All the leaves are brown down, and the sky is gray

Time, time, time, see what’s become of meeeee… While I looked a-round for my poss-i-bil-i-ties. I was so ha-ard to please.

Did y’all getchyer clocks changed? I still have two clocks from the Jurassic Age that I have to change. My microwave and my bedside alarm clock. I actually use those. All of the other old digital clocks around here have been flashing  12:00  for many years and anything analog is long dead. Well, there are the clocks in my automotive vee-hickles. I have a rather interesting relationship with clocks. I keep my alarm clock set a half hour ahead (or is it 35 minutes?). I keep my microwave clock set five minutes ahead. At the moment, both automotive vee-hickles are pretty close to real time but, for a long time, the Ninja was 14, then 15, then 16 minutes ahead. It seems to gain time a bit. Who knows why. Now that I have a GPS in it, which keeps accurate time (I think), it doesn’t make sense to have the car clock be ahead.

For many, many years, the old blue Island Teal POC’s clock was seven minutes ahead and every adolescent in town knew it. Yes, that means I schlepped a whole pile of kids around. All the time. And with kids in the alternative schools and youth theatre guild, friends were scattered all over the place so, more often than not, I had to drive all the way across town and even into Ypsilanti. And back. People, this is why, in the end, us mooms make the shift from being terrified of our teenagers driving to handing over the keys and getting religion. And it doesn’t end. Mouse left for a rehearsal a few minutes ago and she’s 23 and I told her to be careful. And The Commander always tells me to be careful! “There are deer out there.” “The police are watching!” And then there was that whole engine blowing up thing with Grandroobly but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Kids and everybody, please be careful. I mean that. I am a moom and I will always worry. That’s my job.

Was I talking about clocks? Yeah. I can do all the time shifting I want but my computer(s) and my iPhone (and my car GPS) keep me honest in the end. I’ll be sitting around at my computer lolligagging around reading all y’all’s blahgs over my morning cheerios and I’ll look at the microwave and it’ll say 7:35 or whatever and I’ll think something like, “but that’s fast so I have all kinds of time.” But the computer and the iPhone both say 7:30 and that means something like, “gitchyer butt in gear, kayak woman!” All of this obsession with setting the clocks ahead is pretty stupid because I do not punch a clock at work and nobody much cares *exactly* when I walk in the door. At my work it is not polite to schedule a meeting before 10 AM without asking the attendees if an earlier time is okay with them. It is meeeeee who decides when I want to get to work and I berate myself when I don’t get there “on time”. (I am exaggerating just a wee bit here. Don’t worry about me.)

EDT to EST? Who cares? I don’t really mind when the sun goes down when I leave work. I actually welcome the darker months of the year. I’ve learned that if I spend enough time outside every day, no matter what the weather or the current phase of the diurnal cycle (does that make any sense?), I feel pretty darn good. And happy.

How are y’all doing with the time switch. I know some of y’all are not very happy.

P.S. I crossed out “gray” in the title because the skies are anything but gray here in the Great White North. The sun is blindingly bright and the temperatures are verging on the 60s until the sun goes down. We’ve had Novembers like this before but it’s a bit eerie.

3 Responses to “All the leaves are brown down, and the sky is gray

  1. Margaret Says:

    I’ve been whining about the time change a LOT(as you know) so I’ll just repeat that I hate to run in the dark. Boo!!

  2. Mac Says:

    What time switch?
    I do not miss that at all.

  3. Tonya Watkins Says:

    The weenie doggies are having a tough time adapting to the time change. They wait expectantly for my iPhone alarm (for doggy dinner time) a good hour beforehand. And when I say “wait expectantly,” it’s not with patience!