Have you been watching the Winter Olympics? Charlie and me have. Un-real! I find those athlete’s dedication and determination downright inspiring. I love it all: seeing someone do their best, or maybe fall, get up and keep going, the tear-jerky human interest stories, the medal ceremony. I root for the USA, of course, but also for Canada. After all, my grandparents could have just as easily stayed there as moved to Maine.

Carrabassett Valley resident Seth Wescott won an Olympic gold medal this week at the winter games in Vancouver, British Columbia. Wescott triumphed in a sport called snowboardcross, which is one of those odd Olympic events that combines two seemingly unrelated activities.

I just love Valentine’s Day! For starter’s, it’s a candy holiday. Second, I happen to look good in red. So it’s a win/win. Plus, come February, we need a little reminder to love each other, because we’re smack dab in the middle of winter, and in the case of my husband Charlie and me, our double-wide is feeling a little close.

It hasn’t snowed in the western mountains of Maine since, let’s see, last July.

And that was just a dusting.

In Portland, the WinteRush festival scheduled for this weekend has been mostly cancelled, because there’s no winter – and no rush, either.

Last Tuesday, Archie Johnson come into the A&P, per usual. He’s what we affectionately refer to in Mahoosuc Mills as a “mangy old fart.” Lives in a rundown trailer on the edge of town: tires piled in the yard, blue tarps, broken cars on cinder blocks, you name it. I know, sounds like a cliché. But cliché’s come from somewhere. Archie is living proof.

I don’t think it’s polite to make fun of people with funny names.

Uh, I mean unusual names.

Er, interesting names?

Names that stand out in a crowd? You know, in a good way.

As I was saying just the other day to my friend Amadeus Fallopian Duckbutt, such names add diversity and originality to our stifled culture. And if kids who get stuck with a moniker like Toyota Recall Hurlingutts grow up to murder their parents in their sleep that’s a small price to pay for expressing our individuality.

Just a reminder: we are fast approaching the cutoff for all Christmas decorations. Do it now, and avoid the shame of being one of those houses where the crocuses have to nudge aside a deflated, inflatable Santa. Oh, I can get a real bee in my bonnet about this!

Something suspicious is going on across Maine’s northern border.

Or maybe not. It could just be that Canadians have a naturally shifty look. Probably a harmless side effect of being bilingual.

Nevertheless, it’s been a week filled with strange occurrences, many of them directly traceable to the exotic foreign influence of Canada. Once you’ve viewed the evidence, I doubt you’ll hesitate in demanding that Congress authorize the president to conduct an all-out nuclear strike on Saskatoon.

Our little dog Scamp and I went back to school this week. I think I told you we took a class right after Charlie and me got him. I mean, he arrived from Poodle Rescue on a Friday, and we started on Monday. Scamp and me hadn’t really bonded yet. I’d call his name, and he’d turn toward me then cock his head, as if to say, “Who the heck are you?”

Until this past week, I was unaware that among the varied kinds of merchandise you can purchase in stores that sell gardening supplies and sporting goods is fox urine.

It’s even available online.