Everyone's Irish One Day A Year
The plan for St Patty's Day was to go to Tucson with The Babes and hit a place called O'Shaugnessy's with Norene and a bunch of friends. Unfortunately, The Babes had to cancel so I headed down on my own though they did send a bunch of beads and "Kiss Me I'm Irish" sashes with me and we thought about them the whole time.
I could write a whole diatribe about how bad traffic was between Phoenix to Tucson but I'll spare you. Let's just say it was really, really bad. So bad, that I got off the freeway early at Speedway which takes me past the hated school, U of A. Generally, I do my very best to avoid that.
Norene in her St. Patty Day's Finest.
Norene came up with a great plan for our festivities. The bar was a few miles from her house but she decided it would be prudent to take a cab. Brilliant! We called a company and they said the driver would be there in about 20 minutes. I told her to write down the phone number to keep it with us so we could call them for our ride home.
While we were waiting for the cab, we had a beer and Norene wanted to streak my hair with green. Knowing it was easier to give in than fight it, I let her. She was clearly on a mission.
Forty minutes later, our cab finally showed up. Turns out, it was his first day on the job and he didn't quite know his way around. Norene guided him the entire way to the bar where we met up with Jim and Dori.
Who immediately got streaked with green. It became the theme of the day.
Rick getting greened.
The bar was more of a supper club. Apparently, they have a piano player each night and most of the wait staff (and the cook) sing. It seemed like most of the folks were "regulars" and it was friendly. Jim and Dori said we had a cute waiter and they were totally right. His name was Ian and by the time the evening was over we knew quite a bit about him and vice versa.
Russ gets the green treatment in his beard.
I asked Ian how they made their Black and Tans because I prefer mine with Harp instead of Bass. He said my choices were Harp or Smithwicks. I chose Harp.
Do it yourself Black and Tan...
Okaaaaay, not quite what I had in mind but it worked.
Norene making the moves on Ian.
We had a great day. At different times, we were joined by Scott, Cheryl, Lorean, Rick and their kids and grandkids, Tkay and Russ and Dave and Sandy. The latter couple were just there coincidentally. Apparently, Tucson's a small town like Phoenix where you just run into peeps you know. Guess I have to behave myself there, too.
Not that I misbehaved too much. I did have one too many Irish Car Bombs but, hey, I wasn't driving. I also didn't make a blatant move in Ian...unlike someone else. ;-)
Our brilliant cab plan fell apart, though. One of the people at the bar called us a cab and said they would be there in fifteen minutes. That didn't happen. I told Norene to get the number out of her purse but, after several searches, she couldn't find it.
At this point, the bar was closed and the staff was leaving. Rick and Lorean waited with us and Norene finally found the cab number. They said they'd be there in a few minutes. One of the waitresses even offered us a ride home while we were waiting. We finally gave up on the cab and Rick drove us home. Thank goodness for that or we might still be standing there.
