Morning. The Irish arts group Solas Nua gives away free Irish books at Gallery Place. I picked up Netherland, which I'd been wanting to read.

Evening. A cold one on a friend's deck. (No reading occurred.)

1. The rock-and-roll Finn McCool now playing at the Woolly Mammoth. Friend Lisa and I saw the musical in appropriate form, starting with the Cava sangria at Jaleo and then crossing the metaphorical Iberian land bridge to the theater beer stand. The show was a hit at D.C.'s Fringe festival last summer, and it won over our small audience (in the small Woolly rehearsal space) as well. Reviews said to ignore the plot, and they were right on. I'd read a book on Irish folk hero McCool as a kid. The plot confused me even then. Long story short, he saved Ireland, and that act — and electric guitars — made the performance a winner.

2. My shamrock plant. After years of disasters (yes, three links there) with my earlier shamrocks, the one from last year is still going strong.

3. Dropkick Murphys feat. Mr. Bruce Springsteen, Peg O' My Heart. Damn the lawyers for knocking this song off YouTube. You're going to have to settle for the iTunes preview page and understand that the rest of the song is as excellent as the sample you hear. I'm biased toward Bruce, but unless you live in some alternative universe that a lovely drinking song that also works as a drink-y love song, you're going to agree.

4. This vanity plate, via Melissa.

5. Beeramisu. This Serious Eats article Jess forwarded combines two of my favorite things. In the words of one commenter, "I mostly just want to keep saying 'Beeramisu!' over and over again. That has got to be one of the best made-up words ever." Happy St. Patrick's Day, all.

Last year, after two years of no St. Patrick's Day green merch, the Nats got two hats. I lauded the increase as a Stephen Strasburg effect. Like a successful potato, we were on our way up and out of the ground.

This year, after the sad Strasburg injury and surgery, we remained at two green things. A women's shirt and a women's hoodie were all we received. But the worse news? In the green merch, we finished dead last in the majors. We had never finished dead last and alone before.

In 2007, we got one hat, and eight teams got nothing. In 2008, we got nothing, but only 13 teams got something. In 2009, we got zero but so did four other teams. Last year, when the world was bright, with Stephen Strasburg nearing the hill, we beat 13 other teams.

But, boy, was it ugly this year.

The Red Sox got 48 green items. Then Yankees got 47, including this funky driver's cap. Beyond them, the rankings were: Phillies 40, Cubs 39, Cardinals 34, Mets 28, White Sox 24, Tigers 20, Twins 18, Dodgers 17, Braves 13, Brewers 12, Giants 11, Athletics 8, Indians 7, Astros 6, Mariners 6, Orioles 5, Angels 4, Blue Jays 4, Diamondbacks 4, Marlins 4, Padres 4, Pirates 4, Rays 4, Rockies 4, Royals 4, Rangers 3, Reds 3.

Nats 2.

From this Patrick, happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's to having a go at it.

Also on this April 14, 1963 show? Brothers juggling torches with their feet, clowns blowing up a piano, a German family and bear act, a comic magician, Hungarian acrobats, a trampoline comic, Judy Garland, Cliff Richard, and one of my top five non-Muppet puppets, Topo Gigio.

Had a great brunch with my parents at Carlyle (my first time there — a special hello to the sauteed crab cakes among biscuit, scrambled eggs and hollandaise sauce) and came home with a new shamrock plant. My last one, if you remember, arrived at my apartment on St. Patrick's Day '06 and spent the next few years dying and miraculously resurrecting.

Any guesses how long this one has? Learning from the first's initial die-off (from which it never really recovered), I've removed the pot's plastic wrapper. Who could've known it was trapping most of the water? Most people, I guess. You have my word, no accidental drownings this time.

Happy St. Patrick's Week!

The day has a history of going bad on me, maybe with the day getting back at my years of hating on potatoes and claiming this was because they drove my people out of Ireland. Anyway, today I blew up the site before breakfast. Things got better later, with Irish soda bread (the #1 underrated Irish food) in the mail from my mom, lots of folks wearing the green at work and Bailey's-meets-hot-chocolate with a good friend after quitting time. The day assembled okay. I like potatoes now.

From one of my favorite kid books of all time, here's to Jamie Donovan, disappointed in the day, too young to wear the green sash and march in the parade — but who gets himself an egg, a ginger ale and a flag and blows the flute he can't play to the hilltop before the town wakes.

Imagine if you knew a person named Fourth of July, and he came up to you on the Fourth of July, slapped you on the back and said, "Hey, buddy, happy fourth of July!"

Or if you knew somebody named Valentine and he or she (because Valentine would be a great name for a girl, especially a girl gangster) gave you a big red heart, imagine that.

And so — have a wonderful day.

When we're all in Ireland for a day.

Chicagoans love St. Patrick's Day, and Sun-Times writer Mike Thomas apparently loves it more than most. He has a pair of stories in Thursday's paper about, first, the greatness of Danny Boy and, second, how he once competed in a Danny Boy singing contest.

Know this: It ain't easy. Its wide dynamic range falls just outside the vocal comfort zone — kind of like "The Star Spangled Banner" and much of the Led Zeppelin canon. And it shouldn't be rendered too slowly. Or too quickly. Or too mawkishly.

Read on. Me, I'm more partial to Irish Lullaby (or Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, I can't find a solid source on the name). Family reasons. But from glen to glen, I'll give you Danny Boy to bring the house down.

Like with any other major holiday, St. Patrick's Day stories in the nation's newspapers are a mixed bag. Mostly, that bag is full of junk. St. Patrick's Day at school, at the nursing home, at the local pub and Irish historical society office. But in yesterday's Washington Post, Foreign Service writer Mary Jordan has a winner, all about the wacky and growing cult of clover.

Ed Martin, a retiree in Alaska, hopes to soon become the world record holder for collecting real four-leaf clovers. Martin, 73, who operated heavy machinery, said he tooled around the United States in a motor home for years picking the clovers to give away.

"I always got a smile," he said in a telephone interview. Several years ago, Martin decided to get serious about collecting, and he said he now has about 80,000 four-leaves pressed into plastic sheeting. Officials in his small Alaskan town of Soldotna are preparing the paperwork to nominate him for a Guinness world record.

The current record holder is a Pennsylvania prison inmate, George Kaminski. While serving time on a kidnapping conviction for the past 25 years, Kaminski has gathered 72,927 four-leaf clovers. He found them, one at a time, hidden in the grass of prison yards.

Meet these people and the guy in Mexico City who sells them out of his station wagon.