The Wearing o' the Green

[gerisullivan]

When I was in high school, I used to explain that I didn't have to go out of my way to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. Green eyes, don'cha know?

Today, I wore a gold Claddagh pendant with an emerald chip, just a touch of green to complement my eyes. I bought the pendant during one of my visits to Walter and Madeleine Willis and James and Peggy White in Northern Ireland. I even spent Saint Patrick's Day there 16 years ago. Madeleine, the fabled cook of Irish Fandom, handed me the menu for our traditional Saint Patrick's Day dinner. I chuckled along with her; we were having take-away pizza. She and Walter gave me the honor of choosing the toppings.

I was too cautious, or perhaps I just had a healthy respect for our stomachs -- I didn't order the peaches. They weren't a side dish; they were one of the topping options. I've wondered about those peaches ever since. The pizza might have been really good. It could have just as easily been utterly awful. If I ever get back to Donaghadee, you can bet I'm going to go looking for that take-away pizza place.

This year, I spent St. Patrick's Day in Boston. Not for the holiday festivities, but for a spring break jaunt to the really quite splendid Museum of Science with debgeisler. She and benveniste invited me over on Sunday to share in an even more splendid (and utterly delicious) sauerbrauten feast. Complete with cherry almond rice pudding for afters. The plan included my staying over and then heading off to the museum a few hours after Mike headed off to work.

Thanks to my usual "have laptop, will travel" mode, I even managed to put the finishing touches on a large project I've been working on since mid-January. It wasn't due until Wednesday, but I happily sent it off to the client just before Deb and I went to the museum.

The gigantic inflatable dinosaur on the roof was a good start. So was the fact that my Mount Washington Observatory membership card served for admission to the exhibit halls. Excellent hands-on activities in the map exhibit. Then we looked at models until it was time to go to the Butterfly Garden. Deb picked up two passes as part of her membership benefits. Flowers. Heat. Humidity. And butterflies. Hundreds of butterflies! Afterwards, more excellence in the gallery of optical illusions. I've seen a lot along those lines over the years, but I had to stop looking before reaching the last of these. Who, me, vertigo? Huh.

Hands, hearts, brains, and cotton-top tamarinds. The lunch, and more wandering about. Lots more. Lookit this. Lookit! Neat! They even had two PEZ dispensers in the fads exhibit. Garfield and Snoopy -- not the oldest, not the newest. Fun.

We were on our way out when we found the Virtual Aquarium:

Geri: Why are my Phil's scattering? I didn't tell them to scatter.
Deb: 'Cause I told my Sharkies they were hungry. Watch.

I watched, all right. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. At least four of my fish didn't scatter anywhere near quickly enough.

Ah, the advantage of going on a school day, and one with no field trips in sight. There were rarely any waits for the hands-on exhibits and our inner 12-year-olds had a mighty fine time.

We didn't see everything, and I'll also be glad to return to the exhibits we did visit. Great place. Their outdoor rock garden appears to have miniatures of famous rocks from around the world. I'd never before looked at the Giant's Causeway and thought cute!

On my way home, a cop pulled me over in Sturbridge. One of my headlights is out. Headlights sure are different than they used to be -- in previous cars, I could tell when only one headlight was working. One headlight on the Matrix illuminates the road and both shoulders. No ticket, but one more thing to deal with before driving again at night. My watch stopped running Monday, too. Hmmm.....

The right kind of luck o' the Irish returned when looked through the mail. Two checks! Both were for invoices billed fewer than 21 days ago. Yay! Of course, the mail also brought too many bills....

And so goes my life. Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine. And I think I will sleep well tonight....

Comments

[drplokta]

But it wasn't St Patrick's Day yesterday. Saints' days are cancelled if they fall in Holy Week (except that in Ireland, the church moved St Patrick's day to Saturday the 15th for this year only).

[ckd]

Oooh, sauerbrauten. Now I'm hungry and it's not nearly lunchtime. I'm jealous.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, that might explain why when I walked into the Big Time Brewpub on Saturday, all the St Patrick's Day decorations were up. Wouldn't explain why no one else was there, however.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

It depends on where you are. We still had St. Patrick's day here (California). However, March 19 is the feast of Saint Joseph, patron saint of our diocese (diocese of San Jose), so that feast has been moved.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Not only was it sauerbraten, it was fantastic sauerbraten. Deb described it as "a pot roast that takes five days to make." The beef was incredible, and the gravy even more so.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

It was great fun to go museum-ing with you. :-) We were two 12-year-olds, disguised as middle-aged women.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Finestkind recipe, from a classic Vincent Price cookbook that was, apparently, reprinted in 1995. (My copy was from the original 1965 printing.) The recipe was from New York's famous Luchow's restaurant, which alas closed in 1982.