Get Over It

Hello World, If it’s 6:00 AM on Friday, this would certainly be the song of the day (and the next day, and the next, and the next ….. ) “They say we’re young and we don’t know Won’t find out until we grow Well, I don’t know if all that’s true ‘cause you got me, and baby, I got you Babe, I got you, babe I got you, babe ….. “ And if it is indeed the day in question, I wish a very happy Groundhog Day to all, with the fuzzy prognosticators poking out of their burrows right on schedule to offer their opinions on the weather – presumably on the theory that they can’t possibly do a worse job than the meteorologists who get paid the big bucks on TV to do just that. (Although frankly, I personally think that I could randomly throw darts at a board and do a better job than that, on mere chance alone.) Of course, it’s also Super Bowl weekend, with the big event happening on Sunday in Minnesota, cheering the hearts of beer companies, pizza makers, and potato chip purveyors everywhere – and that’s not just a lot of Buffalo hot wings, believe me. And of course, February still has much more to offer, even with that as a start, obviously including Black History Month from beginning to end. “But that’s not all!” as they always declare on late night infomercials. On the 13th is Shrove Tuesday, made even sweeter perhaps with the revitalizing sight of young men frolicking in the grass, as pitchers & catcher report for spring training throughout Florida and Arizona, with plenty of hot dogs and cotton candy for all, by Casey. That same Tuesday is also Mardi Gras, although I probably should say “the first day of Mardi Gras,” since according to the media reports, that celebration appears to go on for about a week nowadays, and not limited to Tuesday, no matter how fat. As if all of that wasn’t enough to pile onto the same day, it’s no better on Wednesday, with Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day both squeezing onto the 14th, as well as ushering the season of Lent, for anyone looking for another chance to fail at unrealistic expectations, if New Year resolutions weren’t already enough of that. The 16th brings us the first day of Chinese New Year, and you’d have to look long and hard for a better excuse for a party, so get out there and shake your dragon booty with all the paper lanterns and rice wine that you can muster. On the serious side, we honor all things presidential on the 19th with Presidents Day, which is one of those occasions that some places observe, while others give it a pass, and you never know what to expect from the schools, banks, stores, or garbage pickup, from one location to the next. The month finally wraps up (whew!) with Purim on the 28th, and although something is telling me that it’s not a festival about Purell hand sanitizer (that something would be the ill-mannered snickering from our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery, thanks not) I’m afraid that I have no alternative theories on what it might be instead, so that will have to do for now. And while we’re on the topic of getting our facts straight, I will be the first to admit that my familiarity of California geography is spotty at best, so I knew when I was trying to find out if San Diego is farther south than Pasadena, I realized that I was going to need more than a little help. Incredibly, with the resources of the entire Internet at our very fingertips, this is one thing that is impossible to pin down, no matter how hard you try, or how many search engines you turn to, however sophisticated they might be. You would think that this sort of query would be routine for even the most rudimentary search engine, but I discovered that no matter how many different ways you phrase the question, the results are completely unhelpful to a staggering degree, that would seem impossible to achieve under ordinary circumstances. I finally asked the mighty Wolfram Alpha to give me the distance between the two cities, only to have it come up with the unlikely answer of 3,299 miles (!!!) because it decided that I was asking about Pasadena, Maryland, of all things. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. Also on the subject of being out and about, I don’t know if this is true for all cat owners, but it’s certainly true around our house that you literally can’t take two steps without being forced to wade through a sea of fur on every side, and I don’t mind saying, thanks not. Apparently these blithely oblivious kitties have no dread of being stepped on, so they make not even the slightest effort to get out of your way – in fact, if you’re trying to make any type of forward progress at all, they will very deliberately walk in front of you in a sort of zig-zag pattern, so no matter which way you turn, they’re still directly under your feet. They seem to consider this particularly effective if you’re on the stairs, or even better, carrying things at the time, and once again, thanks so very much not. Even worse, for the first time now, we have the only clairvoyant cat in our family history of furry individuals, who somehow seems to know where it is that I’m planning to go, so that she’s already in my way before I even get there. If I’m going to check the mail, she’s right in front of the door, and if I’m in the market for a cold drink, sure enough, she’ll be plunked directly in front of the refrigerator, with no intention of budging from the spot, by all appearances. It’s positively uncanny how she manages this, and while I can’t rule out the possibility that alien interlopers from The Cat Planet have implanted electrodes into my brain to read my thoughts (heaven forbid!) it does seem rather excessive for the end result of just being a pedestrian hazard around the house, I dare say. Not to over-think it, but it does seem a very long way to go just for that, but let’s face it, the poor space aliens might have just been trying to get from Pasadena (Maryland) to San Diego, and got tripped up along the way – probably should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque after all. Elle