The Monday morning after opening weekend of March Madness is never a pleasant one. And the Monday morning after opening weekend of March Madness, my birthday, and St. Patrick’s Day is a completely unpleasant one. Throw in the birthday night appearance of the “supermoon”, and I am totally shocked that I didn’t turn into Teen Wolf and terrorize all the bars in my town, dunk basketballs, and surf on top of my 1999 Nissan Altima. (Actually, I might have done two of those things over the weekend) I spent Sunday night laying on the couch watching basketball and cursing Arthur Guinness, simultaneously dreading and looking forward to a week back to normalcy. My March Madness pool is in a crumpled ball in my pocket, covered in blood, sweat, and tears….and hot sauce.

I’m not going to lie, or pull any punches – my weekend was awesome. It all started on Thursday – St. Patrick’s Day and the kickoff to March Madness. My family does a big dinner and celebration at O’Donnell’s, the bar and restaurant my grandfather owned for over 40 years.  We usually have a table of around 30 aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. I was dreading it a bit – because bringing my son Jack anywhere now is like a time bomb. You have no idea how long he is going to be good, and you just wait nervously for the explosion. When we got to O’Donnell’s, I was a bit bummed to see that our table for 30 was a table for 6. It was just me, Cailin, Jack, my parents, my Grandmom Jackie. Some couldn’t make it and some were coming later, so the party was small. But as a surprise, Jack was a wee Irish angel, totally behaved during dinner as we sipped Guinness, laughed, listened to Irish music, and enjoyed the day. As the night progressed, Cailin brought Jack home and gave me the “OK” for a night on the town. Soon some of my friends came, more of my family came, and the Guinness consumption increased steadily. Quickly the night reminded me how much I love where I come from, and how much I needed that night. I got to see so many old friends, new friends, and great people from my town. Then we ventured out to a new place in Cherry Hill called Dublin Square, that is just a fantastic Irish pub and restaurant. At this point, I didn’t even mind that my pool was going to hell already on the first day of games! All in all -it was one of the calmer St. Patrick’s Day I have had, but one of the best.

The next morning I woke up realizing I had to go to work, and that March 18 should be an automatic holiday for me because of my last name alone. But I had to press on with my day, because I had an important tradition with friends to continue. My friend Don and I meet at Byrnes’ in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, and then head to East Falls to see our friend Charles and watch basketball with a big group of guys. It’s something I look forward to every year, and as usual it didn’t disappoint. I made my way home to soon welcome my friends Tony and Krystine LoBianco, who were staying the night, as they made their way home to Baltimore from Vermont. My parents took Jack for the night, so we took my friends out in town, with my sisters and a bunch of my lifelong friends who came out to celebrate my birthday eve. It was awesome to have visitors, and just as awesome to have a night out with Cailin and a bunch of my friends. At some point during the night, I’m fairly certain a telegraph was sent to the lads working at the Guinness factory announcing “Get to work, he’s been drinking the pint again!”

Saturday morning, my 35^th birthday, and I felt like I was 70 and hit by a truck. It was a quick reminder of why I have been enjoying how good I have been feeling lately exercising, living like a Mormon, eating nuts and berries, and avoiding booze. I didn’t miss this feeling at all, but I did have a fun night with my friends, so it got me through my day. Cailin and Jack made my birthday near perfect, Jack treated me by taking a 3 hour nap while his mommy was out at a baby shower. That was a gift from the heavens since I was exhausted that day. Cailin let me relax when she got home, and I did exactly what I wanted to- I watched college basketball all day. Then my parents had us over for dinner, where Jack helped me blow out the candles on my cake. And when I got home, I checked my facebook account and saw so many happy birthday greetings. Say what you will about facebook, but it definitely makes a person feel good to see all those nice messages and well wishes. (If you sent me one, thanks!) At the end of the day, I felt so lucky and so proud, and was totally happy to be sitting back with Cailin watching the final games of the night. Then, I don’t know whether to blame the supermoon, karma, or my “Chi” not being harnessed, but the weekend took a wild turn.

That night, Jack slept for about a total of three hours. Throw that on top of the 9 hours of Guinness induced sleep I got the two nights prior, and we are talking one tired and beat up Martin O’Connor. And Sunday morning we had a trip to the zoo planned with Cailin’s siblings and their children. Cailin told me I didn’t have to go, but since I went through the mistake of taking Jack to the zoo by myself two weeks ago, I knew Cailin would be in for hell if she went alone. Even with Cailin and I, two of her sisters, and her brother in law Joe, Jack kept us all busy. He didn’t want to be in his stroller, and didn’t want to walk at a normal pace. We could have advertised him as a rare wild blond haired ape from the jungles of Ireland. He was out of control, cranky, belligerent, tired, and fussy. Cailin and I worked out all the Guinness and fried foods we had over the weekend chasing him down. We left the zoo like zombies, praying he would sleep. And indeed, he slept – so we did get a nice nap in ourselves and the O’Connor house was peaceful with the sounds of my snoring.            

When we all got up, I decided to head up to Santucci’s pizza in Mayfair to get a couple pies for the basketball games that night. Santucci’s square pizza is almost exactly the same pizza as a place in my town called Jim’s that I loved with an undying passion but has been closed for at least 10 years. Along with Stoagie Joe’s in South Philly, I have praised the pizza gods for blessing me with this deliciousness being back in my life. So as I drove up 95 North in Philadelphia, tired, but content with the feeling of happiness from the weekend and the happiness I was about to derive from the pizza, I was a bit out of it. I realized I needed to get over a lane because I was in an exit lane. I veered over and realized there was a car doing what had to be 100 miles an hour way behind me in the lane I came into. Within seconds, they were right behind me. The car tailgated me to a dangerous and unbelievable degree – I sped up and was doing about 70 and the car was probably no more than an inch behind me, I thought they were going to bump me. When the next lane opened, the car pulled next to me, and while I thought it was going to zip off into the night, it stayed right next to me. I looked over, and saw two Latino gentlemen calmly and angrily staring at me. They had blowout haircuts, frowns on their faces, and icy stares directed at me. I sped up, they sped up, so then I slowed down, and they slowed down – we were almost going 30 on one of the busiest interstates in the nation. I looked over with a “what the F do you guys want” look, fully expecting to see a nine, a sawed off shotgun, or some kind of weaponry pointed at me. Every time I looked over, they were both staring at me. I was hoping the car in their lane ahead of them would stop suddenly, because they would surely slam into it and be thrown out the window. This went on for about five minutes but felt like hours, and my exit was approaching soon. My mind was racing with thoughts of “leave me alone, hombres”, “I’m gonna get killed while I pick up a pizza for my family”, and “what the f- am I gonna do?” I realized I needed to be safe so I held my phone up so they could see it and went to call 911. And they took off into the night, leaving me shaken and angry. I was praying I would see them pulled over in a few minutes, but it didn’t happen.

I got my pizza, and made it home safely. Kissed Cailin and Jack, and thanked God that you will all be reading my blog today, and not reading the papers reporting me and my Nissan Altima were found on 95 full of bullet holes. The night got better, except for the fact that Cailin missed out on winning the Early Bird Special in a pool for $250 bucks because of one game. I found out I got an A in the grad class I just finished, and Jack slept through the night.  

So this morning, on the Monday morning of all Monday mornings to dread, I was in a good mood. And I just laughed when it was pouring rain, and I stepped in a huge puddle, and missed my connector train, and forgot my iPod. Because I happy from a great weekend and full of the love of my friends and my family – and not full of bullets from the Latino gentlemen who decided to re-enact their own mashup version of “The Fast and The Furious” and “Boyz-N-Tha Hood” on I-95 last night.

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