You Know What Day It Is

We were awakened by loud music playing in the kitchen. Loud Irish music.

Oh yeah. He was here.

Trashing the place as usual.

Dividing up the loot. Hey, one of those is mine.

Ready to go tell everyone at school what happened.


My parents have been playing Irish music since I was a toddler. It's one of my earliest, fondest memories. That music is imprinted on me. We started with the Irish Rovers, added the Chieftains (of course), Eileen Ivers, newer artists such as Gaelic Storm, and many more. When Darren and I were in Ireland, a cab driver told us, "You in America. You're up at 5 to go to work and go to bed so early so you can get up and work again. Ireland's not like that. We have fun, go out. Not you Americans--no fun. No jiggy jiggy!"

So this is for you today and it's playing at our house, too. Get your jiggy-jiggy on. And I'll leave you with the sweet Irish blessing I learned as a pre-schooler: "May you be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows you're dead!"