17 March 2000

Technically, given my ancestry, I should be wearing orange (I'm part Scot and no part Irish) but I look much better in green, so there you are. Besides, I'm pretty well situated to enjoy St. Patrick's Day. My maiden name is Luck. Hey, it didn't occur to me when I was going through that tedious name-change process after I got married, but I can now say, "Luck is my middle name!" How cool is that?

And as long as I'm mentioning Lucky things, the day Matt and I got married, one of our guests found a four-leaf clover in the church yard. He picked it and held on to it all the way through the ceremony, and gave it to us in the reception line. We've still got it - we pressed it in our guest register.

At any rate, for the majority of us, St. Patrick's Day is a pretty bloodless holiday. Wear a little green, tease people who forget, do a little drinking. I understand Chicago goes to some trouble for the holiday, dying the river green and having a rather elaborate parade. It sounds like fun, but I'm not sure I'd want to fight the crowds for it. So for a holiday that's fun and doesn't really carry much significance, I'm willing to play along. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

K.T.'s having a belated St. Patrick's Day party tomorrow (late so that her husband and his friends from work - all of whom have to work tonight - can attend.) Which means, I suddenly remember, that I really need to go to the store tonight and pick up some eggs and something to drink. Heh. Excuse me while I just jot a note in my PDA...

K.T. dropped by our house last night while Matt and I were eating dinner. She was on her way home after her salary and benefits negotiations, and was feeling too excited to go home and sit by herself until Kevin got home at 11. For the first time in over a year, she's got a real job. (By "real" I mean a full-time job that isn't a temp position.) She's pretty happy about it, despite the rather long drive she'll be making.

I'm happy for her, myself. She and Kevin have been having a lot of financial trouble lately, and Kevin is getting fed up with being jerked around at his job. Steady work for her means that they can start to pay off the accumulating bills and Kevin can start looking for something better.

The local cable company is going to be laying a new main cable - we got a notice in the mail asking us to let them know if we'd laid any underground sprinkler systems or lights. Yesterday, the NoCuts people had come by and sprayed our whole side of the street with orange and pink paint, marking other buried lines, like power and phone lines. Our yard is studded with little flags and paint. Annoying, but temporary.

And that was it, until K.T. wondered aloud last night, "Look how high up into your yard the paint goes. They're not going to dig up your yard, are they?" Then I started wondering just where the new cable would be laid. Would they dig up our new mulch bed? Disturb my plants and tree? Surely not! But then again, perhaps...

So I'm fretting. I don't really care if they dig up our grass; there's not much of it anyway. But I'm going to be quite upset if they dig up my plants.