Paddy's recap:

1. The wearing o' the green(s). They need not match. Why not look like you were drunk when you dressed?
2. Pack flask, drive to A2 and arrive late to workshop. Upon leaving, engage playfully with multiple drunken fratboys dressed like leprechauns who appear to be trying to get hit by cars.
3. Find friends and begin the day's revelry by lining stomachs with Jameson.
4. Set out on foot to pub crawl, jig across all intersections, arrive at Zing's and proceed to eat more corned beef, undercooked cabbage and Guinness gelato than should be legal.
5. Arrive at quiet bar down the street, suck down $2.75 pints of Guinness, then slurp flaming shots through melting plastic straws.
6. Hit the empty gay bar where the waitstaff are particularly festive, decked out in green sequined bow ties, neon green wigs, reflective eye lashes, and/or faces painted green. Drink made-up-on-the-spot green martinis (oh the childhood memories of emptying parents' bottles of midori come rushing back), more whishkey and beer. Think we've made a fine friend but realize he's gouged us for all the shots we assumed we'd be getting for free.
7. Undeterred, we skip back across the street to the bar where the drinks are cheap, do more shots involving Bailey's and throw back more Guinness. Ravenously eat pretzels.
8. I start losing track here, but I remember having a conversation with a three-legged dog outside the food co-op and terrifying the clerks at a cupcake shop by inhaling their delicate creations, cookie-monster style.
9. Finally meander to the one and only Irish bar downtown only to find a line to the door that winds around the block. Oh, but before that we rejected a few other watering holes including a realy lame street party inside a tent and someplace where the slippery foyer had me and my speedcats nearly splayed on the tile. We did get seduced into a frenchie cafe that advertised $3 car bombs on their placard outside. Score! But since we didn't specify the special, we got unspecial car bombs at double the price. Same curdling effect, though. But if you shoot the Bailey's first and then sip the Guinness instead of dropping it in, you don't have to look at the curdling happening in the tumtum. Regardless, we stiffed the bartender on her tip. What kind of person takes advantage of recreational drunks on Paddy's Day? Oh, right. At the Irish bar, I pushed my way to the front of the line and said to the people waiting there, "What in the hell are you waiting for? To get in and pay for drinks? Pfffffft. Y'all crazy."
10. Then I think we tried to find food but only discovered more lines out doors. So we walked and walked and jigged and skipped when possible all the way to a tavern with great burgers. Tried desperately to help Kiki tame his interminable hiccups. Failed. Thought we spotted our governor with bad hair at the bar. Passed out in the park across the street on the way home. Probably spent some time rolling in old dog poo. Came up with the brilliant idea to run part of the way home so that we might make it there in the same amount of time we would in a cab but save the cab fare. Destroy property and have a mild pine-cone fight on the way there.
11. Fall asleep in coat as friends watch Cabaret. Wake self up snoring and laugh. Sleep (mostly) through the neighbors' house party.

Thank Jaysus Paddy's Day comes but once a year! And thanks to M! and his brilliant photo essay of the entire day's events for supplying most of the information herein. As soon as he emails some of the highlights (hint, hint), I'll supply some illustration. . . .

I think I'm still hungover.