Dyngus Day with the the Irish

If you've ever read my blog or seen a Facebook status in the past year, then you know that I have deep-seated love of Wegmans. There are many many reasons for the inappropriate love of a supermarket.

• Biweekly Friday Kids Movie Nights
• WKids - free child care for while you are in the store
• Fresh Sushi
• Divine Salad Bar - one of the great luxuries in my life has always been someone else chopping fresh vegetables and providing me with any manner of delicious protein
• Bulk - set the bar for bulk food, closely tracked by Whole Foods, but the original is still the best
• Any any any thing you need - wonton wrappers, peppers in adobe, fresh scallops, extraordinarily affordable dye/fragrance free laundry detergent, delightfully dark coffee, awesome fresh muffins (French Vanilla and Morning Glory are divine! I've tried to replicate them and cannot respectfully close)
• An olive bar - I know! Why would you need/want/think of such a thing. TRUST ME! It has fresh hummus and baba ghanoush and makes you find reasons to use the olive.
• Open 24 hours - parents??? haven't we all either had a sick child and needed meds and other supplies and/or had time at 11pm to pick up some necessities.
• They have a small, manageable little toy section. Odd you think? It is perfect for birthday party shopping when you a) have to do it the day of, and b) do NOT want to deal with the aisles of Toys R Us or Target, and c) enjoy the opportunity to get in and out with the latest gallon of milk.
• 40 products on which they are not raising prices in 2011. Seriously, I do not care if they make up for it on other prices. On these 40, I can fill 85% of my weekly necessities. Strike that, I just checked the list. Probably 95% of my weekly necessities.
• Affordable holiday goodies - muffin cups, sprinkles, decorations and other things that make it easy and practical to really enjoy all the holidays. Let's face it. I do not want to have to think twice about buying St. Patrick's Day muffin cups, heart-shaped cake pans, all things Christmas. I love doing all the holidays all the way.
  

We embrace maaaaany holidays. The large and the small. One of the few on the fray of holidays we don't rise up to is Dyngus Day. If my defense there are no cookie cutter shapes to celebrate Easter Monday. Nope, I cannot explain better than Wikipedia as I learned long ago that things like the Broadway Market, the Butter Lamb and family gatherings to make perogies are unique to not only the Eastern European cultures, but deeply entrenched in Western New York. Eastern European cultures are intensely woven into WNY. If you haven't ever lived in WNY, do you know anyone who identifies themselves as Polish, Croatian, Slavic? At age 4, my sister rolled her "R's" like the Croatian nuns who ran her pre-K. I'm not going to pretend like I'm deeply enmeshed. I'm Irish from South Buffalo-ish. Again, something that only holds water if Western New York means anything to you. But I loved it today when I went into Wegmans and the "seasonal" section was piping out polka music.

Necessary information here is also that Sammy sings in the episcopal cathedral choir. He is really bright and has a frightening aptitude for almost anything.

Today in Wegmans, breezing through for milk (always), eggs (for more dying) and dish washer tablets, Noah bopped up and down to the Polka music, clearly in honor of Dyngus Day. I said, "you like this, huh?". "yes! what is this?" Sammy jumped to the rescue of the query. "It's.....I know this!" We continued walking. Noah continued to shake his money maker.

Sammy continues to struggle with the name of the music (polka). "oooooooh. I **know** this!" He is practically chanting it.

Finally, Sammy announced, " I KNOW! This music is OLD FOLKS MUSIC!"