On Saturday 03/16 Sue and I hosted The Great 2013 St. Patricks Day and George Henry Lett Backgammon Tournament And Irish Dinner Party! It had snowed the day before but the Saturday sun had everything melted away by the 5:00pm starting time.

Sue and I headed out food shopping for the party just after lunch. Sue wanted to shop at the Market Basket in Newington, NH because she had some things to get at WalMart on the way.

What an absolute zoo Market Basket was! It was like every other store in Newington was closed and they had invited everyone in for free food. It was so packed they should have had traffic cops in the aisles, it was that crazy. But, we successfully scooped up about the two key elements of the party: 7lbs of nice red corned beef and a 12 pack of Killian's Irish Red beer!

By the time we got back home and unpacked the food, it was 3:30pm. I decided to just get on with the food prep as that always takes more time than you think it will. While I did that, Sue got the ingrediants of the corn bread she was going to make organized. It took me a good hour to get the carrots, cabbage, onion, and celery ready.

I got the corned beef started early in a simmering broth of water, bottle of Killians, some oragano, and rosemary - yes, this is my slant on things because boring tasteless corned beef and cabbage is, well... so bland. After an hour, I added all the rest of the ingrediants and then I just let the whole thing cook for a couple of hours. It was mah-vo-lous!

Because I had got that early start on prep work, Sue and I had time to run out a set of 3 games of backgammon before folks started arriving at 5:00pm. I had a Killians going and she decided that the speciality drink of the evening that she fixed a batch of was honey flavord Jack Daniels bourbon with ginger ale and whatever. It was really, really good. But I knew if I mixed that with the Killians, I'd be D.O.A by dinner....

Tony and Tim arrived just after 5:00pm and the games started. We ate around 7:15pm ending with the movie of the night around 8:30pm, the great 2002 Tom Clancy Sum of All Fears.

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Prep work couldn't start without a Killian's Irish Red!

Sue is ready!

Sue and I were deep into a game when Tony arrived to kibitz.

We pressed right on with it.

Tim and Tony square off against each other.

I'm not real sure how badly Sue has it over Tim, but I take it that it was substantial....

Tony taking a break on the sidelines as Tim continues against another opponent.

Rick arrives in costume!

But he didn't want to put it on in the parking area.

Sue indicating that she'd like to play another 'little game' after she finishes with fixing her corn bread.

Jim and Chris arrive for one more party before heading off for Florida.

Tony and Rick over the board.

Tim and Sue at it again. They have a real rivalry going.....

Chris and Jim ready for some corned beef!

Ready to get the movie of the night started.