Happy St. Patricks Day!

Although I'm the fraud at the Irish Arts Center who despite going undercover and dying my head red(dish) have no known Irish descent, I do enjoy Irish culture a great deal. I have some Guinness chilling in the fridge and spent part of today jamming on my penny whistle. I haven't been practicing much lately (to my detriment), so it was fun to get back to it. I hadn't been planning to record a song again, but then the teacher gave us a set dance (although I play it like a jig) called "St. Patrick's Day." It seemed inappropriate to not at least attempt it.

You can see my attempt here. I screwed up a few times, but I was loathe to do a second take because unlike when I usually practice (on my lunch break when most neighbors are working), I could hear people walking around overhead. It always makes me feel a bit self conscious, added to which the tin whistle is a fairly squeaky instrument when played in the upper register. As a good neighbor, I could really only subject them to the same song so many times, St. Patrick's Day, or no.

Dinah was a popular addition to the first video, so I wanted to include her a second time. Unfortunately, being a cat, this really required me to go to her. Which, in this case, was the floor. Another reason to not do a second take was because shortly after I finished recording, she was reduced to a melancholic stupor on the floor. It was all very cute (see Exhibit A, below), but impossible to record on my laptop with me in the shot, unless I played the whistle while resting on my elbows. I took it as a sign to move on with my day. Of course, now, as I'm writing this, she's peacefully meatloaf-ed next to me on the couch in a perfect pose. She's likely not destined to be one of the animal acting greats anymore than I am destined to be a tin whistle virtuoso. She's sure cute though.

Exhibit A. A common response to tin whistling.

Anyway, I should probably get back to lazing though the remainder of my weekend, but I just wanted to stop in and wish you a happy St. Patrick's Day from Dinah and I!