day 70 - spring forward

 Today is the 7th day of the 10th week, the 11th day of the 3rd month, the 70th day of 2023 [19% of the year is gone now], and

• COVID-19 Global Pandemic Day - exactly three years ago, WHO declared the world was in the grip of a pandemic. Supposedly it is now "just" endemic, and tracking has pretty much ceased.  It still is a very controversial topic, no one actually positive what triggered the disaster, and the anti-vax movement is burgeoning, while those suffering from long-term ill effects are struggling as no one seems to understand how to help them.  
• Debunking Day
• Dream Day
• Genealogy Day
• Independence Day - Lithuania from the Soviet Union 1990
• International Fanny Pack Day
• Johnny Appleseed Day
• Moshoeshoe Day
• National 311 Day
• National Find Common Ground Day
• National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day 
• National Promposal Day
• National Urban Ballroom Dancing Day
• Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day
• World Day of Muslim Culture, Peace, Dialogue, and Film
• World Plumbing Day
• Worship of Tools Day

Why we are still participating in this clock-changing exercise twice a year continues to be a mystery to me, but here we are again.   Despite all the negative consequences, the US seems to be mired in indecision:  a third of the people want to stay on standard time, a third on daylight savings time, and a third just doesn't care.  Every motion to change ends up with someone whining that the kids will end up going to school in the dark - so what did they do prior to 1966?  Some states don't even participate - Arizona and Hawaii - and seven more states have approved legislation to do so [I wish Maryland was one of them!], altho they plan to stay on permanent DST.  And to top it off, we are now only spending four months in standard time these days.  Perhaps it wasn't so annoying when I was younger because it was more like six months in each, at least in Maryland?  DST started in April and ended in October.  And this is far from just an American issue - right now some 70 countries have decided to go with changing their time zones, some permanently.  

At least with so many things being connected online, many of the clocks update themselves automatically.  Gone are the days when you went around the place, taking down and adjusting every clock in the place, not to mention the VCR!  Now you just have to worry about the car and the microwave [if you bothered to make the fall back in November], any timers you have set to turn lights on/off [for those of us without smart homes], and all of your watches....

Good luck to all the parents who have to contend with the wail "why do I have to go to bed when it's light out" during school and pets that can't see why our clocks should impact their feeding time.

My personal preference would be to stay on standard time, in sync with the circadian rhythm, but I'd settled for permanent DST to just stop this madness twice a year.  Every year when we "spring forward" I never quite seem to catch up that hour of sleep, not even when we "fall back".