I'm doing stupid things lately. Today's stupid thing was money related. It wasn't that I didn't have enough; it just wasn't in the right places, resulting in sizable NSF fees and a negative balance because I hadn't moved money into the joint account from my last paycheck. After brief spans of panic and frustration, I began the appropriate transfers and then started catching up on money figures.
I don't know why I can't seem to sit down and just work until I'm caught up on the bank accounts. I used to be better at it, but I keep getting distracted by everything under the sun. I'm going to make a concerted effort to update the books once a day from here out to avoid this. I think I'm going to try using some end of day checklists again; when I was doing that before, it was a huge help to me in terms of speeding up my mornings and helping me stay organized. I have also finally filled out my direct deposit form to change things around so that my contribution to Moiracoon's and my shared account will just go there by magic every time I get paid. Poof! You're a sandwich! Or something.
The other stupidity happened on my way into St. Louis from
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faeriecat's place on Monday morning. Due entirely to my own inattentive driving, I hit a curb pretty badly and put a big dent in one of my rims. I got the doughnut spare onto the car and filled it up with the portable compressor I keep in the trunk. Then I found that the compressor had drained the battery to the point where it wouldn't start. Great. I sat for about fifteen minutes, hoping beyond hope that enough charge would build up to turn the engine over, all the while looking up St. Louis police non-emergency numbers and other resources on my phone in case I had to call for help. Amazingly, after a wait, Igor actually started up for me. Awesome.
I drove to the sculpture park I was on my way to (that's where the giant eye lives) and wandered around there for a bit. First though, I found a local tire place on my phone and called them up to ask about repairs. They were able to find a salvage yard with a rim and gave me a time estimate to get it there, and a price estimate for repairs. So, I spent about half an hour wandering the park and taking pictures as I waited for the appointed time, then drove off to downtown St. Louis to the Firestone.
On a sidenote, adorations and blessings to the internet, and to mobile devices that can access it. Without them, I would have been really lost.
As it turned out, Firestone was crazy-busy, and couldn't get to me for a couple hours anyway. Well, no biggie; I used the time to wander the downtown area and take more pictures. It was so neat how many old factories and trading headquarters and old car dearlerships were in the area. Within just a couple blocks, I found buildings with plaques on them informing me that these were, at one point, showrooms for companies like Packard and Hudson, among others. One building had some of the most striking terra cotta details, including a car wheel with wings spreading out from the hub! So awesome! Companies just don't build things like that anymore. Not in the age of mass production; there's just not enough time and money to embellish things anymore. I was also amazed at how everything under the sun was being turned into lofts! I think I saw at least eight or ten loft complexes. Where do all these people work? And where do they eat? There was almost nowhere to get any food!
But I'll have more to write later about my brief impression of the character of St. Louis, along with some thoughts on cities in general. For now, onward.
I'd originally planned to see a few other things, like a giant show made of shoes, and a neat free museum with a three story tall rolling ball sculpture. (I
love watching rolling ball sculptures.) But having spent a few hours dealing with the car, I decided to move on to the riverfront and the Gateway Arch.
I shot all sorts of pictures of the arch, and I'm sure I'll be posting some more of them. It was pretty damned impressive. It stands 630 feet tall, and the legs are 630 feet apart. The middle of the arch, with its observation windows, towers far overhead as you stand on the grassy plain beneath it. The steel plating seems sometimes to be a matte greay and othertimes to pick up the sky or the sun like a mirror. Gorgeous.
I also explored the old court house to the west of the arch, at the western end of the grounds of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (the National Park Service managed area that centers on the arch). Though the courthouse was built, rebuilt, and remodeled through it's life, it sounds like most of it as it stands dates from about 1839. It's a beautiful old public building whose ornate dome, hand-carved and burnished woodwork, and mesmerizing symmetry enthralled me.
The building is open to the public and you can go as high as the fourth floor, and stand on small platforms near the level of the central dome, looking down into the open, circular atrium in the middle of the building. I was a happy dog as I wandered through old courtrooms filled with historical exhibits and climbed up and down majestic curving staircases. I want to see it again next time I'm in the area.
Part of the draw for me is the history of the building. Though it was never the site of auctions, the building is old enough that, as part of property and estate disbursements, slaves were sold on the steps of the building. It's also the courthouse that saw the first hearings in the Dred Scott trials, as well as the first case brought by a woman suing for the right to vote in the United States. The link to the past that the building represents is humbling.
From there, I moved on to another building I wanted to see; St. Louis Union Station. Constructed in 1894, the station was once the busiest and largest train station in the world, seeing 100,000 passengers a day in the 1940s. The famous
Dewey Defeats Truman photo from the '48 election was taken here.
Today, the building has been converted to a combination walking mall and hotel. The hotel lobby and lounge is in the space that once was the grand hall of the station. And it is stunning in every sense. The similarities to Grand Central in New York and Michigan Central in Detroit are unmistakable, though those two bear a much greater resemblance to each other than to Union, being by the same architect. But the grand barrel-vaulted hall and arched windows lining the upper reaches are very much like its cousins further east. Where it differs though is in its use of stained glass, elaborately painted terra cotta tiling above doorways and lining whole walls, and the very classical forms of robed women holding globes and braziers that elegantly function as both decor and as lighting. I'll have a bunch of pictures of the interior up later on; they're breathtaking reminders of what a great public space once looked like in this country.
So, from there I drove north along the Mississippi to the old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Part of Route 66 through about 1965, this narrow, two lane bridge was decommissioned and almost scrapped in the '70s It was saved when the bottom fell out of the scrap metal market. It was left to decay and became a scary place, with a widely publicized rape and murder happening there. It's been rehabbed and opened as a walking and biking path, with a once-a-year procession of vintage cars across the mile long span between Illinois and Missouri. The bridge's most distinctive feature is a 22 degree bend in the middle, allowing ships on the Mississippi to follow the currents more directly and avoid navigational problems slipping between the bridge pilings. It was neat, and I walked about halfway across it before turning back. This one I don't need to see again, but it was worth a visit.
And finally I was on the way home, stopping for gas in Jacksonville and Chinese buffet in Springfield. Prior to that, all I'd had to eat all day was a bagel and I was starving! I got home about twelve-thirty at night and fell into bed with the raccoon, who I then spent most of Tuesday with, taking a trip up to Racine for Chinese food from one of our favorite restaurants and some thrift storing (where she found me three packs of 8.5 x 11 high-gloss photo paper for two bucks a pack; score!). It was a lovely weekend, and I'm still happily content on the memories of it.
I missed talking about Sunday, but there wasn't a whole lot to tell. It was primarily spent hanging around the house with the folks of House Cthulu, just chatting, looking at pictures, eating nummy nummy pancakes courtesy of my hosts, and having dinner at Cracker Barrel for midwestern comfort and road-trip food at it's finest. They're all just an awesome bunch of people and I look forward to the next time I get to see them in person.
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*woofs* Still working on catching up on money, and submitting some expenses to work for internet and phone line and stuff. I've been putting this all off way too long, and I need to get my butt in gear and stay on top of things like this. But in the meantime, to go along with the rambling narrative above, here's a picture of the interior of the old courthouse dome. There's a bunch more stuff where this came from, so stay tuned.
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