I have a skewed system of favorite holidays. Thanksgiving has been my favorite for a few years, because it’s low maintenance. Oh, I cook. I cook my ass off. I cook for Johnny & I only, after some drama with his momma a few years back. In the interest of remaining Switzerland for him, I don’t visit my family, either. For the first couple of years running here, then rushing off to there definitely dampened my spirit-especially since I had two days of retail hell to look forward to immediately afterward. But now I stay in comfortable clothes, and the wine is open by eleven, music -just a little this side of loud- throughout the dining room and kitchen, and I’ve got the turkey in the oven. We may eat at two or we may eat at six. Last year, we had some friends stop in to help devour what I’d prepared and I felt like a normal adult, doing the thing. It’s the one time a year we eat at the table. 

My next favorite holiday is our anniversary (I get lilies delivered to work and dinner wherever I choose). Then my birthday (again, because I don’t have to cook), then…then… St. Patrick’s Day. Not Christmas. I love Christmas, I love the meaning and I love decorating for it but I don’t love how people tend to buy just to be buying and the general bustle and dread that surround all the festivities. I don’t enjoy it. Can’t we just decorate and eat and laugh and have a good time? Why must you feel you have to give? That’s hardly the point. Most of us don’t NEED a thing. I’d like to have the money wasted to pay my water bill or something. And don’t get me started on Valentines Day. Actually, yes, lets do, because I planned to expound on that a month ago and never made time.   

I hate to be all hatin’ on Valentine’s Day…but the fact of the matter is…I loathe this particular holiday more than Ask a Stupid Question Day (September 28th, although after a life in retail I would have sworn this was every day), International Day of the Nacho (October 28th. I mean, I love nachos and all, but really???), and CAPS LOCK DAY on June 28th combined. 

Just kill me now. So, anyhoot. I hate it because in school, all the girls would get carnations sent by their secret admirers or boyfriends while they were all safely wrapped up in the letter jackets. I had no boyfriend, I had no letter jacket that smelled of Abercrombie and Fitch, I had no dismal carnation. I did, however, get a dozen red roses delivered by my momma with balloons, thankyouverymuch. I let my classmates believe whatever they wanted to, there was no incriminating card. 

I digress. So then I was in my twenties and all us girls would hit the trendy bars, the jazz clibs, the ultracool understated underground 4620. The appletinis were on point. And I remember looking around, couples behind their candlelight, sharing cheesecake and whispers and just want to vomit. These are the same couples who would probably be fighting and throwing hairdryers at each other two nights later, but tonight they were wearing rose colored glasses and holding one by its stem after being purchased from the Asian lady with her overflowing basket of assorted colors and weaving her way through all the tables and couches. 

That’s really the root of the problem for me. These men get a holiday where they’re coached through media on what to do. Buy the flowers, buy the candy, buy the expensive dinner. As I told my husband from our first Valentine’s Day forward: “If you buy me flowers, make it a Monday. When you send me a bouquet, it better be on our anniversary. If you buy me an overpriced dozen on Valentines Day like every ordinary man on this continent, I will never forgive you.” And wonder of all wonders, he actually listened. 

I never thought I’d be married. I was always awkward, always with sweaty palms and frizzy hair and clothes that were last season and jewelry that was not a precise match. My attitude was off putting and I hadn’t seen the movie, but I had read the book. I was that girl who rode horses and wore braces for a year too long. So Valentines Day is a money racket, with Christmas close on its heels.

But lo, Saint Patrick’s Day. I hear dentists like it, too. Of course, there’s a lot of money to be made on it for them, due to the drinking of the green beer. Supposedly the food dye is harmful to your enamel and who drinks all night and then brushes their teeth? So you pass out and the dye eats into your teeth and there you are. And if that doesn’t happen, the likelihood of getting into a fight and getting your teeth knocked out is a possibility. So the dentists capitalize. I don’t blame them. But it’s fun! I love green! I love drinking! St. Patrick, among other things, drove the snakes out of Ireland while he was fasting. I gua-ran-tee you if a snake bothers me (while I’m fasting Facebook or fasting not a thing) I would drive it away. Probably headless. It’s said that the early settlers from Ireland chose the hills of Tennessee reminded them of home. And from what I’ve seen of Ireland, this appears to be true. We’re green, maybe more wormy green than emerald, but still.

I plan my outfit days before and when I was at Co-op I was a sight to behold. I would post a picture here, of me sitting on a pallet of fertilizer in all my finery, but it’s not very flattering. And I’m currently feeling abnormally fat today, after my binge of thin mints. So all week I had been thinking of what I would wear. My green boots are a little snug, so I was thinking my new green shoes 

Aren’t they beee-yoo-ti-ful? 

With some leggings, of course!

And the rest: 

Some of those were collected on previous March 17ths and some are from Mardi Gras. My leprechaun socks aren’t in the picture because they’re dirty. 

Here’s my not-so-over-the-top accessories 

But on Friday, March 17th, 2017, I got up, pulled on my honeybee leggings, a pink shirt, a black sweater, and slipped on some camel colored flats before heading out the door. I was on Chapman Highway before it struck me. I had neglected my green. Aaaaalllll my green. 
This has never happened before. When I was six, I wore my green polo shirt with the green alligator and green pants and a green bow to accessorize. A tradition was born. And I had neglected it today. I tried not panic, attempted to formulate a plan as I hurtled toward work. No one would notice. No one else would be in green either. No one would know. 

But I knew. 

So, as usual, I told on myself once I got there, and, as predicted, it was no big deal. Nobody else remembered, either, though Brian claimed to be wearing green underwear. I wasn’t going to check. I presented my arm to be pinched, squinching my eyes closed against the betrayal of my heritage. My hair is red, but my eyes are blue. 

I texted Shug, a written version of a wail. My whine had the desired effect. 

And a cry to Whit, my partner in lots of crimes:

Then, at lunch, it dawned on me. 

I will never be without green. Ever.
Head slap. 

But Shug did indeed take me out, where I reveled in my green (not all of it, we didn’t go completely crazy) and drank a mai tai (green if you use your imagination), followed by a red wine sangria (not green by any stretch of the imagination but I didn’t care after the main tai).

And so concludes another day in Appalachia, not so far removed from Ireland.