St. Patrick's Season Activities

OK, so - St. Patrick's season is in full swing! What's everyone doing this year? It seems that every year my calendar gets fuller & fuller during March between the parties, dancing and parades. This year's social season includes more visits to the Irish American Club in Euclid, OH on Cleveland's East Side. We've attending their family day for the past three years because Marina dances that event with the Murphy Irish Dancers. This year we plan to go to their Harp & Guinness Night II to listen to The Boys From County Hell, Irish Coffee Night - a club tradition the night before St. Patty's Day and again after the parade in the afternoon for the kid's party! My daughter has St. Patrick's Day and the following day off of school so it is very convenient for us to get involved in the day's festivities and have the next day to relax.

Did I mention the parade? Yes, Marina and I will both be marching with the Murphy Irish Dancers this year. Because I'm on their board I marched with the unit last year and had a ball! It's great to look out into the crowd and people watch! This year our founder Sheila Murphy Crawford is one of the Co-Chairs so it's an extra special event for us. Plus we're in the first unit so we'll be done and can enjoy the rest of the parade. Pre-parade - not sure yet. We've been invited to go to Flannery's Pub in downtown Cleveland for Kegs & Eggs before the parade but even though it sounds like fun it might not be appropriate for my daughter. Of course taking her to the House of Blues last Saturday for the Gaelic Storm concert was probably not appropriate either but she's been a fan since she was five and got us to the front of the crowd - got some great pics! Ah to be eight years old and cute again ! But I digress......

Then there's the St. Patrick's Day shows that Marina will dance. We have four this year starting tomorrow night a GE's NELA Park in East Cleveland and ending on April 8th with St. Dominic's Fish Fry - always a good time not to mention yummy!

Crowning the season will be a party thrown by our dear friends that promises to be bigger and better than last year. Did I leave anything out? I don't think so but with a week to go I'm sure I'll find something else to add to the list! Enjoy the season, drink responsibly and have fun! Til next time.....Slainte!

Cleveland's 2011 St. Patrick's Day Parade: March Order

Cleveland's 2011 St. Patrick's Day Parade: March Order: "2011 Line of March Lead Division Irish Civic Association Parade Honorees St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee Parade Guarantors Public Offici..."

Perspective

I sat down the other day to begin a post about solo dresses when the phone rang. It was my friend and neighbor with some terrible news. The thirteen year old boy across the street from us had committed suicide. He hung himself a week earlier and had been in a drug induced coma since then. He passed away that morning. I was stunned! The previous week I had dropped my daughter off at rehearsal and was on my home when I received a text message from my husband. There was a commotion across the street - five or six police cars, a fire truck and ambulance. I arrived home several minutes later. The ambulance was gone but the street was filled with the other emergency vehicles and neighbors either outside or looking out their windows. My husband thought it had been the elderly grandfather but since we had not seen him a couple of years I said it most likely wasn't him.  Besides the number of emergency vehicles indicated it was something other than an old man. Having not heard anything else and the house looking calm since then we forgot about the incident - that is until Thursday morning.

I remember when the family moved in - just a few years after we did. They were from Russia but not new to the area as the father owned a furniture store nearby. Nick was 8 or 9 at the time and there were no young boys in the neighborhood. When he was bored he would come over to play with my daughter who was 4 years younger than him or shoot hoops with my husband. He had a sadness about him even then which I attributed to loneliness and boredom. As the years went by we saw less of Nick and I assumed he had become acclimated in school and developed friendships. Judging from the outpouring of grief I have heard about over the past few days I know that he did have friends who loved and cared for him as his family did. I have to wonder if the sadness I saw in the younger boy was something deeper and a cry for help was missed along the way. In a world that has become busier and busier we often don't make time to pay attention to those around us. A young man chose to end his own life before it ever really began. How bad can things be at thirteen? Yet for Nick it was and his death puts into perspective how little things like solo dresses, medals and championships mean and how fragile life can be.