St. Paddy's Day Past

I have returned. I felt I needed to stop writing for a while because of the events taking place in Japan. Watching everything unfold on television really makes anything I have to say trivial. Still I hope for Japan to have a speedy recovery. They are a strong nation and I know they will pick themselves up and recover. Still my thoughts continue to go out to those that have been affected by this travesty.

 St. Patrick's Day by Amauri Aguiar at flickr via Gothamist

This past Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, or St. Paddy's (not Patty with two T's) for those who are too lazy to say Patrick. As usual, I normally prepare for this occasion by taking the day of and the day after off. Why not take the day after off, I need to recover from a holiday that centers not around St. Patrick driving the snakes (no he did not speak parseltongue, and the snakes were actually pagans) out of Ireland, but of the time honored tradition of binge drinking. 

This year, the holiday started off with the consumption of an Irish Breakfast with my drinking crew. To my amazement it was rather delicious, just don't ask what black and white pudding is until after you eat it. Oh, be wary of any coffee drink that involves the addition of liquor to it because your coffee may turn from two dollars into twelve (yes, I was equally as shocked). With bellies now satisfyingly full, we were off and on our way.

After traveling via everyones' lateness provider known as the MTA, we arrived on the scene. If you simply enjoy watching people wave as they walk, then this is most certainly the parade for you. Everyone is Irish at the parade on St. Patrick's day including all of the revelers that douched their way in from Long Island, making the parade what it is today, Mardi Gras part deux.

via www.life.com

As is with every year, the parade was packed and a washed in a sea of green. This sea of green is mostly formed by drunken (understatement) roving packs of ____________ (insert your own made up name for these people) decked out in Irish Mardi Gras type beads, stately tall jester hats reminiscent of a Guinness and plastic bowler hats (I hope no ones head got caught on fire). By the way, I wore my own silly hat for the occasion. The only thing keeping these people from making it a total Mardi Gras type situation was the absence of boobage on display (this non-showing of the twins actually let me down).

I myself, unlike most I encountered during the holiday, enjoyed the day with pints of Guinness (nothing reeks of Irish more than Coors light, but who am I to judge). I will admit, I do feel on St. Patrick's day, drinking an Irish beer is the course of action, luckily for the Kegs and Eggs sect (link is slightly NSFW), Jameson is readily available, which more than makes up for their consumption of B(cr)ud and Coors as well as PBR for any boozed out hipster-chauns. For me and my own crew, a flask of 12 year old Redbreast was our whiskey on board. Mmmm, mmmm smooth!!

We hopped around to a few bars, never making a scene or asses out of ourselves. We found out that the Dropkick Murphy's and Flogging Molly along with the Pogues were the choice of many a bars music selection. We got to hang out with a real piper on 14th street, and made it home before the real danger set in, the 6pm fresh out of work crew and the 2nd wave of college drunken kids.

All and all, it was an enjoyable St. Paddy's day. Slainte!!