Dark mornings
The past week just kicked my *ss. Busy at work, terrible traffic due to the rain, lost power 5 minutes after I got home one evening, had to put the cat to sleep. And it really doesn’t help me when it’s totally dark out when I’m getting up.
I like the idea of trick-or-treating before it’s totally dark out, but otherwise, I think this extended daylight savings hours idea stinks. My boys keep asking me, with quizzical expressions, whether it’s really morning as I shake them awake. The streetlights are still on as the high school bus rolls down the street.
And does anyone really think that it saves power?
October 29th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Of course it doesn’t save power. Well, maybe – but very hard to know. There’s a great set of lines about our elected representatives
“we must do something”
“this is something”
“then, we must do this”
In my office we call it government by Washington Post – if it hits the front page, we have to have something do to about it, whether something makes sense or not.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:03 am
I suppose it saves power in the sense that the dark mornings make us all sleep in! At least at our house. I didn’t exercise at all last week or most of the week before – too hard to get up in the pitch blackness. And both Basil and Petunia slept in until 7:30 or so each day.
Although I am dreading the switch back in one way – it is equally as depressing to leave work in the darkness everyday.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I am already on record saying I loathe the extension of DSL, and the only reason I didn’t rant about it starting two weeks ago was because I figured I’d only bore and amuse my readers, in equal measure.
I HATE IT. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT.
Yes, it will be too dark too early very soon. And I’m especially not going to be loving that for Elba’s sake, because her half-ass classroom has NO OUTSIDE WINDOWS. Gonna have to keep an eye out for SAD in her this year, no doubt. But at least that is NATURAL.
Not that I’m, uh, a little overly invested in my irritation about this one. Or possibly already suffering from some SAD-induced scream disorder. Or anything.
😉
October 29th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Oh. Good. Lord.
DST. DST.
DSL is fine with me. Although I do wish we’d gotten that wireless modem set-up after all….
October 29th, 2007 at 10:40 am
It saves power at our house. My husband and I work 9-5 and live close enough to our offices that we don’t need to get up before 8. Obviously, we don’t have school-age children. I’ve loved having the extra light after work to get yard work done, and having more days to cross the parking lot and commute in the light.
Certainly more people are awake at 6:00 p.m. than at 6:00 a.m.
October 29th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I just read an article indicating that it actually doesn’t. It was started during WWI to save fuel but, as it turns out, the impact is negligible. I also remember all year round DST in the ’70s and yes, waiting for the bus in the dark!
October 29th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I hate extended DST too! Bleah. Besides, I can’t wait to “fall back” and get that extra hour. Whee!
Elizabeth, I’m sorry to hear about your cat. Losing a beloved pet is hard.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I run in the morning and I HATE running in the pitch black dark.
But…it was nice to play outside with the kids until 5:30 this afternoon. And it will be nice on Wednesday to do park of the trick-or-treating in the light.
However, my children still hop out of bed at 6 am – light or no light. I’d like the mornings a lot more if they would sleep in, I must say.
I’m sorry about your cat. We have a very, very, very old cat and I’m dreading that step. So sad.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
If you haven’t seen it, I recommend: http://www.slate.com/id/2176521/fr/flyout – we got schnookled into spending $850 on hopeless treatments for our cat’s final week, and realized at the end of it all that he’d had no good life out of it, and we were out a lot of money.