Tag Archives: Paddy’s Day

Mar15

Here it comes…

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It’s late evening Thursday, but I’m already psyched-up for Paddy’s on Saturday! I’ve just heard 2.5 hours of all-Irish music from my hubby’s Internet radio show (he went over by half n hour because he just didn’t feel like stopping, and he was hoarse from singing along by the end). He’s happy and excited, I’m happy and excited – and best of all, it’s not even my bedtime yet and the show is done, the dinner is et, and I get to have a reasonable amount of sleep on an Oirish Tirsday for a change.

Change is the reason – the time change! The US has done it, but we haven’t yet (nor do I know when we do – why care when it will hit like a ton of bricks and I cannae do a thing about it, anyway). So, his show started and should have ended a whole hour earlier than usual. A bit of panicked rushing round on his part, but man, I wish it were like this every week.

Anyway, Paddy’s… I just love the day here in my small town. I love seeing all my friends and neighbours being silly in costume in the parade, and seeing the creativity of every ‘float’ from local businesses. I love the poor, shivering children in costumes they cannot see out of, and the professionals such as the stilt-walkers or the Samba band or especially, the pipe band from Scotland that always comes. Pipes and drums set my blood on fire.

I love (and also usually really, really don’t want to, at first) standing out front of the pub at 3pm with a frosty pint of Guinness in hand waiting for the parade to come past. I love having so many other friends and neighbours standing with us, giggling, suffering. I love that the parade is so long, and the town is so small, that about 3/4 of the way through it ends up doubling back on itself and we see the same marchers twice.

I love afterward, when the parade is over and I have a good buzz going on and the marchers straggle into the pub with their costumes half removed and any makeup smeared, so I can tell them how much fun it was to see them and how great they were.

I love that this year, I can share some of the hundreds of photos we take with you.

I love my town, and I love St Patrick’s Day here. I never want to be anywhere else.

Dec6

Morning musings

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Well, I didn’t post yesterday. It might be my first day missed, or maybe my second: I seem to recall one Sunday I was too hung over to type. I feel a little lazy about it, but I’ve 145 posts and over 3,500 views and twice last week new records were set for most views in one day (thanks, YukonSocks and unknown person who read nearly every post). I also had my two-month blogging anniversary on Sunday, but I was busy… I guess it’s okay I that I took a day off.

I did nothing yesterday. It was me wearing two shirts, two pairs of socks, two blankets and two cats on the couch most of the day. We found new free TV channels so I gorged on CSI and SVU. Always loved napping to those shows in the US. I like them because I don’t have to care about the regular characters; I can dip in and out and not miss much.

Right now, I’m sitting in front of a roaring fire with Spot. He is annoying me to no end by trying to rub on the corner of my iPad. Gerroff! The sound of his little teeth clicking on the plastic cover drives me crazy.

I’ve another lazy day planned. iDJ broke the hinge on the oven door Saturday, so I need to try to fix that. I’m sure I’ll get sucked into cleaning it, too. Which means first I have to do dishes so my sink is free. Ugh, I’m so tired of doing dishes. Sigh. I also keep meaning to try this recycled-materials recipe for homemade firelighters. I’ll be using the butt-ends of old candles instead of new wax, though, and I’ve been collecting dryer lint and egg cartons for a while, too.

I also have to take a bath. That means turning on the electric water heater and cringing at the red numbers on my Wattson. (It want from 91 watts used per hour to 2,110!) But, I can’t take showers any more, not without suffering. I don’t know what is wrong with my skin, but I have to soak, scrub, soak, scrub to get the dead layer off. A shower just gets it wet and then I itch for an hour. It’s truly disgusting to see my bath water after – I almost need a shower to rinse off my bath. Wish I knew a dermatologist, but they are harder to see here than a back doctor. The internet hasn’t been helpful; as usual, I’m unusual.

Great. I went upstairs to start filling the bath. I got sidetracked watering plants. I came back to the fire to find it had just collapsed and a chunk had flown out and burned a pillow. Glad it didn’t burn Spot! He was only a hands-breadth away.

I have a KIBIS meeting tonight, yay! Last week was postponed due to a cold, then cancelled due to a back injury – and it wasn’t me either time! Unfortunately both happened to MrsMMC. Three of us had a long goofy conversation via FB’s messenger on Friday, though, wherein we decided we should dress up as the Pink Ladies from Grease and enter a float based on the song ‘Look at me I’m Sandra Dee’ in next year’s Paddy’s Day parade. Except we think we should wear red, because all four of our home countries use red in their flags. I said I’d think about it, if I can be Rizzo. They want to have a bowling night, too, so we could reuse the Red Ladies jackets for our bowling team. I don’t enjoy bowling, did it once when I was six and never wanted to do it again – despite the fact I’m good at it on the Wii. But the gals are such good craic, I might put up with it.

The ‘Grease’ idea came out of someone saying that the menfolk are jealous of our KIBIS meetings, and think we all gather around in sexy lingerie and have pillow fights. Uuugh, men. Yes, we’re all gorgeous gals, but really?!? A few weeks ago we spent a half an hour talking about stab wounds and how to recreate them in rising bread dough, autopsies, what weird and/or gross foods we eat in our home countries, and drinking. Soooo girly!