Yesterday, I was nearly ready to sip margaritas poolside, dine al fresco and fire up the BBQ. The weather was so unseasonably nice that life seemed like something straight out of a Corona commercial. I imagined friends sitting around in suits, not talking to each other and vacantly staring off into the distance while tossing back cervezas and listening to R. Kelly, simply basking in the 60 degree February sunlight.
However the stark reality of the date set in rather quickly once the sun dipped below the horizon. No matter how I tried to convince myself golf season and driving down the shore with Bruce blaring weather was right around the corner, the calendar still read February 1 — the middle of winter.
The day before Groundhog Day is a brutal choice for mother nature to return to her cock-teasing habits. No matter how much, or little, faith you put in a chubby and temperamental rodent dictating our climate for the next month and a half, it’s a landmark day on the calendar. Punxsutawney Phil was rudely shaken from his slumber this morning and predicted six more weeks of winter, therefore confirming yesterday’s near perfect weather was indeed a mirage.
The idea of Groundhog Day is based in an old German superstition; if a hibernating animal wakes up and sees his shadow we’re in for a longer Winter, if he doesn’t Spring comes early. Exactly who deemed groundhogs fit for an honorary meteorology degree is beyond my ability for irrational thought, but they sure did choose an animal with a rather morbid sense of climate prediction. Punxsutawney Phil and his ancestors have predicted extended Winters a whooping 87 percent of the time, and he’s be correct 39 percent of the time.
Since it would be far too reasonable to blame the Germans for their stupid superstition that gets our hopes up each February, I’m going to blame that little punx, Phil. Because faulting an animal for making me wear a heavy coat and scarf for another month and a half seems like the American thing to do. The little bastard probably likes the Winter, I’d like it too if I got to sleep through the whole damn thing. Phil seeing his shadow probably has nothing to do with the sun or the weather, it’s just his way of spiting us because those assholes in top hats woke him up from an awesome dream.
So far it has been a rather mild winter (knock on wood). Hopefully it continues, and hopefully our typically volatile mother nature doesn’t skip Spring and jump right to Summer for the third straight year. Until then I’ll continue to rant about things far beyond my control, like the plot of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and the poor selection of Slurpee flavors at my local 7-11.
