Still Life With Robin: Tick, Tick, Lose!

 by Peggy Robin

It's that time of year again....ugh. You know, "spring forward" and lose an hour of sleep. The only thing that's worse is the time-switcheroo in the fall when we get that hour back but are plunged into the gloomy darkness of winter an hour earlier. 

Well, we keep up hope that Congress will end this useless clock-game. But when has hope in Congress in this day and age ever been justified?

I've complained about this in this space before, as you may recall-- (and if you don't, here's where you can find it: "Down with DST!" https://alllifeislocal.blogspot.com/2014/03/still-life-with-robin-down-with-dst.html) And for more on why Congress keeps screwing it up, see "Permanent daylight saving time: The clock is ticking in Congress": https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/03/09/daylight-saving-time-bill/

There's just one bright spot to this year's spring-forward time-shift, and that has to do with a much glitzier event happening much later on Sunday, March 10; I'm talking about the Oscars show, which is on ABC an hour earlier than in past years. This year's Oscar show starts at 7pm EDT, which means (with a bit of luck and maybe some strictly-enforced time limits on a few of the longer and cringier thank-you speeches), we can call it a night around 11pm, not midnight. So, by going straight to bed immediately after the show, skipping all the snarky, post-show commentary and replays of the most outré outfits, plus any badly fluffed lines or out-of-nowhere fisticuffs, we can take back an hour of sleep that we wouldn't have had in past years.

Of course, there's always the very sensible strategy of skipping the whole shebang. You know Oppenheimer is the odds-on favorite to do a huge sweep, don't you? Do you really want to spend 4 hours of your day watching the inevitable unfold? Well, I'm a sucker for longshots, so I'm tuning in just in case "American Fiction" pulls off the Oscar upset of the decade (that is, if you pretend you don't remember the whole kerfuffle about Moonlight winning over La La Land). Oh, just the thought of something like that happening again is more than enough to keep me glued to the screen!

As with the long-delayed promise of an end to clock-switching...one can only hope!

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Still Life with Robin is posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.