“Top of the morning to you!” (I’ve been told that is an Irish greeting.) In return you say, “And the rest of the day to you!” (I’ll imagine you are saying it to me.) And then, on this particular day, I add, “And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”
I love St. Patrick’s Day. One of the reasons is that I added more joy to my life on this day by giving birth to my fifth daughter, Mariah. Another is that I have green eyes. On March 17th I purposely don’t wear any green so when I get pinched I show people my eyes and pinch them (softly, of course)back. In other words, there is a bit of mischievous leprechaun in me which is another reason I love St. Patrick’s Day. When the children were growing up I served them green foods all day long. Green milk. Green scrambled eggs. Green pancakes. Anything I could make green or that was already green, we ate. I loved listening to them complain, mostly because there was a bit of a chuckle in every complaint.
It isn’t just on St. Pat’s day that the leprechaun comes out in me, though. She's been with me so long I've named her the good Irish name, Síne, (pronounced SHEE-na and corresponds to the English name Jean which is the female equivalent of John). Sine is always in there dancing around in hopes of getting out. My favorite head covering while I was recovering from brain surgery was a black dou rag my daughter Patrea sent me. I also love my jaunty newsboy hat. I don’t think I’ll give either of them up even though I’m starting to appear in public without a head covering. There is something about both of these that encourages Sine to dance and makes me feel a wee bit mischievous in a good, happy sort of way.
So if you see an old lady wearing a dou rag, blame Sine. She's dancing.
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