Friday night the Full Snow Moon rises just a few minutes after the 5 pm sunset. If you are driving home from work around that time, or happen to be home cooking dinner, look to the east. It might be quite a show, assuming the skies are clear and we don’t have another snowstorm blowing in. According to The 2004 Old Farmer’s Almanac, midwinter has arrived, dead center. But this old cat is feeling more like spring is on its way, and the fact that we are enjoying 66 more minutes of daylight now than at the Winter Solstice (December 22) might have something to do with that. It won’t be long before I’m out on the prowl again, looking for a little company on Valentine’s Day. Any pretty kitties out there want to apply?

One sure sign that warmer weather is on its way is that the Labor Day Parade Committee had commenced its planning for the 2004 edition of the parade. The committee had its first meeting for this year’s parade on Wednesday night. Committee member Kym Stendahl says this year’s parade is going to be bigger and better than ever.

Fans of CPTV received a jolt this week they tried to tune in to any of their favorite programs on Channel 12. On Monday, Charter Communications shuffled some of its channels — adding some and deleting some, and just moving others around. We received a few panicked phone calls at the office from people who were ready to march on the Charter offices because they were going to miss the televised games of UConn’s women’s basketball team. Those games are aired on CPTV, which had been on Channel 12. Channel 12 is now QVC.

Rest easy, CPTV viewers. Clifford, Arthur, and even the UConn women’s team are still available for Newtown viewers. It turns out the channel shuffle has moved CPTV in Newtown from Channel 12 to Channel 23, which is now airing WEDW — a Bridgeport-based CPTV affiliate. When UConn faces fellow Big East team Miami on Sunday afternoon, be sure to look on the correct channel. Otherwise you’ll find yourself staring at the perky, enthusiastic salespeople on the Quality Value Convenience channel and asking yourself whether you really need to purchase a Brokeshoulder Southwestern Sterling Turquoise Cuff for the low, low price of $90.

Marcia Hicks was very happy with the way the Super Bowl turned out last weekend. She entered a football pool where she works last week — one of those pools where you write you name in random blocks and then numbers are written in later to be matched with the game’s scores — but went home on Friday thinking she had lousy numbers. Then she fell asleep while watching the game on Sunday, so she didn’t know how she fared until Monday morning. When she woke up she heard on the news that the game’s final score was 32-29, so she knew that she had at least won the final quarter. But then when she got to work a little later one of her co-workers said “Hey Marcia, congratulations — you had the numbers for the second and third quarter.” When it was all added up, Marcia went home with $450 out of a possible $500 pool. She said her first thought was that she’d better buy lunch for her co-workers, otherwise they won’t let her play again next year!

Dr Lori Ugolik found herself hobnobbing with Hillary Clinton the other day. She attended a luncheon at former Canadian Ambassador Giffin’s home in Atlanta, Ga., for the New York Senator. Dr Ugolik, a former Newtown resident, daughter of Gail and Stephen Ugolik of Cedar Hill Road and granddaughter of Beatrice and Bob Pitcher of Park Lane, is a chiropractor in Macon, Ga., who has been actively campaigning for Democrats from the federal to local level. She is an active member of the International Rotary Club, Macon Heritage Foundation, Macon Chamber of Commerce, and ex-officio of Greater Macon Women Business Owners, a state representative for the International Chiropractic Association, Georgia Council of Chiropractors and a member of the Career Women’s Network and the Macon branch of the NAACP. She has been volunteering to establish chiropractic in Zigong, China, with the Life Foundation, as well as in Guatemala and recently returned from working in the Amazon with the Yagua Indians of Peru. Frankly, her resume is just as impressive as Senator Clinton’s.

Well, the celebrity groundhog Punxatawney Phil popped out of his hole in Pennsylvania on Monday, and unfortunately instead of seeing his shadow he saw all the news coverage of the halftime show at the Super Bowl. He returned to his hole and issued a statement through a spokesman later saying the world is just too crass and he is never popping out again. He’s not the celebrity we wanted to hear that from, but maybe he will change his mind and be back next year. I know I’ll be back next week, so be sure to…

Read me again.