Phil and Bill. Still.

That's Punxsutawney and Murray, if you're keeping score at home (and if so, why; and if not, why not). I know someone who not only was born on Groundhog Day, but was born in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and has spent a lifetime enjoying the looks of incredulity with which that news is met. 

What's a little spooky, to me, as if basing predictions of additional winter weather on the appearance or non-appearance of a furry animal's shadow isn't already goofy enough, is how much time flies and yet also remains exactly the same simultaneously.

Speaking of which and also having nothing to do with it at all, (think Alternative Facts) my brother, Adam, celebrates his two hundred and seventy-eighth birthday tomorrow (he was born an old soul), and at the time of day he goes running, there are NO shadows of any kind anywhere in this hemisphere. Or groundhogs.

This time last year, one political party was in the ascendancy we were told and this time this year, it's the other. Glad something is working out for somebody somewhere. Statements about both unemployment and underemployment have continued, and in many areas, the numbers have actually proliferated (except among those whose job it is to explain that bad is good and day is night; those careers are booming and no one knows why.). Bigly.

Last February we had national leadership struggling to develop political solutions to military situations that had started out as politics in Iraq and Afghanistan, not forgetting sidebar distractions with Iran and North Korea. And sonuvagun, it's unclear (to me) what if anything has changed. And if you're thinking Hugo Chavez was a striker for FC Barcelona, put down the Coke Zero and get your own smile.

I do know we all missed Stephen Tobolowsky at last night's banquet but considering how much the only constant is change but how constant that change has become, I'm sure we'll meet again before that Second Sitting. But I'm not so sure what happens if someone other than Phil sees his shadow. Six more weeks of chocolate bunnies, I fear.
-bill kenny