It's becoming a "girlfriends" thing to do on Valentine's Weekend. "Let's check out 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'"

Opening weekend for a movie that's about a young woman becoming the object of a man's sado-masochistic sexual bondage.

It seems odd that it would be something so many women want to see. Especially when our culture has fought so passionately to elevate the dignity and worth of women.

It opens in theaters on Valentine's Weekend. How ironic.

"Fifty Shades of Grey." A 100-million selling book, called by many "mommy porn." Evidently, it's known for its portrayal of a young virgin's seduction into sado-masochistic sex in a charming man's "room of pain." Now a movie with the fastest-selling advance ticket sales in online history.

A friend just told me it's the talk of the women in her office. Forty and 50-year-old women "giggling like schoolgirls." Dying to see it. To see a woman submitting to sexual violence in the name of "exploring her dark desires."

New York City - the city that never sleeps - totally shut down. Planes, trains, roads, bridges. Just like Superstorm Sandy a couple years ago. Except my wife and I were in the middle of that one. I'm really good at accepting speaking engagements at what turn out to be crazy times!

The weather folks got it right. They said Sandy was going to be horrendous. She was.

Fifty million of us watched what they're calling the greatest comeback in NFL conference championship history. Too bad so many of their fans missed it.

With just four minutes left, the Seattle Seahawks were down by 12 points to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game. At stake - who goes to the Super Bowl.

It really wasn't looking good. Seattle's usually-efficient quarterback had thrown four interceptions and been sacked five times. With just two minutes left, they were still behind. So fans gave up and started leaving in droves.

She's only seven years old. The lone survivor of a plane crash that killed her parents, her sister, and her cousin.

The sheriff said "she literally fell out of the sky into a dark hole." He called her survival "a miracle."

This "miracle" survivor somehow crawled out of the upside-down wreckage of her dad's plane. Dressed only in shorts and a t-shirt. Shoeless. Through brambles and underbrush, this "remarkable" young girl navigated two embankments, a hill, and a creek bed in the dark.

It was a Kleenex moment in the Christmas season, for sure.

Like the first Christmas, there was a newborn baby involved. But no manger. How about a Jumbotron screen at an Anaheim Ducks hockey game, of all places?

I always look forward to it as one of the season's great Christmas moments - the lighting of that towering Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.

This year's going to be different. Just a tad more exciting. Because I have sort of a second-hand personal connection this time.

The tree comes from the farm owned by our good friends' daughter and son-in-law. As I write this, our friends are waiting to be chauffeured to ringside (actually rink-side) seats for the big doin's. So I'll not just be watching the tree and the performers - hey, I've got friends on the front row!

A strange sight, for sure. Ferguson, Missouri in flames. With Christmas lights all around. A "Season's Greetings" banner, shrouded in tear gas.

Seems like a disconnect. Or maybe not.

Maybe it was the dumb voices I did. But the kids used to love it when I read "Winnie the Pooh" to them. Tigger with his irrepressible "hoo-hoo!," bouncing everywhere. And Eeyore with his head down and his ever-present gloom.

I'd rather be Tigger than Eeyore. Maybe without the bouncing. I want to be the one who leaves sunshine in the room, not storm clouds.

Heart-wrenching.

Brittany Maynard's medical death sentence. A young wife, in love with her husband, looking forward to having children. Told that her incurable cancer would, after a painful decline, take her young life.