I didn’t happen to have a groundhog on hand today, so I used my own shadow as a proxy to predict the future. As usual, results were mixed: Under sunny blue skies, I entered the grocery store to pick up some fruit, and emerged not three minutes later into a downpour. Shadow, then no shadow. So spring around the corner, or six more weeks of winter? Where I live, in northern California, winter and rain have become obsolete concepts, replaced by “God, how can we bear this 40-degree temperature?” and “atmospheric rivers.” So I guess today predicted Sprinter and Wing, and lots more of it. Which is not that surprising, since the daffodils are out while the creeks run high under cloudy and blue skies. Per usual.

Per usual is the point of why Groundhog Day is one of my favorite holidays, or at least one of my favorite movies. Nothing else quite captures how one day is much like another, on and on. Our routines are both deliriously comforting and maddeningly monotonous. A creature of habit, I quite like it that way.

Groundhog Day strategically falls right as January’s flush of new resolve–“This year, things will really change!”–gets flushed down the toilet. Who were we kidding? It feels good to burrow under the covers instead of rising early to write, and who wants to down a green energy drink instead of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia just when it’s getting to the perfect melty stage? Out with the new, in with the old.

Speaking of old, you may have heard there’s an election this year featuring two old guys who’ve both been president.

One’s a malignant narcissist who tried to overturn the last election and prefers an address of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over–Oh, let’s say–a prison cell. The other’s a decent guy who’s gotten a lot of good done despite massive obstruction, a stammer and stiff gait, and some questionable embraces that are not of the sexual-assault type favored by the first and former guy.

The election’s actually a do-over of 2020, only worse, which has a lot of people far more upset than the do-over Bill Murray faced day after day in Groundhog Day. Bill Murray’s plight had a Hollywood ending.

As for the ending of our Same-old, Same-old election contest in November? It all depends on voters whether we’ll be cast back into the shadows or emerge into the light.

As if things aren’t bad enough, a minor celebrity from the Rodent Prognosticator World has met an untimely death. Yes, Milltown Mel of New Jersey, in what is surely a breach of contract, kicked the bucket right before getting hauled out to perform today’s duties. You can read about it here. I was first alerted to this tragedy through a link on yesterday’s Crooked Media‘s “What a Day” newsletter. Besides shedding a tear, I had to wonder: Is Crooked paying their intrepid researchers enough? How many others so diligently comb through humble, random Patch stories to bring you the latest news?

Diligent Shrinkrapped readers may recall that I have a thing for Groundhog Day, even going so far as proposing it become our national holiday. Milltown Mel’s demise only increases my certainty that the day captures something quintessentially American.

Like the craziness: It makes zero sense that we rely on disturbing hibernating rodents to forecast the duration of winter when there are a zillion microclimates in the U.S. Particularly when we can never remember whether the shadow means longer or shorter. Reminiscent of the insanity of our different election laws in a zillion places, Groundhog Day is obviously another example of federalism run amok.

Like the dangerous celebration of magical thinking: Sure, there’s Santa and all, but the risk of biting is low.

Like how counting on something turns into something you can’t really count on: Norms; the better angels of our nature; American Exceptionalism; Milltown Mel. Par for the course for another new year.

Like how Groundhog Day (especially the movie) channels the Zeitgeist: The last two-plus years have trapped us in an endless, repetitive cycle of Covid and mind-boggling politics. Again, why should 2022 be any different?

Milltown Mel has escaped that cycle. Good for you, Mel. RIP.

Finally, the day you’ve been living over and over again for almost a year is officially here! I’m referring, of course, to Groundhog Day, hitherto an obscure and underrated holiday whose elevation I’ve proposed as an apt celebration of the American character.

But I didn’t quite intend this level of elevation, this much capturing of our experience! Seriously, I could do without Groundhog Day as a national meme baked into our collective unconscious because of COVID Times. Like Bill Murray in the famous film, the alarm goes off and we are eternally trapped in the same day. Also with the same people, same four walls, same conversations, same Zoom screens, same Netflix stupor, same quiet unraveling. And that’s if we’re lucky!

The tedium is broken up by panic attacks about paying the bills, homeschooling the kids, elderly parents dying alone, sniffles spelling death–you name it. Not to mention anxiety about armed anti-maskers storming state capitols and militant anti-reality mobs staging an insurrection at our nation’s Capitol under the direction of Donald Trump. So much for subscribing to the “What’s the downside to humoring him?” theory.

This got me thinking about whether groundhogs are harmless hibernators who sometimes bite people who haul them out of their slumber, or if there’s a darker side to these reluctant rodent celebrities. As one gardening website asks, “Can that cute groundhog really cause damage?”

Yes, as it turns out. Much like insurrectionists and their leaders, “If not properly controlled, groundhogs can cause serious structural damage when burrowing. Their tunnels break apart building foundations . . . ” An easy Google ramble further reveals the answers to some of the most vexing questions, including my favorite: “Are groundhogs good for anything?” This is artfully evaded with a sort of “All God’s Creatures” vibe, plus a passing note that they’re vegetarians.

More pragmatically, we learn how to get rid of a groundhog:

–Sprinkle blood meal, ground black pepper, dried blood, or talcum powder around the perimeter of your garden.

–Puree and strain hot peppers and garlic, mix them with water and enough liquid soap to make it stick, and spray it liberally around the garden.

Would that these methods worked with insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists!

Anyway, today’s news is that the groundhog foretells 6 more weeks of winter. Had it been cloudy, it would have been slightly shorter. Since the daffodils are currently blooming where I live, and since the calendar notes that Spring will be here no matter what in about six weeks, I smell a hoax. Or some kind of rodent.

At any rate, we did wake to a slightly new day on January 20. President Biden has a plan to bring us out of our long, dark winter. No groundhog can tell how long it will take to emerge from Covid Times based on the presence or absence of its shadow. Assuming vaccination rates continue to improve, here’s a better predictor of how many more deaths will occur depending on how we (and Congress) all act in the meantime.

As Bill Murray learned in Groundhog Day, he had choices within his trap, choices that led to remaining stuck or breaking free. So do we.

Groundhog Day . . .  is a day celebrated on February 2. According to folklore, if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, then spring will come early; if it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and the winter weather will persist for six more weeks.

–Wikipedia

We have made it through the holidays—relatives endured, credit cards maxed out, waistlines larded with latkes, and other wonders of the season.  We have turned the page on the old year, ushering in the new with high hope and resolve.

But now that we’ve paid that first installment on Visa and skipped a session or two at the gym (seriously, setting the alarm a half hour early–what were we thinking?), it’s time to get real.

That’s why I propose elevating Groundhog Day, which best represents who we are as a people, to the holiday status it deserves. Sure, the Fourth of July honors our penchant for blowing things up. And Thanksgiving is a strong contender with its non-denominational emphasis on food. But that gratitude thing can be a deal breaker for some.

Groundhog Day, on the other hand, is for everyone—those who are pulled kicking and screaming into the sunlight only to go back to bed, and those who find a silver lining in a cloudy day.

And that’s just the tradition built around a reluctant rodent prognosticator! The other reason why February 2 should be our national holiday is captured by the 1993 film, Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray hits the alarm each morning only to find he is trapped in the same dreary day as before.

Sound familiar?

Yet Groundhog Day goes on to transform the Myth of Sisyphus into an embodiment of that all-American saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” (Freudians, those jaded Old Worlders, call it repetition compulsion.)

The definition of insanity may be repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But these do-overs also give us a chance to get it right. Bill Murray, by dint of repetition and infinitesimal change, emerges from the winter of his discontent into the sunny skies of Andie MacDowell’s favor. Surely that is a model worth celebrating.

I forget what happens to the groundhog. Probably it bites somebody and goes back to sleep. Which is another holiday tradition we can all embrace.