Wednesday, the day before my birthday but a day the world still remembers and cherishes as the day both Richard Nixon and Elvis arrived to help to make being a Capricorn kind of lame, I was busy wondering if the $275 Cherbourg coat I’d tried on at J. Crew while Christmas shopping and looked like a million bucks in had yet gone on sale.
I do have a thing about coats. The other day Jack opened the hall closet and said, “When was the last time you wore any of these jackets?” and I flung myself in front of them and tearfully responded, “I wear them . . . ALL . . . THE . . . TIME!” Which of course I don’t. I live a pitifully jacket-free existence in this goddamned California climate. I jump at the chance to take the dogs out to pee at night, just so I can put on my heavy leather motorcycle jacket and revel in its breeze-blocking magnificence.
Occasionally, though, I try to cull the collection. A couple of years ago when I was unloading a lot of clothes to Goodwill, I e-mailed Maggie to see if she’d like to take a couple of my mother’s perfect and tasteful old coats. I only knew Maggie from her web site and I didn’t have a clue what size she wore, but she seemed like someone to whom I could entrust two beautiful, sentimental items, rather than just leaving them in a garbage bag on a loading dock for some boring needy person to look fantastic in and wear to her interview and totally get the job that changed her life.
Maggie e-mailed me back, saying that I had intuited correctly, she adored vintage coats but she had so many that she’d had to promise her husband that she wouldn’t accumulate any more until she’d gotten rid of an equal amount from her closet. It may have been a brilliantly diplomatic way of declining two items that weren’t to her taste, and that’s fine, ignorance is bliss, we’ve since become friends (and I eventually became the lucky recipient of one of Maggie’s fine cast-offs).
The point is, I wanted the damned J. Crew coat I’d tried on before Christmas. I checked online: it hadn’t gone on sale yet. I checked eBay: there was one going for $150 but it was three sizes too small. I Googled the coat (my god I must have been bored) and found a blogger who was announcing to the world that if you went to the J. Crew store you would find the coat for half price. Holy stem cell research, you should have seen me jump for the phone. I called, they had my size, they set it aside, I grabbed my Christmas money and the ugly bracelet I needed to return there, threw the dogs in the car, and discovered I was out of gas.
Eventually, with the return credit and my Christmas money, the coat cost me $30. I don’t know if I’d have bothered to write all this if it hadn’t. Surely there’s nothing more shameful than paying full price.
I wore it out to dinner last night with my red shoes. Jack wore a suit and Jackson wore a jacket and tie and ordered frog’s legs and escargot. As we were leaving Petit Valentien a guy unloading his backpack on a bench turned to watch us walk by, and then he said, “You guys don’t dress like Santa Barbara people. You three look great!” Which prompted Jack to say, “We need to go out more often.”
David Bowie shares the 8th as a birthday, too.
Bowie’s the 8th, Elivs and Nixon are the 9th, and me and Rod Stewart are the 10th. And Joan Jett, I think. Or is it Pat Benatar. I always get those two mixed up.
You could come visit me, and then you would need to wear all your coats at once, and you would still be weeping reflexively from the cold! I’m only thinking of your sartorial needs.
Spectacular. Happy Birthday!
And … nixon aside … Capricorns effin’ rule!
/dec31
Oh, I do love your new coat! Happy Birthday!
Score. Meanwhile, I spilled coffee down the front of my favorite coat this morning. May you have no such bad fortune.
Hey “tuckova,” I just laughed audibly by myself in the kitchen at your response.
Goddamn, I’m wearing a suit next time we go out to someplace even halfway fancy. My two suits are quite lonely.
That *is* an awesome coat. And happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
This coat was worth the effort.
Happy birthday!
I love the coat. You can never have too many. Speaking as one who just got 70% off of the red suede jacket I’ve been eyeing for two months. Yay for coats!
Happy day after your birthday! Your birthday is one day before my dad’s. But I’m sure you look much better in that fabulous coat than he would.
Er, sorry. That made no sense. I think I skipped class the day they taught segues in journalism school.
Your post about Jackson on the beach the other day made me wonder why I live in England. Of course! It’s not just the tea, it’s the COATS. Pea coats. Reefer jackets. Long swishy wool coats. Funnel-neck jackets. Coats coats coats. And brown leather booooots.
Thank you.
Did you get a picture of you looking fab in your new one? I salute you for nabbing such an incredible bargain, btw.
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Kennedy!
What do Santa Barbara people dress like?
Wow, that was quite a compliment that perfect stranger in Santa Barbara paid your family. Things sure are different in CA. Here in the Northeast we do need lots of coats but then people don’t really bother to stop and compliment each other on their attire. It’s more of a “Hey Lady, give me your purse” kind of culture out here.
Your coat is sunny yellow, just like your state.
My husband, for the rest of his life, will regret selling his Santa Barbara house to go to law school in Seattle.
He could unload it NOW and retire.
Durrr.
Angie
http://www.AllAdither.com
Happy, happy birthday!
I own one coat. I wore it to our outdoor New Year’s party before I got hot.
LOVE the coat.
Also, I personally volunteer to be the keeper of any future discarded coats you have. I love coats!
FABULOUS coat. Love it. And with the red shoes and such handsome and dapper escorts? I’m sure you were a vision.
BTW, I’m a (boring) Capricorn too. I share 12/28 with Denzel Washington, Sienna Miller and, I think, Herbert Hoover. BOR-ING.
Oh, that’s just gorgeous…and with red shoes? It’s just too much! I’m overwhelmed with style envy.
I have a thing for purses. Purses, bags, clutches, wristlets…I have purses coming out of my ass. I recently saw a guy selling knock-offs out of the back of a van and my husband wouldn’t pull over. I turned into the chick from The Excorcist, with the spinning head and pea soup vomit. He stopped.
See? You get me writing about purses and I forget everything else.
Happy Birthday!
That coat sure puts the “HAPPY” in Happy Birthday! There is no greater satisfaction for me than purchasing something at a ridiculously low price. Well, almost no greater satisfaction. Congratulations!
Jules
House of Jules
My son’s birthday is also on the 8th! He was one year old last Tuesday!
Happy birthday, Eden (and AJ and Elvis, et al)!
I’m pretty sure Elvis is the 8th and Nixon the 9th. (Because my brother is the 9th and I’ve always told him it’s a pity he shares his b-day with Nixon and not Elvis). but now I hear Dave Matthews is also the 9th.
What a steal…Congratulations on all fronts.
Damn that coat is hot.
Because you are tall and regal and beautiful, you probably looked stunning. I also LOVE those red shoes. Remember me when unloading shoes.
That coat IS HOT.
ALSO I am a lame Capricorn too. OH! Except for Donna Summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_31#Births
Happy Birthday! Great story. Sounds like the compliment was the icing on your cake.
Happy Birthday & congrats on the score. Sa-weet!
My birthday is Jan. 1. It always gets lumped in with X-mas, some years more than others. This year my MIL was determined not to forget it. So, while she hurriedly packed her things to leave on the 26th of Dec., shoved a $20 into my hands and said “Go get a manicure”.
Gee, thanks.
Holy coat porn, that is beautiful.
Jealous.
I could eat JCrew.
Hello and Happy Birthday to my fellow Capricorns!! I beg to differ and state we Cappies are far from lame. We can’t help it if we are wise and seem bored/boring.
I share my B/day with Diane Keaton, 1/5. I just had a baby boy on 12/27.
Viva la Capricorn!! Old souls who get younger every year….
They don’t call us randy old goats fer nothin’!!!!
Elvis was definately born on the 8th.
Happy belated birthday! That lining makes the coat all the more fabulous. Love it.
nothing beats finding something you’ve been wanting on sale. except maybe cutting into the price even more by returning something you don’t like. hope you had a lovely birthday.
Happy Birthday, fellow Cap!!! Mine’s next Friday.
Love, love, love the coat – though I’m afraid to wear yellow and could never pull it off, having no balls. The buttons are just stellar…. Now I want a new coat, and since I live in New England where it gets cold as hell, I have an excuse, right? Now to find some money and a coat to romance…
next time you have vintage coats to pass along, you just email this way there missy. how adorable is the red? adorable.
i wish to hell i could pull off a yellow coat. i was cast in a play once where the costumers put me in a bright yellow dress. the director literally howled that i looked like a giant lemon, and that they better do something about it. i’ve never traipsed through those waters again, believe you me.
p.s. there should be a picture of those shoes!
crap. i forgot to wish you a happy birthday. dagnamit. happy birthday!
I was just skipping around in blog land and landed here…..and saw the coat, now I need one, thanks!
And I live in Canada and will have to pay way too much plus shipping, my husband is going to kill me.
It is so fantastic though!!
That coat is amazing. I love love love the polka dot lining!
Did the CLASH ever play in Santa Barb? I suspect i saw them in Ventura as well as the DEAD played there, but wonder when Joe Strummers birthday is?
Midnight oil lead flew to the south pole this week too:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080111/lf_afp/australiaantarcticaaviationenvironment_080111061510
Super deliciously cute coat. Gawd, I love JCrew.
My mother is a Capricorn, and she is rigid, respectable, and Republican.
On the other hand, I used to go to an annual Aquarian party given by a bunch of excellent Aquariuses.
Suffice to say that when my ob/gyn wanted to induce my daughter, and I was offered a choice of dates, I went with January 21st to make her an Aquarian. Because I hoped that my daughter would want to party with me.
I had no idea you could be born in early to mid January without becoming a rigid, respectable Republican.
But now I’ve learned that Capricorns can be cool-ios who con J. Crew out of classy coats!
I’ve learned something today. I mean, other than the fact that I have a problem with alliteration. And for that, I thank you.
(Love the coat!)
Awwwww. Bossy loves any Bedtime Story that ends with “We need to go out more often.”
Jackets are the best!
Happy belated b’day!
I can’t think of a better compliment than ‘you guys don’t dress like Santa Barbara people’, except that it could apply to any person not wearing flip-flips at work.
Felicidades! Sweet coat. I too am a collector of vintage coats, Love the shade of yellow with the complementary buttons. Rock it out!
I dream about PV’s escargot. Happy belated b’day!