2 It’s 8:39 on Sunday night as I begin writing this. It’s actually 9:39, but it’s Daylight Saving Time turned back or something.
3 You know what I mean. I don’t think there’s a person walking around who understands Daylight Saving Time. It has something to do with cows and crops and stuff, but really, it’s just become a part of livin’.
4 Actually, it has nothing to do with cows and stuff. It began with something Benjamin Franklin wrote about saving daylight, but the entire history of it is pretty goofy and starts getting into guys in Parliament with wigs and stuff and seems pretty irrelevant to anything having to do with why we do it, or still do it.
5 Part of it has really to do with just enjoying longer days during the summer. I began to Google it last night but my computer tends to freeze, so I thought I’d just back off and let y’all know that my investigation came to an abrupt halt. Then I realized that it is actually now 8:52 instead of 9:52 and I smiled because I “gained” an hour of sleep last night. I even dreamed that I had a hand in turning the clocks back an hour, like Harold Lloyd.
Harold Lloyd holding back the hands of time in Safety Last (1923)
6 So I got up early and went cow-tipping, just so I could goof on being a Mid-Westerner.
7 Or a Mormon.
8 Don’t even lie, Mormons! You know darned well you’ve tipped at least one cow! I’ve never met a Mormon who didn’t. The cows know.
Insomniacal cow, circa 2005.
9 Anyway, I always thought it was called Daylight SavingS Time, but I got righted immediately by the no-lifers who write useless stuff that people could Google. I just wasn’t interested in reading all the history and stuff.
10 It’s Halloween Eve anyway, and I always turn to ghosts and urban myths this time of the year. I love this time of year so much it’s not even funny.
11 Like my daughter Caitlin and I were shopping in Tar-jey the other day and we were walking through the Halloween display, which was pretty fun. The orange, black, purple, and green colors just worked, and all the witches and goblins and costumes and things brought wonderful memories of autumn leaves, costumed kids, and black cats to our minds, and we just laughed at how cool it is.
12 And right across the aisle there were these way funky Christmas snowmen, completely out of place, with coloured lights and red and green and tinsel and all, and it just seemed not to fit at all, at least not yet. Like it was WAY incongruent with the sleek system of Halloween as an art. Christmas works, but only when it gets chilly cold and all.
13 Right now it is completely out of place with the Halloween cool. I just love Halloween, costumes, witches, ghosts, the entire history of it, as well as some of the eerie things that happen to me personally every single year.
15 Right now Helene is sitting on the couch with a cat across her lap, a dog at her knee, and Todd the black cat walking across her shoulders. She looks like Circe, I swear to you. It’s good times, and it’s Fall, and life is good.
16 Some sort of old school fifties rock is playing on one of the fifty TeeVees that blare through this place each night. It’s a good sound, to be sure.
17 And it’s almost time for me to stop writing the DN, and I’m not at all exhausted.
18 Somehow I guess I have Daylight Saving Time to thank for that one. Somewhere, somehow, I guess I saved some time, and I feel refreshed. I’m also almost done with today’s edition of the DN.
19 In fact, why not call it a night?
20 I can get to bed early and be refreshed for Halloween Eve.
21 I know, I know. I write this at night and it isn’t mailed off until the morning, so sometimes it gets mixed up, especially now that I get up each morning at 5 instead of at 7. So when I could save a little time, I just do.
22 So it’s actually Halloween Eve Eve as I write this, but by the time it gets delivered to your door, it will be Halloween Eve. But then some people confuse Halloween Eve with Halloween NIGHT, which is completely different. Halloween Night is when the spirits fly all over the planet, and you are protected from their evil if you are in disguise. And midnight is the official witching hour. I used to have students tell ghost stories on Halloween, and then I’d listen to by candlelight at midnight. I’d sip brandy and enjoy a good hour of stories.
23 I eventually had so many requests for the Heidi chronicles that I abandoned telling ghost stories altogether. Oh, I’d have a day where I would tell some, and the students would tell some, but everyone wanted the Heidi stories. It became a tradition.
24 Anyway, more on that perhaps tomorrow. Meanwhile, I think I’ll bow out and get a decent night’s sleep.
25 I’ll mail this off in the morning, or maybe if I awaken around 3 a.m. I’ll mail it off then. Either way, have a wonderful, blustery day.
26 Happy Halloween Eve. Happy Birthday Rene.
27 Peace.
~H~
1 Moo.2 It’s 8:39 on Sunday night as I begin writing this. It’s actually 9:39, but it’s Daylight Saving Time turned back or something.
