Day Twenty-Three - Make Mine a Guinness... Float!

It's Saint Patrick's Day!  Today is the day that I celebrate my deep inner conflicts...  Let me give you some background...  In most families, a teenager could rebel from his or her parents on Saint Patrick's day by getting drunk.  With my mother, I could stage a more effective March 17th rebellion by reveling in my Irishness!  You see, I am half Scottish.  Needless to say, I get the Scottish genes from my mother, whose parents actually immigrated to the US from Scotland before she was born.  And if you know a Scotsman, you know that Scottish pride is fierce!  Thus, you have Mike Meyers proclaiming that "if it's not Scottish, it's crap!"  Just look at the title of this book, (which I actually own, by the way...)

Yes, we're a humble, modest bunch!  So, while I grew up being dressed in the token green that is required for survival when you live just outside of Boston, I believe my mother did so somewhat grudgingly.  Imagine my surprise when a little bit of genealogical research led to the surprising discovery that I have an oft neglected quarter of the Irish in me!  (And, another quarter of me is English!  Oh, the conflict!)  So today I stage my once a year rebellion against my mother and celebrate that Irish quarter that has been so sorely ignored!

Therefore, my plan was to find a novel experience that pertains to either Ireland or St. Patrick's Day.  So, after getting my family dressed in green, my son stashed away at daycare, and my daughter to sleep I did a quick Google search to see what traditions I could find that did not entail bars or churches.  Here is what I learned...

Option one:  plant peas.  In the Northeast, St. Patrick's Day is the time to start peas from seed...  Kind of cool, but sadly not novel for me.  Option two:  pinch someone, (affectionately), who is not wearing green...  Hmmm...  I vowed to find a way to do this as I thought it could be fun, IF I know the person well.  Not so sure about going up to a stranger and pinching them.  I can see the police log now:  Local therapist arrested for assault after pinching a stranger on the street, (affectionately), for no apparent reason... Yeah...  Nope.

So, I decided that if the pinching thing didn't work out, I might have to stray from the theme. After all, finding someone I know very well who isn't wearing green leaves my experience up to chance.  And let's face it - It's hard to say if you still have the luck of the Irish when you are twice as much Scottish!  With that, I threw myself into the myriad errands and chores I needed to try to get done and lost sight of novelty until my toddler-free time had almost run out.  In desperation, I raided my cupboard and found Rooibos, or Red Bush Tea that my mother had brought me from South Africa.  Perhaps this wasn't very "green" of me, but I suppose that even the Irish have their original roots in Africa!  So, I brewed a cup and brought it with me on the road.  

And while this was novel and tasted good, it just wasn't INTERESTING to me...  You see, I'm finding that my standard for a novel experience has changed a bit.  There are things that I do or try that ARE novel to me, but don't have a "novelty feel."  If I am not fully engaged by my experience or don't get some sort of thrill it just doesn't seem right to count it.  I'm sure I'll need to take the easy road some days, but the rooibos tea kind of bored me, truth be told!

So, apparently the half-Scottish, Irish person can be lucky after all!  My husband, who is much more Irish than I, came home from the gym without a speck of the green on his person.  So I pinched him, explained myself, and got an indignant response that he HAD been wearing green earlier.  But sorry, rules are rules!  And, while very temporarily amused, again it just didn't do IT for me...  

So, I was left wondering if I was going to have to settle or would I think of something else.  As my husband prepared our dessert of rootbeer floats, I was hit with a memory-fueled inspiration!.  Sometime in the past at some restaurant or other I had discovered the existence of  the Guinness Float.  And as my Irish luck would have it we had both cans of Guinness and vanilla ice cream in house!  So after all was quiet and everyone was asleep, I pulled out my special Guinness glass in honor of the occasion and made myself a float.  After toasting my Irish brethren I took a sip...  And it was good!    So, on that note let me leave you with a final thought...

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back.  May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.  And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.