Barely saved by daylight (a Daylight Saving Time tale)

Morning in the
neighborhood (yeah,
there are palm trees
but this in not our view,
just so it's clear)

Come with me, gentle reader, back a few weeks ago, for a tale of a conspiracy of circumstances almost causing chronological catastrophe (eh, kind of). However, before we start that, we need to set the scene with a bit of background on our morning routine.

On school days we have an alarm set to sound to get us up so we over an hour before needing to leave the house. Getting our son up on school mornings can be particularly challenging, so we factor in time to: 

• actually get him out of bed (which sometimes literally involves dragging him off)
• prepare him a warm breakfast (or at least something that can be warmed in the toaster over) and putting together his lunch
• give him adequate time to eat (which often involves at least ten minutes of him just sitting at the dining room table, zoned out while presumably still waking up, allowing whatever we made to get cold) 
• get himself ready (brush his teeth, wash his face, etc., while factoring in he'll goof around in the bathroom until we step in to get him back on track) 
• get himself dressed (which he drags out to the last minute because he hates his school uniform)

As my wife and I both work from home that routine is all geared around getting him to school on time. Even on good days we're often just getting out the door on time.

The vast majority of those days I'm already awake when the alarm sounds. My body is simply accustomed to waking up then (and even on the weekends generally I cannot sleep in); the alarm is more the indication of needing to actually get up than something to rouse me.

Morning at the bedroom window
(not as attractive as the palm
trees so that's why I didn't
put it up top but included here,
as it's the actual view)

Being awake at that time of the morning allows me to somewhat track when the first light of sunrise starts showing on the east-facing windows of our bedroom, which had been getting a little earlier each day since December. In the week before changing the clocks for Daylight Saving Time the sky outside was starting to turn orange right around the time of the alarm.

AND that brings us to... the Friday before we "spring forward". Our son didn't have school for an administrative day, so we'd disabled the alarm on that day, as we didn't need to go through any of that normal routine and could let my wife and him sleep in a bit. (I'd be up anyway.) A little bonus sleep before the fall!

On that Sunday of course the clocks "sprang forward" to Daylight Saving Time, and everything seemed a bit off as it always does that day. Sunrise was now around the time we'd need to leave on a school day rather than around getting up time. But hey, the sunset was later so we had more daylight at the end of the day. That's the whole point, right?

On the Monday after "springing forward" I remember waking up and laying in bed for a couple minutes. The alarm had not sounded, and the house was a bit cold still with the unusually cool March we had, so I figured I had a few minutes before I needed to get out from under the warmth of the covers.

Then it occurred to me: It's starting to get light out. With the time change it should still be dark.

I grabbed my phone from my nightstand. (I don't have a clock there anymore.) It was about ten minutes until we should be leaving the house. We'd overslept!

We'd forgotten to re-enable the alarm after Friday's break. And my typically reliable body clock was still back on Standard Time.

I muttered an obscenity and quickly woke up my wife, then got our son out of bed. I apologized as I dragged him to the bathroom and got him ready myself, while my wife threw together his lunch (with extra snacks). She grabbed a banana and granola bar for him to eat in the car ride, and put a little milk in a thermos bottle. I got our son dressed fast while my wife quickly got herself ready to drive him to school. They got in the car and were on their way about fifteen minutes after my realization, so only about five minutes behind schedule.

When my wife got home from dropping him off I asked if they made it on time. As it turned out, traffic was lighter than usual and they were actually slightly early, presumably because most other people were running even later than we were.

Now with a few weeks to adapt, my body is waking up before the alarm again. Nonetheless, we now make a habit of making sure the alarm is set the night before. Parenting is always challenging, and often is barely pulling it all together in time, but schools really should not be making it even more difficult by disrupting that routine just before the time change. Clearly we can be ready in much less than an hour if we must, but that's no way to live.

(Changing the clocks twice a year is in its way absurd but that at least serves some purpose that can be beneficial. At least I assume so, having lived with it my entire life, but as I wrote last year it might be a harder sell if we didn't already do it.)

When your child shows you a tiny bug on the table...

Yesterday our son made a very small boat-like envelope out of paper after breakfast. He wanted me to tape the edges together, but as we needed to get ready for school I told him that would have to wait. 

After he was dressed he then pointed to a tiny insect on the dining table which initially I didn't even see (it was maybe 1/16"). Then I squished it with my finger, because we had to get going. 

He then started crying because it turned out that little envelope was meant to be a house for the bug I'd just killed. He had not mentioned that part yet.

I apologized profusely and suppressed explaining how unlikely it would be that we could have gotten the bug into its "house" and how it would have been a poor pet even if so. 

The moment was only saved when he pointed out a different tiny insect (looked like a fruit fly) that was also on the table. The "house" could be its home instead. He wanted me to get some fabric to make a bed for it. I told him he could do that after school and to put on his shoes.

This is parenting an empathetic child. 

Also a reminder to find out the plan before acting.

(Really, we do clean the house.)

A brief thought about the conservative movement

I think a lot about all the planning and effort the conservative movement has put into opposing abortion access and opposing any gun regulation over decades, and how if they had put even a fraction of that instead toward getting therapy for themselves we all would be far better off now.

Iron Man

Like most sentient beings our 8-year-old is well acquainted with the theme to the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon. I think he may have seen some clips on YouTube but mostly it's from me putting it on a playlist we played in the car many times. (The playlist also included the Ramones excellent cover.)

Last week I mentioned there was a song called "Iron Man" and he was interested, figuring it must be about the other Marvel superhero. I pulled up the Black Sabbath track on my phone and played it for him, and... he lost interest partway through and had me stop when it became clear it was not about that subject.

Fair enough.

Then yesterday he was humming the riff to "Iron Man" quietly to himself, despite it not having come up in the interim. So apparently that had made some impression on him. 

And last night before bedtime he started singing this:

"Iron Man
Iron Man
Does whatever an iron can"

Then he chuckled softly, amused at himself.

Kids make you proud in the most unexpected ways sometimes.

Daylight Saving Time proposal

An imagined discussion of how it might go if someone were proposing Daylight Saving Time as a new idea now:

So you're saying we should all just get up an hour earlier?

Yes.

And get our kids up an hour earlier for school?

Yes.

And why do we do this?

So it's daylight a bit longer in the evening.

And?

Well, that can save some energy.

Only if we don't turn our lights on, which we probably will anyway.

You can be outside later.

Are you suggesting we're afraid of the dark or something?

No, no.  But you won't need lights out there until later.

Yeah, I think you really need to go back to the drawing board on this one.

When I didn't meet Weird Al Yankovic

On the Late Show with Stephen Colbert the other night, the actor Thomas Lennon told the story of how he met "Weird Al" Yankovic (in an office supply store), which, along the news of a biopic of Mr. Yankovic starring Danielle Radcliffe being in production, reminded me of this:

A custom Lego mini-fig my wife
got for me a few years ago,
not from the event chronicled here.

Back on November 9, 2018, my wife and I took our then-pre-school-aged child to Disneyland. It was not the first visit for any of us, but this was the first time any of us went there on the first day of the park having its Christmas decorations up (or, at least, having the big tree on Main Street; there were parts of the park where the decorations were still in-process). 

Unsurprisingly, it was a warm autumn day in Anaheim, so it didn't really feel like the holidays but such is often the case in Southern California. Being a Thursday the park wasn't super crowded, which was nice, but being Disneyland there still were thousands of folks there with us.

At one point in the middle of the day I noticed that one of those people also at the park was "Weird Al" Yankovic. Yes, the Weird Al. Or just "Al" as I'll refer to him for the rest of this post; even though we aren't friends I feel like he wouldn't mind.

Jury Duty in the Time of Covid (a case for pessimism)

When I received a jury summons last March, it was particularly unwelcome. It's not like most people look forward to jury duty, but in the middle of a pandemic where we'd spent a year working from home, where our son spent all of first grade on an iPad in his bedroom, and where we'd not gone pretty much anywhere, the thought to going to a courthouse and being around a bunch of strangers in an enclosed assembly room was worrying. This was prior to vaccines being widely available, and way before our child would be eligible for that.

So I postponed my service as far out as I could (five months) to August.

By then my wife and I had been fully vaccinated. While the state of Covid in our area wasn't as bad then,  again, our son was not yet so I postponed it a second time, again the five months I could. By the first week of February 2022 we were hopeful he'd be vaccinated and the pandemic should be in a much better state. 

Oh, how quaint we were. Well, at least our son got his shots, but Omicron made February arguably worse than August would have been.

Square math and the middle-aged mind

[Continuing my theme of revealing things to undermine what little confidence the world has in me...]

The other day my second grade son was watching a cartoon about blocks that do math. It was on Netflix I think; he has mastered all the streaming apps on the TV, and when he has free-viewing time (when Mommy and Daddy need a break) he is more than capable of selecting a show to watch, so I was not paying much attention to how we go there. [Wow, I'm really knocking it out of the park with this introductory paragraph! How can the reader not want to see where this is going?] In this instance, it was something that seemed more toward teaching pre-schoolers or kindergarteners about math--well below where he is in school, but maybe he gets nostalgic for that period of his life; it was at least educational, and certainly far less bad than a lot of shows he could have selected.

As I noted, I was only vaguely paying attention and likely because of that seeing the blocks make square shapes made me think about squaring numbers--1x1, 2x2, 3x3, etc.--and remembered that a number squared is the only way when represented with blocks that it creates a literal square; the units on the vertical axis and horizontal axis obviously must be the same or it's merely a rectangle. [Finally got to the topic, proving that first paragraph was a digression before I even started. Readers love that.]

Squaring numbers is a concept still a few years in the future for my son, but obviously way from way back in elementary school (probably) for me. Still, I hadn't thought of it in such rudimentary terms since... well, probably since I was in elementary school over four decades ago. [Yowza! I am old.]

I then paused and thought about the results of those squared numbers:

1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81...

And how they incremented in a pattern--by 3, then 5, then 7, then 9, then 11, etc. 

Whatever happened to my (demented) brain?

The other morning a song popped into my mind, seemingly out of nowhere. I've written about this phenomenon before, so this is not new, but the song in question was not a radio staple... unless you listened to a particular radio show back in the day. What was it? 

Eddie and the Monsters' 1983 novelty track, "Whatever Happened to Eddie?" (sung by Butch Patrick, who played Eddie Munster on The Munsters TV show back in the mid-'60s).

(There's also a full music video they apparently made, if you dare.)

Where would I have heard that? Why, the Dr. Demento Show, of course. For the uninitiated, Dr. Demento was a DJ who spun comedy and novelty records on his weekly program, and each Halloween he'd have themed episodes where "Whatever Happened to Eddie?" would be a mainstay (at least during the period where I was an avid listener; more on that in a moment). I suppose with Halloween coming and us putting up decorations, that may have triggered something there in the recesses of my grey matter, even though I had not heard the song in many decades. 

Looking back at September 14, 2001

The previous post took a look back at what I'd written in my journal on the day of the terrorist attacks, but while I had the notebook out (from the box in the garage where it normally is) I glanced a few days further and noticed what I composed a mere three days after the attacks, which I offer below without edits, as a document of its time. (I'm not suggesting I have changed my overall view in the intervening decades, especially after seeing how that period played out, but I'd probably write in a slightly less jaded tone these days.)

Spoiler: As you'll see, I was not on the nationalistic (some might say jingoistic) train sweeping much of the country at the time, but I was riding the commuter rail at the moments of writing this.

Looking back on September 11, 2001

On this 20th anniversary of the attacks, many people have been remembering where they were and what they were doing when they heard. Like everyone who was old enough to be aware, I recall that morning very well, even though I was thousands of miles away from the tragedies.

My morning routine at the time is worth noting for how I learned of the news.

I lived alone in a studio apartment. To allow myself to sleep in as late as possible and still get to work on time, I had it down to only the essential actions. When the alarm sounded I'd immediately get up and get in the shower, then brush my teeth, get dressed, run a comb through my hair, grab my bag, and head out to walk to the train station a few blocks away. I'd get something for breakfast after I got to the office, so I had that whole process from waking to out-the-door down to around 35 minutes. 

The key: In that 35 minutes, I did not turn on the TV or even a radio. It was all about getting done as fast as possible, and that would only have been a distraction. (Obviously this was before smartphones and news alerts.)

I walked to the train station unaware of anything happening in the world. While waiting on the platform, someone did say, "Crazy morning, huh?" I recall nodding just to acknowledge but not knowing what the person was referring to. Even then, that was a comment that could be taken a number of ways.

I did have a Walkman-type AM/FM/Cassette player in my bag, and after getting on the train and taking a seat I put on my headphones and tuned in to the Kevin & Bean show on KROQ (something I still did back then). Rather than their usual silliness, their tone was of shock and disbelief. That's how I learned about what had happened: from a rock station's morning show that ordinarily devoted maybe five minutes per hour to actual news.

I listened for a while, trying to take it all in. Then I did what I usually did on the ride, and pulled out a pad of paper and pen, and jotted down thoughts in my journal. I went back and looked at what I wrote that morning, which I offer below not because it is particularly profound or insightful, but as a record of the moment.

A Modest Proposal: Overturning Roe v Wade edition

The reason conservatives want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and ban abortion (and those conservatives make no effort to make policies to help children) is simple: They want more babies born so they can eat the babies.

Not all conservatives, of course. Only the wealthy ones can afford baby meat.

Kids ask the most probing things: The dangers of nature shows

Tonight, as a family we were watching an episode of Crocodile Hunter (yes, from the '90s) where Steve and Terri were on a beach where green turtles were mating in the shallow waters. The hosts talked about how during the hours-long mating the females are responsible for bringing both turtles to the surface to breathe because the males are too focused on what they're doing.

Without missing a beat, our son asked (with complete sincerity) "Is that what Daddy was like after you guys got married?"

After several minutes of uncontrollable laughter, we could only say: "Not exactly." 

The simple joys of being a middle-aged dad: Flash Gordon theme edition

Somewhere in my past the chorus to the theme (by Queen) from the 1980 Flash Gordon movie got quasi-embedded in my brain--particularly that couplet: 

Flash! A-ah!  

Savior of the universe! 

 

Over time my brain changed the second line to "Defender of the universe" (which I think works better in the meter, but that's another topic) but the melody remained, and the key (of course) was the "A-ah!" vocalization after the hero's name. It's not as though I was a huge fan of the movie (I was not) nor a huge fan of the song (it's fine); but that part was just an earworm that was in me permanently.

For no good reason other than my own amusement, occasionally I'd adapt it and substitute another single-syllable word where the "Flash!" was, to elevate the term in a ridiculous way; e.g., "Cheese! A-ah! Defender of the universe!"--although I have no recollection of using that one in particular. It's always spontaneous, tossed out in the moment when an appropriate word comes up in our conversations, as a jocular interjection, so they never stick with me.

Say It: Black Lives Matter

[Although I haven't been posting lately here on the blahg, over on the Book of Faces I do still occasionally post privately to only friends, mostly so relatives who live at a distance can see pictures of our son. This is what I posted there, shared here because it's important.]

You’ve probably noticed my hiatus from posting, and it is due to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade and countless others that have spurred the current protests. It has been a very difficult time, not merely as a human capable of empathy, but because of my life. I’m not only one who has benefited from the centuries of white supremacy that led to the troubling society we have, but I’m also the father of an amazing Black boy and husband of a phenomenal Black woman, the two people I love most. I have an extended African-American family who through the grace of God is still with us. It’s not abstract anger about the news; for me it’s very personal.

And we’ve had to keep parenting during a pandemic.

I know many of you enjoy these photos of my son and wife. (Yes, mostly our son.) They are a source of joy in this world. But they’re also a Black boy and Black woman in this world, which you need to understand means it’s a more dangerous world for them than for many of the rest of us.

I know you care about them. I know you believe their lives are just as important as your own. But I need you to declare that not only about their lives but the lives of all Black people matter. Now.

I ask you to leave a comment on this post stating Black Lives Matter.

I need to know you are with me on this.

This is not jumping on some bandwagon. This is simply what should be an obvious view in our society, but clearly it’s not. However, I must believe that it’s possible we can get there, and I beseech you to type three little (but critically important) words below to tell me you believe it too.

Saying Black Lives Matter does not suggest that other lives don’t. It means you believe they matter just as much.

Black Lives Matter. Now and forever. Please join me so I can see who my friends really are.

Taking your medicine

A single moment can change your day, and it doesn’t even need to be that big a moment.

Take yesterday morning.  It was the first time that our kindergartner could wear something other than his school uniform or his PE clothes, and unlike most mornings he eagerly got dressed. The theme was dots (or circles) and he had his red Flash shirt (with the lightning bolt through a circle, but in the design the circle diffused into dots).  He even picked out shorts and socks that had some such pattern.  He was really into it.

As we were wrapping things up before it was time to leave, Mommy asked if he’d had some medicine and he had not; this week he had been coughing some with occasionally runny nose. As she finished getting ready in the living room, I went and poured some into the little cup. She sent him over to the kitchen where I was, and he looked at the cup and said, “That’s more than zero.” I didn’t think much about that and simply replied, “Yes, now here.” As we were running short on time and he was hesitating, I put the cups to his lips and tilted it so the medicine would run down into his mouth.

He then closed his mouth and it spilt down on his shirt and shorts in large globs that did not look like dots.

Play it LOUD, Daddy

Last night on the drive home our preschooler had a full-on crying fit... because I wouldn't play "Here and Now" by Letters To Cleo at full volume in the car.

"I like it super loud" was his argument for why I should increase the volume. Which I countered with, "No"--but while still playing it louder than I would listen to, say, NPR.

Then for tonight's drive the iPod played a mix of songs that I kept at a very modest volume... until he decided he wanted Grant Lee Buffalo's "Truly, Truly" turned up--not that he'd ever heard that before; it may simply have been what came on at the moment he wanted the music louder in general. And the volume stayed up for... the Carpenters' version of "Reason To Believe". When he wanted "super loud" I said, "How about semi-super loud?" That distracted him as he then had to ask what that meant.

Then to close our commute he requested that we listen to the Bauhaus cover of "Ziggy Stardust" twice in a row. That he accepted at just normal volume--which, again, was louder than I'd do for NPR. Because Ziggy played.. gui-tar.

Knock knock

Actual knock-knock joke our preschooler told at dinner a couple weeks ago (with our responses):

Knock-knock
(Who's there?)

Banana
(Banana who?)

Knock-knock
(Who's there?)

Banana
(Banana who?)

Knock-knock
(Who's there?)

Pickle
(Pickle who?)

Pickle you glad I didn't say "Banana"! [Cackles with laughter]

~

Happy National Pickle Day.

Exactly how were we *saving* daylight?

If since March 11 we've been "saving" daylight then conceivably we should have a seven-month stockpile from which we could redeem some of that saved-up daylight and not have it be so dark when we leave work tomorrow.

"Daylight Saving Time" my ass; it was Daylight Having Time and we squandered it during summer when there was plenty of daylight already.

(Clearly linguists were not consulted when the policy was named.)

A couple moments with my son

Tonight after I put our son in bed and turned out the light he said, "Let's talk about our day, Daddy." And so I asked him about school, and he answered. Then he said (for the first time ever), "How was your day?" And I told him it was fine, which is as much as he needed to know about what it's like to be a grown-up, despite how mature he sounded when asking.

~

Earlier in the evening, without establishing any context, he had talked about how "my friends say 'poo' which has an 'o' on the end, but 'poop' has a 'p' on the end" and he was quite certain he was right and they were saying it wrong, and his pedantry was too cute for me to mention either variant is acceptable. Nor did I elaborate on how either is just what grown-ups say around young children to avoid saying words they don't want to have to explain to the teachers.

But whatever elicited his remark it surely revolved around how either "poo" or "poop" is something that is hilarious in preschool. And I'm glad he's not growing up too fast to stop enjoying that.