Twitterpated

• 17:51 Why did my 5-hour day today drag more than my 8-hour day yesterday? #
• 19:04 @miscellaneaarts Maybe it was the key to the furnace. Or the freezer. #
• 19:09 I find the laughter in the April March song "Poor Lola" strangely appealing. #
• 20:06 @huggythuggy Which new 3-D cartoon? #
• 21:08 @3x1minus1 Yeah, the April March version is very similar, actually. #
• 21:09 @eehouls I think the ninth one is my favorite. #

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Writer's Block: Been There, Done That

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The day Marvin Gaye and Phil Ochs got married. I could use more of those fluffy pillows. Just not the day Lassie went to the Moon, because that sucked.

Anyone who gets both references wins!

Amassing Candles and Hogging Ground

Happy Candlemas, everybody! While this holiday (also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple to people who like their holidays to have long names) is really only celebrated by Anglicans/Episcopalians and Eastern Orthodox Christians nowadays, it was more significant in the Middle Ages. It is held forty days after Christmas, because, under the Mosaic law, it's forty days after childbirth that a Jewish woman undergoes ritual purification. The name Candlemas comes from the purification of candles that a priest would perform during the feast day. It was apparently also the traditional day for taking down Christmas decorations, which probably wouldn't go over so well in the modern United States.

Candlemas was also used in England as an indicator of future weather, sort of like St. Swithin's Day and other such days. Americans combined this idea with that of weather-forecasting animals to come up with Groundhog Day. So we come from the presentation of the baby Jesus to that of a rodent in just a few short steps. Isn't the evolution of holidays wonderful? {g}