Wednesday, February 2, 2011

To See or Not to See

Today is Ground Hog Day. I love it when Punxatawney Phil sees his shadow. It means I can procrastinate for six more weeks before starting my spring cleaning.

Punxatawney Phil has a 39 percent accuracy rate. The other 61 percent of the time he really does see his shadow, but instead of the sun it's cast by national television camera lights.

It makes perfect sense for people to let a rodent be a weather prognosticator. After all, we let rats run Congress.

More than 30,000 people travel to Punxatawney every February 2 to watch Phil surface to search for his shadow. Half of them are angry farmers who want to strangle groundhogs for destroying their spring crops.

One year, Phil tried to escape. My theory is after hibernating for six weeks, he was hungry and wanted to help himself to the farmers' crops while they were attending the festival.

Most groundhogs live for 6-8 years, but Phil's keepers say that each summer he drinks a magic liquid that adds 7 years to his life. That means not only can he predict the weather, he also has discovered the fountain of youth.

When Phil isn't forecasting the weather, he lives in a climate-controlled cage in the Punxatawney Library. But contrary to popular belief, he doesn't check out meteorology books because he doesn't have a library card.

Punxatawney, by the way, is an Indian word that means white men don't have sense enough to come out of the cold.

Valentine's Day is coming up this month. Last year, I told my husband I wanted a rosebud. He came through. He rented "Citizen Kane".

My sister said the real meaning of Valentine's Day is to love your neighbor. That's easy for her to say because that's how she snagged her husband. Boy, was his wife relieved!

People say the best things in life are free. That explains why FreeCreditReport.com supplies you with a free credit report and charges your credit card $29.95.

So, the Better Business Bureau is making the credit report company change their URL to FreeCreditReportNoWay.com

My friend is expecting a baby, and she wants to name it after me. Personally, I think a better name is After Thought . . . or Bob, if he's a girl.