Zelda's Birthday

I receive a newsletter daily via email called the Writer’s Almanac which usually contains lots of interesting information about famous writers. In today’s edition, it was mentioned that it is the birth date of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, writer and tortured wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. When I read this, I knew what today’s blip would be, since I would be driving by the church cemetery where they are buried. I previously blipped about this in April.

From the Writer’s Almanac:

It's the birthday of Zelda Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama (1900). She met F. Scott Fitzgerald at one of the military dances where he was stationed in Montgomery. He stood out from the crowd, wearing his Brooks Brothers uniform and his cream-colored boots. Zelda said, "He smelled like new goods." He told her that she looked like the heroine in the novel he was writing.

They went on their first date on this day, her birthday, in 1918. Years later, in a letter to Scott, she wrote: "The night you gave me my birthday party ... you were a young Lieutenant and I was a fragrant phantom, wasn't I? And it was a radiant night, a night of soft conspiracy and the trees agreed that it was all going to be for the best."

Today there was an artificial peony beside the grave and on it, an empty nip of vodka.