March 17, 2020: Chicago, IL
Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day. Originally, it was to be the centerpiece of our vacation in Ireland: Our first full day there, marching in the Dublin parade with the bagpipe band, taking in the spectacle. Instead, of course, Tess and I stayed home, but we did our best to keep the spirit alive. We started with our best recreation of a Full Irish breakfast: Sausages (Trader Joe’s brand; not a single Irish-sourced menu item, not even the butter), tomatoes (fried rather than grilled), mushrooms, eggs (not too runny), and some potatoes with a bit of ketchup. No black or white pudding (remember, we had no time to track down Irish imports in the midst of last week’s run on grocery stores. I think I had a tea.
Inspired by a video our friend Bridget posted to Facebook of her friend Patrick playing in their yard (Tess showed me; I don’t have social media), I then fired up my pipes – inside our apartment – for a few quick tunes. I’ve never gotten complaints about practicing in the apartment – perhaps because of the ancient building’s dense plaster walls and generally weak acoustic transmission, or because I just don’t practice enough – but I was nervous that with the whole city confined to their homes, I risked irking a baby who is used to napping when I’m usually at work or bleating my way into someone’s make-or-break conference call. As luck would have it, I received neither negative nor positive feedback.
We rounded out the day wearing green, watching my sister, Katie, perform in the Old St. Pat’s mass livestream (the Chicago Archdiocese has suspended in-person masses, greatly simplifying the experience for the sick, or wayward or lazy), and cooking corned beef and cabbage (again, locally sourced). During dinner, we watched Young Offenders, an uproarious romp through Cork and West Cork, following two young Irish idiots. The Rotten Tomatoes summary (below) does it more justice than I can.
Inspired by the true story of Ireland’s biggest cocaine seizure in 2007, The Young Offenders is a comedy road movie about best friends Conor and Jock, two inner-city teenagers from Cork who dress the same, act the same, and even have the same bum-fluff mustaches. Jock is a legendary bike thief who plays a daily game of cat-and-mouse with the bike-theft-obsessed Garda Sergeant Healy. When a drug-trafficking boat capsizes off the coast of West Cork and 61 bales of cocaine, each worth 7 million euro, are seized, word gets out that there is a bale missing. The boys steal two bikes and go on a road trip hoping to find a missing bale which they can sell so as to escape their troubled home lives….But Sergeant Healy is in hot pursuit.
In any case, I highly recommend it for a nice taste of Irish humor and a subtle, poignant reflection on the woes afflicting impoverished areas. The laughs smack you in the face; the depth really sneaks up on you.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, wherever you may be.
Gummies and Orange Soda 