Land of the midnight sun
Daylight savings time. People were dragging today at work. I wasn’t dragging but I could empathize. When the beach urchins were very small, a one hour change in time managed to knock everybody out of whack for about the next week. Gain an hour? Lose an hour? It didn’t matter. Circadian rhythms were disrupted and people were grumpy for a while until they adjusted.
It wasn’t always bad. Once when the urchins were a little older, we had spent much of the “spring” school break up in the Yoop with The Commander and Grandroobly. We were driving home the Sunday of the time change when Lizard Breath revealed that she was sick. I had already deduced that but I know how it is when you’re just not sure… The GG also succumbed to the virus. Mouse and I didn’t get that virus, at least not that day. After a long ugly day, we got home and the sick people could chill. And Mouse and a friend rode their bicycles up and down our quiet street late into the sunlit evening while I tended to those who were ill. I could see Mouse and her friend out of the corner of my eye and hear their laughter. Life was good and I miss those days…
Now. Hmm. I switch time changes pretty well these days. I gave myself a little half hour pass yesterday morning but I often do that on Sundays anyway. I like that I walk in darkness again in the morning. Except that I have to be ultra vigilant about watching for skunks, who are on the prowl at this time of year. I would prefer that it got dark earlier in the evening. I enjoy that in the winter (yeah, I know I’m nuts) and I’m reluctant to give it up. On the other hand, I *love* when I am up on Fin Family Moominbeach at the time of the summer solstice and I can look out to the horizon at 11:00 PM and can still see just the tiniest bit of light on the horizon.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
….and it’s time to start making plans to get UP to the Fin Family Moominbeach! Trying to decide the best week for Valdemort, Nook, the Boyz and me to descend upon my favorite-est beach (around their various and sundry field schools and grad school stuff and all that). AND still try to hook up with the various Fin Family Moominmembers!!!
March 9th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
The Seattlites will be up in the second half of August. I would love to get to spend some time with other G3ers.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Not that I mind spending time with G2ers & G4ers, G5ers …. I really must think before I submit.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
I prefer NO time change since it wastes my time changing about 20 clocks/watches. What a pain! I actually prefer it to get dark a bit earlier too.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Yikes, I’m in the minority here. I LOVE the fact that it’s lighter later (and will continue to become more so for the next few months). I’d actually prefer that we’d just leave it at Daylight Savings Time and forget about setting the clocks BACK in October.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:30 am
I want it to be summer and I want to be at the beach.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I second Jane’s motion!!! And I also agree that we choose one time standard OR the other and quit this ridiculousness of switching twice per year. I mean, in this day & age, what REALLY does that accomplish (besides incredible irritation and Scott being 1 hour late to work on Monday because he forgot to change his clock, much to the amusement of us, his co-workers!!)
March 11th, 2009 at 8:49 am
But if we didn’t switch twice a year, how would we remember to change our smoke detector batteries? Hmm, I forgot to do that, despite changing the clocks, twice. There was a big line of storms blowing through, and Mark said don’t change them now, we might lose power. So I changed my watch, and waited until 3 or 4 hours later. Change all the clocks, and then, a micro-outage of a second or so. So I get to reset the clocks again.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
O_O I forgot about the dang smoke detector batteries! Thanks, Pooh! ….now to remember to a) get 9v batteries and b) make sure they are the right stinkin’ BRAND (dunno about the rest of you, but if I put Ray-O-Vacs or Ever-Readys into my Duracell smoke detectors, the durned things complain incessantly until I go buy and install Duracells. Wonder who the Einstein was who thought up THAT innovative product lock-in?)