St. Patrick's Day: A Musical Interlude

Like most foreign holidays, St. Patrick's Day came and went. I realized I'd never told LE about any of the stuff Americans play with for this holiday when I was explaining that we were going to a St. Patrick's Day party. He doesn't know about four-leafed clovers or leprechauns or pots of gold under rainbows, let alone green beer. I told him he had to change into some green clothes or he might get pinched, as per elementary school tradition. I also told him we were having this holiday because St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland and now there are no snakes in Ireland.

Hee!

Which I'm guessing isn't true. None of it. LE was all, "What's Ireland?" and I told him it's near England where his amca lives. And also that most Irish people don't do much for St. Patrick's Day, but Americans get all excited about it, especially ones that might have a drop or two of Irish blood, like we supposedly do.

He didn't care. He was more worried about getting pinched. Also, he's more into Superman right now, and wondered whether or not Superman was an alien when he was a baby. I explained that he indeed was.

The party was lovely. It was with the group of mama friends we used to have a weekly mama meeting and play day with when our kids were really small and I didn't live so far away. But now the kids are mostly in school and it takes ages for me to get over to that part of town, so we don't all get to meet up as much as we used to.

Seeing them used to be the only time I got out of the house each week. I miss them. And I love how they do so much to keep our yabancı holidays going by making them super fun for the kids.

And this time, as we sat around the kitchen table and snacked and snuck Kahlua and Bailey's into our coffee, we realized this was the first time we were all getting to hang out without dealing with kids in any way-- no fights, no diapers, no helping them eat, nothing but occasionally chasing them out of the kitchen and settling them down when they started getting too insane. It was bliss.

I'm cool with kids growing up, at least until they start getting all lippy and thinking they're smarter than me.

The next day, I talked to my parents, who had celebrated St. Paddy's with my favorite neighbor. My dad's music choice was a CD of old St. Patrick's Day songs, like Perry Como old. Apparently it made the night very merry.

I told him he should have gotten the Pogues. Our neighbor would have known about them, though perhaps the evening would have been less merry, it's hard to say. He was still against the Pogues, as he has been since I was a teenager and listened to the Pogues.

Thanks to technology, I was able to email him some Pogues.

And you know what? He liked them this time. Claimed it was nothing like what he thought I was listening to as a teenager. I suspect one is probably hard-wired to hate the music one's teenager listens to.

Which makes me wonder, what will LE listen to when he's a teenager that I absolutely will hate? Will music take the sort of turn I can never get my head around, like rock 'n' roll did for my grandparents, or punk or electronic has done for my parents? This peculiar possible future of music interests me greatly.

On the other hand, LE's tastes may just run to crappy Turkish and Western pop and maybe İbo, in which case my disliking his music will be perfectly justified.

This is his favorite song right now.

It also occurred to me that part of the reason my dad chose the music he did was because it had a nostalgic quality for him, like maybe it was the music his parents listened to when he was a kid. Probably. I think my dad told me once his parents loved Perry Como. And maybe Don Ho but I'm not sure. Anyway, it made me wonder what music LE will play for his friends when he's in his 60s and feeling nostalgic for the  music I used to play in the kitchen.

With that, I'll leave you with one of our favorite lullabies.