dual personalities

Today is Groundhog Day. But did you know that it is also Hedgehog Day? Me neither.

A hedgehog is any of the spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae. Their spiny protection resembles that of the unrelated porcupines, which are rodents. Hedgehogs are not rodents. Please.

The other night Lottie asked me what was my favorite animal and I said the hedgehog. The look of utter incredulity was classic Lottie.

I changed my answer to elephants. Much better answer, okay.

I’ll have to work on bringing Lottie over to my side.

In the meantime, I’ll toast the lowly hedgehog tonight.

I will also note that today is National Tater Tot Day. Who knew? Tater Tots were invented by the frozen food company Ore-Ida (“When it says Ore-Ida, they’re all-righta!”) In the U.S. we consume approximately 3.5 billion of these nuggets of potato goodness per year. Well, we served Tater Tots on Sunday. The wee babes were unimpressed–finding it hard to believe that they were “like French Fries.”

Hedgehogs and Tater Tots, oh my, and who cares? Maybe tonight I’ll watch Groundhog Day (1993), a movie I don’t think I’ve ever actually ever seen start to finish. It would be appropriate following a day that will no doubt be just like yesterday, a day filled with Zoom meetings and trips up and downstairs in my own house, sometimes punctuated by grumbling from the OM in his basement office. Has it really been 10 and 1/2 months since we left the house?

Here’s a sad poem by Philip Larkin called The Mower. It’s about a hedgehog, but really about us all.

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   
While there is still time.

*Archilochus c. 680–645 BCE