Something fun...and then the education kicks in

Hey y'all! Go take this here test!

I'm 71% Dixie - and proud of it. What about YOU?

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Happy St Paddy's day. Patrick me boyo was a Roman-born Christian, captured at age 16 and carried off to Ireland where he may or may not have gotten rid of all the snakes whilst serving as a shepard first and a missionary later. Faith and begorrah, that's quite a feat.

An aside: Could we arrange for someone to get rid of all the spiders in North Carolina? I'd vote them in for sainthood on the strength of that miracle, and I'm not even catholic!

Ol' Pat is one of the patron saints of Ireland (also of Nigeria, Montserrat, and engineers, as it so happens), along with Brigid of Kildaire and "Columba."

That Columba dude's life makes for some pretty interesting reading, if you've got the time. He's not only a patron saint of Ireland, he's got Scotland covered too, and is also responsible for well as floods, bookbinders, and poets. What a guy.

HOWEVER, of the three patron saints of Ireland, the one I'm most impressed with, strictly for the sheer weight of the responsibilities of her patronage, is Brigid. Dudes, check this out, she's the patron saint of (and draw yourselves a deep breath before launching to this next bit):

babies; blacksmiths; boatmen; cattle; chicken farmers; children whose parents are not married (editor's note: the bastards!); dairymaids; dairy workers; fugitives; infants; Ireland; mariners; midwives; milk maids; newborn babies; nuns; poets (editor's note - poets apparently need TWO patron saints. Go figure); poultry farmers; poultry raisers; printing presses; sailors; scholars; travellers; and watermen

Leave it to a woman to tackle a list four times as long as her male compatriots. And yes, "babies," "infants," and "newborn babies" might SEEM to be the same thing to you and me, but apparently they're not or the lords and lordesses of Wikipedia would not have listed them separately. ;) So too might "boatmen" and "mariners" be equivalent; again, there must be some subtle shades of meaning that render them unequivalent.

Brigid - multiplexer, possible resume padder, and patron saint of the inanimate (printing presses? really??). How very interesting.

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Tomorrow's post - the 5 things about me meme, with which ETW tagged me the other day, and which I was planning to do today except I got caught up in patron saints of Ireland, and you all now know how swimmingly THAT went.

Have a great Monday - Erin Go Bragh, y'all!!