Just wondering what you all did to mark yesterday. After work I had to run Youth meeting at church (Junior High). When I returned home I watched “The Secret if Roan Inish.” Cute movie, almost a ballad on film.
Worked all day with public radio on. WETA scattered some Irish tunes, musicians, and composers throughout the programming, including a killer set by the L.A. Guitar Quartet that included “Music for a Found Harmonium.”
It was my turn to lead tae kwon do class that night and we have a bunch of community college students in who take it for phys-ed credit. Their participation presents challenges to class organization.
Then stopped at my dear neighbor’s, a self-described “lace curtain Irish Catholic” (with a master’s in theology from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary) and she fed me corned beef and cabbage. I wish I had thought to bring a bottle of Guiness along, but I had to make do with a glass of White Zin.
I told her someone had posted the Confessions of St. Patrick on the site here and she was amused.
M
Well, I had planned on doing a lot of whistling but got involved in another project. Then for dinner we had fajitas instead of corned beef and cabbage because…well, it’s a long story. Then I rehearsed with a band I’m in who plays not a lick of Irish music. We played Slavic dances and Dixieland. I suggested a jig but no one knew any. Except me.
Oh, and I shoveled snow.
After work there was a St. Patrick’s Day party at a friend’s house.
Sam couldn’t show because he’s neck deep in his classes till this semester’s over, but Pat brought a guitar and he and I knocked out tunes for the rest for about 4 hours.
It was a lot of fun, there was free beer and Irish coffee and better than that there was good companionship–and it’s always more fun to play for folks who really appreciate and enjoy it. 
So it was a good day.
–James
Seeing as you ask -
I drank fresh green juices all day
sweetened with Granny Smith apple juice.
You know,
lettuce juice, celery, savoy cabbage with mint,
artichoke leaves, coriander etc
One of my Irish friends who plays sitar visited me.
We did Celtic things with flute and sitar.
I also played my live recordings with singers
I met at the Durham Folk Festival in England in 1985.
If you are one of those singers
please contact me via PM if you like.
I want to put us on CD with your permission.
I don’t want to say who you are here for privacy reasons
Remember me I played tambourine and tin whistle (a bit).
You loved my dancing.
You sang a lament for me.
You also sang with my wife
“she moved thru the Fair” with dulcimers (Appalachian)
and we did “Wild Mountain Thyme” also
and your friend got very excited.
yes I reminisced much on St Patrick’s Day.
I had to do the cutting-o-the-green, my green grass/weeds for the first time! Spring comes early where I live.
Wednesday just happens to be the night of the regular session down at the Woolly so it was the only place to be. 17 musicians in full flight and on top form. Craic. 
I also did a spot of gardening-I planted out 60 head of Garlic(very Irish) that I’d set away in pots,then planted out Shallots (absolutely brilliant pickled with peppercorns,mustard seed and red chillies for extra oomph!) and planted a ‘Cox’s orange Pippin’ Apple tree.
Maybe I should plant Shamrock and sell it in next year!
Then I asked Tom, our latest allotment garden association member,if it was him whom I’d seen in the audience at the local folk club, about a month ago (a gig featuring Pauline Cato on Northumbrian pipes)and he confirmed that it was,and that he actually PLAYS Northumbrian smallpipes! 
-it’s a small world-TWO ‘Goose stranglers’(albeit different types of ‘Geese’ NSP’s and U.P.‘s) out of a Gardening club membership of 27 people!.We may have some outdoor jams down there in the summer!
Expect my paper entitled’The effects of badly played pipes on plant physionomy’ sometime! 
We watched the PBS programs on the Irish in America, played some Irish CDs, and played a few tunes on the whistle. For dinner we had a casserole of potatoes, cabbage and onions seasoned with caraway seed. Of course we added a little cayenne pepper and 3 cloves of garlic. My one granddaughter who is away at college sent me an Email complaining about her room mates and friends. She said that they just didn’t know anything about being Irish.
Ron
That Casserole sounds good Ron!
I had Beef,mashed potatoes and a huge leek pudding (suet dumpling flavoured with chopped leek),just the thing after digging!
The WhiskyTones played a two-set gig at a corporate office party in the afternoon. Several surprises. As noted before, it was a “celtic” celebration and there was dacent haggis and some other stuff, prepared and catered by a Scottish pub owner. While first arriving, I managed to back my wagon up to a curb and blowout my tire, so we had to hump all the guitars and sound gear in 90-degree heat for a few hundred yards but they had AC inside. Also, unbeknownst to me, they had scheduled a local dance school to do a reel, jig, hornpipe and fling to our music. We did okay though we played a bit slow on the impromptu reel and forgot the “three times through the first part” thing. After the gig, I went out to the lot and changed the tire because AAA takes like an hour and half to get anywhere here… BTW, the AAA Call Center was in India!! I could hear the guys kids in the background.
The next gig was two hours later. Played for dinner at the Benicia Yacht Club (northeastern part of SF Bay, where the inland rivers drain thru the Carquinez Straits). Who knew that Yacht Club officers dress like the Capn on the Love Boat? I was crackin’ up. First set went okay and we started getting notes from the audience to do various songs that we don’t do yet (this band only going since October). You know, like Black Velvet Band. One guy wanted the “Kerry Dance” which I thought was a tune but it turned out to be a song. Requesters always come up after the gig and sing the song they wanted while yer packin’ up, I have discovered.
Second set went great. They liked our songs and my big solo tuneset (Girl With the Golden Hair, thanks to BSteve, Earls Chair and Lobster reels) went super well. Once again, thanks to a Chiffy helper, our song Boozin’ was a huge hit.
After we were done playing, the formerly blazin’ day turned into a beautiful evening. We sat out on the deck of the Yacht Club, overlooking the water and had truly fine corned beef, herbed red taters, clam chowder, salad and libations. Good ale in one hand, whisky and water in the other, we toasted the day for a few hours and got good and “cheerful.” I am noticing that more and more people are baking their corned beef rather than boiling. Comes out saltier but its good.
Since I started whistling in earnest several years ago, my wish has been to perform on March 17. For past two years, it has come true. This was a fun one.
90 degrees in San Francisco on St Paddy’s Day?!
It’s going to be a bad summer…
Well, mebbe 80 in SF but near 90 in Concord and Benicia, where gigs were. Yes, we are having a global warming spring pollen filled scorcher this week. I couldn’t believe the snow back East.
Doesn’t this mean huge tornados in the midwest, when you have such opposing conditions? i keep expecting to see flying cows on the news!
Ditto on the corned beef and cabbage. Both my kids bit down on a whole pepper 
and wouldn’t eat another bite.
As long as the pigs don’t fly. That would mean a lot of people would have to do a lot of things they swore they’d never do. 
Nothing different. Just a lovely evening at home. I made steak, garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli with parmesan.
And I played a Hammy flute and a little blackbird whistle all day.
Bought camera equipment on eBay!
Well, I have to start by saying that, lovely as it is, Santa Cruz is a rotten place to spend St. Patrick’s Day. The only so-called “Irish” pub in town served green beer and corned beef (how frickin “Oirish” can you get?), and had only jazz as its musical offering (jazz is fine, but in an “Irish” pub on St. Patrick’s Day???).
I did, however, have a great day. First, my new whistle came (Sweetheart Pro), and I had a lovely time getting to know it. Second, I got to spend quite a lot of time on the Irish Translation Forum, which is always interesting and fun. And third, I got to sing with my old choir, which was a pleasure beyond imagining! So dismal “official” offerings aside, I figure I had a pretty happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Redwolf
Jessie: I still remember your review of the LonDubh and it caused my Whoa to itch like crazy.
Is that your favorite whistle these days?? Now that you have had it for quite a while, do you think you could point out two superlatives: it’s greatest strength and greatest weakness?
The entire city was out for St.Patrick’s Day this year, not expected or appreciated by me. Went to my favourite pub and there was a 2 hour line-up! There’s nothing worse than discovering that “your” pub has become a popular hang-out. So we stood around like idiots from 5:30 to 7:30 on a very chilly March Evening for Ottawa (which is, indeed, chilly). I wasn’t happy since I had been looking forward to a bowl of their stew all week with a nice pint of Guinness before the crowds showed up. Worth it when we got in, 2 fun bands (it’s called The Irish Village, has 4 pubs at the moment, all connected), although I only actually saw one since the real trad band was blocked by a throng of people. Mostly we were confined to the downstairs pub, which was nice because it had an open fire and wasn’t quite as crowded as the other bars. All in all, a fun night with the usual 5th Generation North American Macho frat boys who will constantly, and angrily, proclaim that they are Irish all bleeding night.