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Wishing you a very happy Valentine’s Day, whether you are in a relationship and looking forward to an evening of romance, or are one of many singles this year that will be taking advantage of a day made for self indulgence and pampering yourself like you never take the time for throughout the rest of the year.

Today is the day when all of us singles should take a few hours to indulge our desire to be pampered. To give ourselves an excuse to relax and not stress. To soak in a hot tub with candles and aromatherapy. Prepare our favorite meal and put on a movie that we adore.

This is the day when we might treat ourselves to a new soft bathrobe or comfortable pajamas. Indulge in a home perm. Maybe have a girls night out with friends that will end in a slumber party and a night of games and pampering reminiscent of our teen years.

One of the first things that I saw this morning was an advertisement for some spa place with a lady leaned back, hair wrapped in a pristine white towel, fingers gently massaging her temple, and a red flower tucked behind one ear.

Ahhh the image of perfect relaxation. And what do my muses do? They start wondering on what kind of nefarious activity one might discover in a day spa.

Perhaps the best location for something strange to happen would be the sauna. Maybe someone is murdered in the sauna? Perhaps relaxing music has a subliminal message that is played to cause someone to do something? Maybe someone is putting hallucinogenic substances in the water that is sprinkled on the hot rocks? Maybe go way out there, like my muses did, and there is some sort of time travel effect where people that enter the sauna step out day, weeks, maybe years afterward looking the same as when they had entered it? Or step into an alternate universe when they exit the sauna?

It is groundhog day and Punxsutawney Phil has made his forecast – his shadow chased him back into his hole. Six more weeks of winter. The weatherman was fast to point out that Punxsutawney Phil has only a 39% accuracy rating though.

That was not the most amusing part, however, because the news played in the background as I worked on the computer and I remember something just after Punxsutawney Phil’s forecast about the news gal made a comment regarding something else they were discussing and she said something like: “Everything tastes good fried. Twinkies, groundhogs-… I’m just saying!” She caught a lot of flack from her coworkers, and twas very amusing, but… it made me think about ol’ Punxsutawney Phil and the reactions that people might have to his predictions.

This leads us to today’s prompt. What might reactions be to Punxsutawney Phil and his weather predictions? Might a disgruntled person truly fry up the poor groundhog for predicting more winter? What might a weatherman do if he were recently fired and saw the weather predicting groundhog getting all that attention? There are other weather predicting critters in other towns around the States, what if a small town somewhere  decided that their claim to fame might be to prove that Punxsutawney Phil is really from their town and was kidnapped years before?

I saw this National Geographic image of penguins swimming under the ice in Antarctica and my first thought was how much the ice looked like Jupiter with the big spot. That made me start seeing this image as proof that there really are penguins in space.

So, now that we know I am insane, this picture is your prompt for today. What does it bring to mind for your muses? Do you see penguins in space as well, or just a bunch of flightless birds flying under the sea ice? Let your imagination run and find something to write.

Thank you to Marc of Daily Writing Practice for the inspiration to look to National Geographic for writing muse inspiration.

I am trying to adjust my Twitter deal for the site, so this is just a test…