Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day to those who celebrate it! As far as I know, I'm not Irish, but the corned beef is cooking, the green jello is setting and the cabbage is in the fridge, fearing the knife.

I have no idea if my children wore green today, except Matt who had on a tie-dye shirt with ample amounts of green on it. It's a moot point, though, because pinching is not allowed in school anymore (some districts consider it "assault").

When I was a preschooler, a babysitter informed me that I had to wear green that day. It was a lovely March day in southern California, and I didn't believe her because I had never heard such nonsense. I thought if it were really a law, or if it were really important, surely I would have heard of the need to wear green (Thanks a lot, Mom. What else haven't you told me?). Besides, I thought to my four(or five)-year-old self, what did the color of clothing have to do with getting pinched? I was a bit put off by the babysitter pinching me so I searched my clothing for any scrap of green to ward off further attacks. I found some blue-green flowers on my socks and proclaimed my status of green-wearer to the babysitter in hopes that she would take back her pinches. She politely accepted the little flowers as green and I was unmolested the rest of the day (and I mean molest in the sense of to bother, interfere with, or annoy, NOT to assault sexually. She was a good babysitter).

The only other time I forgot to wear green on the day that it mattered was in second grade. I had to wear a dress to school that day because we had Primary at church afterward (in those days, Primary was during the week). I hated wearing dresses to school. I got teased mercilessly for it. I tried on several occasions to tuck the skirt of the dress into pants (mom would let me wear pants under the dress. Even more dorky!) but that just made my butt look lumpy and gigantic. Anyway, the dress I wore that day was all shades of brown with a bit of depressing golden yellow. I HATED brown then (and the mustardy yellow of the dress). And a few of the popular kids in the class harangued me for a while til I probably cried. Later, I took a green crayon and colored on the dress so they couldn't harass me anymore about it. They just harassed me about wearing a dress, instead.

Oh, the hardship I suffered (heavy sarcasm).

These two anecdotes have nothing to do with my desire to host a St. Patty's dinner for the family tonight. I'm just in the mood for a themed dinner. And I want an excuse to serve both broccoli and cabbage in the same meal.

Comments

Jenni said…
Happy Green day to you. I wore green but am not making a special dinner. They are lucky to get dinner!! And pinching being assult is ridiculous. People are out of control!!
Jen said…
Same as Jenni...I'm wearing green but no special dinner preparations tonight for the "holiday". It's getting so ridiculous in our schools (and society, in general) that kids can't even playfully pinch each other for a fun holiday. So sorry you were tormented though for wearing a non-green, poopy brown and yellow dress. Shame on your mom!