Green day!

So, waaaayyyyyyy back on St. Patrick’s Day morning, Scope, Wednesday and I dragged ourselves out of bed, offensively early for a Saturday, and got all decked out in our finest green garb. It was for a really good reason, of course…. Or two really good reasons…. Well, no, actually, it was for one really good reason and one cruddy one. You see, poor Scope had to go to work.

*sniffle*

Scope was the first one out the door, seeing as though he needed to get to his office downtown by 7:30 am. (Ouch.) Wednesday and I had the luxury of a little more time to dawdle, but not by much. Soon, she and I were hopping the L Train, with a slew of other Leprechaun-ified people, to the Loop to participate in all the green goodness going on down there.

St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal in Chicago. Duh. Every St. Patrick’s Day, over 100,000 people (according to the official website) venture into the city to celebrate. This year, thanks to the unseasonably faboo weather and 80 degree temps, I would bet there was at least double that tally at the party…. which makes it all the more mystifying and whattheheckish as to why the CTA decided to do routine maintenance work AND SHUT DOWN A PORTION OF THE TRAIN TRACKS on that particular day.

(A turd on your pillow for that one, CTA. I mean, really. Could you have picked a more inconvenient day?! Jeez.)

After being booted off the L where the tracks were closed, ushered onto a bus, shuttled over to the next train stop, and re-boarded on another train with a thousand bewildered overgrown Leprechauns, Wednesday and I eventually made our way into the city.



Our first order of business was to tag along with 200,000 of our new best Irish friends over to the river to watch it being dyed green.




By some freak miracle, despite the massive crowd, Wednesday and I actually found a free spot at the railing to get an unimpeded view of the river, up close and personal. This made us happy and giggly….




….and yet somewhat worried that maybe this spot had been empty for a reason and we might not have a good view of the dying of the river there. But, no! It turned out it was the perfect spot to watch the coloring of the river after all. Suddenly, the boats came zooming past us!




The people in the first boat would toss the dye into the river. The dye was orange as it flew through the air, as you can see, but it turned neon green as soon as it hit the water. Then the second boat would rocket through the dye, stirring it up and spreading it around.

Back and forth and back and forth the boats raced in front of us, pouring dye and mixing it in.










It only took a few minutes for the river to morph into what looked like one huge vat of lime Kool-Aid.




When Wednesday and I had had our fill of ogling the green river, we wound our way through the festive crowd….






….and took refuge in The Disney Store for awhile. The Disney Store decided to hold a trivia contest for anyone who wanted to participate. The questions were pretty easy…. or at least I thought so. I’ve seen a few Disney movies over the years—who hasn’t, right?—so, I was actually shocked to find out that I was the only person there who knew what Mulan’s horse’s name is. (It’s Khan.) And that I was the only one there who knew Wendy’s youngest brother’s name in Peter Pan. (It’s Michael. C’mon, people, it’s a classic. Everyone should know that!)

In fact, there was only one question I did not know the answer to, which was whether Simba, The Beast or Buzz Lightyear makes a secret Hidden Mickey-ish appearance in Aladdin. Hmm….

Anyone know the answer to that?….

I guessed it was Simba, but it turned out that the answer was actually The Beast. Weird, huh? I know! When the Sultan is making a pyramid out of his toys, one of them is shaped like The Beast. I swear I never noticed that, did you?!




How funny. Anyway, I was awarded a free pin for knowing more Disney crap than any of the other customers…. and Wednesday laughed her butt off at me, cackling, “Mom, you’re so cute, but you’re REALLY a dork!”

Then Scope suddenly walked through the door of the Disney Store and was done working for the day. YAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!




The three of us decided to walk over to Millennium Park. However, our 200,000 new Irish friends all had the same idea too. Because of the mammoth crowd, this was as close as we could get to The Bean or anything else in the park.




So, we went to Daley Plaza instead, where we found that they had dyed the fountain too!




It kind of reminded me of Slimer from Ghostbusters. Ewwwwwwwwww.




I’m sure Scope probably deserved this.




*snicker*

Then we grabbed a quick lunch and the three of us headed home on the L Train. (Or two trains and a shuttle bus, as the case was, thanks to the CTA!)






© Coracabana