Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day! 
Happy Groundhog Day! 
Happy Groundhog Day! 

I posted the above greeting on the daily agenda for my English classes yesterday. "Does anyone know why I wrote the same thing over and over?" I asked, but none of my students had ever even heard of the movie Groundhog Day, and so they were unable to get the joke.

"It's from an old movie," I explained, "where a weatherman reporting on the groundhog gets stuck in a time loop. No matter what he does, it's always Groundhog Day whenever he wakes up."

"Is it good?" one kid asked me.  

I paused before answering. "I haven't seen it in a really long time," I confessed. "I think it was funny?" I shrugged and moved on with the lesson, but the conversation stayed with me.

"I know what we should watch tonight," I told Heidi when we got home after school. "Groundhog Day!"

She groaned but agreed to the plan, and so after dinner, we settled ourselves on the couch and turned on the TV.

"What year was this made?" Heidi asked, examining the hair and the clothes and the cars. 

"1993!" I answered, for I had already looked it up. "The same year I started teaching."

The movie was a little slow to start. Bill Murray's unpleasant character was not entertaining, and reminded me of a lot of cinematic jerks from back then: Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places, Val Kilmer in Top Gun, James Spader in everything. I actually nodded off after the first two wake-ups, and Heidi poked me and told me to go to bed. "No, no," I insisted, "I'm awake now."

 I was, too, but Heidi went to bed anyway and I watched the rest of the movie alone. 

And although I wouldn't go so far as this reviewer, who calls the film "a spiritual and philosophical masterpiece" and compares Phil Connors to Siddhartha, I would say that, despite being a bit dated and Phil's initial tiresome snarkiness aside, the movie is warm-hearted and entertaining with more than a few laugh out loud moments. 

But I don't need to rewatch it any time soon.

The Inner Groundhog

Since tomorrow is Groundhog Day,  I decided to ask the sixth graders to make a prediction. Most were willing, if not eager, to play along, but not all were. "Oh, I can't," said one this afternoon. "I don't celebrate that holiday."

Fortunately, I anticipated gaps in the students' knowledge and understanding of the day, and so I had a short video that detailed its history and traditions. One of the many interesting facts that we discovered was that statistically? The groundhog is only right anywhere from 30-40 percent of the time. A coin toss is more accurate.

Asking a group of sixth graders what they predict has proven to be more accurate as well. By the end of the day, they were evenly split on whether the weather would bring us six more weeks of winter or if, maybe, spring was right around the corner.

Time will tell which half was right, but at least half of them will be right. Take that, Punxsutawney Phil!

No Tomorrow

"Can you believe that Tuesday is Groundhog Day?" I asked my sister last night on Zoom.

"Every day is Groundhog Day, man!" she scoffed, and we both sighed because we knew how right she was.

Lately, the weekends have been tougher than the work week for me: more often than not I find myself sitting in my chair trying to think of something fun and engaging to do that I haven't already done 25 times since we've been staying at home. 

This evening I heard a piece on the radio about what we lose when we lose acquaintances, people who aren't close enough to for us to seek out, yet whose company we enjoyed all the same. The loss of those chance encounters with a colleague in another department at a meeting, or someone at the gym, or a favorite waiter or bartender, or another fan in the bleachers at a school sporting event is also a lost opportunity for serendipity and the joy it brings. 

Yesterday a couple of our neighbors texted to see if we had any interest in coming out to play in the snow. As it happened? We had about 25 minutes before we were scheduled for that Zoom call. So we pulled on some layers, leashed up Lucy and headed out to the big hill in our complex. There 8-year-old Elijah and I climbed to the top and slid down on our bottoms at least 10 times; no sled needed to enjoy the snow slide created by the icy conditions.

It was completely unplanned and by far the most fun I have had in weeks, if not months.

What Does the Groundhog Say?

Spring ding ding ding springa ding ding ding!

Or something like that.

Just yesterday, mild temperatures and blue skies had given me some springtime in my step, but this morning when I took the dog for our walk, my eyes watered and the pine trees at the bottom of the hill whined in the chill wind.

Exactly one month after Punxsutawney Phil concluded that spring was right around the corner, I had my doubts, especially considering that we were only two weeks out from the alternative, six more weeks of winter. And then there was that slushy mix that is in the forecast for tomorrow night.

Oh well. Maybe we'll get that one last snow day.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Six hundred science fair boards filled our cavernous field house. A few finishing touches were being put on a few last-minute displays, and everywhere, kids rehearsed answers to the judging questions. Clipboards, badges, guidelines, and refreshments were prepared for the 150 volunteers coming to help judge, when...

Our school was informed we would be closing two hours early for the winter weather on its way. We had 90 minutes to feed everyone lunch and get those display boards back to the correct science teacher. Yes. It. Was. Chaos.

Many of the surrounding school systems were either delayed or closed today, because of sleet this morning and fair warning as to how the storm would develop; if we had been, too, the fair would have been automatically postponed to the snow date, sparing many folks a lot of inconvenience. As it is, we're going to do it all again next Wednesday, which just happens to be... Groundhog Day!

(Cue I've Got You Babe to play us out.)