March 14, 2008
Benjamin Franklin came up with the controversial idea of Daylight Savings Time, but as the old saying goes, the cows still get up at the same time. So do frogs and all sorts of other critters.
I wish I could.
Alas, if the alarm clock was previously set for 6 a.m., Daylight Savings Time (DST) makes it 7. Then why does my body feel like it is 5?
On the first day of DST while running my errands, I noticed that the car clock read 10:55 a.m. giving me plenty of time for my 12:15 appointment.
Extra time on my hands. Whoopee! I was overjoyed until I realized that it was actually 11:55. I forgot to change the car clock. Now in abject depression, I forsook my errands, bashed my head against the dashboard, and sped to my meeting.
Later in the day, I gave up trying to set my car clock and asked for help since I cannot (no matter how hard I try) master the art of setting a car-digital-clock radio.
It happens every spring. I never learn.
There is one more thing that bugs me about DST.
Two weeks. That is what it takes me to find some sense of body-clock normality after Daylight Savings Time begins.
However, you will not hear me complaining in the fall mind you because I can manage that time change just fine. Fall backward, gain an hour. I can do that. The other way around, forget it.
Can we just do this instead of fiddling with the clocks?
Let us celebrate a brand new rite of winter's passage into Spring called "The First Day of Frogs". I just learned about this special day and love it already.
Last week a reader wrote to tell me about this holiday. Each winter she longs for the First Day of Frogs, her personal day commemorating the arrival of Spring.
She writes, "Each year after the long winter on the farm, I start expecting the First Day of Frogs, my own holiday. It is the first day the frogs begin to sing after their long winter's nap deep down in the mud. And I know that 'winter is not over until the fat bull frog sings'. I always send a card to a friend rejoicing that the frogs are singing."
Personally, I love the idea and intend to celebrate it myself if I can find a singing bull frog within our city limits.
I bet those frogs, once out of hibernation, get up the same time as the cows, too.
