Oh, whack fol th' dah now dance to yer partner...

Gentleman from Waterford Ireland, smoking shisha in Dubai. Also drinking a Budweiser (?!) I asked him if I could take his photo and he was quite accommodating, as well as garrulous, which is why I know where he's from, not to mention such information who his mother (God bless her dear soul) lived next to back in the old country.


You think I'm joking. I'm not.





St Patricks Day in Dubai. Which means we got to celebrate our anniversary with a bunch of Irish.

What could be better?

(foamy dark Guinness on tap didn't hurt the happy factor one bit, even if the lines were long)

The day began respectably, with Bethy eating oat porridge that I colored green, and a mug of steamed green milk with vanilla . I also got food coloring all over my fingers in the process and let me tell you right now, that stuff does NOT wash off.

Bethy demonstrating the wearin O' the green in her crown, upon which she wrote her name, prefixed with "Ms." Yes, I did send her to school in sleepware, but it was planned. I mean, how cute are those shamrock-ladybug patterned PJs?

The day also began with my belatedly realising that Bethy was supposed to have dressed up a potato in paint or costume to bring to school for the Potato Parade. The two of us made the fastest potato butterfly you have ever seen, and bless her, she cooperated with all my suggestions, throwing that sucker together in record time.


We started with a nice spud from Saudi, cut wings from a rainbow drawing she'd already made, added glittery gold pipe cleaners that we curled into antennae and carefully drew legs and lashed stickpin eyes and lipstick. (Obviously butterflies wear lipstick.)

We perched her creation (named "Rainbow"-part of the assignment was to give it a name) on a silk daisy and off to school the two of them went. I am happy to report that Bethy said her poem lines well during the assembly (out of the rainbow she was responsible for the blue and indigo portion), and her butter-potato-fly was proudly carried around the school.


I won't get mother of the year, but hey, we pulled it off, this time at least.

Bethy, "Rainbow", and flowers

Back home I opened the door to a knock and the largest bouquet of flowers I've ever received. It was so huge the delivery man refused to hand it to me, instead insisting on carrying it to a place of honor and prominence on the kitchen counter.


I called Mike.


"Mike, there's a bouquet here, the card says Thanks for a wonderful 10 years, I love you, no signature, no idea who it's from."


Pause. Then he laughed, "could be from anyone, can you narrow it down?"


(In fact, later Bethy decided they must be from my Mom, which cracked us up.)


"Well," I pondered, "it helps that we're on another continent, that should assist with the narrowing down bit..."



That night we went out as it was our actual anniversary, (gotta milk these things), a work night, but too bad for that last bit. We had a babysitter and were wearing green so t 'ell with being sensible!


That's not my hat. It appeared on my head just before the photograph, rather like the attack wig that affixed itself to Mike's noggin seconds before this photo was taken:

Which, if you knew where that wig had been, would make you laugh as hard as everybody but Mike did. This is a fabulous photo: we're at Irish Village, the outdoor watering hole to be at on St Patrick's, surrounded by our Irish friends.


We seriously over paid for Guiness and Kilkenny, watched riverdancing (no smiles on those dancers faces...they must have been darned hot up there on the stage!) protected our drinks from the jostling of the loud and friendly but packed crowd (talk of crying over spilt beer!) and had a blast belting out our favorite songs like Rattlin' Bog and Irish Rover with these guys:


It's hard to see, but there's bright red leprechaun beard action going on there with the guitar and accordion.

At the beginning of the post I asked: what could be better than celebrating At Patrick's day than with a bunch of Irish? This was not a rhetorical question.

How about celebrating with Irish AND a couple of Emeratis who obviously never heard of the internet?

These guys were having a LOT of fun. Good for them. Showin' that Irish spirit.

I hope it was worth it if they ended up having to explain themselves to their kin. (I would also like to say they were not drinking when we saw them, though they didn't seem to mind the kisses being planted upon them by maidens fair and inebriated. )

Two things made me happy for the world that night. First, that people from all over the world had gathered to celebrate the idea of being Irish. Second, it did my heart good to see that, even at the silly prices for drinks, people are still able to afford to get slobberingly drunk with their fellow man.

Obviously the economy isn't doing that badly...