Friday morning things

* End of DST this weekend. At the VERY least that means I don't have to drive to work in the dark any more. (I don't care nearly so much about going home in the dark; it's driving to work in the dark that's painful).

But....the local news outlet does a "social media" man-on-the-street sort of thing, and they asked people about how they felt about the time change*

Someone sent in that they wanted us to be on year-round daylight saving, because "then we wouldn't have to drive to work in the dark or come home in the dark and we'd have more sun."

Oh honey. Oh, honey. Oh.

that's not standard time's fault; blame the tilt of the earth on its axis and where we currently our in our orbit around the sun. (What DO they teach them at these schools?)

(*More and more, I think "feelings" will be the death of us)

I was thinking, as I was driving in, of old Dr. Bretz and how he always used to say "Keep fighting against ignorance!" to me (knowing I was a professor.)

I dunno, Dr. Bretz. I think ignorance has won.

* Also, there's some kind of junior-high-school type fight going on in city hall here, where people are posting things back and forth about each other on Facebook and it makes me SO TIRED. This, on top of the State Legislature being unable to find a way to fix the giant hole in our budget and all they've got done is vote a resolution not to cut their own pay.....

I'm tired of feeling like I'm the only grown-up in the room, and I am not even that grown-up myself.

*I came home from AAUW last night, checked the "missed calls." Saw there were two from my parents and I freaked out slightly because I thought they knew I had AAUW (and with my father in his mid-80s, and having had some health issues). I didn't stop to check messages but called back immediately.

She picked up on the third ring, and I admit I had just whispered a not-very-ladylike word, imagining maybe they'd had to run to the hospital or something. (I don't think she heard it, at least I hope she didn't).

Turns out it was nothing direct in the family. The wife of the minister of their church, who has been having an ongoing cancer battle, had had something distressing happen over the weekend: she was visiting her brother when suddenly she developed weakness and paralysis on one side. My thought, when I first heard it, was, "Oh, no, she's got a tumor on or near her spine" and my mom was calling to update me.

Turns out she had a "spinal stroke," which I had not heard of, but it stands to reason that any part of the body with a sizable blood supply could suffer some kind of an ischemia. (I know of someone who died of an abdominal aneurysm - something kind of similar). The GOOD news is she's been stepped down out of the neurological ICU, and also is beginning to regain sensation on that side, so hopefully they figured out what it was fast enough and were able to apply some treatment. Still, she's going to face months of rehab....

Also, it reminded me of an usettling dream (and weird after effect) I had the other night: In the dream, I was on the phone with my parents. It was exactly as it was in real life when I was on the phone: I was sitting in the same chair, I could "see" the knitting projects on the table next to the chair. My parents were telling me my brother had died. And I was sitting there, holding the phone, and sobbing "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO" into it - not just because he is my brother, but because of  his wife, and their kid, and no it was all too unfair.

And then the weird part: it was like a voice in my head said to me: "this is a dream. You can wake up now and everything will be fine; you will be in your bed, and your brother is safe in his own home in Virginia." And I woke up, and everything WAS fine. But I don't know if that's going to be a feature of my dreams now: where some part of my consciousness pulls night-watchman duty and stays awake enough to nudge me into waking up if things get too bad.

(I've never been able to "lucid dream," despite reading some articles about it)

But yeah. I need a few totally calm days but don't know when I'll get them. It would help a lot if I didn't feel like the outside world was totally melting down but I guess I don't get that.