Talk about a celestial circumstance. Did anyone notice that the Full Snow Moon rose on Sunday night, February 12, upon the occasion of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and just after 24 inches of snow had covered the ground? The weather forecasters were only 50 percent sure we’d get a nor’easter. But if we’d read the Old Farmer’s Almanac, we might have known it was coming.

Superintendent of Schools Evan Pitkoff didn’t know what was coming at the close of the school board meeting Tuesday night. Board Chairman Elaine McClure slyly presented Superintendent Pitkoff with a birthday cake set ablaze with numerous candles to celebrate his 50th birthday, which is actually on February 16. Ms McClure requested board members join her in a hearty rendition of “Happy Birthday” to celebrate Dr Pitkoff’s first half century.

Dr Pitkoff’s birthday cake probably required a permit from the fire marshal. Those still in attendance at the lengthy meeting joked, with Director of Buildings and Grounds Dominick Posca, that they were fearful the school’s smoke detectors might go off because of the large number of candles crowded onto the cake and the fact that they were the trick candles and relight causing a small amount of smoke. Rest assured Dr Pitkoff did get the candles extinguished without much difficulty.

Day by day as I drive by, I see The Shoppes at Church Hill and Queen taking shape on the prominent corner of Church Hill Road and Queen Street in the borough. Before too long, people will be doing their banking at a drive-through station there, making purchases at stores, and visiting various professionals in upper-level office space. The opening is expected in June.

It seems like only yesterday when the site held The White Birch Inn and Oberg’s Village Texaco gas station.

Here’s some food for thought. Consider the peninsula of Macau, in China, which boasts 80,000 people per square mile. Compare this with Greenland that has ten square miles per person. If the Town of Newtown were in Macau, China, its population would be 4.8 million. If Newtown were in Greenland, its population would be 6. So, where would you rather live? I know my answer: Newtown, Conn.

Apparently, Newtown’s Tercentennial Committee got up so much momentum in the great 2005 anniversary year that it is having difficulty coming to a stop. The group is still meeting. Last week, it announced that with the brisk sales of various tercentennial publications, especially the commemorative coffee table book, it will be able to retire all its debts from the yearlong celebration.

Speaking of birthday celebrations, you can always count on the worker Bees to come through when a birthday pops up at the Newtown Bee. The table was fully loaded and bowed beneath the weight of all the goodies brought in one day this past week to celebrate type setter Linda Baur’s birthday. It was particularly tough on the Bee dogs, Deeke, Starr and Rosy to have all of those temptations right at nose level, especially Laurel Casarra’s walnut pie.

Meanwhile, elsewhere at The Bee, the desk in the office of Managing Editor Curtiss Clark was uncharacteristically unloaded this week. His desk has, for years, been in a perpetual preavalanche state, groaning under scraps of paper, old phone messages, folders and newspapers piled high enough to cascade into Sandy Hook. A little early spring cleaning precipitated by a the winter storm yielded a fresh, scrubbed desk-top, tidy stacks of pertinent notes, and room to move through the space. Guests can now enter and head straight for a chair without first removing a stack of newspapers.

Obviously I’m going to have to find another place for my secret midday naps. I’d better get started. I’ll be back next week, well rested, so be sure to…

Read me again.