"Look, hon! Democrats!"

Flashback: February.

Despite cars and delivery trucks becoming trapped on the icy goat path leading up Scorpion Hill, and my getting a dandy case of pneumonia watching what came to resemble the German retreat from Moscow in the winter of 1941, it was a banner month.

First week of the month: I’m having my second cup of coffee, watching “Clash of Wings: Return to the Pacific” one morning. The program has just reached the footage of the kamikazes at Okinawa, diving through the tracers and flak. Miz Possum comes into the living room, headed out to work. She pauses to glance at the TV.

“What are you watching?”

I point. “Look, hon! Democrats!”

She called me later from the office to say she finally got it.

“Health care, right?”

“You got it, babe.”

Last week of the month: We’re watching “Titanic” on TCM, as it should be seen; letterboxed with no commercials.

Comes the scene where the ship is sinking, and there is a shot of the water rising along a passenger-deck corridor. Rats are fleeing by the hundreds ahead of it.

I point. “Look, hon! Democrats!”

I got tea to come out of her nose that time.

Life seldom offers these perfectly timed moments.