No Groundhogs

It's February 3, and I just went through the house, changing the calendars from January to February. We are snowed in. Last night's rehearsal was cancelled, and perhaps tonight's will be, too, which is really a preview performance, but, egad!--we have barely had a dress rehearsal. Anxiety balanced by yoga. I did not see any groundhogs in real life or on the news (because I wasn't watching the news), but I did see what I thought was a large owl, hunkered down in the snow, scanning the yard for small prey. It transformed, via head movement, into a rabbit, a huge rabbit, just sitting out there in the snow, flicking its now visible ears. Oddly, there is a reference to groundhogs in Life Sucks, the play. Hence, another Random Coinciday in the blog.

My husband is repairing a sort-of-inherited broken snowblower in our family room. Occasionally, I go out and press the red bar while he watches the motor. A horrible sound has been transformed to a snowblower-motor sound by the adjustment of a shredded belt. More transformation! (See above owl-to-rabbit story.) Perhaps soon the driveway can transform from drifted to driveable with less back strain!

I have been resting, eating, reading, going over lines, doing yoga, and trying to transform myself from anxiety-ridden to relaxed. Watching comic movies sort of helps, in reassuring me that comedy is organic, coming from the usual human place. Plus timing.

Reading always helps. I read The Jesus Cow by Michael Perry, which is comedy (tragicomedy), arising from the usual human places. And now I am reading At Paradise Gate, by Jane Smiley, which might be too close for comfort. A man is sick in his bed upstairs, and his daughters want to move him downstairs. My dad is in the midst of planning a creative transformation of his own house, to move his bedroom downstairs. We none of us oppose this, and we understand the impulse while dreading the disruption to my parents' usual routines...

Meanwhile, it's still winter, it's newly February, some of my anxiety is from scheduling weekly Covid tests due to the play, and I am sort of happy to be snowed in.