If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.
- Old Saying

Greetings! Tuesday, February 5th offered several possibilities for celebration. For one, it was 'Candlemas', the precise midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. For another it was Mardi Gras, also known as Shrove Tuesday and Pancake Day. And finally, the little poem above echoes the lore around Groundhog Day, celebrated three days earlier. With that in mind, we played several games using those events as the theme.

The first was Five & Rhyme with a twist, the twist being that each player rolled a die to determine how many rhyming words to come up with, instead of the standard five words per the usual game.

Each Parlour guest in turn came up with:

6 words that rhyme with PAN: pan, fan can, spam, ran, dan, man
1 word that rhymes with CAKE: nike: lama? bake
5 words that rhyme with SHROVE:grove, cove, loathe, dove, stove
2 words that rhyme with MASK: task, bask
4 words that rhyme with GROUND (as a nod to "groundhog"): round, sound, mound, hound
6 words that rhyme with PARADE: marmalade, shade, made, raid, laid, paid
1 word that rhymes with WOOD (as a nod to "woodchuck" aka groundhog"): Understood

Our little fuzzy, funny ferret friend nike also came up with 2 words that rhyme with llama <G>: bahama, momma

A round of AcroMusia ensued, with the delightful phrase:

Peenk Always Nerves Chickens and Kangaroos Especially Sundayscreated from the word PANCAKE.

To round out the hour, I provided our visitors with a few Rhyme Time questions, which they solved as follows:

Q: Keg Disguise?
A: Cask Mask

Q: Unravelled Procession?
A: Frayed Parade

Q: French Tuesday celebration?
A: Mardi Party

Disappointingly, neither "llama feast" nor "stringy fluff" was the answer to these questions and not even William Shakespeare himself could make "llama" rhyme with "CAKE". To make up for it, I have included this delightful little gem which I trust nike and the rest of you you will find as amusing as I do .<G>

In the meantime, I would like to thank Urania for joining me in the Parlour this week, and look forward to our next gathering in the Morpheus Rose Garden East on Tuesday at 4 p.m. WAT. Be there or be llama'd <w>.

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* From Llama Llama Duck, by Paul Mortimer aka Burton Earny
** Picture compliments of bluebison.net