Ten-Finger Exercises

An under-marketed holiday?

I've had a variety of odd topics go through my head today but no time to elaborate on any of them yet. I did get them jotted down though.

When I was grocery shopping for green onions and black beans to make some more couscous salad to take to a nurse friend whose father just died, I noticed something odd in the bakery. In fact, I asked the baker behind the counter about it. There were lots of Valentine choices for sale already: cookies, cakes, heart shaped doughnuts. But not a single Ground Hog Day cookie to be had! She stared, and finally laughed, but I'm not sure she realized I was making a joke.

Can you believe there's a holiday we haven't commercialized yet? I see great possibilities here, although Hallmark is probably already in the market. But cookies, cakes, tiny lights on strings, groundhog costumes, special issue celebratory champagne for the days he doesn't see his shadow....

Several groceries were enticing super bowl shoppers with specials on Coca-Cola and Pepsi. If you bought three 12-can packages of Coke for $12, you could have two more for free. Or, if you bought just two packs of Pepsi for the same price, you could have three more packs free! What a deal! I think they're both trying to convince us that a 12 pack is no longer regularly under the old $3 top price.

It's bad enough to have gas go up, but please, not my Diet Coke!

On my way home, there was a pickup truck ahead of me chock full of unsplit wood, of which there is an ample supply after our big windstorm. A flurry of traffic went by as we sat at the stop sign, long enough for me to estimate the fore-mentioned tree was about thirty-five years old. Think of all the shade it's given, the birds it's been home for, and all the good warm heat someone will have. That's one more thing we forget to give thanks for: trees.

Have a good weekend, and I hope you don't see your shadow.