What is it about wearing the colour green that can turn a whole town into party-central?
It was that special time of year once again. On Sunday, March 14, our sleepy little town became a little more populated - with leprechauns - as people from all over the Ottawa Valley descended upon the famous Gavan's Hotel to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
Decked from head to toe in varying shades of green, hundreds of people, young and old, packed into the hotel, ready to dance and drink and laugh, everyone buoyed by the Irish spirit. It's one of the few times that Gavan's is filled to capacity that you can almost guarantee there won't be any brawls. Everyone's too happy.
Nobody cares that they have to stand in lines for half an hour for a drink. Nobody cares that the drunk guy who just walked by sloshed his beer down your back. Nobody cares that they ordered their wings an hour ago and they still haven't been served.
For one day, we're all friends, brought together by fiddle music and stepdancing and shamrocks galore.
Literally, one of my favourite days of the year.
Yesterday was the actual day, but because the Gavan's party is always on Sunday, there's nothing going on there on the 17th. That didn't stop us from heading back down. We pumped the jukebox full of coins, choosing mostly Irish songs to listen to - the heavy favourite seemed to be a song by the Dropkick Murphys called "Kiss Me, I'm Sh*tfaced" - if only I'd known about this song on Sunday, it would have been my pick-up line... We had a few drinks, along with a few other locals who had decided to stay close to home for the big day, rather than heading to the city pubs, or the massive celebration in Douglas. As I put in my Facebook status last night, it's a lot closer to just walk home from Gav's!
All in all, a crazy week of memories...or not so much. Sunday's kind of a fuzzy blur. But St. Paddy's Day 2010 will always make me think of chicken bones and Big Macs, Sarah & I giving the same guy our numbers (which is the same number, so she warned him to be specific if he calls...), finding pictures of myself on stage with Gail Gavan but having no recollection of it at all, the Spandex Leprechaun, the St. Paddy's Day Mod Squad, "Big Mistake. Big. Huge.", and all the warnings I failed to heed.
Can't wait for next year!!
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