February is Upon Us!

I am so looking forward to February. It’s short and thus concentrated and just a shot away from March Madness. I am Febrile for February. It has my favorite holiday which is Valentine’s Day, which also happens to be International Condom Day and it is the time when we glide under the influence of Pisces, my stars.

Since it’s not even February (pronounce the first R and you can eat oysters) as I write, let me remind you to make your restaurant reservations now, so you don’t wind up cooking dinner on Feb. 14th pretending it’s special treat. Take her to a four star joint and live it up and don’t forget to consummate! Orgasms achieved on February 14th resound throughout the year.

February comes from the Latin word Februum, which means purification, and the Romans celebrated Februa, a purification ritual on the full moon in the second month of the year. February is the best time to begin spring cleaning, to go on a diet or on the wagon, and change your oil. February is the time to clean out the fridge, pour out that nasty half inch of tequila in the bottle, check all the shoes in your closet for last year’s dog shit.

It’s time to throw out all the sock with holes and anything you haven’t worn for two years. It’s time to count your money and give notice to your debtors that your patience is wearing quite thin.
February’s birthstone is Amethyst, which is a variety of quartz that looks pretty purple. I domes from the ancient Greek a methustos, meaning “not drunk” and if you have an amethyst in your wine glass it is literally impossible to get drunk.

Groundhog Day is February 2. It is also Candlemas Day aka Purification of the Blessed Virgin aka The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Mary was supposedly purified from being made unclean by birth (I guess being basically in the same category as dogs and swine) by sacrificing a pair of pigeons in the Temple (since she was too poor to afford a lamb.) Candlemass was the day that Catholics used to bring candles to church for blessing by the priest which sort of symbolizes the return of the light. Today Christians can celebrate Candlemas by taking down the Christmas lights from their windows and roofs. Apparently this Christian feast was hijacked, like many others, from an already popular pagan feast. This one was called Imbolc (or around the belly in Celtic) because the belly of the Earth Mom is swelling, all kinds of purification stuff is going on. Being halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, it’s supposed to be a big day for fertility. You can turn over the earth to get it prepped for planting, It’s also St. Brigid’s day to February under the Julian calendar, and this year is a leap year and we will have February 29th.

Leap Day means that it’s okay for women to propose marriage to men, and if a man turns down a woman’s proposal he has to buy her 12 pairs of gloves that she can use to disguise her lack of an engagement or wedding ring. My friends Gilles Bensimon and Antonio Sabato Jr. both have birthdays on February 29th. This is why Gilles pretends he will be 17 this year.

Leap Day and Leap Year means it’s time to take a leap of faith and just admit that if there is a God he aint’ paying attention and he sure as shooting ain’t going to intervene and you can tell that to all the polluters who are destined to end their day on the new improved Supreme guillotine.


Other February days include Super Sunday, on which the New York Giants will face the New England Patriots and Tu Bishvat, the traditional Jewish holiday of Trail Mix. This year Super Bowl should be particularly interesting because Las Vegas sports books took plenty of bets on the Giants winning the Superbowl at 80 to 1. I would suggest you don’t watch the film Black Sunday between now and then.

Speaking of Sundays, one day a nun at St. Patrick’s School was teaching her third graders and she asked “Can anyone explain the meaning of Easter Sunday?” No one raised a hand, but finally when she offered a candy bar to anyone who could explain Easter, one little boy, Tommy, raised his hand.
He said: “Well, on Good Friday Jesus was crucified. They nailed him to the cross and after a while he died. They cleaned up his body and wrapped it in a sheet and put it into a cave and they put a big rock in front of the cave so nobody could get in. That Sunday people went to visit and they found that the rock had been rolled away.

That’s very good, said the nun. And then what happened, Tommy?
“Well, Jesus came out of the tomb and… if he saw his shadow there was six more weeks of cold weather.