Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is a ridiculous holiday.  "Six more weeks of winter" means, what, exactly?  42 days until spring?  We define the start of spring as the vernal equinox (March, in the northern latitudes).  42 days prior to March 20 (‑ish) is... Feb 7 (‑ish).  Six weeks after Groundhog Day it's definitely still winter.   Maybe the last frost has occurred, maybe it hasn't.  Your mileage may vary, especially if you live in Alabama and your cousin lives in Montana.

But wait, there's more!  Just yesterday, I learned from a colleague who grew up in western-central Pennsylvania that tens of thousands of college-age folks gather to make the entire thing a drunken melee.  As if we needed another day as an occasion for late-teens and early-twenty-somethings to create public health hazards.  Maybe this is my "all you kids get offa my lawn" old man moment, but I do remember when Cinco de Mayo was still a safe day to traverse the East End of Rochester (which has the misfortune to have more than two bars within a block and a half).  So was Halloween, and the day before Thanksgiving, and so on.  Can't wait to see how it looks when the beer distributors latch on to Arbor Day or Flag Day and start running those promotions.

_________ OK, enough old-man ranting, better start again _________

Groundhog Day is an awesome movie.  Bill Murray, as Phil Connors, spends the same day, over and over, until he gets it right.  He has the luxury of not aging while this process goes on.  Estimates of how long it took range from 100 months to 10,000 years.

The Phil Connors who left Pittsburgh on the 1st of February will not be recognizable to his friends when he returns on the 3rd.  He grows enough to see Rita as the person he can love without expectation, and no longer as simply the hot chick into whose pants he wants to get.

_________ OK, enough second-rate movie criticism, better start again _________

Groundhog Day is this blog's New Year's Eve.  I blogged "Hello World" on Feb 3 of last year.  People have asked me, how long do I intend to maintain my post-every-day habit?  The answer is, no particular deadline.  Well, when I am dead I guess I will post no more, but Jill warns me about that: she says I am not allowed to die.  If I do, I will be in big trouble.  So, no.  No particular deadline.

Of course, I do not have the luxury of not aging while I go through this process.  And I'm OK with that.