Book of Days

It is said we’re all a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. To be sure, it is the one day each year that my Italian-American family bakes soda bread and eats corned beef and cabbage, though there is not a drop of Irish blood flowing in our veins. I know traditionally “bangers and mash” would be more appropriate than corned beef and cabbage, or shepherd’s pie, perhaps, but the St. Patrick’s Day I grew up with is one that was focused on making cutouts of leprechauns’ hats and pipes out of green construction paper at school. I remember also green milkshakes at McDonald’s, though I never had one. And stories of entire rivers dyed green. In other words, the St. Patrick’s Day I grew up with is one of American traditions.

A big part of that is the wearing o’ the green, and I’m seeing a lot of it out there today. Me, I’m wearing a gingham checked green shirt today, subtle enough, but then there are my socks: bright kelly green. Why not? It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and bright green socks make me so much happier than brown or blue or grey ones.

Since St. Pat’s falls in this year in the middle of the week, we’ve already had our corned beef and cabbage with the whole family at Sunday dinner, but there are leftovers for tonight. At dinner, Mom asked what she always asks about soda bread: “Why do we have to have this just once a year?” She also asks that about Pan de Muertos at Day of the Dead, but still, these are the things we do, and it makes each day as special as it is, and perhaps my sister Marietta’s soda bread, speckled with plump raisins, wouldn’t be as special if she didn’t ask that question each time.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to us all!

Last time I went to visit my Aunt Anne, she gave me a bag full of my Uncle Joe’s socks. A lot of them were pretty bright, but that’s how my Uncle Joe liked to dress. I tend toward more subtlety in dress… but sometimes I like to channel Uncle Joe and walk in his footsteps.