St. Patrick's Day

How did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?  We did more than we usually do, which is wear green and eat Irish soda bread. 

 

We first happened upon a parade last weekend, as we set out to go to a museum.  With traffic blocked, we quickly changed plans and enjoyed the show across the Mall.  And that show included an African-American middle school band, a Bolivian dance troupe, and Falan Gong (Chinese) dance group, and a Central American music group.  Interspersed were the Irish dance schools where young girls outnumbered boys by about 1000 to 1.  Fun.  One marcher, dressed as a Cardinal (but not) came up to Mary and said "You look like a Colleen."  I wonder how many Irish dancers there are in the Cinqo de Mayo parades.

 

Friday night we went out to the Irish pub in Bethesda and listened to a bag-pipe and fiddle rock group from Canada called The Rogues (very good).  And last  night, we wore green and went to Baltimore to eat at Bertha's Mussels, where we got green bumper stickers which said "Eat Bertha's Mussels!"  Lots of revelry in the inner harbor area; more than we expected. 

 

One more St. Patrick's Day comment:  for years I have been calling Mary "Santa Maria of Parking."  Both Friday and Saturday nights in the craziness, we got parking on the (crazy streets,) in front of our destinations.  I hope someone is keeping track of these miracles.  Small ones.

 

Joe is here now, as he arrived last night for his spring break week, to coincide with his job search program.  He spent Friday night with Sean, Amanda and Johanna on their own "night before" celebration in Hoboken.  Sean is also off school for spring break.

 

Other big news is that Margaret moved to a new apartment.  She is living in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, just south of Catholic and Howard universities.  Mary and I went over to check it out; a nice neighborhood and a nice apartment which passed our security inspection.

 

Early in the month I was able to spend a few days up in Pittsfield, checking on the house and meeting with contractors.  I had gone to a conference for work at SUNY Albany, so did my usual driving back and forth.  But the garage is coming along nicely, and even found snow on the ground.  One morning the temperature was 12 degrees, and the workmen still came to do the roof.  I spoke with Johnny who has been commiserating through a long winter without snow.  Marilyn has been volunteered on a woodcarving projects:  horses for a merryground!

 

We've heard from Rochester, Dundee and Pennington, mostly about planning for July 28 weekend.  A couple more days and it's David's birthday!   That gets him closer to retirement.

 

And we also spoke with Dan and Timmy in Mexico.  Dan had traveled to spend a couple of weeks with Tim who is south of Tijuana, but may have contracted pneumonia on the plane.   He had a hospital trip, but is feeling better.

 

Next weekend Peter comes to town for a banjo workshop, and I bought my first baseball ticket of the season.  Reds-Nats in April.

 

Anyone else doing an NCAA bracket?  Mary is and she's doing pretty well so far.

 

That's a wrap.  Love from down here.