True friendship means shots from a leprechaun's shoe.

Last weekend one of the best friends a girl could ever hope for came to Minnesota.  Yep, she came to Minnesota in March.  Winner winner, chicken dinner!  (Sorry Tyler and Debbie!)  The ridiculousness that ensued was...well...typical.


I picked Missy up at the airport and as soon as we finished jumping up and down squealing and hugging and had successfully navigated her luggage into my trunk behind the vacuum cleaner (don't ask) she said, "I don't have my debit card."  We headed to Majors to split a couple of flatbreads while she called her hubby, the bank, and the last place she remembered using the card.  By the time we'd finished lunch she'd cancelled her card, identified me as her sugar momma for the weekend, and we'd talked boys.  You know, business first.


Later that afternoon we checked out the new consignment shop across the street, which confirmed my fears of having a consignment shop across the street.  We discussed the fact that the owner should seriously consider paying me cash to refinish some of her pieces to make them salable.  We also discovered that one of my neighbors has a real Christmas tree dried up and dead lying on his balcony.  I'm not even going to comment.


That night we made the pilgrimage to The 5-8 Club, where we (obviously) ate GCB's (That's Garlic CheeseBurgers, for those of you who didn't go to DePauw or visit me there.) with Julia and Jon, and Missy made a deal with God that involved french fries.  At some point it was determined that, "I don't know about YOUR God, but MY God definitely eats GCB's."  It was also determined that I need to find a chick in an Easter basket pinata before Easter brunch.  (For the record, after this year I will be celebrating Easter with the McGraw family, which includes the traditional Easter tequila and apparently pinatas.)


After dinner with Julia and Jon, Missy and I headed to The Tavern on Grand in St. Paul to see her cousin's band (The Belfast Cowboys/St. Dominic's Trio) play.  The only problem was that they weren't playing at The Tavern on Grand.  The good news is that we have now been to Minnesota's state restaurant.  Apparently.


We made our way to The Tavern on the Avenue, which in fact IS where they were playing, and apparently it's also where the people of St. Paul were celebrating St. Patrick's Day, which we were not prepared for!


We made our way upstairs to a less crowded space where we could actually sit and look down on the band and the dance floor.  Apparently this fabulous little area was reserved for family/friends of the band and we thought we were pretty cool to be able to say, "Yeah, we're with the band."

The band was fantastic, and the people-watching was pretty great too.  At some point in the evening I pointed out to Missy that there was a man dressed like a leprechaun walking around offering people shots of Jameson out of his (green and white) shoe.  We couldn't get over how everyone just agreed.  It didn't take any convincing at all.  "Want a shot of whiskey out of this here shoe?"  "Sure!"  We didn't get it at all and we had a good laugh about it...until the leprechaun (who turned out to be the owner of the bar) showed up in the friends/family balcony with his bottle of whiskey and his shoe.  This is the part of the story where I'll just say hi to my mom and post this very innocent photo of Missy.

The rest of the weekend involved facials, shopping, Sebastian Joe's ice cream, a minor scandal, a lot of coffee, a fabulous dinner at Julia and Jon's, heart-to-hearts, bad TV, and a trip to the IMAX to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D.  It was a fabulous weekend, and just what I needed.  Thanks for spending the first half of your Spring Break in Minnesota, Missers!