Top of the Morning to you!

[Innocent Bystander]

You know what I mean.

[Hotblack]

To be sure. And top o' the morning to you, too.

[missy]

I've got my Celtic on (I don't do shamrocks.....)

And since today is respirator fit testing here at work - from OSHA 29 CFR 1910:

Appendix A to § 1910.134: Fit Testing Procedures (Mandatory)

Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

[mutepointe]

Please let me find something green in my closet this morning.

[Innocent Bystander]

I've got my Celtic on (I don't do shamrocks.....)

And since today is respirator fit testing here at work - from OSHA 29 CFR 1910:

Appendix A to § 1910.134: Fit Testing Procedures (Mandatory)

Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

It's "Crock", I tell you, "Crock of Gold". Sheesh!

They'll be thinking you mean Acapulco...

[dwest]

I wear a felt shamrock on a pipe cleaner that goes through an eyelet in the crown of my cap. This shamrock was made by my youngest when he was in first grade and he insisted that I wear it for many years, now I feel naked if I don't have it on. I couldn't find it this year when I first started looking on Dewi Sant but don't ya know it was in the last place I looked? A good friend of mine always teases me about my shamrock looking somewhat silly on a grown man, this from a guy who wears a turban everyday and this last Christmas added a Santa hat as we worked in front of a store for the Salvation Army.

[MTGuru]

It's "Crock", I tell you, "Crock of Gold". Sheesh!

Yeah, well ... In American parlance, the word "crock" as in "crock of ____" is usually associated reflexively with a particular substance, and it ain't gold. My explanation of the lexical substitution.

OTOH, given the artificial nonsense of the day, maybe crock is best. Bah, humbug!

[Denny]

ah yes, crock....sauerkraut wasn't it?

[dwest]

ah yes, crock....sauerkraut wasn't it?

In Wisconsin it would be either kraut or pickles. The wife and I met another Irish/Polish couple a few weeks ago in a shop when I over heard him describing to her a piece of "crockery" that he had seen. Nobody from around here says "crockery"

[Denny]

we did pickles too

[Innocent Bystander]

It's "Crock", I tell you, "Crock of Gold". Sheesh!

Yeah, well ... In American parlance, the word "crock" as in "crock of ____" is usually associated reflexively with a particular substance, and it ain't gold. My explanation of the lexical substitution.

OTOH, given the artificial nonsense of the day, maybe crock is best. Bah, humbug!

Fair enough. I'm willing to go with "Acapulco Gold at the end of the rainbow"...

[The Weekenders]

Yeah, time to head to the kosher deli for some corned beef. Nyuk.

[Redwolf]

Lá fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh go léir.

Anybody doing anything fun today? We had a little party last night in the Irish class I teach (I brought brown soda bread and some Irish cheese and butter, and one of the students brought Irish stew), and I taught them all some fun phrases for the occasion. Today I'm going to a center for disabled senior citizens, where I'll teach them a children's song or two in Irish and then play the harp for them.

No shamrocks, clay pipes, rainbows or leprechauns in sight anseo i dteach Uí Nicil, buíochas le Dia. There is a crock downstairs, but all it's filled with is golden Irish butter.

Redwolf

[buddhu]

It's been good.

Saw The Dubliners last night for the umpteenth time.

Today My wife and I spent the late afternoon in a local Irish pub watching one of our favourite local bands, Gor Jus Wrex - an IrTrad and ballad group.

This evening three mates and I bundled into my local pub, where the landlady, Mary, is from Dublin. Mary and her chef nephew cooked up a load of coddle and the lads and I kicked out a few tunes and songs while the punters got outside the food and Guinness.

Our informal St Paddy's band was made up of Robin (a Blues guitarist) on tenor banjo, Chris (a fingerstyle and delta blues guitar specialist) on backup guitar, Ken on fiddle and meself on mandolin and whistle.

Until I nagged them into it a few weeks back, neither Robin nor Chris had ever played a trad tune. They are now the proud and fairly competent players of a couple of sets of hornpipes, a set of reels and a sprinkling of jigs (that still need some work). With those and a bunch of cliche ballads we took the place by storm!

Once I got the slightly cr@p morning and early afternoon out of the way, it turned out to be a really good day. I had loads of fun.

[Redwolf]

I had a wonderful time playing for (and with) the folks at the senior center. It's kind of a special set up...the clients all have some kind of developmental disability (Down Syndrome probably being the most common). Such lovely people...they were the best audience! They all wanted to try the harp, so after playing a few pieces, I had them come up one at a time and try glissandi, or playing simple tunes by plucking strings after me. I played a couple more tunes and asked them to dance, which they loved. I taught them a couple of simple songs in Irish, and then brought out the whistle, which they REALLY loved! I'd brought along my Burke, as one of the sturdiest of my whistles, and they enjoyed trying that as well. What was interesting was, when they'd first start trying it, they would, of course, over blow...but if I played the harp along with them, they'd blow more gently, and we'd actually get a nice drone effect going on.

To end with, I told them a little about sean-nós singing, asked them if they wanted to hear a song about a mermaid, and when they said "yes," I sang them An Mhaighdean Mhara (after explaining the story behind the song). They REALLY got into it. Then they told me that today was the director's birthday, so I sang "Happy Birthday" to her in Irish!

It was just so much fun, and there was so much positive energy there! My best St. Patrick's Day ever!

Redwolf