Americans Create Stupid Holiday, Canadians Treble It

groundhog day in canada — This guy doesn't even know how it works. Groundhogs don't talk, buddy.

If you have no idea what treble means, you’re probably an American (and you might be Canadian). If you’re thinking of music, you’re not completely off base, or off pitch as it were. Treble, which refers to a high-pitched voice or instrument, does so because it “was the highest part in a three-part contrapuntal composition.” If you don’t know what a contrapuntal composition is, well, I probably lost ya at treble. (It means triple)

But don’t feel bad. Things like treble, and fortnights, and zebra crossings (which are all over my city, as it happens), and maths, and the mythical letter ‘Zed’, were all new to me when I first lived in England a few years back. I feel like I can almost put on my CV that I speak English (Amercan and British); and with a few ‘eh’s and ‘aboot’s maybe Canadian too?

But I digress.

Stupid holiday? Groundhog Day. Stupid funny, that is.

Tonight I went to a very nice little meditation group that meets each week and after a perfectly lovely meditation, our leader, a brilliant Welsh/British man, said that today is a ‘special day.’ And maybe Justin knows about this special day… (I was completely dumbfounded, trying to think of which Buddhist holiday I had completely forgotten, even having just read Arun’s list of Buddhist holidays in 2012)… because I am an American.

Ding, ding, ding.

My mind flashed to facebook, where friends in the US had been posting ‘the results’ and accompanying lamentations “6 more weeks :(” from Groundhog Day.

Ah yes. I guessed it. Yay me. And on went the Dharma talk. Samsara metaphor, etc etc. (If you haven’t seen the movie, do. The potential ‘Buddhist’ undertones are pretty strong.)

(wow, makes you feel old if you saw it when it came out…)

In any case, this wonderful American holiday has made it even into British football (that’s ‘soccer’) news, as well as in to Canada, in a big way. According to CP24, Toronto’s breaking news channel, 2 out of Canada’s 3 ~~hedgehog~~ groundhogs actually predicted against Punxsutawney Phil, who calls of six more weeks of winter.

Not only are they exploiting American tradition for their own gain, Canadians are making a mockery of it by contradicting our nation’s most famous weatherman.

Deep breaths. Channeling the outrage. Maybe we could put together an avaaz petition… Or summon Hollywood to the rescue.