[date Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 9:45 AM]
PN:
This seasons “hard white water” events have climbed to 24. Would have been more, but last week the temperature bumped up to ++ numbers, and it rained for two days. Rules are rules….
I do like the names of the months. The one just around the corner for instance. What promise! What imagery! What fe!! What brewery?? What a joke!!
Fe is the abbreviated Latin for the element iron; ferrum.
Fe. is also the abbreviated Latin for he made it, or she made it; fecit. Which can be pronounced fey-kit.
That’s right. Fake it. In other words,
February
late 14c., from L. februarius mensis “month of purification,” from februa “purifications” (plural of februum ), of unknown origin, said to be a Sabine word. The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month. In Britain, replaced O.E. solmonað “mud month.” English first (c.1200) borrowed it from O.Fr. Feverier , which yielded feoverel before a respelling to conform to Latin.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
The last month of the Gregorian calendar. Once known as “mud month” (see above).
In honor of the young and the poor speller found in all of us, I dedicate this month to the memory of promises made but unfulfilled. From “he made a brewery” to “mud month” seems a stretch. The last month of the year suits me more. It is -15°C today. I have been in the Okanagan for 35+ years now. This month is (always) a bitch. Tomorrow, that little bastard groundhog will have to tunnel through the snow to get to the surface in order to check out his shadow. Two weeks from now, valentines day. Big Deal! What a pathetic miserly promise of nothing much at all. March has the Ides, and the gift of ending the winter death grip. April brings showers to usher in May flowers. The Roman “end of the year” month, where odds and ends accumulate to add another day of blah. In honor of bitchy mud month (don’t I wish it WERE mud!), here are some reflexions on February, and a few demotivational images to ponder:
“The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February“ – Joseph Wood Krutch (this was a time before aluminum crutches – Ed. Joe)
“It must be terrible to bury someone you love in early May, when the ground is beginning to thaw and stretch and turn bright green and the smell of lilacs tumbles down from the bushes like a little benediction. Or in September, when the noon sun is still warm on your face but the evenings are cool enough for flannel and an extra blanket dragged up from the footboard in the middle of the night.
Or at Christmas. It must be terrible at Christmas.
February is a suitable month for dying. Everything around is dead, the trees black and frozen so that the appearance of green shoots two months hence seems preposterous, the ground hard and cold, the snow dirty, the winter hateful, hanging on too long.” – Anna Quindlen
“February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until March.” – Dr. J. R. Stockton
“February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer.” – Shirley Jackson, Raising Demons
As McWatt said in Catch – 22, “Oh well, what the Hell”.
Here’s a little ditty that kinda grows on you. “I like bananas (because they have no bones)”
[youtube http://youtube.com/w/?v=l-QkMaCS7CU&feature=related]
Great lines – “I don’t like your peaches (they are full of stones), I like bananas (because they have no bones)”. Somewhat Freudian eh wot? I WILL NOT make a political reference at this time.
Here is a thoughtful commentary on “Two Californias” by Victor Davis Hanson:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255320/two-californias-victor-davis-hanson
I was long hauling to many of the valley towns he mentions in 2006 – before the federal government shut off the water over an environmental concern (remember that 3 inch smelt?). While driving I was awestruck by the fecundity and production of the earth – truly a “grocery store” for the world. This incredibly fertile valley is capable of supplying all of North America with fruit and vegetables (with plenty left over for export), yet it lies fallow, without water, and is being invaded by thousands (millions?) of paradoxes…. The paradox is they speak Spanish, wave Mexican flags, and trash the United States, but they would do ANYTHING to avoid going back to the country of their birth – a vile, corrupt, merciless cauldron of misery and hopelessness for most of them. And the federal government parties on. Madness……
Time to go buy some 2X4’s and build something. That will chase away the incipient ground hog blues……
Joe (Sub Zero) Mekanic
p.s. Now follows the usual suspects:
