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Two, Oh Two, OH TWO!

© Barbara Hall

And THAT marks GroundHog Day THIS year. I read over December's article and I probably COULD have just reprinted it for THIS month, not much has changed (except that after two weeks of all-out inner warfare, yes a trip to the White Coats to assure me I DIDN'T have pneumonia, and taking the opportunity to read all FOUR Harry Potter books in two-weeks' time, I did survive that *Just-A-Virus* I wrote about.....but it was a MEAN one.)

But here we are, approaching yet another GroundHog Day (while Mercury is in retrograde yet....wonder if that has the GroundHog trying to get out the wrong hole, it's HormoneClock didn't go off, Room Service lost its number for the BackUp WakeUp call, or in Punxsutawney Phil's case, everyone just got the date wrong. We shall see.)

Last GroundHog Day I was writing about yet ANOTHER Rip-Snorter of a cold I had, so 'Tis the Season indeed. I even went back to my first GroundHog Day article for Suite 101 and re-visited and cleaned up some itchy links...I must say, the Wiarton Willie site has grown up VERY nicely. (that's Canada's ALBINO GroundHog) One site that I don't see in the other articles is The Committee for the Commercialization of Ground Hog Day whose announcement Emails come from none other than Chuck Wood. If you go to GROUNDHOG CENTRAL at their site ON this special 02/02/02, you can check on Hog Predictions from all OVER the place.

Well, I can only speak for southern New York state, but it certainly will be interesting to see what happens to the HOGS this year. If they get up because "Nature Calls" (be that hormones, the need to pee or just wanting another beer) the deal is that either they see their shadow in the sunlight and scare themselves right back to bed (think they scream when they do that?) or they DON'T see their shadows and stay up, which THEORETICALLY heralds an early spring.

My question is, even if they SEE their shadow, considering they've lost some unbelievable percentage of their Fall-Plumped body weight, if they also see FOOOOOOOD (can we say Dandelions) are they still apt to run from their shadow, or beat it up trying to be the first one on the chow line?

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