Deep Thoughts in Frigid February
February 14, 2010
Dear Doodleheads, here we are in the frigid month of February. Perhaps you’ll think I’m crazy (which would be nothing new, I’m sure) but personally, I like February. It’s a nice quiet month for the most part, for me at least, especially when it snows, which it has done quite a bit so far here in Corbin. That has left me with some time for deep thoughts while I shiver. Here are a smattering of them, in case your brain is too frozen to think them yourself:
**Deep Thought #1** Groundhogs are cute little critters, but why do they get a day of their own on our calendars? Could it be that it’s February and since there’s nothing else to do, bored people prod the little critters out of their holes just to watch them run back in before they freeze to death? There’s some old European superstition about predicting the arrival of spring based on the activity of hedgehogs in mid-winter, but really, boredom must be the prime motivator here, don’t you think? We should let them get their sleep.
**Deep Thought #2** Why do we need two different kinds of screws and their accompanying screwdrivers? Maybe there’s a tremendously riveting scientific answer, but it seems to mean life would be immensely more pleasant if somebody would decide we just needed one type. That would eliminate a whole bunch of running around, banging drawers and frustrated screaming as far as I can tell. I asked my dear husband, Bret, this question, but he was too busy looking in a bucket for a lost fish. Obviously he has stranger frustrations to deal with than finding the right screwdriver.
**Deep Thought #3** This is quite similar to deep thought #2. Why can’t all cars work the same way? I realize different people have different preferences, but really couldn’t all cars at least have windshield wipers, light brighteners, heat/ac controls and radios that work the same way? I’d also like the gear shifts to be in the same place, but I’m sure that particular issue could cause World War III, so never mind on that one. But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to drive any car in the world, at any time of the day or night, in any kind of weather, while listening to music, without nearly having a wreck trying to figure out how to operate the controls? I realize I am mechanically challenged, but really, why do there need to be so many ways for the same things to be turned on and off?
**Deep Thought #4** So maybe car companies would go out of business if they couldn’t make every make and model with their own endearing (or unnerving, depending) quirks, but I really, really, really think it would be a marvelous innovation if all the bigwigs would get together and decide which way the car locks should work. I realize they’ve already come up with the automatic fobby things, which possibly was the answer to this perplexing problem, but some of us still have cars that need to be locked with the turn of a key. So why can’t all the locks on all the doors of all the cars turn the same direction to lock and the other direction to unlock? I have an idea. How about rightie tightie, lefty loosie? How hard would that be? At the present time, we have three cars at our house and I can’t lock or unlock any of them on the first try, not even on the one I drive all the time, because each door is different and I can’t remember which way is which on any of them! Before the dog chewed up the only automatic key fob we’ve ever had, I couldn’t work that blasted thing without setting off the alarm, so maybe it’s just me.
**Deep Thought #5** In deference to Valentine’s Day, I’ve been pondering love, doling out cards and candy to children, throwing tiny bits of money to daughters, spending nothing on my husband since his greatest desire right now is to save money, and reading love poems. There are some pretty funny ones out there, but I’m afraid of messing with copyright laws, so I shall not quote any of those. Instead I will share one that is still one of my favorites, even though it is 400 years old. I don’t think copyright laws apply to Shakespeare.
>Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
So let’s not admit (let in) impediments when we love. Impediments are out there beating on the door to get in every day. But we don’t have to let them in. We can bar the door and lock it (rightie tightie) so that the love we have for each other lasts to the edge of doom, or for those of us who know Jesus, until the edge of heaven and beyond. Every day could be Love Day if we’d just quit tripping over those dang impediments!
And we’re only halfway through this month of deep thoughts. Just think of the possibilities!