Last night, Hazel decided it would be a hoot to cry uncontrollably from 1 a.m. until about 3:30 or so. The most likely culprit is teething, which I see as more of a red herring for parents to rely upon during ambiguous caterwauling spells than a consistent tear bringer. She also might have been really bummed by the latest casualties of “American Idol”, but since she has never seen the show, this is another catalyst to strike from the tally.

The most certain answer that I see is that today is February 29^th. Not only does it mark the end of a pretty cool month—February has the common decency to last only four weeks, thereby stepping aside quickly in my everlasting desire for November, the month of turkey and birthdays—but it also means that March is nigh upon us. All in all, March is a scary month. Not only does it come in like a proverbial snarling lion, but it also holds within it 31 days the dread Ides of March. I’ve been trying to get through the complete Shakespeare catalog with Hazel, but she has an unfortunately short attention span for long blocks of dense text with no illustrations of cuddly bunnies or chirping baby chicks. The result of her budding ADHD or just being a baby: You Make the Call! Even March’s name is frightening: MARCH! It may as well be called Schnell! for all the imagery of forced trudging through muddy desolation it brings to mind. The softest correlation of March’s moniker would be Sousa; this name change might impart a sunnier disposition. But after looking at his photo (ol’ John Philip bears an amazing resemblance to a Stratego game piece), I think any way you slice it, March is destined to strike fear in the hearts of any feeling souls on this planet or any other that recognize the Gregorian calendar system. Surely, this must be the cause of Hazel’s twilight terrors: a tearful goodbye to February coupled with a horrified acceptance that yes, March’s tyrannical rule starts tomorrow.

Just think of how sad Hazel will be once she figures out that she won’t see another 2/29 until she’s nearly five years old. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Dense snows big on sop but short on stature
coat the world like a sweatpanted loafer
who is no more than a belly scratcher
sagging jobless on his parents’ sofa.

(That last line rhymes when read by a Mainer.
People here play Three Card Monte with Rs;
removing some to make words sound plainer
and suping up others like pimped out cars.)

Winter can now fly south for the summer
and leave us to our lawns of green grasses.
More cold will surely make me quite dumber,
my thoughts gummed up like unthawed molasses.

But winter has its own intrinsic worth,
As Hazel will learn, each spring’s a rebirth.

Some questions in life need to be answered by all people: Where should I live? Whom should I love? Other questions should be considered by all people, but are often overlooked: What’s the meaning of life? Is there a God in the Judaeo-Christian sense? Am I going to leave this planet better than when I arrived? And yes, other questions are never even considered…until now:

A few days ago, this very question started to rattle my mental cage. I have no clue where it came from, but an answer was demanded forthwith. I am often plagued by nonsensical or downright dumb postulates that my mind simply will not ignore. Like a kitten with a ball of yarn, I just can’t resist stupid stuff like this. Typically, I have a mental monologue exploring both sides of the coin, then draw a final conclusion. This conclusion I share with Megan over dinner and she just shakes her head, internally questioning why she ever took that bet to marry me.

But, so as to share my burden, I asked Paul and Jim to consider the same question and answer on their respective blogs.

The common thread between mud flaps and dust jackets is that each protects something of value from dirt and much. This is not a good thing. But, of the two, mud flaps have more fun. They get to travel; I see mud flaps most often on 18-wheelers so these ones actually see more of the country than I do, and I have frequent flyer miles. Plus, they get emblazoned with funny and/or crass images—they’re the life of the party and have the best road trip stories. Whether they have Yosemite Sam threatening motorists to “back off” or a reclining naked lady, it’s all frosting on the awesome cake they call Life As a Mud Flap.

Being a book dust jacket must be terrible. Sure, they may house vast amounts of knowledge, but they can just as likely be wrapped around a John Grisham bloater or an Ann Coulter floater. Just think of what it must be like to exist only as a superficial marketing ploy. Oh the lies they have to tell to the world! Plus, the best view they can hope for is of the off-white ceiling above the coffee table. If they’re shelved, the only part of them open to the scenery is their spine. Lastly, life as a book dust jacket is one of immediate shame, for as we all know, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Talk about a self-esteem cutter.

So I say that it’s a mud flap life for me! Should you have a difference in opinion, I’d love to hear it.

Lord Moulton, an English judge, gave a speech a little less than a century ago in which he discussed the three domains of man. On one side, he described an anarchic realm of complete free will—everyone does whatever they like without any consequences. Diametrically opposed to this we find a world of totalitarian enforcement in which every action is regulated by a strict adherence to the laws. No one can make the right decision, so we have police forces, governments, and lawmakers to tell us what we can and cannot do. In between these two extremes, Moulton talked about a balance in which people acted “rightly” in accord with obedience to the unenforceable. He maintained that we should aspire as humans to live a life in which we self-regulate—we act of our own minds with respect to others and to society as a whole. I’m all for that middle ground, a world of ethical actions without the thumb of authority holding you down. Of course, sometimes we need rules and regulations, such as fines for littering and such. Sometimes punitive measures are reasonable. Other times, they’re pretty silly. Here’s a story from the local news:

My question is: How can you tell when flatulence is intentional? I mean, if the person of (brown) note has his or her—I’ll maintain gender equality with my pronouns here, though I bet this is more of a male student problem—ankles in the air and is holding an ignited lighter in place with the hopes of sparking a fart, then that could be intentional. But what if one slips by? What if it’s Chili Day in the cafeteria? And, if you do wrangle up some pooting perpetrators, would you really want to confine all of them to a sealed up detention hall? That’s pretty cruel to all the other detainees who are simply there for fighting or giving that Algebra teacher who still lives in his mom’s basement a hard time.

I’m not going to submit this to Fark.com, but feel free to do so. Florida usually takes a beating on that page, and I’d hate to see Maine dragged through the mud as well.

With Thanksgiving gobbled up by 2007, we find ourselves in the mittened grasp of the holiday season and Hazel’s first Christmas. As parents, this will most likely be the easiest (and least expensive) Christmas for us, as Hazel is too young to know what’s going on and is also the only baby on many people’s gift list. Plus, with no siblings around, we have it pretty sweet this year. Heck, her favorite toy as of late is an empty tissue box. Together, I’m sure we’ll have a very empty milk carton Christmas.

As much as people feel jolly this time of year, there is always that nasty undercurrent of cynicism. I try and just go with the flow in my house; Megan loves Christmas fanatically, so attempts to tune in the all holiday music radio station starting just after Halloween. I do try and hold her off from decorating the house until December 1^st, but not out of spite. It’s the same rationale I rely upon when delaying our jack-o-lantern pumpkin purchases. I just like to limit the amount of time I keep rotting vegetation in and around our house. It’s just good sense.

We watched the Chuck Jones’s classic, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” last night. As entertaining as this special is, I noticed something that has slipped by me until now. In the scene where the Grinch preps Max as his makeshift reindeer and makes his own Santy costume, you get loads of interior shots of his cave atop Mount Crumpet. The scant wall decorations and sewing machine never struck me as out of place, but in a brief shot, you can see into the Grinch’s bedroom. The slumbering abode is surprisingly quite chic, with colorful linens and a headboard fit for the queen of Siam. So maybe, if you ignore what the Grinch unreliably monologues to his pet dog, he actually assails the people of Who-Ville not out of holiday hatred, but out of disgust at their tacky interior decorating. I need to review the short further, but I’m pretty sure that I saw an avocado color theme on several of the village’s kitchen appliances.

I have to wonder what I’ll get this year, as the gravy train of gifts starts and ends at Hazel Town. In thinking back, I think it’s safe to say that I have never purchased underwear for myself. All of my unmentionables, both past and present, have been either a birthday, Christmas, or (in a singular case) Valentine’s Day present. Some may threaten me with coal, but will oil prices close to $100 per barrel a little alternative fuel source under the tree might not be a bad idea.

One of my college professors once told me about her first few months living upstate after several decades spent as a New York City resident. Each night, she would lie awake until near dawn, kept up by all the quiet of the country. The peace and darkness was too drastic a change from the constant din of the Big Apple. What should have been a good, relaxing thing left her jangled and sleepless for weeks.

Likewise, this past Monday, I opened our general email box, prepared for the weekend’s onslaught of spam. Normal totals are in the hundreds and, as I retrieved the messages, the counter stopped at a mere 80 emails. I thought something was wrong. All day, coworkers fretted that email was not working since no one was getting ads for Viagra or offers from African princes to safeguard millions of dollars while their country goes through a bloody coup. I turns out our ISP finally started doing something on their end to block these unwanted messages and, without that e-bloat, things were quiet…too quiet. After months of complaints about the spam, now that we have gotten what we wanted, suspicion ran rampant.

Further evidence of bemoaning good news came to light this very morning at the crack of dawn. My eyes popped open, already fixed on the baby monitor in our room. Yes, it was still working. I rolled over to look at the clock: 5:47 AM. I had last checked the time over seven hours ago, right before I fell asleep. Hazel hadn’t made a peep all night for the first time ever. Obviously something must be terribly wrong; our family had just become a sad statistic. With trepidation, Megan and I creeped into the nursery like Abbott and Costello entering the mummy’s tomb. What horrors would we find in the crib? Braced for the worst, we leaned over the railing and peeked down, seeing a very asleep Hazel. Her wee chest rose and fell with respiration. We each let out a sigh of relief, the noise stirring Hazel from her slumber. So again, much like Abbott and Costello (I’m not saying who is who), we bumbled our way out of her room before she woke up, saw us, and wanted to play.

When everything goes our way, most people grow bored, untrusting, or downright agitated. Deep down people like complaining about the weather or the president or work or whatever. I wonder if we could handle living in a utopia. It’s like that ancient proverb: Mo’ money, mo’ problems.