It's St. Patrick's Day!

Slainte!
The cool thing about St. Patrick's Day being on a Friday this year was that it became St. Patrick's DayS. Sweet.
The adventure began Thursday night, in the kitchen, when I whipped up a traditional (?) meal - cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and onions in a pot with horseradish sauce on the side. Yum!
But wait, where is horseradish kept at a supermarket? (I'll give our viewers at home a chance to play along and guess here: _______).
The employees did not know. It's not next to the mayo. It's not with the spices. It's not between horseradish sauce and horseradish mustard. If you guessed "next to the eggs", you're clever, OR, like me, you called my mom and asked. Moms rule...
Belly filled with potatoes and Guinness, I went to bed with visions of bagpipes dancing in my head.
Friday (St. Patrick's Day!) began at the Park Slope Barnes and Noble. Hey, guess who doesn't care about St. Patrick's Day? As it turns out, most of Park Slope. The only event was a police officer getting shot in the leg by a richocheting bullet outside the store. I don't think that's a tradition in Ireland. Although... some cultures fire assault rifles into the air at weddings.... perhaps this is a sign of the globalization of the holiday.
I guess maybe I expected too much of the Slope, though. I mean, this isn't a particularly Irish neighborhood. So, like, why should they celebrate St. Patrick's Day? (Because Irish culture is cooler than everyone else's culture. Duh.) Maybe the Irish should turn out more for... say..., the Puerto Rican Day Parade... Or Columbus Day. (But Columbus Day is like, way fucked up.) Okay, then Bastille Day. It's only fair.
Friday night, we all learned where NOT to go on St. Patrick's Night. Irish pubs in NYC. Lines wrapped around street corners at the authentic pubs.... But that's why God created commodification. All the bars are Irish on St. Patrick's Day! Sorta.... Let's tally up the score:
-Buying a round of Bailey's for the girls who got bumped from our table by the waitress: +2 for the Irish spirit of generosity
-Getting a free cranberry vodka from the waitress: +1 for the Irish spirit of generosity, -1 for it being cranberry vodka
-The toast list: +5 for Irish wit
-Johnson's Motorcar: +3 for the IRA, -4 for the IRA, +1 for Irish folk songs
-Dropkick Murphys playing at the second bar: +1 for the feisty Irish diaspora
-Female bartenders blowing fog horns, climbing onto the bar, and funneling drinks: -5 for dumb
-Drummers in kilts: +3 for the fact that the Irish can clap in time to a beat
-Guy playing pool in crowded bar: -1 for getting poked in the ribs
-Yuengling at the third bar: +1 for America's oldest brewery. -1 for it being gross that night
-Sketchy guy who licked my ear: -5 for boys being dumb
-Telling him to "get the fuck off Amanda": +5 badassossity points
-Nifty literal hole in the wall fourth bar: +2 for atmosphere
-Toasting dead relatives with whiskey: +4 for Irish relationship with death, -1 for melodrama
-330AM Potato knish: +1 for cross-cultural exchange
-Fifth bar: -4 for racism, +4 for "Newark ya fuckin' idiot"
Final score: +9 Sweet!
The next morning, Aerob and I discovered that full Irish breakfast was being served across the street. Huzzah! Meat in multiple forms!
And then, today, an Irish parade stout-heartedly marched for bemused onlookers on Seventh Avenue outside the store.
Woman: "I mean, parades are nice, but it took me forever to get here and go shopping. Don't they know they are holding up traffic?"
Doesn't she know that our culture is cooler than everyone elses?
HAPPY ST.PATRICK'S DAY!