Hold onto your balaclavas (not to be confused with your baklavas) because we’ve got a January thaw coming on –– except that it’s happening the first weekend of February.

Friday’s temperature is supposed to soar to 40 degrees, and Saturday is predicted to hit a high of 44. Even though Sunday may go back down to 38, we won’t notice because we’ll all be at the grocery store or in our kitchens preparing for the big Super Bowl feast. What a great start to the shortest month of the year, despite the groundhog’s inevitable prediction of six more weeks of winter.

State Representative Julia Wasserman always seems to be a harbinger of good news — and far more reliable than any old groundhog. She had only good things to say about the most recent expansion project at Nunnawauk Meadows at Tuesday’s 10 am ribbon cutting ceremony, which she chose to attend rather than drive into her office in the state legislative office building in Hartford.

“I’m pleased to be here even though I should be in Hartford this morning making more bad laws,” Julia joked. Then she recalled “walking the land while looking for wetlands” before the 65-acre elderly housing complex was built. That would have been in the early 1970s while she was a member of the town’s Conservation Commission and while Nunnawauk Meadows Executive Director Frank DeLucia was a selectman. “Nobody could have envisioned what you have here now,” Julia added.

Down at the police department, longtime civilian employee Carol Swigart has been promoted to the post of executive assistant to the police chief. Carol started work in the job in January, Police Chief Michael Kehoe told Police Commission members at a February 1 session. The executive assistant job is a new position. Good luck in your work, Carol.

Bill Valenti, manager of the Union Savings Bank branch on Commerce Road, has been promoted to manager of branch administration for all of the 17 USB branches in the greater Danbury area, plus two more that are opening soon. Bill’s new office is at the bank’s headquarters so he is commuting to Danbury now.

Police Captain Joe Rios will soon be attending a 12-week training session at the Federal Bureau of Investigation on advanced law enforcement management. Police Commission members wished the captain good luck at the course, where he will be rubbing elbows many other law enforcement personnel seeking to further their educations.

Wayland Johnson wants to remind everyone that the Newtown Lions Club project to collect goods and cash for care packages for the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion on active duty in Iraq will be ending February 15. All donations should be dropped off at the Salvation Army food pantry in the social services office on the lower level of Town Hall South. Call 270-4330 before a drop-off to ensure that the office is open. All cash donations (to help pay for the shipping) should be sent to the Newtown Lions Club, c/o Frank Gardner, 6 Surrey Trail, Sandy Hook CT 06482.

Bill McQuillan called from Cornwall, Vt., to say that he and his wife, Eileen Craig McQuillan, were very interested in the photo of the one-room Hattertown Schoolhouse that appeared in The Bee’s Way We Were feature recently. Bill said his wife’s father, James Craig, and aunt, Margaret Craig, were identified in the photo. Eileen and her sister, Ellen Craig Wupperfeld, were able to tentatively identify three other students as Francis Grant, Bill Kamas, and Jennie Kavietski.  The McQuillans retired to Vermont but are still faithful readers of The Bee.

Down in New Orleans, they call it Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) and throw caution to the wind by carousing in the French Quarter, gathering beads and trinkets from high-spirited revelers until Lent hits home in a hangover.

Here in Newtown we’re a little smarter than that. We cut loose by going to the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at St John’s Episcopal Church on Washington Avenue in Sandy Hook. This is the 47th year the church has offered this no-holds-barred homage to the pancake (and homemade corned beef hash, and sausages, and applesauce, and prudent beverages). The fun starts at 5 pm on Tuesday and lasts two-and-a-half hours at the church. Tickets are $7 at the door for adults. Kids aged 3–12 get in for $3.50. The corned beef hash alone is worth the price of admission. Meet me there, and we’ll laissez les bon temps roulez.

Well, I just saw my shadow, which means I’ve got six more weeks of winter naps to take. But I’ll wake up in plenty of time next week for you to…

Read me again.