Step 1: Be Irish.

Step 2: There is no Step 2.

A while back, my husband overheard a conversation in the security line for the Boston airport. It happened to be a few days after St. Patrick’s Day. Rand was flying from Boston to Iceland, and several young Irishmen ahead of him in line were going back home, and exchanging stories of the past weekend they had spent in the city. And for them, it was apparently a very good weekend.

Because, as Rand explained it back to me, it is very, very easy to, um, make friends on St. Patrick’s Day in Boston, if you are a reasonably good-looking young Irishman. And, having learned this, these young men made a yearly trip back to Boston in order to “make new friends.” One guy explained that on a particularly successful year, he befriended two ladies on the same night.

Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. (more…)

The other day we were hanging out with some friends – some American, some not, and we realized that none of us were really sure what countries are included in the phrase “United Kingdom”. Nor did we know what’s a part of “Great Britain.” England, we pretty much figured out (they’re those wussy guys who tried to tax us, right?).

The point is, along with which colors indicates positive and negative charges on a pair of jumper cables, these are things that we all should probably know, but don’t (For the record, red is positive and black is negative). I figured it was best to set the record straight (for myself and others) before we actually head out Glasgow and London next week. So while our British reader (Hi, Will!) sits back and cringes, the rest of you should pay attention, because we might all learn something. (more…)