Peonies coming up through the ground ivy in my superlatively messy front border. It's a grayer day today, and cool, but not cold.
It's a Friday, and also St. Patrick's Day. I have no plan to cook corned beef and cabbage, which in any case isn't a traditional Irish dish. What I should do, really, is just pin a shamrock to my lapel and get on with my normal Lenten day --- though maybe we'll have a stout tonight to celebrate a little, once my husband comes home. I have always thought that really, the traditional way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, if you wanted to be authentically Irish, was not to feast or fast, but simply to starve --- BUT no judgment on people who like their corned beef and cabbage. If your bishop has dispensed you, have at it.
My baby children are in Ireland right now, as befits the day --- my daughter has a roommate with an uncle in Cork. One of their best high-school friends is there with them, and the son reports that they're in a tiny village, and spent yesterday driving around to see various people in the country, which reminded him very much of the way people do here. Well, I said, just consider that everybody here is Scots-Irish (or else German, but the culture has kind of solidified into this single Appalachian thing), and you understand why being there reminds you so much of being here.
I have much to do: still another essay to write before the end of the week, for one thing, and then I really ought to try to turn my brain to this reading tomorrow: how much, and what, to prepare.
Wearing today:
Willow again, ooh ooh ooh, closing in on Sierra in number of wearings so far this month. I must lead a really boring life, but there it is: the Great Dress Race has me captivated. Repeating Willow today, in any case, with thrifted emerald-green J. Crew cotton cardigan, Snag tights in "Thicket," and Tari boots. I might not be eating corned beef tonight, but nobody can pinch me.
By bedtime last night I had walked 5.5 miles on my pilgrimage. Hoping to put some good miles behind me today as well, because with my reading with Marly in Sylva, I doubt I'll walk that much tomorrow.