Time for Fun and a Reality Check

 

St. Patrick’s Day came and went with the usual stories on the local news---green beer at the bars, green cakes in the bakeries, the churches that were servicing up corn beef and cabbage dinners at their fund-raisers. Yadda, yadda yadda. My husband got practically giddy on St. Patrick’s Day. He loved his Irish heritage and it’s funny that I didn’t even know that I’m one quarter Irish until this past winter when I did my genealogy. All those years when he’d haul out his green t-shirt with the “proud to be Irish” logo on it, I could have worn a matching one. Well, at least I could have had green underwear or something to pay homage to those Irish genes that reside alongside my Italian (1/2) and English (1/4) roots. 

The senior hall had their St. Patrick’s Day luncheon this week and you know me, I had to go. It’s such cheap entertainment. Six dollars for dinner, a floor show and people watching 109 souls all wearing green plastic beads and sporting green tongues from eating the contents of the candy cups that lined the tables. If you had the luck of the Irish at your back---which I didn’t on Tuesday---you could even win of one of the fifteen loaves of Irish soda bread they handed out for door prizes.

The floor show was comprised of a fiddle player and a singer/guitar player who did all Irish, Celtic and Gaelic music. If you can picture a big guy with a silly grin and salt and pepper hair that reached to the middle of his back, the top layer of which was tied back into a low ponytail, that was the singer. He also had a long mustache, twinkling dark eyes, a peg leg and he wore a traditional, eight yard tartan kilt and horsehair Gaelic sporran. When the senior hall director introduced the guy in the kilt she said she wanted to talk to his wife because he needed some lessons on how to bend over while wearing a dress. He did it while setting up his equipment and he exposed his whole backside. What fun we had! Mr. Kilt Wearer would stop often in the middle of a song to explain the ancient lyrics or define what certain Gaelic words meant. The two of them got everyone clapping or singing a few times and more than once they’d stop mid-song and back it up because they liked a particular verse (or screwed it up) and “wanted to sing it again.” Crazy, silly stuff like that kept us all laughing. I was lucky enough to find a seat surrounded by six ladies who I know well enough to carry on easy conversations with and that was the frosting on my afternoon cake.

I did find one disagreeable woman at my luncheon table. She’s known for knitting her way through every event she attends at the senior hall which, Tuesday, sparked a conversation about knitting and crocheting projects several of us had worked on over the winter. I made the comment that I’ve tried many times over my life to learn how to crochet and I just can’t do it and I blamed it on being left-handed. She’s says, “That’s a royal crock of bull! I’m left-handed and I learned how to do it.” I responded, “I even took a class last year and it didn’t stick any longer than it did when I was a teenager trying to learn from my mother.” “Bull!” she says again, “you’re not trying hard enough.” I didn’t want to get into a fight with a total stranger so I didn’t get snippy back at Ms. Disagreeable and I’m glad I didn’t. As the afternoon progressed I realized that she didn’t have a good thing to say about anything, including the very entertaining singer and his side-kick fiddle player. I hope I never grow up to be like her. Does she ever listen to herself, ever see herself in the mirror? Of course, not. She’s too busy knitting to see herself through the eyes of those around her.

Change of Topic---well, sort of: My niece came back north from spending the winter in Florida and we had a long conversation on the phone in which I told her I’d be very proud to call her and his sister my daughters. They’ve both turned into such great women, raised good kids and are such a pleasure to be around. She said, “Then we’ll have to come up with a new term like niece-daughters.” It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as sister-wife but I love the idea. I have the young friend I call the-son-I-wish-had so I’m going to start introducing my nieces this way: “This is my niece, the daughter I wish I had.” After talking with my oldest niece I texted my other niece and informed her of her new title and she texted back, “Very cool!” I love my family and I just wanted to give them as much space in this post as I gave to Ms. Disagreeable. But I still wish someone or something would give Ms. Disagreeable a reality check that would penetrate her narrow mind with this message: Cheerful, loving people trump the disagreeable naysayers of the world and they always will. Nana nana nana. ©