IT DOES NOT SMELL LIKE LUCKY CHARMS!

Today is Saint Patricks Day. At the end of it, you will be left with regret. That is, if you are like all the folks who live for this day and have nothing at all going on in their lives. It is the only day on which you'll be green. As a rational person, I am not vested in celebrating anybody's cultural heritage with larger quantities of alcohol than sanity permits, and I have no plans to consume corned beef and cabbage. Even dolled-up with dollops of sambal.
Remarkably, many people in Ireland feel the same way.
Of course they felt that way eight hours ago.
There's a time difference.


Which means that if anyone there left their house to have an early morning pipe, they were probably rained upon seven hours ago. This is important, because here in San Francisco the weather is not particularly wet, but still cold, grey, and gloomy. Blue finger tips are probably the most Irish thing about me. I look human otherwise.

I'm not wearing a scrap of green.

I'm wondering if I should open a tin of the most Irish tobacco in the house: Erinmore Flake.

No, it isn't Leprechaun tobacco. It's an old-style pressed and sliced compound with a slightly over-the-top fragrance added which counteracts the smell of mildew ever-present in drafty Northern European dwellings. It is full and fruity.
I've got enough to last several months.
Two decades old.


Probably the most Irish thing I could do would be, after my apartment mate has gone to work, to make myself a cup of strong tea and some buttered toast, then fill a bowl and light up.
Perhaps underneath a warm blanket.

As long as the door to her quarters remains closed, and I let the place air out for several hours before she comes back, I'll be safe. It's probably a good day to re-read parts of Ulysses by James Joyce. Then a late lunch, and more tea.



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