Erin Go Bragh

Top O the mornin To ya. Today, we will be talking about St. Patrick’s Day. It is a little late, I know; but better late than never right? St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday that has always been acknowledged in my family. It is, in general, a minor holiday and therefore not really celebrated by everybody. There isn’t really much to do in order to celebrate it anyway. Mostly these days it is just a drinking holiday. It is an excuse for people to get hammered at the bar and act silly. The holiday itself is a religious one, though not many people are aware of that. I myself never really knew it. This year, however, St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Sunday. I was surprised to learn that the parade in NYC, the largest in the country, was not to be held on the 17^th. Due to the nature of the holiday, the parade is held on the 17^th no matter the day unless it falls on a Sunday. In that case, it is held the previous Saturday so as not to conflict with any religious observances. This is because, as I have recently learned and just mentioned, the holiday is a religious one. It is known as the Feast of Saint Patrick within the Catholic Church.

                Today, as I said, it is known as a drinking holiday.  

This came about because it is a day in which the restrictions of Lent are lifted. That meant, at its start, that the Catholics could eat whatever and drink alcohol on this day even though the rules of Lent forbid it. As the way these things do, this evolved into the current form of celebration. That is why on the weekend of March 17^th you will find specials in most every bar. They offer whiskies, Irish car bombs, Guinness and green beer to anybody willing to be Irish. For as I’m sure you have heard, everybody is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Well, in my family we are actually Irish so it is a holiday of great celebration. As a child, we always went to the parades. Not only did we go watch the celebration of our heritage, we participated in the craziest of ways. It is normal for the kids to go a bit crazy with silly string, hair dye, and stickers. Yet in my family, my mother most of all, everybody got decked out for the parades. When I say decked out, I don’t just mean a green t-shirt and some cleverly placed stickers; I am talking dressed to the nines for this holiday. We had green shirts, green and/or shamrock pants, hair streaks, stickers, temporary tattoos, tattoo sleeves, painted nails, painted faces, green eye shadow, green gloves, green hats, green ties, pins/buttons, and so on. Everybody even stuck to Rolling Rock beer because it had a green bottle. And we would go and dance to the music of the parade and generally just celebrate being Irish. It was, and still is, a day of pride for my family; at least that side anyway since they are 100% Irish.

                These days, all the kids are older and we don’t really go to the parade together. The adults have calmed down and the kids are teens who can’t be bothered. But each member of my family makes corned beef and cabbage that day as a sort of tip of the cap to St. Patrick’s Day. I myself make it every year, even though corned beef isn’t Irish. In Ireland, they have a dish that is similar but it uses bacon instead of corned beef. The food of Ireland is rather rich and hearty. As Americans, people are often in the mindset of needing to eat lighter and so corned beef is a better choice than bacon. Though to be honest, it isn’t much better for you. It does, however taste good, so it is a meal I will not ever complain about. A delicious plate of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes or a nice corned beef sandwich on rye with a frothy pint of Guinness is just the thing to make you smile. While my Irish side of the family doesn’t really drink these days, and never really drank much Guinness, my father is a big Guinness fan. I have always thought it tasted bad but gave it another try recently since my palate has evolved. I must say, I do my Irish heritage proud because it is not as foul to me as it used to be. I enjoyed my pint and will probably have more in the future. So next year, I say go out at get some American St. Patrick’s Day food. Drink a pint or two of Guinness, dance like a leprechaun in the street at a parade. And have a merry time on St. Patrick’s Day with some four leaf clover luck. Stay tuned for more. Slainte. 

                      

 

Tears are Words the Heart Can't Say...

                Well ladies and gents, it looks as though I am going to repeat my round of posts from earlier this year. Not the exact posts; that would be silly. I am referring to the format. I will put up posts in rapid fire succession in order to catch you up on what I have missed. Technically there is no need for this since the posts will be about seemingly random things as opposed to events. However, I have a list of topics I just have to get off my chest. In fact, the first set of events will be broken down into multiple posts. In this post and more to come I will talk to you about the approximate third week of March. There was a major holiday, a revival of our themes, and a significant birthday. I will post about the first two next time, as they tie together. But first I want to tell you about March 13^th. It would have been my mother’s 46^th birthday. As some of you know, my mother passed away this past December. It was a hard time, but I had not really been overcome by grief or anything to that effect. Some may even say I had a lack of a reaction. It will not have been the first time I have heard that, nor will it be the last I am sure. I have learned that I deal with things in my own time. So when the death first occurred, I was there for everybody else but did not exactly mourn openly. Something shut off in my brain. The same cannot be said for her birthday.

                The week of her birthday, I became greatly depressed. If any of you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that is when my posts started abating again. I had many ideas for topics but could not seem to drum up the energy to actually write them out. I worked, came home and just sat on the couch. Then one night, I happened to be going through a box of pictures. I had received two boxes and ironically the box I had never seen before had no effect on me. For some reason, the box that I had gone through on a previous, though recent, occasion was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I lost it. I cried for hours. I can’t claim anything cliché such as I felt better afterward or that all my emotions came flooding out. I simply sat on the floor and cried. Then, I was exhausted so I gave up on the pictures (they are still unsorted) and went to bed. For the rest of the week, as well as the next one, I continued to be depressed. I made it through my days normally for the most part, I was simply too tired to make an effort with anything. Last week, I started to feel better. I will not say I am healed or that I don’t miss my mother. I am still grieving in my own odd way, and I miss her terribly at the most random of moments. But I am happier and trying to enjoy the little moments as much as possible. Therefore, I believe I am heading towards being ok, or at least as ok as I have ever been. (I’m a bit out there if you haven’t noticed)

                This was originally not supposed to be about me, but I believe it’s only fair to tell you all where I am at mentally. This post was just supposed to be about my mother. I have already written a post about her, and in the interest of not giving away too many pertinent details of my life, there isn’t really much more I can really say. Plus, I don’t think I am quite at a point where I can just flow information about her. It’s still a bit painful to think about. But I can say that the day was hard for everybody in my family. It was a sad day all around, and discussions of my mother were prevalent all day among many. As I said, she would have been 46 but she has been telling people she was 25 for as long as I can remember. It would have been the year we were 25 together. And her birthday was very close to one of her 3 favorite holidays. My mother loved Halloween because she enjoyed decorating our yard. She also went absolutely crazy for Christmas with decorations, music, gifts, and so on. But I think her most favorite holiday was St. Patrick’s Day. She was 100% Irish and loved to celebrate that. She went above and beyond with her outfits every year. She painted her nails, found green clothes, put temporary tattoos on her face or drew on it, got stickers for everywhere, dyed her hair (with sprays or something that washed out) and always wore her jacket covered in the pin collection her father started, which she continued over the years. For the past few years, I have had possession of that coat. But nothing ever stopped her from having a blast on St. Paddy’s Day. So this year’s day of the Irish had a sad undertone a bit. But next year it will be celebrated in her honor I’m sure. So here I will say a Happy Birthday (albeit at this point, a little late) to my mother. I hope she had a good one, wherever she was. And I will swear that my next post won’t be sad, so come back and read it soon. Until then…