St. Pat Without the Beef
If there’s anyone in the world who is happy about everything, it’s Mom: “Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!” before the lights were even on.
“For those who celebrate it,” was Carrie’s predictable response.
I’m not sure what the Irish ever did to Carrie, but she is not fond of the line of Irish kings in our distant past. She claims that our bloodline skipped back over to Dad’s during that particular period in Mom’s history.
Anyway, our partially celebrated holiday was spent partially on Jupiter beach, combing for treasure. Spanish galleon treasure from the wreck that went down somewhere in the 1700’s, if memory serves. The metal detector revealed little more than a zipper pull and two unexplained wedges of metal. However, I did manage to locate a medallion-sized rusted circle freshly washed up just before we left.
When we burned ourselves sufficiently a second time, collecting heaps of interesting shells, we returned to the little motel for HGTV (Mom’s favorite station), and peanut butter in a jar with a plastic ice cream spoon for my lunch.
An argument followed between Mom and Rose on just what, exactly, I had discovered on the beach that morning:
“How do you know it’s not a doubloon?”
“Because I know, Mom! I just know!”
“Maybe it’s gold.”
“It’s not gold! It’s iron! I’m telling you!”
And so forth. Mom picked at the rust anyway, with a pair of Irish’s tweezers. Halfway through the crusty top layer, she tapped something silver. But the tweezers could only accomplish so much. The archaeological dig went on hold.
It was about sunset. After trying the parking lot four times, we finally found a spot at Havana and waited for our Cuban dinner on the benches outside. I was about as brave as always and ordered the Sandwich Cubano: Swiss, pork, and ham on Cuban bread. There were heaps of black beans and yellow rice on the table too, but I stuck with the sandwich.
“Does everyone else have Cuban Pete stuck in their heads now too?” Carrie asked an hour later back at the motel.
Another four heads of hair braided, Carrie keeping us entertained with funky Cardinals questions, like, “Which Cardinal would you rather see lose all his teeth?” Or, “Which Cardinal would you rather see grow his hair out down to his bellybutton?” Carrie nominated Adam Wainwright for that one, claiming that he would “look like Jesus.” By the time all braiding was done, questions were exhausted, and it was eleven o’clock. Powerful thunderstorms predicted after one o’clock.