Daylight Savings Time

    I read a  friend’s blog last night and found out she thought she might be the only person who dislikes daylight savings time.   She is definitely not the only one because I sincerely dread the time changes in both Spring and Fall each year.  It is the Spring change that I dislike the most.

    I’ve been “out of sorts” ever since the time changed 2 a.m. Sunday.  I have sleep problems related to my illness, but the bottom line is that mornings are the hardest time of my life.  The Spring change in time escalates the morning issues.   I also do not get why we need it to stay light later when the days are already lengthening.      

    I do like light and, therefore, always feel shortcut by the fact that when the days are already getting shorter in the Fall, we, overnight, lose an hour of daylight. 

    I do know there are reasons that have to do with things like agriculture in Spring and Summer and school buses in the fall; but, for me, they don’t justify the change back and forth.

    In addition to my feelings expressed above, over three decades ago I had a very traumatic event on the Monday after the Spring Daylight Savings Time change.

    It’s a long and more complicated story than I want to share here, so I'll attempt a briefer version.  The traumatic event was a fire.  My daughter and I had an unexpected guest and were visiting at the pool of the apartment complex where my daughter and I had lived since my recent divorce.             

    When we came back in from the pool, I realized it was almost 8 o’clock.  I had not realized the time because the light still looked like afternoon.  I forgot about the time change over the weekend.  When I realized how late it was, I was frazzled about needing to get supper fixed so my daughter could get in bed on time with school the next day. 

    I had planned to have baked potatoes and steak.  This was the days before everyone had microwaves.  I knew there was no longer time for baking the potatoes.  So, I put oil in a pot and started cutting the potatoes for fries.  I turned the Jenn-Air grill on.   

    All of a sudden, I thought it would just be easier if I went out and got fast food considering the late hour.  I went to check to see whether I had enough cash to cover dinner  . . . just a few steps down the hall to my bedroom to check my wallet . . .  just a moment or two  . . . 

    Then, I heard it . . . an explosion in the kitchen.  You always talk about what you might take with you if you have to leave the house in an emergency.  Well, in a real emergency, what I thought to  take was NOTHING except to get my daughter and our cats out safely.  I got them out of the house and had my neighbor call the fire department.

   Even  today whenever I hear the sound of fire sirens, I get an uneasy feeling in my gut.  The evening of  the fire, I remember hearing the fire engine sirens and not understanding why I could hear them and yet they seemed like forever getting there.  In reality, they arrived as quick as possible; it just seemed like an eternity not knowing how far the fire  might be spreading.

    The firemen actually got there in time to save most everything but the kitchen.  They said that in five more minutes the fire would have jumped the firewall to four other apartments.  No other rooms besides the kitchen had burn damage, but there was smoke damage in every room because they had to put  fans all windows to pull the smoke out to reduce the heat and chance of more fire.

    The shorter version of the story was that my daughter and I and ourthree cats ended up living in a motel room for three months while the apartment was being cleaned and the kitchen redone.  I’m still not sure why the insurance company didn’t insist on the apartment complex just moving us to another unit, but they didn’t.

   I'll never forget my young daughter saying to me:  "First we had a step-home (the apartment) and now we have a step-step home (the motel room)."

    As tragedies go, the fire was a minor one.  No life was lost or even injured. Insurance covered the losses although they could not replace my cookbook collection because some of those books were out of print.  Theoretically, I know (and knew even then) that we were lucky, very lucky.

    It is hard  to explain how traumatic it is when something like a fire, somthing out of your control, something out of the blue, can so quickly threaten life and belongings.  And, there is no explaining the stress of fighting for what was fair with the insurance company while living in a motel, working full-time and single-parenting.

    Although it has been over three decades, this long-ago event not only comes to mind, but affects me  emotionally and physically every Spring when the time for the  Daylight Savings Time change arrives.

    Well, I may be in the minority, but I’m glad I read my friend, Corrina’s  blog:  SeaShe
At least, I know I’m not alone in not liking (to put it mildly) Daylight Savings Time.

Comments

[sheila]

Betsy, what a scare! Thank goodness that you were able to get you, your daughter and the cats out, but I think it's pretty natural that you would remember that time every Spring at Time Change. I don't like it either.

[Corrina]

I'm glad people are coming out about their dislike of the spring time change. I agree that it should just be left alone and preferably Standard Time (as if I get to vote!). Like you, I don't like losing an hour of daylight in the fall when we're losing it anyway. And in the spring, I don't like getting up in the dark when before the time change, I was happily waking up at dawn without my alarm clock. It takes me a while to get used to dawn coming at a later time. I feel like I have jet lag for a while. Bah humbug!

[Calvin Klein]

CAIRO — Several thousand women demanding the end of military rule marched through downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening in an extraordinary expression of anger over images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking female demonstrators in Tahrir Square.
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