guinness, green, etc.

This weekend was kind of a throwback, to the days when I did this stuff as a matter of course.

Those days were a long time ago — and generally confined to Athens — and to try to do it like I did back then would mean a Sunday full of agony. But, still: Two nights. Two bars — one of them with a daylight starting time, even. I’m so proud of my 42-year-old self.

Now — this is nothing like it sounds. On Friday, I was home by 11. And while we started early on Saturday, we still made it home pretty much before the sunlight faded.

Oooo — I’m a wild man.

I had to ditch the Yinz Team Bowling Tweetup Friday night for what I thought might be a semi-mopey farewell party for a colleague I had worked with for something like 14 years. Regardless of what I thought the tenor of the evening would be, I had to attend, so I set off for one of a couple regular GBAPA watering holes, and was pleasantly surprised to find a pretty happy crew.

The owner of this bar has never been shy about tying it to his Irish roots, so there was plenty of Guinness going around — particularly for another friend of mine, a new mom who was clearly enjoying this evening without parental responsibilities. She and the guest of honor were definitely the life of the party, as you can see here:

I’m not sure exactly how long the evening lasted beyond that point — I was there for another round of shots and a failed attempt at convincing the band they should serve as karaoke back-ups, but I had had my share by then and headed home. I know this for sure — that was a fitting send-off for someone I’m going to miss terribly.

Mrs. Crappy and I were largely removed from the St. Patrick’s Day craziness in Pittsburgh on Saturday, until we jumped right into the middle of it late in the afternoon. We ran some errands, met one of my favorite Pittsburgh people I hadn’t yet had a chance to meet (Hi, Gina!), discovered a kick-ass secondhand store THAT I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT BECAUSE MRS. CRAPPY WOULD KILL ME … and then drove to St. Patrick’s Central: Carson Street.

We stopped at AA’s Living Room — a bit removed from the serious craziness — to see how she was faring during her day shift behind the bar. I think AA was ready to be especially annoyed — especially given what she had to endure the week before — but she finished her shift relatively unscathed.

See?

Here’s the cool part. St. Patrick’s Day down there more closely resembles Mardi Gras than anything having to do with a celebration of Irish heritage; I mean, I’m just as prone to wear silly clothing in public as anyone, but much of the behavior we saw on Saturday was generally way over the top. And that’s why, when I saw a guy walk into the bar WEARING BAGPIPES, I thought: “C’mon — you can’t be serious.”

OK. I was definitely wrong. In fact, that was the coolest thing we saw all evening.

We headed home a bit later, ate a pile of wings and called it a night. Now — had this been Athens 18 years ago, I would have closed both bars both nights, and probably headed to at least one after-hours, before sleeping until Ohio State started its Big Ten championship game at 3:30 Sunday afternoon.

If I tried doing that now, I’d be damaged until about Wednesday.