Party Hard

Everyday, as I leave my apartment for work, I walk by a public playground. There are also a couple of basketball courts and an asphault area where kids play baseball and kickball (actually I've never seen kickball; do kids still play that?). I guess there's a school nearby because I often see kids playing there during the day having recess. On Monday though, I left my apartment around 8AM that morning and saw some kids having a Halloween party. They looked pretty cute and some had some pretty elaborate costumes. As I walked by the festivities, I thought to myself, "Man, kids party early these days." I remember when I was in school, I cringed--and still do--whenever I had to wake up before 10AM. I can't even fathom going to a Halloween party at 8AM, no matter what age I am.

So as you can imagine, I LOVE my extra hour. Daylight Savings Day is the best holiday of the year, and this year was doubly great because I completely forgot about it. It was a much welcomed surprise. I remember waking up on Sunday around 7:30AM and thinking "Wow. Check me out. I'm up early today." Then someone texted me and I'm thinking again "Wow. Everyone's up so early today." So I was feeling pretty good and then I saw one of my clocks that doesn't automatically change for Daylight Savings, and the light bulb clicked in my head. "AHHH. Daylight Savings." The rest of the day and actually this whole week, I felt so rested. I went to the gym and then went down to the Village and walked around a bit and stopped by Jefferson Market to buy a ham because ever since I saw this recipe for a Ham Baked in Coca-Cola, I've been dying to try it. I went to Jefferson because I was so utterly confused about my ham situation and I heard that Jefferson Market has a really good meat department. I had no idea what I was supposed to buy. Do I buy smoked, baked, cooked or roasted? Or am I supposed to buy a raw ham? But isn't ham, by definition, cooked? Luckily, the butcher at Jefferson was very nice and clearly knowledgable about the great ham debate and was sympathetic to my lack of knowledge. I made the ham later that night and it was like gastronomic heaven. It was soooo good. I think I wanna make it again.

Anyway, I digress. Thinking of Daylight Savings reminds me of the time when a few years ago, I told a friend of mine that it was Daylight Savings time. It happened on a day when something significant happened to me and so I was calling all my friends to talk about it. And then I'd end the conversation by saying, "Oh, by the way, it's daylight savings." Later that evening, I turn on the TV to watch the Simpsons, and I realized I missed it. Hmmm...what's going on? Then I look at my calendar. Oh crap. Daylight Savings is NEXT weekend. I told everyone that it was THIS weekend. Some of the people I talked to that day, I hadn't heard from in close to a year. So I proceeded to call everyone back, and say "Oh, SORRY. It's not Daylight Savings today." It turned out that virtually everyone I told had not only believed me, but also told all of their friends that it was Daylight Savings. One of my friends said to me that the Mayor was gonna have to go on NY1 and make an annoucement: "It is NOT Daylight Savings. That was just a false rumor spread by Terence C."

Well, here's the solution. We should just gain an hour twice a year, not once.