Pretzel Party!

Last weekend was Pretzel Party weekend. Though traditionally celebrated in October, our lovely friends Dan and Betsy decided to have it in March to guarantee we could be there this year. They've been having this fabulous extravaganza nearly every year for the last 10 or so. Making the weekend even better, our friends James and Jen came down from DC to help celebrate.
Pretzels are rolled dough as you would expect but they have to be boiled in lye for a few seconds before being baked (on beeswax). Lye is a drain cleaner. The following are shots of the lye in its orginal and scary packaging.

For all their potential danger, they were delicious!

A single pretzel before it was devoured.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery..

The walls in my living room are red. Very recently the walls in my next door neighbor's house turned red. Hmm. If their kitchen goes orange and their foyer taupe, I'll question their motives.

St. Patrick's Day in Savannah!

I made it home just in time for St. Patrick's Day! In Savannah, the parade was on Friday morning and the celebration lasted all weekend and was really wrapping up on actual St. Patrick's Day.

John's brother Raynor came down to help celebrate and we had a great weekend full of grilling on the back slab and knocking around town. The following are some pictures from Parade Friday.

One of the first sights to see was this pair. If you'll note, the old guy is wearing an oxygen tank. I was hoping his massive beer mug was only filled with water. Some people never grow up.

On to the parade. There were more bagpipe bands and fife and drum corps than were necessary, but they were fun and some of them were just divisions of larger, more traditional, marching bands from all over the country.

I wanted this to say "Wighty Tighties" but it's actually the Highty-Tighties from Virginia Tech.

Some of you may not know this, but I LOVE sousaphones. Not so much the sound, though that is impressive too, but they look so cool, especially the shiny silver ones dancing around in the sun.

The bible beaters were out during the parade and as they proceeded around the square you could tell where they were based on the honks and squawks coming from those obnoxious plastic horns that the vendors were selling. I didn't get a picture of it, but there was another crazy across the square that had a sign saying something to the effect of "Let me tell you why you'll be going to Hell."

The mayor was in the parade and was throwing beads with a decidedly less than Mardi Gras response.

There was an inflatable toilet. I'm not sure if it was an advertisement or just a harbinger of the evening for many parade goers.
The Wells Fargo Wagon made an appearance. The driver urged the horses up to a gallop for the block in front of us.

Some people had dyed their goats green. I'm not sure how they decided which goat got to ride...

John had a good time disparaging the fat guy driving the car pulling the race car. He was yelling "looks like Tony Stewart!" John is not a Jeff Gordon nor a Tony Stewart fan.

Check out this tacky truck pulling a float covered in church-like stained glass windows.

Tybee Island had a float which was likely recycled the next day for their own parade.
By mid-afternoon I'd had enough bagpipes so I went home for a few hours and left the boys to enjoy River Street and the funniest tourist T-shirts of the day "I got River-faced on sh*t Street." As I rode the ferry across to the convention center where we had parked, the fire boats were dying the river green.

Shamefully late post about my last day of work...

The last post was forever ago. This one is about my last day of work but that was actually March 5. Yes, that's right.....I'M NOT WORKING! Woohoo! Time off has been nice, but this was about work. Oh yeah. Work.

My last day of work was in Joliet IL. Best known for the state penitentiary mentioned in the Blues Brothers, Joliet has a beautiful theatre called the Rialto Square. It has a teeny tiny backstage, but the lobby and auditorium are spectacular!

But on to the good stuff. While touring the dressing rooms to decide where to put everybody, I discovered this in the Star Dressing Room's bathroom. If you don't know what it is, you're probably not old enough to know. And if you're old enough to know but don't, thank your lucky stars.

Yeah, a crazy sculpture on a crazy shelving unit. Found in the bathroom but moved to the closet so the massage therapist wouldn't have to look at it. Here's a closer look.

WHAT!!!!! Just hanging out. The lady who ran the theatre must have thought is was a piece of art or perhaps a strange solid air freshener. Hmm.

So, for those of you who don't know...I LOVE a typo. Unless it's mine. Then I hate a typo. In Joliet I passed a great shop with an even greater name.

They sold formal wear. And next door to them was a shop with every color of pimp suit imaginable. If the one pictured below had been $100.00 or less I would have bought it for my youngest brother, Pete.