Jackson Hole Underground

Slainte! Whether you’re tipping back coffee or a pint of Guinness, the strains of traditional Irish music will be ringing for St. Patrick’s Day. Don some color and bust out your Jonathan Papelbon dance.

Jackson’s own Celtic music troupe, Slip & the Jigs, will be performing three gigs today in a marathon test of stamina and sobriety. The smaller version of the group, The Blackthorn Trio, kicks off the festivities from 9 to 11 a.m. at Shades Cafe, where green-frosted rum raisin scones are on the menu.

Later, the full band convenes for a session at the new Fitzgerald’s Bicycles shop. The party will run from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. before shifting next door to the Brew Pub.

This evening, the celebration o’ the green continues at the Wort Hotel, where Slip & the Jigs will perform from 7 p.m. until the wee hours, assuming the musicians are still standing.

“We’re going to loosen things up later in the day as we get a sense of how the pace is holding up,” says Jamie Reilly, the talented thespian and singer.

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I’ve pretty much stopped drinking my coffee from paper cups by hauling into Hard Drive and Pearl Street Bagels one of those stainless steel freebie belogo’d to-go mugs that roll around the floor of my car.

Were you shocked to learn that Americans trash 2.5 million plastic water bottles per hour?

Here’s a similar shocker: Starbucks alone goes through 1.9 billion paper cups per year. That’s 78,000 trees.

But I’m not here to bully. I’ll settle for a compromise. Every to-go coffee purchase also comes with what I call the “mittsfib” or MTSFIB — the McDonald’s Tort Sissy-Finger Insulator Belt. No doubt corporate lawyers came up with this ever since some poor old lady famously sued McDonald’s because her to-go coffee was apparently quite hot.

Go ahead. Use’n'toss the paper cup. But at least be tough enough to say “hold the mittsfib.”