photo:  kk This is not the man I met, but I sure do like his style. KK snapped this shot at an Irish Heritage Festival in Vancouver. Parties celebrating St. Patrick and the Irish are taking place all across the globe today. For a list of fun Irish pubs in the US, see Laura Martone's American Nomad post as a guide.

You know the Irish haven't been particularly lucky, right? Oh, I'm sure there have been individuals who've struck gold or caught the big one. But with the country's history of colonization, starvation and mass emigration, that whole Luck of the Irish thing is ironic.

I have the luck of the Irish. At least, I did when I attended St. Patrick's Day festival in Savannah, GA, which boasts the second largest gathering of green-clad revelers in the US. What a party! It was fantastic! I was all of 20 at the time. And I thank my lucky shamrocks only my ego got hurt.

Don't get the wrong impression of Savannah's annual spectacle just because I had bad luck. It wasn't the crowd that posed a danger. It was that one cute guy in the window of the pub.

It was totally his fault.

See, Savannah's historic district has beautiful centuries-old architecture that lines the pedestrian walk. Many of these buildings now house great cafes and bars with sidewalk seating or big old-style windows that open to the world.

The cute guy was sitting at a table parked in the open window of one of these places. The grand wooden window frame made him seem like a painting I'd like to take home and hang on the wall. He winked at me as my friends and I were parading past on the sidewalk, which was all it took to make the party around me fade into a dream.

I smiled back with flirty "Kiss Me, I'm Pretending to be Irish" eyes. For the record, this is different than "You're Getting Lucky." But it turned out not to matter what my facial expression meant, because it's the look of surprise that came next he'd be more likely to remember.

I heard my name. It was called out in a shrill kind of scream, really. My friend was trying to warn me. But I didn't turn around in time to see the modern fixture in this old-world dreamland. I just tripped right over the fire hydrant.

Airborne.

Over a fire hydrant.

Uh-huh.

Inertia took the top part of my body after my legs had been knocked off balance by the steel obstruction. And as we know, a body in motion will stay in motion until something like, say, a sidewalk pushes against it.

I would like to think the cute guy in the window gave me style points for not chipping a tooth or breaking my neck. But it's more likely he was laughing even harder than my friends.

And let me tell you: they were laughing pretty hard. None of 'em were much help as I tried to untangle my legs from around the hydrant, and right myself in the midst of my own convulsive giggles. But I cut them some slack, because I had help... from the leprechaun who reacted faster.

A man in a green top-hat and tail-coat had seen this scene play out from a distance, and came swinging his shillelagh over as soon as it happened. It's oh-so easy to be humble when passersby gather to watch a spritely man in sequins check your knees and elbows for scrapes.

I was fine. Really, I was. My embarrassed gratitude must have translated to "Kiss Me, I'm Foolish."  The nice leprechaun kissed my bruised elbow, and bid us all a lucky day. So to you, dear reader, how ever you maybe celebrating today — I wish you the kind of luck that's not ironic... unless you want to be kissed by heroic men in tights.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!