St Patrick's Day in early lead for my most celebrated holiday of 2013

We went to the New Haven parade -- all 2 solid hours of it -- two Sundays ago and marched in the NYC parade last Saturday in the Quinnipiac delegation. I have to say, it was a thrill to march up an empty 5th Avenue for 25 blocks while the drunken masses cheered. I was a little concerned they might jeer us for being, how shall I put this, a low effort group -- no music, dance or  parade-relevant displays except for -- come again? -- blue sashes. Luckily, we were right behind a solid marching band that got a lot of people fired up with its rousing version of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by the Drop-Kick Murphys (down side: over the 25 blocks I heard them play it roughly 36 times). Favorite signs of the day: 2 parade watchers were each holding up matching neon green signs, one that read "YO, BRIAN!" and another "YO, KATHLEEN!"