Day 33: Groundhog Day

It’s Groundhog Day!

I love Groundhog Day.

The groundhog saw his shadow today.  Which means, according to Punxsutawney Phil, that there will be an early spring.  Spring in four weeks, says the furry prognosticator!

Wait a minute.  That would mean spring will be here on March 2.  The groundhog is telling us that on March 2, it will be warm,  the flowers will be blooming, the birds will be singing like crazy, and all those things I LOVE to feel, see, smell, and hear after a cold, grey winter will be here.

Naw.

Just won’t happen.  I don’t mean to be cynical and doubt my beloved groundhog.  But that’s impossible. At least where I live.

I’ve now seen 60 Groundhog Days and not ONCE has spring arrived on March 2.

That’s one of the interesting aspects of my lifelong experience with Groundhog Day.  It’s based on something that is completely and utterly incorrect. We might even get dramatic here, and say that Groundhog Day is based on a pack of lies!!!

That is shocking, isn’t it?  That the

King of the Groundhogs,
Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of Prognosticators,
Weather Prophet without Peer,

actually doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

Of course, I suppose we could crankily say the same about our experiences with professional weathermen and weatherwomen.  (I still  usually call them weathermen and weatherwomen, although I understand that they prefer the term “meteorologist,” which does sound quite scientific and reassuring, although more like  people we’d call when a meteor is about to hit the earth.)

Where was I before the parentheses? Oh, yes. Meteorologists are often wrong, too. And I’ll tell you what drives me nuts about THEM.  (It’s Groundhog Day, so I’m allowed to rant.)  Not once, in my sixty Groundhog Days on this earth have I EVER seen ANY meteorologist acknowledge IN THE SLIGHTEST when the forecast has been completely and utterly wrong.

I’ve listened to these weather-people warn us, with concerned faces and dire voices, for HOURS (or DAYS!) about catastrophes looming on the horizon. And then when the terrible weather event just … doesn’t … happen ….  Nada!  They say nothing.  It’s as if those forecasts, which sounded so absolute and definite, never happened. The day after one of these Forecasting Faux Pas, these weather people betray not  a tinge of embarrassment and regret. Believe me, I’ve looked.

And I’m somebody who — so far in her life — has been SO different from these blithely bumbling meteorologists, when it comes to mistakes.  I’m hyper-aware of mistakes  — often painfully so — and  I am quick to name them to anybody I think might notice.

Well, mistakes are something that I am definitely working on for this Year of Living Non-Judgmentally.  I am working on accepting and letting go of mistakes, and assuming less about other people’s reactions to mistakes.

And as a result, this may be the best Groundhog Day I’ve ever had.

Here’s to you, Punxsutawney Phil.

And to you, too, dear reader.