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Top 'o the morning!



   We’re coming up on St. Patrick’s Day, which is pretty much my favorite day in the world. It’s even better when you take a solid week to celebrate. Once I followed the truck full of green beer all the way up 81 to Coleman’s Irish Pub in Syracuse. It wasn’t on purpose. Honest. It was inspiring. We used to talk the priest at my old job into going out for a green beer with us because no decent Irish bartender would charge a man with a collar. We’d ask him to order for us, and he usually obliged for at least a round or two.
   And on top of the green beer, there’s the corned beef and mashed potatoes with onion, celery and carrots. I always doubted whether Dubliners actually eat corned beef on St. Patty’s Day. Probably not. This year I didn’t buy the corned beef, another casualty of moving away from my two oldest. They loved my corned beef and cabbage, and I made it for them every year. Now it’s my husband and I, and God only knows what might happen if we ingest that much fat and starch in one day. My youngest son doesn’t eat meat and already asked if we could celebrate the day by buying St. Patrick a birthday cake at Stop & Shop. He’s Baby Jesus so I didn’t say no.
   What a great holiday though. Delicious food, great Irish music, parades, crazy green clothes, and this year a chance for SU’s basketball team to take the last Big East game. It doesn’t get much better than that. I may go out and buy those fake fingernails and paint them green. That sounds just about perfect.


Tis better to buy a small bouquet

And give to your friend this very day,

Than a bushel of roses white and red

To lay on his coffin after he's dead.


  

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