’m not alone. David had a fantastic time, too. And I think pkelfin and ermenrich are hooked, too.
It was such a spectacularly fun weekend! What’s scary about birthdays? Absolutely nothing, if you know how to do it right!