Happy St. Patty's!

... a few days late...

chicago is definitely a raucous place around the grand green holiday. while buying a shamrock shake at mcd's before a show last thursday (the 9th), i found out that they famous dying of the river would take place that saturday. on one side, i was very bummed b/c all of my MN visitors wouldnt be arriving for another week. but on the other side, i conspired with my good pal O to roam the streets of downtown together - taking pix of the river, parade and affiliates for his current website project.

so off we went on saturday the 11th, to view the freaktastic dying of the river. it was really eerie at first - like ghost fingers of slime oozing through the water (if you've ever watched the river on a normal day, i guess this isnt too odd -ha- but it's still eerie). The dye that they use starts out bright orange, but as it hits the water, it turns a neon green. This year there were a few brave and insane kyakers that invaded the river, just at the peak of the dying, and a police boat sped after them, splashing them with the green goodness. other boats were in it too - the usual tour boat was there, as were a few of these little guys.

i couldnt help but wonder what falling in would be like. i had a friend in high school who claimed to have gotten ripped at an older friend's apartment in chicago, and on the walk to the train station, decided it would be nice to jump in for a bit of a cool-off. but, high school male drunken hearsay is always taken with a grain of salt, no?


so here is the green river, in all of it's splendor. 4 hours later, after the parade (not much to report here - you've seen big crowds of people, you've seen parades... you're good to go) the river was still haunted with small tide pools of day-glo remnants.

O and i stopped at a great little place called Elephant and Castle where i stuffed myself silly with roast beef, carmelized onions, yorkshire pudding over mashed taters with tons of brown gravy. O had the corned beef & cabbage, which was also very tasty. 2 boddingtons later and we were happy with a little irish in us.

it's only fair to report what went on on the real st. patty's day. my visitors from MN included mule, little B, Lauren and Seth. drinks included green sangria and too many imports to remember. food ranged from popcorn to bacon to fluffy oven pancakes to fish & chips. fun was had. the only sad part was saying goodbye and stepping on the scale this morning...