Only Shamrocks, No Snakes

Yes, I did wear ugly green beer mug earrings. I think I'll donote them to Goodwill, since they do nothing for my skin tone.

It was a lovely party! Lilian and Anjali were both there with their families (Lilian's one son was at home with her parents). I had never met Lilian, and Lilian had never met Anjali. Also attending the party were a few other sad, misdirected people who don't even write any blogs.

Anyway, Lilian made an astonishing oblong pastry that contained heart of palm, a Brazilian staple. It was as delicious as it was beautiful, with a shamrock cutout on the side. Certainly better than the Irish stew I made. The meat was tough and it really needed salt. (The leftovers were much better today, after cooking longer throughout the party, with added salt and, I know this sounds weird, but I dunked my friend O.'s Irish soda bread in it.) Anyway, two families who attended are vegetarian, and after tasting the Rollo de Palmito I was thinking "WHY do we eat dead animal flesh, again?" Fortunately, I also provided a cheese bourek, a dish from Armenian Delight I had mentioned in an earlier post. You can't go wrong with layers of phyllo, cheese, and butter. Lilian also made a delectable chocolate flan with raspberry sauce. By the way, her family all wore a tasteful shade of green, so they have now been dubbed The Very Irishest Family from Brazil, Ever.

Before the guests arrived, Jack and Will were bugging me saying "We don't have anything to DO!" (Helping set up had been deemed "boring.") So I suggested that they plan a play to perform for the guests, about how St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. They were totally up for that, but then they kept asking John and me for props, items not easily findable or nonexistent, or large, awkward, or breakable. So we had to stipulate that they only use props they could retrieve themselves.

After dinner they enlisted Mira, Anjali's older daughter, to be a snake. Only she didn't seem thrilled to be driven out, with many minutes of the play left over. So she kept standing there and the boys would loudly explain she had been driven OUT. Then Will was a leprechaun who pretended that green Legos were more snakes, and, well, he threw them or something and then the play seemed to be over. Mira came back for the bow and it was quite the success, with much more action and narrative direction than in previous plays, and also less arguing about what the players should say and do. I had to say "Is it over yet?" only once.

Then to prevent complete mayhem we let the kids watch The Three Stooges, which is all my boys watch these days. I'll write a post on that obsession soon. Captain Underpants is so 2006. Then my friend O. came with her husband and kids, to recuperate from attending two obligatory family birthday parties, believe it or not, which we found extremely flattering. Everyone left by shortly before 9:00. So in other words, a late evening for us.

Maybe we'll have another one of these shindigs, where I give everyone a little more notice, and wear better earrings. And no one will have to wear green.