I’ve decided not to let a burrowing rodent determine my attitude this month.  The winter drags sufficiently without the added weight of an obese groundhog.  The glow of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and three family birthdays are a shimmering memory.  January is the settling month.  The month for regrouping, reconfiguring, and resolving.

Then comes February.  Colder. Gloomier. Even with the longer days. Measly President’s Day offers the sole respite between New Years and whenever-Easter-is.  Even people with February birthday’s wish they could celebrate during a brighter month. At least, someplace balmy.  For the shortest month of the year, containing twenty-eight-ish days, February sure seems loooong.

If you live where it’s routinely colder or gloomier, February bodes interminable.  A radioactive cold and gloom of 1950′s sci-fi proportions descends upon the populace smothering any sprouts of cheer, humor, or mirth.

Aren’t I proof?

Even my son’s guitar teacher, normally a perky guy, is affected.  Today he taught him House of the Rising Sun.  Chipper, that.

So who needs a self-proclaimed weather-reading rodent to tell us how much more of this we must endure?  Not me.  I’d rather play whack-a-mole with the little pig from Punxsutawney, because, I don’t give a groundhog’s posterior what Phil has to say about the next six weeks.  Unless, he knows the winning lottery numbers, let him stay in his hole.

Thank you.  Yes, I do feel better.