A Toast to the Irish

It is after 9pm. It is only a few moments ago that I remembered it was St. Patrick's day. And that was thanks to Larry.

I had spent the last 36 hours running around after a 2+ year old toddler whose nose was constantly running and creating a mess on her face, on her hands, on everything she touched.........snot gives a better gloss than my Japan dryer and some of the sealants I use in my art work.

I did manage to get some laundry done, and a little cooking, but for the most part I was in high gear soothing, entertaining, wiping, and laughing with my own little leprauchaun. After she left at noon, I locked myself in the back room and worked for 8 hours solid on the taxes. My NY state sales taxes for the year are due monday, and at the end of the week I have an appointment with my accountant for the "other" taxes. If I get all the work done this weekend, it will be the first time in 10 years that I have gotten a tax return done on time. At one point I was two years behind, and had maxed out my extensions.

All day I was envisioning numbers flying around the room, forming nooses, making waves, zooming in my eyes, ears, and flying out of some other orifice. I listened to the Kate Bush song PI and the words to the song wrapped inside of my head....
"Sweet and gentle sensitive man
With an obsessive nature
and deep fascination For numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation Of PI
Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
3.1415926535 897932 3846 264 338 3279 "

(from her latest FAB double Cd "Aerial")

After 8 hours of daydreaming, numbers, calculating and sorting, I developed a migrane. I barely managed to eat dinner that Larry made, and went upstairs to get a sweater to wrap myself up in as I was cold. On my dresser was a card and a few gifts, and I smiled, remembering that it is my name day, and that in spite of the craziness and difficulties of our life these days, and a major snow storm, that Larry had not forgotten this strange little day that he celebrates with me.

I was supposed to be a Patrick, and was therefore named after the great patron saint of Ireland. As luck would have it, I was missing an essential element to fill the part, and I was forever a Patricia Ann. Each St. Patrick's day I would get a perfunctory reminder of my sex, and I could never fill the role of a boy in my father's eyes, even though I played football, shot a gun better than any of the country boys, and had the highest mark in the Shop class (back then there were NO girls in those classes)

So each St. Patrick's day Larry buys me a bottle of Baileys. This year he gave me a card and a hair clip for my wild long red hair which is slowly starting to spurt some grey. :( I will pour a few glasses of Baileys, , hope that my medication kicks in, and toast to the country of my heritage...where Leprauchans play tricks, where there are pots of gold at the end of rainbows, where fields are green, and you can kiss the Blarney stone (I have done it, it is difficult...)
It is a place of magic and music and GREAT BEER.

So here's a toast:

Saint Patrick was a gentleman,
Who through strategy and stealth,
Drove all the snakes from Ireland,
Here’s a toasting to his health.
But not too many toastings
Lest you lose yourself and then
Forget the good Saint Patrick
And see all those snakes again.

Patti O' Block