Dear Readers, It’s Spring Break in Texas, and I’m sitting in a wood-paneled pub, making an attempt to feel a little more “spring breaky” myself as I write this column. I just took a tequila shot, but instead of salt and lime, I chased it with a slice of orange sprinkled with cinnamon — which is a pretty common way that folks take their tequila here. Honestly, it’s really quite pleasant. (Seriously, if you try this, please write to me and share your thoughts!) That’ll be the only tequila shot I am consuming (this quarter?) which is a very different calculation from my days of “March madness” down in South Padre Island as a young college coed.
Not to brag, but I *did* see Vanilla Ice in concert four, yes four, times… once at Gordo’s on the square in SMTX and thrice during spring breaks on the island. To be fair, it was the 90s. Vanilla Ice’s album was my very first musical cassette tape that I ever owned. While that may have been years earlier, in 5th grade, it was still exciting to see the “too cold” spectacle (even though it’s so cringey to explain it these days). It was the time of Jerry Maguire and “show me the money,” though Vanilla shouted out for other things to be shown to him on stage. If you were in Padre in those days, you know what I’m talking about. If you weren’t, well, consider yourself spared.
Often, St. Patrick’s Day occurs during Spring Break, but this year, it falls on the Monday that folks return to work and school. Here in Portugal, St. Patty’s is not really a “thing,” but a local group of “expats” will be holding a pub crawl this weekend in honor of the occasion as an excuse to gather and celebrate. One fella on the internet took issue with the invitation to the event and vehemently believed that March 17 is absolutely THE ONLY day that people can celebrate. It got me to thinking about how people oftentimes try to police and enforce arbitrary “rules” around holidays such as when you are “allowed” to put up your Christmas/Halloween decorations and when it’s acceptable to wear white or open-toed shoes according to Labor Day/Easter schedules. And how dare you eat your raisins beyond midnight on New Year’s Eve?
