on birthdays past

For my eighteenth birthday my Mom planned a trip for just the two of us to San Francisco^*. We flew up the night before, and I woke up on my birthday at The Stanford Court Hotel on Nob Hill. My Mom picked the hotel because I had my heart set on going to Stanford University.

I only remember tidbits from that trip. Some good, some not so. We took a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf and ended up having lunch at this Irish Pub. There was a large sign on the wall with a countdown to Saint Patrick's Day. It said there was one day left.

I have always hated my birthday falling on St. Patrick's Eve. The truth is I had been expected to be born on St. Patrick's Day, but arrived a few hours early and threw everything off. My parents had figured that if I was a boy I would be named Patrick, or Patricia if I were a girl. Growing up I remember my birthday party being morphed into this gigantic St. Paddy's Day party in which all of my adult relatives showed up and got drunk. The only reminder that the party had initially been planned to celebrate my birthday was a bright kelly green cake of some sort that I would be forced to blow out the candles after a drunk round of the happy birthday song.

Later we met up with my Mom's good friend and her husband. They drove us to Stanford for a "tour". We literally drove around the campus for about 10 minutes. We didn't get out of the car. What did they know about university tours? No one in the car had ever been to college (my Mom took a few classes at Chico State and Santa Monica Community College, but hadn't gone through the whole admission game). Still, I appreciated the effort.

I still have moments where I wish I would have been more intelligent in playing the college admissions game. Like most teenagers though, I thought I knew it all. To be fair it probably didn't help that my school's guidance counselor was a joke, a well dressed one, but still someone who had no business in the position. I read what I could, but still there wasn't much information on how to package yourself when your father had a fifth grade education, your mother had a GED, you attended more than 8 schools, including two high schools, and your sister had been disowned. But that is all water under the bridge at this point.

Another thing I remember about the trip was that my crazy Aunt Cookie had a bouquet of flowers sent to me at the hotel. They were really beautiful and a lovely surprise. I wanted to take them home with me, and I remember my Mom being very upset with me that I didn't offer them to her friend. The whole incident was a bit weird. In the end I managed to get a flight attendant to stow them for me, and felt guilty most of the ride back to LAX.

Overall it was a bittersweet trip. In some way I think it was my Mom's way of saying goodbye. She had always threatened that on my 18th birthday I would arrive home to find my things packed and sitting on the doorstep. Part of me believed her, and I remember feeling quite anxious on the days leading up to my birthday fearing that I would come home and find my stuff on the front porch. Thankfully she didn't act on that threat.

My Mom really loved the city of San Francisco and visited every opportunity she got. Eventually she moved there and lived her final days in a boarding house in the Haight and then a tiny place in what is now the hip SoMo district. It is hard not to be in the City and not think of my Mom.

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^*At this point my sister had been sent to the east coast to live with my father's mother. Still it wasn't uncommon for my Mom to invite her sister, my Crazy Aunt Cookie, along on these sorts of trips. It was a very big deal that it was just the two of us.

on the night stand :: Momzillas