The British are Leaving! The British are Leaving!

In all of the hubbub surrounding that OTHER holiday, what with all the facebook statuses (stati?) popping up at 8am displaying half-downed pints of Guinness and jackasses who wouldn't know a shamrock from a four-leaf clover, I wanted to make sure to wish everyone the best on ANOTHER holiday:

 

Happy Evacuation Day!

I always forget how much I love living in a city that literally just makes up municipal holidays in order to give everyone an opportunity to cut work and day drink. As B drove me to work this morning, I was amazed at how the neighborhood I work in, which is one of the busiest in the city, seemed empty, and joked about how it must be because it's gorgeous out (almost 50!!) and St. Paddy's Day. B then reminded me:

"It's also Evacuation Day!"

[Source]

For those of you not from this bastion of Irish pride known as Boston, you're probably wondering what the hell Evacuation Day is and why we can pahk ah cahs* without fear of retribution from the evil, evil Transit Police/Meter Maids/Men. According to Wikipedia: 

March 17 is Evacuation Day, a holiday observed in Suffolk County (which includes the city of Boston) and also by the public schools in Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts.The holiday commemorates the evacuation of British forces from the city of Boston following the Siege of Boston, early in the American Revolutionary War. Schools and government offices (including some Massachusetts state government offices located in Suffolk County) are closed. If March 17 falls on a weekend, schools and government offices are closed on the following Monday in observance. It is the same day as Saint Patrick's Day, a coincidence that played a role in the establishment of the holiday.

Basically, 110 years ago, a bunch of old dudes up on Beacon Hill were tired of debating the merit of cobblestone vs. dirt roads and really wanted to go join their peeps celebrating the the wearing o' the green with a pint at the local pub. Rather than using the non-secular St. Patrick's Day as a reason to skip out and go party, they found an obscure historical event that fell on the same day and gave everyone the day off. Want proof? The document signing the holiday into law was signed not only in black, but green ink. 

Other made-up Bostonian holidays:
- Truck Day (in which we go to Fenway Park to celebrate the equipment [not the players] leaving for Ft. Meyers).
- Opening Day (in which we mob the bars outside of Fenway and curse the Yankees, no matter who the Sox are playing)
- Patriots' Day (My personal favorite, in which we line the streets with solo cups in our hands and Franzia in our purse and high-five fit, responsible people as they run 26.2 miles. The ideal places to do so are Heartbreak Hill at Boston College and Kenmore Sq. at the 1 mile to go marker.)

- Bunker Hill Day (in which we yell, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" at one another)

Sadly, last May, the Legislature bowed to public opinion and de-certified both Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day, citing concerns about "wasted tax dollars" and "big government excess." Personally, I'd rather pay a little extra in tax to be able to park my car on the street for longer than two hours at a time in a part of town in which I do not reside, but no one seems to take my opinion into account in these matters.

Now that that's out of the way, before I forget:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

*Sidenote: Despite what my Boston brethren might want you to believe, that accent isn't solely made up for movies like The Fighter, The Town and The Departed... I don't know where those people decrying "we don't sound like that!" hang out, but they've clearly never met anyone from Charlestown, Dorchester or parts of Southie [or Fall River for that matter, but that's another issue]. No one, however, who has ever called this city home would be caught referring to it as "Beantown," unless they wanted to be caught dead.

Winter Warmer

Unless you're in a foreign country (holler at mah peeps all over the world!), and even if you are, there's a slim chance that you've heard about this ridiculous weather that the entire United States has been experiencing. As evidenced by this post, I have been jubilant. I do love me some snow. However, when it starts to look like this:

 

and the snowbanks are over your head (please note the SUV behind me, and please excuse the terrible lighting. I busted my point-and-shoot and have been making do with my cell-cam all year!), and you can't even make a Target run for fear that someone will swipe the parking spot you've spent HOURS digging out every Wednesday, even I start to draw the line. Seriously, the snow is becoming a danger, and I would prefer to go to work each day knowing that there was only a slim likelihood that I will return home to find my ceiling caved in. Which did actually happen, last year, in my bathroom, but that's another story for another day.

Anywho, like the rest of the Northeast, I spent my weekend dodging snow bullets and reveling in the glory of 40 degree temperatures and precipitation that didn't freeze on impact. I had a fab happy hour Friday night with some of my more socially-minded co-workers which, if you remember my post on 11 ways to kick 2011's ass, is a big step for me. Checks on #10 and #11, thankyouverymuch.

I also took the rainy, dreary weather and used it to my advantage, taking the opportunity to take the 10 loads of laundry that we've been hoarding and visit with my friend, Juan Benito, at the laundromat. How two childless, working adults have enough clothing to encompass 10 loads of laundry (and I was SERIOUSLY squishing a few loads), I will never know. But I definitely felt like a baller when I folded the first half.

Yes, ladies and gents, those are shorts. Shorts that I had asked Blaine to wash back in, oh, I don't know, July, yet somehow found them stuffed in the back of a closer. (Sidenote: after my ode to junior high post a few days ago, Dear Boyfriend informed me that henceforth, he wants to be known as Andrew McCarthy. Nice try, darling. You're lucky I'm not calling you Ducky, aka "the wimpy one from Two and a Half Men". I did not become a master of code names in high school for nothing.). 

Being a LUNATIC football fanatic, and after having had a month to lick his wounds following the Pats' epic demise at the hands of the Dirty Jets, Blaine obviously had big plans for us to watch the Superbowl at his parents' house. I LOVE sports, especially football (and baseball. And hockey. Basketball is just ehhhh), and I LOVE free steak, so it seemed like a win-win. Since I didn't care about the outcome save for that Big Ben lost, I was pulling for GB and was psyched when they won.

As mentioned, I wasn't exactly in top form yesterday; I was overtired and mildly hungover. I mean, really now, who DOESN'T think it's a good idea to stay up after the Super Bowl, utilizing the in-law's cable package to catch up on DVRed episodes of Jersey Shore while simultaneously trying to kill a 12 of Harpoon Winter Warmer and carry on a conversation with this guy?

Overachievers, that's who. (An art project gone awry, Theodore, or Theo as I have come to know him, chills in the bathroom in the in-law's basement and, after a rocky start in which I screamed at first sight, I have come to love him, in a freaky, clay-head kind of way. Is that weird?)

Hurtin' for certain, I did what any professional does. I manned up, popped a few Advil, drank my weight in coffee and did a stellar job on a project. Then I went home, slipped into pjs, ate half a wheel of smoked gouda on sourdough and caught up on Gilmore Girls: Season 5. After screaming at Rory for being such an insipid prat and bemoaning the urge to hibernate until May, I hit the sack with a hint of a smile on my lips. I knew that this morning would bring the one completely made-up Boston holiday that can snap all of us out of our winter funk...

TRUCK DAY!

Source: Boston.com

  

Only in this Mecca of American Baseball do we allow ourselves to create not one, not two, but THREE holidays around annual sporting events: Truck Day, Opening Day and Patriot's Day (aka Marathon Monday). My glee at opening the Globe this morning was eclipsed only by the knowledge that soon, we shall go from this:

 
 To this:

 And this:

Bring it, winter!