Fake Holidays, Real Holidays, and Craft Sodas

For one week every year, Chicago collectively loses all of it's calendars and has to guess when St. Patricks Day is. Mysteriously, it always seems to land on a Saturday.

So while the city goes on a collective uproar about dyeing rivers green, day drinking, and seemingly pretending they all have a pronounced Irish heritage, the rest of us know to be anywhere besides downtown. 

I've been working myself into a quiet frenzy over midterm projects but somehow everything today seemed to go extra smoothly. 

I made a mini pilgrimage out to the Garfield Park Conservatory for the first time since the fall. Seeing so many pretty plants in bloom just made me excited to start seeing things start to grow in the city. There was also so much sunlight and so many happy families that it made me so happy in return. Happiness breeds happiness. 

While I was there, I also saw the cutest couple get engaged and there were lots of happy tears and hugging and it made my heart pang a little bit but I'm so happy that there is love in the world. It makes me optimistic more than it makes me sad or jealous which can only be a good thing.

On the way back home, I stopped at the French Market for lunch and while I was getting food, I heard this weird thumping sound and all of a sudden, a marching band outfitted with silver and white costumes and weird masks that sort of looked like dragons or wolves, started to file in to the space. 

Turns out, they're part of a Swiss carnival band called the Nogglers (or Noggeler Guuggenmusig Lucerne) who were on tour and had played in the parade this morning. It was so bizarre and surreal that I was concerned I had been watching so much x-files that my life had momentarily turned into an episode. In reality, I was just in the right place at the right time to see something cool.

Reading up on the Lucerne Carnival, it happens once every year around this time and people in strange costumes and masks fill the streets playing music and celebrating. The idea is to dance away the winter and it seemed appropriate that I would find them now, just when we all seem to be feeling the need to dance away the winter and everything negative that came with it. 

I also got a new book and tasted elderflower soda, which kind of tastes like apples and lemons and something else I can't quite place. It's really good.

So all in all, there were a lot of things to be happy about today. It's nice when the universe rewards you for working your butt off.