Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

      I pressed the button. The sun shot around the sky, and the sky started to flicker in nights and in days, and the balloon began to rock and lurch and zoom around like an angry fly.
                                                       . . .
            When we stopped being blown all across the sky, it was night and, according to Professor Steg, we had only gone back about a thousand years. The moon was nearly full.
                                                                                   from Fortunately, the Milk
                                                                                                  by Neil Gaiman


      Changing from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time is always an ordeal for me. And it’s coming up this weekend. Don’t misunderstand. I love the sunshine as much as anyone. It’s fiddling around with hour hands on clocks that bothers me.
       My cats wake me up for breakfast between 5:00 and 5:30. I depend on their regularity to start my day. This Sunday when my body (and theirs) feels like 5:15, my bedside clock will read 6:15, if I remember to “fix” it Saturday before I turn in.
       This Sunday morning I will be changing the rest of my clocks to reflect the “correct” time. Wasn’t it correct on Saturday when everything happened an hour earlier? Who’s to say what time it really is?
       Several years ago, my husband and my younger daughter and I drove across country, from Ohio to Washington State. It was mid August. I was used to the time change by then, so crossing three time zones in five days should have been a snap. It wasn’t. I kept my watch timed to local Ohio. I thought that would be easier for me. I was wrong.
       Crossing from Indiana to Illinois, noon became 11:00 am. It was not lunchtime yet. My stomach was wrong. We had to re-live one whole hour.
       Then smack in the middle of Bismarck, North Dakota, lost another one. We were on the road for 48 hours (including sight-seeing and sleeping) and only got to count 46. But we had to live two of them twice.
       We were at a ridiculously high and flat elevation. It seemed we could see forever. It was 9:00 pm. The sun was still high. I thought it had something to do with our altitude and the nearby time zone line. I was right, but the sun didn’t set until after 11:00 pm. (Maybe I was still on Ohio time.) The spectacular 360 degree sunset was a flaming jewel set into a golden, glowing crown descending on the curve of the earth, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. 
       Well, we got to Washington, saw what we saw and did what we did. It actually was a wonderful and beautiful trip.
​       Heading home, we found those three hours we lost on the way out. Just like magic.
       I’ll spring ahead, but I don’t like losing that hour!
                                                                                      --stay curious!