Well, I can’t say I’ve celebrated St. Patricks day in the last few years, but, given that I’ve not been home in almost two years now, I felt a strong calling to my ‘green roots’ this year.  I missed the stew cook-off (took place in mid-February) though, I think that may have been for the best, because God only knows what kind of stews I’d have found there, though, I’d put money on not many of them having been Irish…

My Irish gal pal Aileen was going up to the parade with her hubby Dave, his mum, niece and nephew so we decided to tag along.

The sun was splitting the trees, the temp wasn’t too high (which is, more often than not, the concern here in Houston) and the spirits were high, because today I was being brought a little closer to home, right?

Wrong!! Man, I can’t begin to tell you how un-Irish a lot of this parade was!! Aileen and I stood saying ‘That’s not Irish’ and getting mightily frustrated throughout the whole thing!

I’d love to say that they at least had the flag side covered, but, it must have been at least a third of the way through the parade before the first vaguely Irish colours appeared – and it was the Tricolour, fashioned in to a ‘stars and stripes’ flag.

When the first REAL tricolour appeared, we cheered, Aileen hollered her approval to the guy carrying it and he appreciated her noticing it was a REAL tricolour.

Some of the floats in the parade were very well done (see below)

and some were, well, pretty awful…pray tell where the Irish is, in this picture, aside from the colour?

I guess when you have people paying to enter, you can’t really regulate it? Right? *eye roll* There could DEFINITELY be ‘guidelines’ set up to make this parade a bit ‘better’, so much for everything being bigger and better in Texas!

In spite of the fact that most of the parade was about the US, Texas and not in the least Irish (though most people in the crowd was wearing green), we had a really great, afternoon and, for an hour, 5,000 miles didn’t feel QUITE as far away as it has done lately.

I’m contemplating speaking up on behalf of the Irish and talk to the parade committee about increasing the Irish content in the parade next year…or, I may just quit fighting, ignore it and adopt the American version…