Happy St. Patrick's Day

 Happy St. Patrick's Day

Today is a celebration of our Irish heritage. According to DNA analysis, I am about 40% Irish, and Ward is about 25% Irish. While I look the part with red hair and freckles, Ward doesn't with his black hair and olive skin. That's what is so interesting about genetics and our varied backgrounds. You're never sure what the almost infinite combination of genes will come up with. When I was younger and would lament to my mother, I wanted to be like one of my older sisters; my mother would always say how boring the world would be if we were all alike. She was right. 

Now to add a little more about St. Patrick's Day, I'm running an updated version of a post from three years ago.

  St. Patrick's Day This and That

Irish dancers in St. Patrick's Day Parade, Washington, D. C.

I usually don't do a lot to observe St. Patrick's Day except wear green--a habit that started in elementary school days to avoid being pinched. If you didn't wear green, you were fair game. I wondered how that crazy tradition got started and found out that, most likely, it was started by Irish immigrants in this country a couple hundred years ago. Supposedly, wearing green made you invisible to mischievous leprechauns who would pinch you if they could see you. A pinch from someone reminded you to be aware that a leprechaun could sneak up on you at any time.

However, it wasn't until last year that I learned about wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day. Apparently, you wear green if you are Catholic and orange if you are Protestant. A friend, whose mother is Irish, said she was always insistent that they wear orange instead of green on St. Patrick's Day. I think that detail was lost on most of us in this country, or at least me.

Shamrocks (white clover)

I learned another new thing this St. Patrick's Day--what a shamrock is. Sarah, my special buddy, gave me a shamrock plant for St. Patrick's Day. It was in a green pot from a store and labeled as a shamrock. However, it looked just like white clover to me and was not at all like my image of a shamrock. But I was surprised when I looked into it. While there is disagreement among the Irish about which clover variety is a shamrock, it is a clover plant. Yellow clover is what most agreed on, with white clover coming in second. I have a white clover plant. I'm not sure if I will let it join the rest of the clover in my yard or bring it inside. I may make it a house plant.

And while I usually don't do a lot on St. Patrick's Day (not green beer drinker or corned beef eater), I have been to a few parades. This was especially a big event when we lived in New Orleans. The fun part about a St. Patrick's Day parade was they threw vegetables from the floats to make an Irish stew. That means that they threw cabbages, carrots, potatoes, and onions along with the beads. We usually took them home and did just that--made a stew.

We've been to one parade here, and while it was enjoyable, it didn't quite live up to the vegetable throwing in New Orleans.

So as I go and figure out what green thing I'm going to wear today, I hope you have a Happy St. Patrick's Day, however big or small you choose to celebrate it.