The Bones of My Priors, an Interpretive Talk

You sign on to make potato soup and next thing you know, you're the unwitting star of "This is Your Life."

Despite that I'm practically drowning in work this week, I'd promised my Mom I'd make my usual trek to the Northern Neck to help her prepare for her annual women's club St. Patrick's Day luncheon. And by "help," I mean do all the potato peeling and dicing, onion and celery chopping, cooking and stirring required for 60 servings of potato and cheese soup.

Mom devoted her energies to making three loaves of Irish soda bread with raisins and caraway seed, only one of which I helped her with, though I did make a pound cake. This collaboration of ours has been going on for over a decade now, with my share of the workload steadily increasing.

I'm fine with that. It's a busy, messy, hot day with lots of conversation, all for a good cause.

But when Mom requested my help this year, she wanted more than a day of my life. She wanted me to stay overnight so I could help her schlep four crock pots full of soup, three loaves of bread, paper products, party favors and two floral arrangements to the Women's Club the next morning.

Of course I said yes.

But then it turned out that Mr. Wright was going to be in Irvington, so I suggested to Mom and Dad that he join us for dinner, an idea they loved. When he arrived with a bottle of Simonet Blanc de Blanc, they liked him even better.

It wasn't an elaborate meal for two reasons: I'd volunteered to make it and the last thing I felt like doing after a full day of cooking and baking was cook some more. Making a Cobb salad and baking a pan of cornbread was about all I could muster.

But the bubbles and the relaxed mood backfired on me once we finished eating. Out of the blue, my Dad begins lamenting to Mr. Wright, "It's a shame she didn't meet you sooner" and goes on to dissect my entire love life before he arrived on the scene.

Hilarious.

I'm talking about him going all the way back to my first boyfriend and then discoursing on every man in my life since, although not in chronological order. He'd bring someone up and then start explaining why he knew that man wasn't right for me.

Every now and then, my Mom would chime in, explaining that she never really liked so-and-so, but my Dad was definitely driving the conversational bus (with the aid of more bubbly, of course).

The funny part was, I learned (or was reminded) of all kinds of things from my past that had long ago been misfiled or forgotten entirely.  Meanwhile, Mr. Wright got to hear about my bad choices in excruciating detail, from the one with a motorcycle to the one with multiple tattoos (before ink was cool). The long and the short-term. The ones I married, the ones I agreed to marry and then backed out on and the ones I lived with.

One, Dad claimed, simply wasn't up to the task of handling my large and talkative family. Another, to my surprise, had taken Dad aside and asked permission to marry me. That was news to me. And when Mom shared who her favorite had been, I didn't have the heart to tell her how lousy he was in bed.

Just when I was thinking that the topic was waning, one of my parents would mention another "prior," as my Dad dubbed them the very first time he met Mr. Wright, and the reminiscing galloped off again in another direction.

Truly, I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if Dad had motioned toward the door and said one of their names and they'd come walking in the room to surprise me.

Fortunately, though, "This is Your Life" only lasted an hour or so before they'd passed judgement on every man I'd ever been involved with. Or ran out of steam, I'm not sure which.

That was when Dad turned his microscope on Mr. Wright, curious about what he'd been doing for the past decade since that's the period my Dad takes the most issue with.

And let me tell you, when you invite your significant other to dinner with the people who spawned you, the last thing you want is to put him on the spot about why he didn't find you when your life fell apart and you first became available.

Even if it turns out he has been available since 2009 and would have been only too happy to have started this relationship sooner if he'd only known.

"She's always been the smart one," Dad informs Mr. Wright, shaking his head. "And she settles for all these duds. How did it take her so long to find you?"

This from the man who just happened to be on a triple date with another woman when he met my Mom and was instantly smitten. Happily ever after is easier - and comes sooner - for some people.

Turns out a few of us have to kiss a lot of frogs first. But as a cyclist once told me, the reward for being a slow starter is a strong finish.

All I can say is, about damn time. And, Dad, better late than never.

Éirinn go Brách

As a half-Irish (O'Donnell), raised Catholic (practicing heathen), daughter of a woman named Patricia who was born the day before St. Patrick's Day (and who gave me a lecture just Monday about the meaning of shamrocks), I was a dismal failure at celebrating today's holiday like a traditionalist.

I did not wear green, instead opting for magenta and black.

I did not drink green beer, preferring to guzzle Prosecco on tap while admiring the visual wit of a Ralph Steadman-designed label on Pearl Necklace Stout.

I did not go to an Irish bar, I went to the river where I spotted a man in a green plastic hat toasting a woman in a kelly green sweater. Without irony.

I did not eat corned beef and cabbage, I ate corned rock fish over kimchee, salty oysters and smoky chowder.

I did not see a parade, I watched fireworks set off from a nearby dock soaring upwards before landing somewhere far out in the water near a flashing green channel marker.

Sitting outside under a sky still light enough to see clouds yet dark enough to admire moon and stars, I wrapped a house blanket around my legs and listened to one of the guys in the kitchen sing a surprisingly lovely version of "Danny Boy."

To my Irish Grandmother's way of thinking, that could be considered almost as good as being in heaven a half hour before the devil knew I was dead.

Tales from the Roadmaster

Beware the ides of March, or you may repeat your road trip.

Yesterday's drive East was my ritual trek to help Mom make potato cheddar soup and Irish soda bread for the annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon for the 68 bridge-playing women in her club, which involves me doing a lot of chopping, measuring, tying and stirring to produce the necessary foodstuffs, party favors and accouterments to ensure a good time.

So naturally, I drag my butt out of bed hours earlier than usual to make it to the Northern Neck early enough that Mom isn't freaking out about how much we have to do, only to walk into the house and find them still at the breakfast table reading the paper and finishing up their pastries.

At 9:45, mind you.

"Oh, I figured you'd be late because of the time change," Mom says, casually. No big deal, in other words, except usually she wants me there just after dawn.

If there's one thing I've gleaned from my regular visits to my parents, it's that the rules change on a whim. Octogenarian privilege, I guess.

Besides helping Mom with food prep, Dad wanted assistance with hanging the two clocks I'd gotten fixed for them at the Clock Shop next to Mekong, a crazy place with scores of clocks chiming consecutively on the hour and a clock maker who looked straight out of a Disney movie.

I assumed it would be a quick and easy process assisting Dad in between making vats of soup, but instead, I was recruited to help scout locations, measure distances horizontal and vertical, hold drills/anchors/screwdrivers and rearrange furniture post-hanging so that the refurbished clocks could be shown off to best advantage.

But my favorite oddball chore came from Mom. Presenting me with a tiny, porcelain frame and an ancient black and white photograph in three sections, she asked that I "restore" the photo and re-frame it, please.

It was a tiny picture of my impossibly young-looking Dad sitting on a brick wall when he was stationed at Fort McNair. Without missing a beat, he says to me, "You can see why she was so interested, as handsome as I was."

And his image is handsome, but one arm is missing and most of the left side of his body has disintegrated with age, but I set about doing my best to tape what's left back together - some pieces crumbling to dust as I do so - before attaching it to a sturdy backing piece and returning it to the frame.

Because apparently Mom still wants to look at that crumbling picture of the man she fell in love with all those decades ago.

They just don't make romantics like they used to, do they?

Today's trip to the Northern Neck involved no one I was related to, but instead two men who sat me down at a farm table one of them had made a quarter of a century ago to spend hours talking about everything from chasing moonshiners to doing sound and lighting for bands.

Just to mess with my head, one of them brings out an old black and white photograph - not nearly as old nor crumbling - of himself and three buddies the day they left for Myrtle Beach after graduating high school.

The man standing in front of me is also the handsomest one in the picture and I tell him so.

"Oh, I wasn't so much," he says, clearly pleased at my compliment. "But look at that old car!" He's right, the curves of the Buick Roadmaster behind the boys are a thing of beauty and that big ole hunk of Detroit iron must have made for fabulous driving to the beach, so now we really get to talking.

I thought I'd be there for an hour and the entire afternoon is gone before I return to my car, one of the guys saying, "Well, it was gray when you got here and now it's sunny and beautiful! Sure you don't want to stay for sunset?"

Yesterday's sunset had been spent at Shelley's Comida Latina - or as the sign says for us gringos: "Shelley's Food" - after a favorite bartender had raved about the place as his go-to Monday joint. I knew the location well because it's where I used to go for Not So Classic Movie nights back when it was River City Diner and Grill.

Not a lot was different except the booths and the Latino MTV playing some of the corniest music videos ever, although even having table service was a decided step up from before.

Our timing was off, though, because I wanted beef tongue tacos and the tongue was still cooking, drat the luck.

We made do with the taco variety pack - yard bird, pig, steak - and shrimp tostadas, as a steady stream of Spanish-speaking customers came in for take-out or a quick bite at the counter, before cutting out for Sonny's Bar and Grill where I once saw a KISS cover band - despite not being a KISS fan - and met a lot of locals - as in born and bred Lakeside guys - over the course of a very loud and riotous Saturday night.

Turned out to be poker night at Sonny's and practically every table was full of card players - again, lots of Lakeside boys and a few women - so we had little competition for bar seats.

Probably a good thing since our bartender (who called herself a gin and tonic girl despite having a fondness for cheap tequila) was having a terrible, awful, no-good day because her man had looked at her phone and seen that a former boyfriend had messaged her.

First of all, and I don't even have a cell phone, but what kind of boyfriend snoops around on your phone? But she was upset because although she'd done nothing wrong, he was giving her a hard time about it all, ruining her day.

"I've been married twice and I don't need that shit any more," she said after a smoke break to clear her head. "I just need friends with benefits. You live in your house, I live in mine. I like things a certain way and I don't need anyone messing with my stuff."

Honey, find yourself a friend. Then pour yourself a G & T and enjoy the hell out of those benefits. Problem solved.

Good Girl

It wasn't my plan, but it turns out I'll be with my Irish mother for St. Patrick's Day.

It was almost time for my annual trek to the northern neck to help her makes gallons of potato soup and loaves upon loaves of soda bread for her women's club luncheon.

Because that's what good daughters do.

We'd originally scheduled the prepare-a-thon for Monday and Tuesday, at least until the weather forecast got potentially dire and she asked that we make it Sunday and Monday instead.

The clincher? Today is her birthday and you don't tell your Mom no, you won't help her on her birthday.My well laid plans for today went out the window.

So instead of wine, men and song for my Sunday, I woke up, drove east and spent all afternoon peeling potatoes, chopping celery and onions and making enough cheesy soup for 68 bridge-playing women.

Somewhere along about 3:00, I needed to escape kitchen duty for a while and headed out for a walk. The wind was sweeping in off the river, a plus because of the deliciously briny smell it brought, but definitely making the air feel colder.

Once I got away from the riverfront, though, it was perfectly pleasant and a satisfying change from the stuffy warmth of the kitchen.

I made a stop at Norwood Baptist church to see when it had been built (1887) and to snoop around its little graveyard. A couple WW I veterans, several Lifelong Norwood residents, a baby named Suzette who lived less than a year. The oldest burial was 1896.

Although my parents have lived down here for twenty plus years and I've passed that church every single time coming and going, it was my first time stopping.

Walking back down the road, I saw buzzards circling overhead, heard a woodpecker tapping away and smiled at the first person of my walk, a guy coming out of his house to get into his car.

"How you doing, beautiful?" he called from across the street. Pretty good, thanks.

Back at the house, the air inside felt incredibly hot and close after the brisk chill of the great outdoors I'd just come from. Break over, it was time to make my first loaf of soda bread before hanging up my apron for the day.

Rain began soon after. Mom told me that last night's moon had been so bright reflecting off the river that it illuminated everything within sight, not likely tonight given the drippy sky.

The birthday girl wanted Chinese food for dinner, a function, I told her, of her (a former city girl) having lived in the country for too long. Granted, the Chinese place is 37 miles away, no doubt a factor, but who wants takeout for their birthday dinner?

My mother, that's who.

Earlier today, I'd made her a coconut cake, her favorite, so we at least had that to look forward to after dinner. And I had the Sunday Washington Post to read afterwards, especially enjoyable because the entire travel section was devoted to Europe - food touring through France, Lisbon, Catalonia, wine making in Switzerland.

And tomorrow, I have more loaves of soda bread and a cake to bake for the ladies who lunch.

It promises to be quite the St. Patrick's Day. I intend to wear green.

Drink, Puke, Die

It was the best kind of St. Patrick's Day party at Helen's.

First, the holiday food specials: Guinness beef stew, shepherd's pie and reubens.

When I got there, I found two musician friends slated to perform already at the bar eating.

But being vegetarians, they weren't going to be much help in choosing which meaty special to have.

What they were was nice enough to join me at a table where I decided on beef stew.

The bowl of stellar stew had nice, big chunks of meat, plenty of carrots and potatoes and a hearty gravy full of pepper.

It should have been enough but I followed that with a reuben if only because I was told the corned beef was house-cured.

I don't know if the kitchen staff had any Irish in them, but this was some beautiful corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss on perfectly grilled rye.

About the time I finished the first half of it, another musician friend came in and I invited him to join us.

I made the introductions and he complimented my sandwich.

Feeling generous full, I offered him a bite.

He reminded me that he's become pretty much a vegetarian...at least until this afternoon.

Seems he'd stopped by a friend's house and had ended up eating pig.

And a lot of it.

As if that wasn't surprising enough, he was eager to eat my beef, too, so I cut him a piece of the sandwich. And another.

I felt like I was contributing to the delinquency of a vegetarian.

Saying he once considered himself a connoisseur of reubens, he proclaimed mine possibly the best he'd ever had.

Aren't you glad you came now, I asked.

"Well, I thought the music would be good," he countered.

And it was.

Leading the charge were my friends, Lobo Marino, who began by addressing me, with Jameson saying, "We're not playing anything you haven't heard, Karen. Nothing new."

I didn't mind.

I'm a big fan of their tribal folk with harmonium and it wasn't long before a guy at the bar was so taken with Laney's harmonium playing that he moved closer to try to figure out the instrument.

Admitting that they hadn't had time to learn any U2 or Cranberries, they launched into their set.

Laney had told me earlier that she'd tried to learn one Irish song that had a lyric about drink, puke, die, but they didn't play that one, either.

And I feel safe in saying that Lobo Marino is the only local band who could have pulled out a papal gem for the occasion.

"This is dedicated to Francis Francis," they said before playing "Pope's Nose," an older song of theirs with great imagery ("Do you know the Pope? He picks at his nose") that I hadn't heard in a while.

They tried to go even older and play "Animal Hands" but for some reason Jameson had lost his voice, so that song wasn't happening.

The improvised a song instead and then ceded the floor to Williamsburg's Poisoned Dwarf (just as an influx of people came in the door), who'd been billed as a five-piece but were clearly six.

The most amazing part was how they managed to fit six guys and at least nine instruments (unique things like Scottish small pipes, a mini-bagpipe, and Irish flute) in an alcove that usually holds a two-top.

At one point, I feel sure I saw the fiddle player's elbow bonk the drummer's head.

They played Celtic music that had people clapping and toe-tapping by the second driving song.

A guy near me started dancing in his chair and then moving his arms in time until I reminded him that no arm motion is allowed in Irish dancing.

Besides the appealing variety of instruments the band played, they also traded them off to each other, so you never knew who'd be playing what.

At one point, a girl grinned and said to no one in particular, "I love Irish music!" to which her boyfriend responded, "That's because you're drunk."

It was funny, but the truth is when you have a bunch of musicians playing traditional Irish music with as much skilled musicianship as we were hearing, anybody's going to like Irish music.

Especially at a St. Patrick's Day party where no one pukes or dies.

On Death and Drinking

You know how it is with the Irish; everything goes back to death.

I mean, honestly, how many of those drunken revelers in Shockoe Bottom even know that St. Patrick's Day is a commemoration of the death of St. Patrick?

But seeing as how I'm half O'Donnell and my great-grandparents were Irish who came to this country on a boat, I have a soft spot for the holiday.

Not in the "wear green and drink until you puke" way, but more as a way to acknowledge my heritage.

That led me to Shockoe Hill Cemetery on a day that could be considered gray and soggy or perfectly Irish.

Placed around the cemetery were small Irish flags denoting the Irish born, of which there were quite a few.

Today was the dedication of a gravestone for the victims of the Confederate States Laboratory disaster of March 1863 that killed 47 mostly young women and girls.

The factory was on Brown's Island and employed girls and women during the war's manpower shortage, not just because men were busy fighting but because their small hands were ideal for the work of making ammunition.

Fourteen of the victims were buried at Shockoe Hill Cemetery in unmarked graves, including four buried next to each other.

It was at the spot where the four were interred that the marker had been placed and today's dedication ceremony finally gave them a headstone.

A bouquet of pink roses and carnation was placed at the site.

The sad business over, the group then moved from under the canopy over to the keeper's house (mercifully heated) afterwards for some revelry.

Once I got inside, a man approached me and introduced himself.

He was the head of the Pickett chapter of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, one of the groups involved in having the grave marker made and placed.

Nearby on the floor were some damaged headstones and he gestured to them, telling me apropos of nothing about how they get repaired.

Seems there's a pool cleaner ("You can get it at Lowe's or Home Depot," he informed me in case I had any dirty tombstones) that returns them to rights without damaging the stone.

"The you use marble chips and put 'em in the hole and place the grave marker on top. It'll never shift or fall over again because marble doesn't absorb water," he told me.

Well, this was educational.

By then the food was set up and everyone pounced.

There was beef stew and corned beef and cabbage, both evocative of the Irish and both well suited for this cold day.

Since I'd had corned beef yesterday at my Mom's party, today I went with a big bowl of steaming beef stew.

I took it back into the keeper's house and settled myself in a blue leather wingback chair to enjoy.

Singer Susan Greenbaum serenaded us while we ate, starting with "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

Now that I was inside, warm and chowing down, my half-Irish eyes were doing just that.

Susan apologized for not having on green, although she gestured toward her green jacket, hanging nearby.

A woman behind me called out to her that green is only for Irish Catholics and that the Irish Protestants wore orange.

"Well, I'm Jewish and it's cold and rainy, so I wore long underwear so my Mom wouldn't get mad at me," Susan laughed.

"This is good weather for Ireland," another person said to laughter.

A man walked in the back and said, "I've been outside. Have you done "Danny Boy" yet?"

"I'm doing it right now but it's hard to get through it without crying," Susan said.

She did seem to tear up a bit and afterwards, acknowledged, "I don't care what your ethnicity or religion or lack of is, that's a moving song. It's mushy and the older you get, the mushier you get."

I wasn't going to disagree with her about that.

She continued on a more chipper note, doing some James Taylor, some Corrine Bailey Rae and some K.T. Tunstall for the group.

Afterwards, I wandered the cemetery for a bit, stopping at as many of the graves with Irish flags as I could before the dampness sent me back to my car.

Out of the blue, I had a memory from childhood of a plaque in my grandparents' house.

May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead.

Since I have no idea where my great-grandparents are buried, spending the day at the cemetery seemed like the most fitting way to acknowledge my roots on St. Patrick's Day.

I only hope they couldn't see that I wasn't wearing green.

Call Me a Guinness-Fueled Groupie

Sometimes, I discovered, it pays to be a groupie.

A friend had e-mailed me that he was playing at Positive Vibe Cafe on St. Patrick's Day and that "I'd love to see you." So naturally I went.

Their specials menu of Irish dishes (New England Boiled Dinner, Corned Buffalo Dinner, Sheppard's Pie and Guinness Irish Stew) were all too tempting for a half Irish lass. Knowing that they'd corned the brisket themselves made my decision all the tougher.

I was torn between the corned bison and the Guinness stew, but I didn't have to decide until my friend finished playing and his girlfriend arrived and we could all eat together, so I had plenty of time. Meanwhile, the restaurant was filling to capacity with people in green attire.

The guy at the table next to me wanted green beer, so his server asked what kind of beer he wanted. When he requested a very dark beer, his server explained that it was not a good candidate for greening and he settled for something more dye-worthy. Is this what St. Patrick's Day has come to?

My friend was playing viola ("for the mid-range") to Russel's guitar and vocals. The set began with Russel saying, "Karen, can you hear the guitar?" Yes, and the viola Dave was playing, too, but why ask a know-nothing like me?

They started with "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and segued nicely into, as Russell put it, "the Irish poet Van Morrison's" Moondance. Irishman Donovan followed with "Colors," one of several of his songs covered tonight.

I clapped enthusiastically for each song, not just because of my friend's viola playing, but because it was fun to hear these old Irish standards. Later I was thanked for clapping loud enough "for multiple people."

Their second set ended with that American-written vaudeville classic, "Danny Boy" and by then the girlfriend had arrived and it was finally time to eat.

The unexpected heartbreak was that the restaurant had been so slammed that they'd run out of all the Irish specials except the stew. So, Irish beef stew it was for the three of us and we were more than happy to have it.

Full of meat, potatoes and carrots, the Guinness gave it a nice sweetness and even the chef said he planned to have a bowl himself (that and make sure that he overplanned for Mother's Day business after leaning his lesson tonight). So the fact is, I did have Guinness for the first time in my life.

We finished with the fudge brownie topped with Bailey's Irish cream mousse (a tasty but sickening green color, but 'tis the day for such) before deciding to head somewhere decidedly un-Irish to finish out the evening. Mezzanine was our agreed-upon destination.

Packed when we arrived, first two stools and then a third opened up to accommodate us. We began with a bottle of the MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir (with Dave humming the "My Three Sons" theme as it was being poured) and a rehashing of the evening at Positive Vibe.

By the time the second bottle arrived, we were deep in discussion of Belmont Food shop (located in their neighborhood, but I was the only one who'd yet to visit), driving to Ashland for music (Dave and I have a history there) and the fact that she and I are the only two females alive without pierced ears (no, really).

In our ears was Pandora, set to Deerhunter, which provided an earwigging mix of Kings of Leon, the Arcade Fire and the Killers. When Band of Horses came on, Dave's ears pricked up. "Who is this?" he asked me. "I would like this."

I told him, I elaborated on the band, shared my impressions of seeing them live and all the while our bartender must have been paying attention. Soon we were hearing Pandora with Band of Horses as a starting point. Bravo for server attentiveness.

Dave insisted on the next course being tequila and while his love demurred, I of course did not. Herradura for him and Hornitos for me were our substitutions for Irish whiskey on this Gaelic night of being surrounded by guys in bad green wigs and hats.

"My treat!" he proclaimed at the end of the evening. "You were nice enough to come hear me play and you clapped the loudest."

But I do that any time I enjoy well-done music; it's a rare occasion that I get anything but an audio treat for being a groupie.

Maybe this is the reward for being a groupie to a friend. If so, I like it.