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Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!

The day is sunny but chilly. The sky is peppered with a few clouds. ‘Tis a lovely day. I’ll be making corned beef and cabbage this afternoon. I have a flow chart, I always do for big dinners. In a bit, I’ll decorate the table. That’s first on the flow chart.

I have had a long connection with St Patrick. My name is totally Irish. Many of my forebears on both sides, maternal and paternal, were Irish. As you know I attended St. Patrick’s Grammar School for eight years. I was a member of St. Patrick’s Shamrocks, a competitive drill team, for seven years. I have been to Ireland twice. One time I went by boat from England to Ireland and rode all over the country by train. I saw more sheep than I had even seen in my entire life. I stayed at B&B’s. Every morning I ate an Irish breakfast except for the beans. When we were in Dingle, we walked and got a couple of rides to Slea Head. The view was spectacular, which doesn’t quite go far enough to describe the beauty. I remember seeing something in the distance. It turned out to be a sheet of rain. There were no hiding places so we got soaked. Luckily a French couple took pity and drove us back to Dingle. My second trip was only for a week with my parents, two aunts and my grandfather who was one generation removed from Ireland. He was in his eighties but was amazing.

One of my favorite Dad stories is when my mother cooked a boiled dinner for him. She delivered it, but he came back to the kitchen looking for potatoes. There were none. They had disintegrated, and she had to give him the bad news. He didn’t take it well.

My parents hosted many St. Patrick’s Day parties. The best part was when everyone starting singing. We were all crammed in the kitchen. The room was hot and smoky so the back door was open. The sounds of Irish songs filled the room. Everybody sang. I knew most of the songs thanks to my parents. They threw the best parties.

Today is lovely, warm and sunny. A bit of a chill is in the air, a spring morning chill. I’m glad I have errands today to get me out of the house. It is dump day. I miss my copilot Gracie who loved going to the dump. Henry is skeptical of anything which hints of the car. He hides when I get dressed which gives me a chuckle. He knows I’m going out. This morning he jumped on and off the bed then burrowed and found my face and arm to lick. I gave in and got up. What did I find on the floor? Insides from my new quilt. Henry had chewed the corner. I even found some downstairs so I know Henry roams at night.

What a storm we had last night. It was terrific. First it poured then came the thunder and lightning. I loved it. One bolt of lightning flashed in the sky by my den window and lit up the room. The thunder cracked over head. This was Henry’s first thunder storm. He barked thinking he could scare the thunder away. He stayed beside me for a bit then he fell asleep. He’s okay with thunder and lightning.

I think I have have caught the spring cleaning bug. In the last two days I have cleaned two cabinets. I threw away spices best used by 2015 and earlier. I tossed out some jellies and some cans of green chilies. I found a few things including a couple of bottles of vanilla extract and three mint extracts. I found the anise oil. That may propel me to make anise cookies, one of my favorites. My uncle used to make them and said not to use extract but rather use anise oil.

When I was a kid a day like today meant roaming the town. I was rich as I always got my 50¢ allowance on Fridays. Sometimes I’d buy Hostess cupcakes or snowballs and eat them as I walked, sustenance for the trek. Other times I’d buy a nickel candy bar. I had favorite walks like on the railroad tracks or to the dairy to watch the cows. I even went to the zoo a few times. I walked all over town. Only hunger drove me home.

Saturday has always been my favorite day.

The wind is blowing and the sky is dark so you can imagine my surprise when I went to get the papers. It is a warm day. The high will be in the 50’s, but it is supposed to rain.

My computer has been returned to me. A long while back, I logged on before I knew some letters didn’t work so it was the wrong password. I tried again. The same thing happened. On the next try, the computer went dark. That was when I had trouble starting it. When I finally did, I had to log on as guest user. That meant no access to my files. I also couldn’t get to a few sites, stopped by parental control. Yesterday, I Googled again how to get on not knowing my password. I found a video which was simplistic enough for me. I am no longer guest user. Can I get a hallelujah?

When I was a kid, I went to St. Patrick’s Grammar School. Just about everyone I knew went to St. Patrick’s. My first grade was in the old brick building. Across the street was the convent, next to the school was the rectory and beside that was the church. It was like an enclave. There were so many of us that some classes had 45 or more students, but discipline was no problem. I don’t even remember anyone daring to whisper. A look from a nun was all we needed to cause us to sit still and say nothing and keep our hands folded together on the desk top as if we were praying. The nuns were mysterious, and they were scary. Their black and white habits kept them apart from mortal beings. I never thought of nuns as people let alone women. They were a breed unto themselves.

I have to be out and about today. I’m going to Hyannis, to the big city. It’s been a while.

When I woke up around nine, it was cloudy. It was still night-time cold. I was glad for my sweatshirt. Some snow still sits on the lawns and the sides of the road. I want it gone.

While I was reading the papers, the clouds disappeared, and the sun reappeared. It’s a bright, shiny day. It is still chilly but warmer than it was. The air hints of spring. The birds are morning noisy. They are announcing the change in seasons.

When I was a kid, I didn’t notice we lived in a duplex in a project of eleven other duplexes. We seldom went away for vacations, too expensive, but we did take day trips. I remember the museums, not so much for the paintings but for the exhibits, like the rooms filled with American Indian or Egyptian artifacts. We went to the drive-in on Saturday nights. On summer weekends, we went to the beach. We lived near the woods with a swamp and wild blueberry bushes. The field to the woods was filled with grasshoppers. At the end of the field near the swamp was a rotten tree. One giant limb was on the ground. It was sometimes a horse and other times a rocket shop. My life was rich and filled with adventures.

The adventures never disappeared even as I grew older. My friends and I were rovers. I remember when we were in high school we used to wander through Harvard Square and around the streets of Boston. We’d go to the airport to watch the planes and ride the subway to get there. Life was fun and mostly interesting.

When I was in college, I took my first plane ride and my second and my third. The first was the best. It was from Boston to Hyannis. The view was spectacular. I saw the ocean and could even see the cresting waves. I loved that ride.

Ghana was the next big adventure. No day was ever commonplace. Even a trip to the market was amazing. Life was filled new sights, smells and tastes. I loved Ghana, still do.

Almost fifteen years ago I retired. I still travel to salve the wanderlust which has always been part of me. My adventures continue. I take rides hoping to find something new. I usually do. I love everyday.

The day is quite lovely and warmish. I stayed out for a little while to check the front garden. I didn’t see any more green shoots but I know the snowdrops are usually first so I’ll keep my eye on their corner of the garden.

I was surprised to see buds on the cactus hanging by the kitchen window. It will flower for the first time so it’s an Easter cactus, color still unknown.

Despite the rain and the warmer weather, snow is still around, mostly in the shade. My backyard has some beneath the pine trees. It has outlasted its welcome.

I’m watching Monsters from Green Hell, a 1958 science fiction film in black and white. The plot is simple. A rocket was sent into space carrying insects in an attempt to test the possibility of manned flights. It malfunctions and lands off the coast of Africa. Wasps from the rocket were exposed to radiation and have become giant insects. The film alternates between real settings and painted backdrops. An actual film inserted into the action shows animals fleeing from the watering hole and tribesmen with shields and spears in hand running. That’s where reality ended. The wasp chasing them is silly looking and moves as if it is on wheels. Its eyes are mesh and its front leg looks like a crab claw, all the better to pick up victims. I like this movie for the chance to step back in to the 50’s. Our hero is using an ashtray on a metal stand. One of my grandparents had one. The Hollywood Africans are wearing straw hats more Hawaiian than African. The safari has to walk 400 miles into the jungle. That’s where we are now.

My dance card is empty until Sunday. I could do my laundry I suppose. Nah.

It poured yesterday, but last night didn’t get cold enough to freeze. Today is relatively warm, and the temperature will hit the high 40’s. The sky was cloudy earlier but now blue is peeking through, and I swear I saw sunlight. We’re in a warm day-cold night cycle. It will get to the low 30’s tonight.

When I went to get the papers, I saw the green shoots in the front garden are taller. I know they are a long way from buds and blooming but just seeing them is a hopeful sign. Spring is coming.

When I was a kid, I loved days like today. It was as if the whole world was starting over. The air smelled fresh. The dirt was soft, almost planting ready. I didn’t dress in layers. I didn’t need a hat or mittens. I think I skipped to school, a sort of bouncing celebration.

During recess, groups of girls, never boys, jumped rope. I remember the two rope swingers and a line of jumpers waiting their turns. We had sing songy rhymes and most of them sped up at the end when the rope swingers went faster and faster, “Janey and Johnny sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” We played different rope games. Sometimes the line, one at a time, took turns jumping in and out. Other times two of us were jumping together. That took talent. I remember standing beside the swinging rope waiting for just the right spot in time to jump in and then out. Jump ropes with wooden handles were prime stocking stuffers.

Today I’m watching disaster movies. So far the count is two meteors, an earthquake and a new ice age. The plot of each movie differs only in the method of destruction. The ending is the same. Earth always survives.

A wintry morning but the day will get warmer. I woke up to the sound of sleet hitting my bedroom window, but it has since stopped. The sky is even getting lighter. How nice it will be to have a real spring day.

My sister and I were chatting this morning. We talked about the house where we grew up, and each of us has memories enough to fill drawer after drawer, mostly different memories, but we do share two memories so large and bold they stand out from all the others. One is of the man in the duplex next door. His wife was German. Kids used to run by their house and yell Nazi at her, but that isn’t even the big memory, the fist fight is. He and his neighbor shared a duplex. That neighbor used to start the tongues wagging when he’d tie his toddler in a harness outside from the step rail to the yard. Those duplex neighbors shared a house but didn’t get along. Maybe that started the fight, but I don’t know. I do know it was quite a fight. They rolled down the hill together punching each other the whole way. We all stood and watched. I don’t remember how long it lasted or why it stopped. I was just amazed that two adult men were fighting in the backyard.

The second memory was of a women burned because she got too close to the stove, and her robe was set on fire. The ambulance gathered a crowd including lots of kids. The woman lived in the first apartments built for the elderly, what my father used to call wrinkle city. I remember the woman on the stretcher. Her hair was gone. Her head was red. My sister remembers the woman’s arms.

Memories often just sit waiting to be unearthed. My two memories today go way back to my childhood. I hadn’t thought of them in years.

The morning is warmer than it has been all week and tomorrow will be warmer still. The sun is bright, the air clear. Only the the smallest branches are moving. I need to go out later to get a few things, and I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to waste a day like today.

Sometimes I wake up in the very early morning. I check the clock. The other day it was 5:15. The house was dark and nighttime cold so I turned over and easily fell back to sleep.

When I worked, my alarm jarred me awake at 5 o’clock. I’d get out of bed, make my coffee, turn on the morning news, check my e-mail then be out of the house by 6:20. The papers usually came after I’d left. They were evening papers.

In Ghana, I didn’t use an alarm clock. I went to bed so early I woke up early. My bedroom windows stretched across the side wall and faced the school compound. From those windows, I could hear the voices of my students, their buckets clinking and water filling the buckets from the pump. I’d get up and get dressed then sit outside on my porch to have my first mug of coffee. For breakfast every day I had two eggs fried in peanut oil and two pieces of toast. After breakfast, I’d sit on the porch for a bit and dawdled while I finished my second mug of coffee. Soon enough it was time to teach my first class so I’d walk over to the classroom block and begin teaching. In between classes, I’d walk home and have another cup of coffee, my third of the day.

I loved mornings in Ghana. They smelled of wood burning. Roosters announced the start of the day. The air was not yet stifling. I didn’t ever have to rush. I could just sit on the porch and take it all in: the sounds, the smells and the roosters.

My mornings now remind me of my Ghanaian mornings but without roosters or charcoal fires. They are leisurely. I get to dawdle. On warm days I sit on the deck, drink my coffee and read my papers. I watch the birds. They are my silent roosters.

Warmth is coming but not today. I just have to be patient until tomorrow when it will reach at least 42˚. That’s tanning weather. Maybe the snow on the deck will melt by then, but I’m not confident. It is a hard, crusty snow.

If I could pick things to learn, I’d start with a musical instrument. I’m thinking ukulele. I’d get to wear a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat and a lei. I wouldn’t sing along. The nun I had in the third grade made me too embarrassed to sing in front of people. The next thing for me to learn is cake decorating, using all the tips of the frosting bag to make magnificently frosted cakes over which people would ooh and ahh. I’m thinking I can start slowly with the star tip and do borders. If that doesn’t work, I can just turn the border into a straight line. I’ll call that plan b. I guess it would be easier to start decorating on paper first but that’s no fun. I wouldn’t get to eat and share all my mistakes.

I wish I knew a foreign language. I have words in Spanish, French and Hausa but sentences are a bit beyond me. I string three or so words together and hope I make sense. Charades too work well enough, but the one problem I usually seem to have is what in the heck am I eating. Once I was a clucking chicken and a mooing cow. The waiter laughed at me, but he mooed back so I knew it was beef under all that gravy.

Yesterday I stayed home, didn’t even get dressed. I read my library book a good portion of the day. I had crackers and cheese for a late lunch and eggs for dinner. They are my favorite fall back meal. I like they have so many configurations: hard boiled, soft-boiled, fried, poached or dropped eggs on toast as my mother always called them, scrambled and in an omelet with cheese, ham and on and on. I’ve had chicken eggs, goose eggs and Guinea fowl eggs. I have no preference. I like them all, mostly over easy.