They Must Use "ENVY"

Every year for St. Patrick's Day, they dye the Chicago River green. It's a tradition. And a bit of a joke: "If they can dye the river green on St. Patrick's Day, why can't they dye it blue the other 364 days of the year?"

But, let it be known that the un-natural color green that they dye the river on St. Patrick's Day is an entirely different un-natural color of green from it's normal un-natural color of green.

As you can see the river's normal green is much darker.

And 40 pounds of dye does a pretty good job of making the river festive.

I've lived here 20 years, and this is the first time I've managed to get down town in time to see it. Cora, Wednesday, and I took the train down with thousands of our closest friends. We made it in time to see the river greened up good. Greened up real good.

After the river, we made a quick shop at Fanny May for some delicious chocolate. (Fanny May used to be made in Chicago, but after a bankruptcy and a couple of changes in corporate parents, they are made in Ohio.) From Fanny May, we walked up the street a little bit to look into the room where American IDOL had their season 9 Chicago auditions.

From there is was on to Macy's Marshall Field's for lunch. (Marshall Field's used to be a Chicago department store chain until it got bought out by M*Cy's. I sense a trend.) There's a little joint down stairs in the basement with a baseball theme called "InFields" ('cuz "InM*CY's" sounds stupid). Good food. No crowds.

After lunch we went to see the parade. Correction: We TRIED to see the parade.

But as we tried to get near the parade, it was too crowded to make our way to the front to be able to see anything. (And the parade is in one of the stupidest, least accessible part of down town, like they don't even want you to see the parade.)

But we still got to see a bunch of Chicago's youth out having fun.

Even if that means standing between two moving L cars so you can have a smoke and a little sip of sumpin'-sumpin'.

And did I mention, the fabulous BeckEye was in town? No? Well, to paraphrase Teri Hatcher; "She's real, and she's SPECTACULAR."

What else do I need to say.