I hope you all had a Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

My grandma’s birthday (my mom’s mom) was Monday.  Happy Birthday Grandma Giese!  She would have been 84 years old today.  I remember thinking that because her birthday was on St. Patrick’s Day that we were Irish.  Oh the random thoughts of a child.

The last two weeks seem to have flown by…well actually this whole first part of the year seams to have flown by already!  Here in the “Frozen Tundra” we are slowly but surely beginning to thaw out!  To write this post, I stopped at a local coffee shop called Kavarna, and before I sat down to finish this post, I grabbed a fruit smoothy.  The girl behind the counter made a comment that only in Wisconsin, once the weather gets above freezing and starts to get “nice”, do we start to order frozen drinks!

Friday night I made some homemade Mac & Cheese. It was the worst batch of Mac & Cheese I’ve ever made.  The noodles were over cooked and mushy and the bread crumbs, instead of being crusty, were also mushy.  I was really excited to make it and eat it and then it was a huge disappointment. The Mac & Cheese looked so promising.

Besides making my bad Mac & Cheese, I watched The Quartet on Showtime. I had a happening Friday night.

Saturday morning, I met one of my coworkers, Chris and his girlfriend Emily, for Green Bay’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  It is nowhere near the size or prestige of the Chicago, or Boston parades and it was over in a blink of an eye.  There was a performance by Irish Dancers.  It was so cold Saturday, the dancers looked like they were freezing.  The littlest dancers were adorable, but looked so cold!

I remember having to march in parades and at football games in freezing cold weather with a Bari Sax! My senior year of high school, the football team had made it to the post season (a rarity back then) but it was so cold that when we took the filed to perform at halftime my sax broke and I had to pretend to play! There were little Ewoks (I have a stuffed Ewok somewhere), Storm Troopers and Darth Vader in a kilt. Who knew that even those who live in a galaxy far, far away celebrated St. Patrick’s Day.  Look at that dog it’s HUGE!

After the parade and watching the Irish dancers we had lunch at Hagemeister Park.  We had something to warm up.  I had hot chocolate and Bailey’s, and the “Meister” burger.

When I went home I made Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with a Chocolate Baileys ganache and Bailey’s butter cream frosting.

So joined an online dating site a few weeks ago, and I’ve chatted with a few prospective “romanticals” as my friend Heather calls them.  There was one guy that I’ve gone out on a few dates.  I’ll call him The Writer (he’s a sports writer for a sports website). So two Wednesdays ago (Ash Wednesday of all days). We met for drinks at Titletown Brewing, We seemed to hit it off and what I had though would be only a couple hours ended up being more than four hours. We went out the following Saturday to a Mexican place in De Pere and then caught a comedy show after.  During our second date he mentioned that the website he works for was thinking about opening an office in Chicago but he thought that he could still work from home in Green bay.  I think by Tuesday or Wednesday of last week the decision had been made to move the midwest writers to Chicago.  So that means he’s moving to Chicago on Friday, and long distance isn’t really what I’m looking for.

So Saturday night, The Writer had a going away party at Titletown Brewery, I stopped by for a drink and then went out with Chris and Emily to St. Brendan’s, where we listened to some live Irish music and met up with my friend Kira. The four of us eventually made our way down the block to Fox Harbor, and caught the end Shaker and the Egg’s show. When their show ended, Kira and I went to Anduzzi’s, which also had a band called Annex and ended up running into The Writer. Annex was OK, a little more heavy metal that I usually like in my music. After a drink, and the clock getting closer to bar close Kira and I decided to head out. I got a text from The Writer asking where I was and he ended up meeting us. The Writer and his friend ended coming along for one last drink at The Sardine Can.

When we got to The Sardine Can, there was maybe 10 people out (it’s usually packed when there’s a band or during the summer).  There was a fight behind the bar, between one of the female bartenders and some other chick.  I walked up to some guy named Tommy and tried to find out what was going on. From our little conversation, he also had no clue.  We got to chatting-about some random guys whose pants were sagging low (one of my pet peeves is pants so low that I can see if you’re wearing boxers or briefs-at least they were boxers and not briefs like some teen heart throb I won’t mention)  and drank our beers.  At some point some more of The Writer’s friends came in and the next thing I knew they were heading out.

Kira and I went to Blackstone Family Restaurant. I ordered an omelet.  The food was good-for after bar close food. But the service was pretty slow.  I know they were busy, but by the time our bill came I was ready to get home and go to bed.  It was a long day, and I was tired.  It’s not the drinking that does me in, its not going to bed at a decent time!  4 a.m. is way to late.

Sunday morning, I was up and over at my dad’s just after 11 so we could go to the Home and Garden show. He was looking for some price quotes on lawn care and custom blinds for his living room.  We ended up running into his friend Billy and his wife Heather and their little girl and chatted with them.

I was hoping for more garden ideas and was disappointed. It mostly included home improvement and landscaping improvement. There wasn’t anything about any kind of gardens, be it vegetables or flowers.  I’m looking for some ideas for more container gardening.

They did have some choppers from Orange County Choppers.  They were pretty awesome looking.  The gray one was for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.  I had made a comment to my dad that it’s too bad that they won’t see the road, they are just for show.

 

That was how I spent my St. Patrick’s Day weekend.   I’m off to have dinner with my brother and his roommate.  I’m not sure how much longer Greg has in Green Bay before he moves out to Boston.  I’m going to make sure that I enjoy my time with him as much as possible!