Explain Daylight Saving Time, Mr. Franklin

Mr. Franklin, you've done some crazy stuff, like those "fresh air baths" you insisted were so good for you when all you wanted to do really was stand in front of your front window naked.

And we all know about tying keys to kite strings and trying to catch electricity and who chases lightning in the hopes of getting struck??

But March 10, what you started with the setting of our clocks one hour FORWARD? You just couldn't get your naked self to the window fast enough so now, at 2 a.m., you've got us paying the price. That's just ... wrong. Selfish. We love our sleep. And on a weekend night especially. But now it's Saturday night and I'm so tired it's going to feel more like being unconscious than falling asleep, but first I have to knowingly set my clock ahead for something you've anointed as Daylight Saving Time? I'm supposed to have sweet dreams knowing I'm getting robbed?

As you get older, sleep doesn't just feel more like a cryogenic chamber. It becomes the time when free radicals within my system are being tamed;  I can feel my body restoring and repairing and replenishing. Sleep becomes my Oil of Olay.

And Benjamin has taken from me what I need more of, nature's Juvaderm. Time spent suspended in no activity is what I need to produce collagen -- the dermal filler and structural protein that plumps and smooths my creases and cracks. This is a serious matter. Beautiful, deep, restorative sleep -- and I'll be getting one less hour of it now.

For more salt in the wounds, I just found out tonight that a state can CHOOSE to participate or not in DST. Whaaaat? Yes, Arizona and Hawaii have just said no thanks. I feel like the day I found out I could have said no to the medical residents at our teaching hospital in that matter of an extra cervical check  (read able to check "saw ripe cervix of woman about to give birth" off their list of Things To Do To Graduate) when I was ready to deliver my babies.

I had no idea I could just say no.

We can say no to a lot of things, I keep finding out.

Why don't we say no? We have electricity now, we don't have to worry about a shortage on candle wax, Mr. Franklin -- and people don't quit plowing the fields because it's gotten dark out. Dark sky? Flip the switch on your John Deere tractor and keep on working. 

I'm with Arizona, no more messing with nature. Time is made the way it's made and our bodies have adjusted to it. All these tricks to fool ourselves and find extra light in our day, it doesn't change the amount of hours we have: 24.

I'm going to say no. On the outside, I'll go along with the rest of you because I have to, but the inside me is  saying no to Daylight Saving Time.

So many headaches come from it. Especially the biggest one, even bigger than losing an hour of age defying beauty sleep -- and it's this, a sound like fingernails on a chalk board: hearing Daylight SavingS Time. Said with an s after saving. Listening to that -- instead of Daylight Saving no S Time, over a hundred times today, is going to be hard to take.

Especially on one less hour of sleep the night before.

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Secretly, My Life Was Better Than Easter Baskets

Hard to not be envious, as a child, of the kids who had Easter baskets taller than they were, stuffed with 24 inch high chocolate bunnies (bet they were hollow), miniature chocolate bunny eggs wrapped in pretty yellow and purple foil (impossible to peel, anyhow), and plastic eggs rattling with coins inside (pennies, I'm sure).

Hard.

Unless you had something better during this time of year, like I did.

We Colombians do a lot of things to the moon and back, and Easter -- well, come find out why I say "No thanks, you can have your shredded plastic green grass."

I'm always proud to be featured at TikiTikiBlog, I'd love to see you there today for "La Via Dolorosa."

*thank you.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

I can remember being in kindergarten and falling in love with the sturdy book in my hands. Bright clean colors within contrasting dark lines, the BIG BLACK FONT, all trademarks of a Dr. Seuss book. The box of new books had just arrived in our classroom while we were out during lunch, and we stood huddled around our teacher's oak desk, our tip toes up so we could see over each other's heads as she pulled the sealing tape off the brown box.

There were so many books, no one who wanted one, had to go without. I remember reaching for If I Ran The Zoo because of its stark white cover and haphazard black letters that almost filled the entire space. I flipped through the pages and the crazy pink skies and unheard of blue grass and a six foot tall polka dot cat, was it a cat? and trees that looked like spray painted ice cream cones had me running for the reading corner, where I could sit, uninterrupted, and read. Reading never felt like work in that classroom.

I learned to read with Dr. Seuss, something I've never forgotten. When my children were a year old I bought them each their own six book starter set of Seuss' books. Since my boys were only a year and a half apart in age, we quickly had a full dozen Seuss books in the boys' shared bedroom. They'd make their way over to their short book case every night and pull out their favorites for me and my husband to read. But many times I'd catch them on their own, tucked into their chairs, a Seuss book in their laps, imitating the words they'd hear when we read to them. In their wonderfully childish voices, they'd mimic "Da B book. B is for big brown banana boxes..." and one that I love still, "Are you my mudder? Are you my mudder?"

Yes, my children learned to read on Dr. Seuss books too. And that floods me with warm memories.

Happy birthday, dear Dr. Seuss, you made me think of myself as a reader.

If you have a little one, or know of someone else's little one, and they've got a special day coming up, gift them with some Seuss. Remember the silly loveliness of Seuss' illustrations and the rhyming ease that helped you guess at words so you'd feel accomplished and like you were reading, even though you weren't.

My children pretended to read two years before they actually could. And they did it with Dr. Seuss books.

Here's an awesome link to the best the Doctor has to offer, from his website, Seussville.

Thrill a child, let them think they're reading before they can. They're called self fulfilling prophecies for a reason.

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**TAKE your kids to the coolest interactive website EVER: Seussville.
(Games, clothes, puzzles, classroom aids, projects, printable sheets. Oh, and maybe one or two books. xo)

photo credit: charliecurve via photopin cc

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time...

I stay up late.

Sometimes not smart to do. Because I'm alone, and things on the internet beckon me, in the way that some are called to order all the tupperware they'll need in a lifetime from Home Shopping Network. But for me? It's more dangerous than that because I log in to forums and support lines and start to think I can teach myself code in a night.

What happens instead is that I try to do a tutorial on designing your own web page and instead I'm pulled into a blinking offer/help room yanking my chain from my peripheral vision. Like what I have copy pasted here, from a real Blogger forum where you're given a choice of a link to click on, offering a "free blogger evaluation." So yeah, I clicked on that and entered my website url and said have at it, bro.

And this delight came back and it's just too good to not share.

Enjoy, on my account: my Blogger evaluation, courtesy of @elcapitan227:

Dear GoodDayRegularPeople: 


What is it that you hope to accomplish with your blog? What is it that you wish for us to evaluate? We have reviewed your request to evaluate your blog and cannot understand what the purpose of your blog is. Your purpose is unclear. What do you want us to review? From what we see, you have no main target audience or any sort of introduction as to why you are posting and what you are posting.

You have outgrown your platform as is sorely evidenced by the clutter on your sidebar. The sidebar is cluttered, and it's purpose is also unclear. Are you selling advertising? Do you have advertising space for sale? The purpose of your sidebar is unclear.

You list many blogs on your sidebar. Why do you have blogs listed on your sidebar? Do you write at the blogs listed on your sidebar? The purpose of all the blogs listed on your sidebar is unclear. Do the blogs on your sidebar pay to be listed on your sidebar?

We do not know what you are asking of us. You have crammed as many things as you can into your blog, and a first time visitor will have no inkling as to why they have been directed to your blog.

Also, who are you? It appears you are a rotund, rosy cheeked matron with short curly hair. Is this how you would like to be seen? Your profile is not one of a sophisticated woman. Your blog does not appear to be one of a woman who appears to wish to advance herself.

We suggest you begin over with a clean design. Uncluttered main page with orderly columns and much less color. Please have a professional photograph taken and placed in a more visible spot on your blog main page. Make the purpose of your website clear. What is it you offer? What are your skills? Why would someone want to be at your blog? We see no reason to be directed to your blog.

We are not sure if you have sent in this blog URL for a client or as a joke to us. Are you the author of this blog? If you are the author, we suggest you begin over, and study other blogs for at least three months before you begin again.

ElCapitan227

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Go ahead, have some fun. Your turn -- ask ElCapitan227 to grace your pages with a visit. But, his services are only offered through Blogger's help pages. Lucky us.

xo

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**ALSO THIS:  Thrilled to have been been named one of The Top 25 Humor Blogs by The Skinny Scoop Team. Haven't checked them out yet? You should, you'd like it over there. THANK YOU so much, Skinny Scoop. I am honored. 

Almost Two Years Ago

Listen To Your Mother Show, Madison Wisc.

Almost to the day, in 2011, I drove an hour and a half to Madison, Wisconsin, to do something I have never done before in my life.

Inside a yellow folder in the passenger seat next to me were two white sheets of paper that would change life as I knew it. They were filled with the words I had carried inside of me for over forty years. The pages were so alive I felt like seat belting them in.

I was on my way to audition for a live reading presentation called Listen To Your Mother. I had heard they were looking for readers, to tell true stories from their lives. I had never read before an audience, and even higher at stake was that I had never told my story publicly. But I was ready to live wide open and free the gates to whatever came my way -- or left -- by telling the world who I was.

For too many years, my family, not meaning any malice, had imposed an unspoken rule of things not to be talked about. The weight of keeping a defining point in my life closed and locked had started to feel heavier each year.

I saw a boat heading my way now, and everyone on it waving me aboard, telling me "You have a story to tell, share it with us."

Almost two years ago today, I was chosen for the cast of the 2011 Listen To Your Mother Show, and I am now doing things in my life I have never done before.

Being heard, having someone listen to you and bear witness to your existence is an experience too powerful to try and put into words here. But I can tell you this, it changed me. I remember thinking at the time of my audition, whether I'm chosen or not, this is win-win for me, because someone listened to my story.

It's two years later now, and my world has gone from auditioner with LTYM to producer of LTYM. I am in the fortunate role of being able to offer just this opportunity of being heard, to others. Jennifer Gaskell and I are the co-producers for Listen To Your Mother Show/Milwaukee, and today is our first day of auditions. We will hear over forty people who have decided to share their lives on stage, and yes, we are honored. Yes, we can't wait to give your life a microphone while you share your tale as a small part in making the world smaller by bringing us together with your words.

Ordinary people with extraordinary tales.

Jenn and I feel so very honored.

Thank you, Listen To Your Mother, and Ann Imig, creator and founder, for trusting us with your show. Thank you, Deb Rox, for your brains and consulting/advising powers. THANK YOU to BlogHer, for their third year of supporting LTYM as our National Media Sponsor. Read how they paved LTYM's way here.

The not so quiet revolution of people sharing their lives across 24 stages this May is changing the world -- the way it changed mine.

*For information on Listen To Your Mother shows, tickets, and 24 locations nationwide, please visit their national website. To catch the spirit of a LTYM show, there are over 200 videos of readers up on the LTYM youtube channel for you to see. To see my piece from 2011, please click here.

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