Zorionak Niretako!

Today I, Famous Hat, am celebrating the anniversary of my 29th birthday! As often happens on one's birthday, I was feeling slightly reflective and thought about my great-aunt Josephine. I never knew her, since my grandfather was the second-youngest of thirteen children while she was the second-oldest, and he did not marry young, so she was long dead by the time I came along. Grandpa always told me that I was "beautiful" and "the spittin' image" of his sister Josephine, so I was saying to T and Richard Bonomo over lunch that I imagined she was already a young woman by the time my grandfather was old enough to remember her, so she probably just dropped in now and then and brought him presents. T said maybe she was a flapper, so that really sent my imagination flying.

The place: Broad Channel, a small island in Jamaica Bay, Queens, New York. The time: The Roaring 20's. Josie, a young girl with a stylish blonde bob and a hat with elaborate feathers, is heading to the streets of Harlem, on her way to see Cab Calloway at the Cotton Club. As a small girl she was very poor, since her parents had just come over from Ireland, but Prohibition has been good to them. Her uncle Marty Ganigan has a cousin in Canada who meets him in Jamaica Bay with a boatload of booze, which he then sells in the city. Her father works at Tammany Hall for the city's Democratic machine. (Daley, eat your heart out!) So Josephine Mary O'Hat is now solidly middle-class, and after she goes out to the speakeasies with her girlfriends on Saturday night, she will meet her family for Mass and bring a small present to her baby brother Alfie, who is her particular favorite. After all, with her job she can afford to give him little trinkets.

How much of this is truth? Does it matter? As my grandfather would say, a good story is better than a true one. God rest his soul, he would have been 106 or so in a few days. We were very similar, being two Capricorns, but apparently I looked just like Josephine, so she must have been breathtakingly gorgeous.

Yesterday T and I made a pilgrimage to "Svedish Söperstår," the Swedish home furnishings store. Everything there was very cute and had little Swedish names, like you could buy a stuffed soccer ball named Sparka, a set of drawers called Andy, or his smaller brother Erik. My favorite thing about Svedish Söperstår is that, as you go down the escalator, your shopping cart can travel alongside you on the shopping cart escalator. There is even a cafe where you can get Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce, natch. Then we went to a Medieval-themed restaurant, let's call it the Middle Rages, on a whim when we saw the giant cement castle from the highway. I said I had always been curious about the Middle Rages, and T admitted she had too, so we entered the heavy wooden doors. The guy behind us in line said you were supposed to buy tickets online ahead of time, but when we got up to the front, not only did they sell us tickets, they even let me in free for my birthday! (Technically it was my birthday eve, but I pointed out that in the Middle Ages they were very into Eves, like Christmas Eve and Easter Eve.) I had brought in a couple sprigs of "lucky bamboo" (which is technically a dracaena) from Svedish Söperstår, and one of the characters from the Middle Rages said in an extravagant British accent (to sound as if he were from Medieval Spain, since that's how they talked back then), "She has brought her own plants." I said they were for my birthday, and he said, "Oh, that explains everything!" and every time he saw me, he made some comment about my birthday bamboo.

We actually upgraded to the Royal Treatment at the Middle Rages for a nominal fee, so we got front row seats to watch the "knights" fight with each other. Sparks literally flew during the swordplay, and lances shattered during the jousting. The horses were beautiful Andalucians, and one of them did a very cool dance in which he pranced, went sideways and backwards, and did fancy jumps, all to music. There was also a falconer who got his falcon to do tricks. T and I were put in the Medieval kingdom of Navarre, which seemed appropriate since I can speak (about five words of) Basque. There were no utensils, so we had to drink our soup out of bowls and tear our fowl apart with our bare hands. The authentic Medieval laser light show, rock music, and fog machine were nice touches. Dessert was "pastries of the castle," which were apple pies which looked suspiciously like those peddled by a well-known fast food restaurant. Meanwhile, vendors wandered the crowds selling Medieval light-up sticks. I asked our serving wench if she were a monkey wench or a crescent wench, but she just blinked at me and replied that she was a regular wench. She did, however, bring a cup of water for me to put the bamboo into. (In New Orleans I remember fondly walking into Jean Lafitte's with Nola the Papyrus, setting her on the counter, and saying, "I'll have a Hurricane and the plant will have a water," and the waitress complied cheerfully. Waitresses are, in my experience, very kind to plants. They are not disruptive, but I doubt if they are generous tippers.) We got commemorative paper crowns and "cheering banners" (Navarre is #1!), and I rescued a couple of commemorative plastic goblets shaped like horses which the people next to us had abandoned. When I saw the guy from in line and he said, "Good for you! You got in!" I told him that it was free for my birthday, and his jaw about hit the floor. I would highly recommend the Middle Rages for your next birthday if you are jonesin' for a truly authentic commercial Medieval experience. Just tell 'em Birthday Bamboo Lady sent you. (I did not go for the Knighting, a common birthday treat for an additional fee which gets you a commemorative photo of yourself being knighted by the King and a shout-out during the feast.)

Here is a little movie of Gertie and Eva, two girl robots who moonlight (or should I say sunlight since these are their day jobs?) as a bottle opener and a can opener, singing me happy birthday in both English and Basque. (The subject of this post should translate as "Happy birthday to me" in Basque if I am remembering correctly from my time in the Basque country back when I was twenty, nine years ago, give or take eight years.)

Famous Hat