st patrick's day, 2023

Ah this messy family room--maybe tomorrow it'll get neatened up.

The leprechauns came this afternoon, threw candy, and left their usual mean note.

We don't even have kids anymore and the leprechauns did mention that in the note.

That's okay.  I hear the grandkids are living it up at their houses, big time believers, delighted and shocked at the same time.

We drove over to the kids school at suppertime for fish again. They have this Lent fundraiser going and its been fun. We met Alicia's parents there and saw the kids.

A couple weeks ago I bought Viewmaster slides and brought them with to amuse the kids.  We had viewmaster viewers and no reels. Well, on ebay they don't sell just the reels that much, and some are awfully expensive. This was a package deal with a viewer included.  Good enough.  

The kids were intrigued, and yes this is how we used to be entertained before internet.  It was crazy boring, you realize.  I showed them how to position the reels just so to make the images 3D, and hold it up toward the light.  They were amused by the slides. Some were kind of disturbing. Loincloths?  A guy about to stab a monkey?  (Very Hollywood, all fake, no worries.)

This afternoon my sales manager called with a lead for me.  Jay and I were in the office shooting the breeze when he called and we asked him, did he remember when we all were at Normandy Inn on St. Patrick's Day ten years ago?  

He is a pianist and his group used to play music in the fancy little elegant bar in the hotel.  We often went to the city for this on Saturday nights. They had old timey movies with the sound off playing behind the bar, Some Like it Hot, Titanic.

It was the nicest way ever to spend a Saturday night.

 

Except for St. Patrick's Day. This tiny, quaint bar was packed with revelers marching in and out. The crowd was loud and inebriated.   At some point Jim and his group played Danny Boy and then they really went nuts.

Today on the phone he was laughing, "Oh yes, Danny Boy, maudlin.   I remember, I remember," and we laughed some more.

We had invited friends to join us that night, not realizing. Their eyes were wide, "You come here all the time??" 

Oh my goodness. Yes. But not this way.

How I'd love to spend a Saturday evening there again, sitting with Jay along the stained glass windows, watching old movies, listening to Jim play the piano with his friends.

Ah, well.  Nothing but love,  Val