Our black cat, Taj, had a spectacular crazy time the other day. He raced up and down the stairs at breakneck speed, made several circuits around the entire first floor as if he were an Indy car and threw in a few howls for sound effects.

For those of you unfamiliar with pet behavior, these short bouts of literally off the wall (or climbing the wall) romps occur on a daily basis for many cats. This apparent insanity is a totally normal part of cat life.

Animal behavioralists hypothesize that the bursts of high speed action release pent up energy. A cat in the wild would make about forty attempts to catch prey each day. The chemicals in our house cats’ brains still say “go”.

While watching Taj go nuts, I had a revelation. We humans should take up the practice. With all the dismal news; the sad state of our democracy, world politics and the environment, we need to have an escape valve from our lives as concerned citizens.

I can’t be a Buddhist and be detached. Nor can I be a Pollyanna, an eternal optimist or a magical thinker. But dancing to Zydeco music, running around the block, doing jumping jacks or beating on drums for a short while might  induce a bit of temporary euphoria.

I’m leaning toward the drums.

I recently heard some pundit on National Public Radio say that we need to start teaching respect and moral values in our public schools. I started to seethe. The fallacy and intended manipulation inherent in those words is worthy of Fox News.

I have spent 50 years of my working life in hundreds of schools; public and private, rich, poor and middle class. In every school I have worked as a staff member or visiting educator, values are being taught in all classrooms on a daily basis. And private schools have not cornered the market on value based education.

I believe the reason outrageous statements about “no values” in our public school classrooms isn’t instantly challenged has an explanation. Many Americans, even parents, have never observed a class in action and many of them think teaching is easy……..anybody can do it.

There is a cure for this magical thinking. Just imagine yourself walking into any classroom, K to 12. Thirty children (or more) are in the room, plus you. Your job is to educate each and every one of them.

The children come from diverse backgrounds. The parenting skills of their families range from non existent to excellent. No education can happen in this room if you can’t establish order and respect, in other words, a moral foundation to create a small community of children working for the benefit of the individual as well as the group.

Schools teach values in order to be functioning schools. When people rant about “no values” in our public schools, they really mean “my ideology isn’t being promoted”.

The Golden Rule is the operating rule in our classrooms. Unfortunately, it is no longer the operating rule in our public discourse. Teaching children values that the society does not promote is an uphill battle. Bravo to all our teachers who keep championing fairness, decency, civility and respect.

Periodically, a perplexing post has popped up from a Facebook friend. The message simply says, “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit”.

For several years, I would puzzle over the post and then finally concluded that it was a private family joke of some sort. Had I been more observant, I would have noticed that the words always appeared on the first of the month.

The mysterious rabbits were explained recently when I encountered this comment in a blog, “My aunt in England always said ‘rabbit, rabbit, rabbit’ on the first of the month to ensure good luck all month long.”

Being a lover of folklore and language, I decided to find out how all this rabbit business started.

Rabbits being bearers of good luck can be traced back over 2,000 years and in many cultures. For superstitious folks, the rabbit’s ability to jump represented leaping into the future, moving forward in life. Prodigious breeding habits made rabbits a natural fertility totem. They were also symbols of prosperity, supposedly making riches multiply profusely.

The rabbit, rabbit, rabbit superstition originated in England and migrated to the United States where it is most popular in northern New England. Written references to it first appear in the early 1900’s. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Gilda Ratner were among practitioners of the saying.

Since February first is approaching and it is a leap year, you might wish to join the rabbit ranks. The basic formula is to have “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” be the FIRST WORDS out of your mouth on the first…..not an easy task. Variations are acceptable such as “white rabbit” or “bunny, bunny”. And for those of us who know we will never remember this on rising, luck is not all lost for the month. Say “tibbar, tibbar” right before you go to sleep on the first.

That’s rabbit backwards.

For my personal feeling on the luck of rabbits, click here.

To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, it’s been a quiet week in the Town of Centerville, my home town. We’ve been in the deep, deep freeze here, with intermittent snow storms. Fortunately, our mail box and those of our neighbors down the road are all still standing. Not a winter goes by that our NASCAR-loving plow driver doesn’t score a few, and it’s no fun trying to get a new post into the frozen tundra.

One of our favorite neighbors stopped over for a “ten minute visit” the other day and stayed for two hours. That’s how things work around here and we like it that way. If we don’t have time for our friends, what is time for?

In those two hours we got filled in on all the local news. It seems that a fish got stuck in Farmer D’s mailbox. The fish was not from our Lake Michigan, but a salmon from the Pacific. The predicament can be traced back to a Fed Ex driver who delivered a Christmas present to our neighbor’s obviously unused side door last Christmas. (It is generally accepted around here that a 5 foot snow drift in front of a door indicates the door is out of service.)

The box was discovered during a brief thaw three weeks after Christmas, and its contents of Harry and David’s pears had mummified. A sign was then placed on the side door that read, “All deliveries should be put out front”.

So this holiday season a driver jammed a whole salmon into the front mailbox where it promptly froze solid. When Farmer D. tried to extract the box containing the fish it wouldn’t budge and a battle to free the fish ensued.

The missing kayaks were our contribution to the weekly news. We went down to the lake before the blizzard hit and noticed that our neighbors’ kayaks were missing. Then we noticed that the large tree to which they were securely chained and padlocked was also gone. Never underestimate the power of one of Mother Nature’s Nor’easters.

The good news is that we found the kayaks beached about a half mile down the shore. The bad news is they are frozen down. A rescue operation is planned for spring.

The fantasy ended a week ago. I had myself convinced that we were going to have a snowless winter. A two day blizzard quickly buried that delusion.

My first thought on seeing the mountains of snow piled up outside was, “I have to change the pictures.” The source of this reaction lies in my life long love of Japanese art and culture.

The Japanese immerse themselves in nature. Seasonal changes are noted and celebrated in myriad ways. Trips are planned for viewing cherry blossoms or the full harvest moon. Foods change seasonally and even the colors of the foods frequently match nature’s palette. For example, Doll’s Day or Peach Blossom Festival foods are all pink to emulate the flower’s hue.

Fashion takes its cue from the natural world as well. The beautiful patterns, colors and designs on traditional kimonos were all directly corollated to nature’s rotating displays. If it was snowing outside, a woman would not have donned her iris patterned kimono.

The Japanese style home features a tokonoma, a small alcove to display a carefully chosen scroll, ikebana or bonsai. These pieces of art are changed to reflect what is happening in the world outside the windows.

Our American home does not have a tokonoma, but I do love the idea of living with awareness of nature’s cycles. Over the years, I have collected a few pieces of art for each season. The time unmistakably has come to hang the winter pictures.

The first image is a mid-century Japanese print. The second is a photo by a former Milwaukee Journal photographer. The third is an acrylic by a local artist.