Happy St. Paddy's Day

"Irish Drinking Song" - The Dropkick Murphys

Hey, what were you expecting? 

Comments

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

As someone who spent a couple of hours of preparation on an oven-braised corned beef with vegetables (parsnips, carrots, turnips, string beans, fennel, celery, chervil, and red cabbage) and then took 7 hours cooking it -- and who was lucky enough to find Jameson's selling for the same price as Bushmill's -- I'll just regret there are no YouTubes of Pierce Turner and Larry Kirwan (of BLACK 47) from the days when they were a band. But stroll over there, search either of them, put on some music as I take a sip and a taste -- and fill a pipe with the other "good green stuff" and wish you all a great holiday -- and hope spring is hinting of its arrival where you are the way it is through my windows.

[Delicious Pundit]

Or, for the authenticity nuts, this.

[minstrel hussain boy]

when your laws can stop the blades of grass
from growin' as they grow
and the leaves of summertime
do not dare their foliage show

then i shall change the colour
i wear in my capean
until then,
praise to god i'll stick
to wearin' o' th' green.

'tis a grand and glorious day today. best wishes to all our irish friends, and special honours to thems as only wish they were irish.

[Sir Charles]

Jim,

Enjoy your feast and your drop.

DP,

Priceless. Kermit is clearly Irish of course.

[litbrit]

From my morning In box comes this lovely Irish saying:

It is easy to be pleasant
when life flows by like a song,
but the man worthwhile
is the one who will smile
when everything goes dead wrong.

For the test of the heart is trouble,
and it always comes with years,
and the smile that is worth
the praises of earth
is the smile that shines through the tears.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. (I am either one-eighth or one-sixteenth Irish, depending on which grandparent I asked.)

Prup, I am envious of all those delicious vegetables (just not the beef part!)

[low-tech cyclist]

In my household, today is an even better day than St. Patrick's Day. It's the first anniversary of the day we walked out of the baby house in Samara with Ilya.

For all the exhaustion and frustration inherent in parenting a toddler, I have only one thing to say:

Best. Year. Ever.

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

Congratulations. I had one of my colleagues in here today discussing animatedly his five month old's progress in rolling over and the like. It made me laugh.

It's funny to be on the other end of the child rearing arc -- but the duties remain eternal. I made sure the lad had his Celtic (soccer not basketball) jersey ready to wear today and then had to run over to school at lunch time to give him spandex shorts to wear under his track uniform. It's a good thing I don't have to work for a living.

[litbrit]

Congrats, ltc! I'd say you and Mrs. ltc have certainly earned yourselves a pair o' Guinnesses, at the very least. It gets a little easier, physically, as they get older, but the stress and worries remain similar in magnitude, if not in scope. Here's another thing no-one told me (well, not that I remember): they're your babies FOREVER. In other words, you now know what it is to have your heart walk around outside of your body. Get used to it! ;-)

[John]

Happy St.Patrick's Day to you, too!

[kathy a.]

congrats, l-tc! DP, that is a wonderful clip! litbrit, thank you for that irish saying. prup, sounds very yummy.

happy st. paddy's to all!

i'll second what litbrit said about kids. ours are 21 and 22; we are entrusting the house and pets to the latter while we go far away to visit the former. son just had a plateful of corned beef, cabbage, and taters. hope that works as a bribe to do good and remember the homestead.

[Joe]

Prup, do you really like Jameson's better than Bushmills ? FYI, there's an Irish Whiskey called "Feckin" which they've been trying to introduce to the American market. They therefore sell it pretty cheap- often selling a full liter for the price of a 750 milliter bottle. It's well worth the price.

L-T-C, wait a year or so and St. Patrick's Day gets even better when music is mixed with toddlers. This year we went out with my three year old and her similarly aged cousins and they actually danced along to Irish jigs. It was beyond adorable.

[litbrit]

Kathy, let me wish you safe and joyful travels right now, before I forget. Take loads of photos! (It is tree-blossom time yet? Almost?)

I'd tell you all about my own drinking plans for tonight, but I am out with some sort of weird back pain today, and may have to go to something stronger than Motrin in a bit, which means no Guinness or green-tinted Chardonnay for me (my whiskey-drinking days are long, long gone, along with my tequila-shooting nights and my vodka-sipping mornings, ha!)

[Corvus]

You know, it's kind of sad. I have spent all week listening to the Pogues, so right now I don't really feel like listening to them. Later tonight I will fry up a porkchop (after all it was stumbling upon a herd of pigs that saved the lives of Patrick and his fellow sailors after beaching on the shores of Britain following his flight from slavery in Ireland) and some mashed potatoes (I hope this doesn't need explanation).

And here's Danny Boy sung by "la suntuosa Cait O'Riordan", accompanied by certain familiar drunken reprobates.

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

Thanks for the video -- I'd never seen that.

I actually left work at 4:30 -- which for a lawyer is like playing hooky -- and went out for a quick two beers and a shot of Jameson's. A splendid afternoon.

kathy,

Bon voyage! Have a lovely trip and say hi if you get a chance to let us know how it's going.

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

I've got to try Feckin' now. Who could resist that name?

[Corvus]

Sir Charles,

That's actually footage from "Straight to Hell" a spaghetti western parody made by the guy who directed Repo Man that stars a bunch of British music legends, including Joe Strummer. I haven't seen it, but found some clips from it online.

I love that even in the movie, in what is obviously a very well-planned-out shot, Shane MacGowan is visibly and authentically drunk. I doubt he has much dialogue in the film.

[jacqueline klein]

i meant to share this with you earlier....for st patrick's day.
it is very beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipSncKNvwOQ

[Sir Charles]

jacqueline,

That was really touching.

When I last visited New York I was surprised to stumble upon a memorial to the potato famine down by the World Finanical Center not far from Battery Park --it's sort of a jarring sight there. It would be good every now and again for my all too often militaristic ethnic brethren to contemplate how well our forefathers fared under imperialism and how much they enjoyed the beneficence of foreign occupation.