Mar 07 2015
Darkness & Light
Well, we’re hovering on the brink of yet another time change. I have finally realized that the entire point of the exercise every single time – whether it’s forward or back – is to plunge us back into the hateful darkness in the morning.
As soon as there is even a glimmer of early morning light, the Powers that Be change the clock, ensuring that getting up at 5 am is much worse than it already is. Clearly the Powers do not routinely get up in the cold and dark day after day.
So I can look forward to already being late when I get up tomorrow; getting up in abject darkness; driving to work in darkness; and my body knowing full well that it’s 4 am when I drag it out of bed.
Awesome.
Time to stop the madness, peeps! Who’s with me?
Speaking of madness, my brother once again made his annual leap into the chilly river where it meets the cold Pacific. You might think that Jonathan does this just for the hell of it – and it does sound like the kind of thing he’d do – but it’s to benefit Special Olympics.
This year, he and his team were dressed as rubber duckies, including fuzzy duck hats and yellow rain slickers:
The boxes they are wearing represent bathtubs, and each one was personalized. Jonathan is on the far right, and his reads “USS SemiconDUCKtor”, a nod to his electrical experiments. Everyone had little containers of bubble mixture and wands to make bath bubbles. They sang a stirring rendition of the Rubber Ducky song from “Sesame Street”, and I wish WordPress would allow me to post the film of it, because it was hilarious. Not only does my brother make a great Christmas ham, he is a great big ham. 🙂
I was surprised and delighted that Erin (who would rescue me from the closed road adventure just two days later) and Rob turned up unexpectedly to join Megan and me in cheering them on. I was so happy and touched to see them both. We watched together as the team tossed off their costumes and ran into the frigid water.
Jonathan, of course, was jumping and diving and even swimming around before running back out:
He said the water was so cold that it made the air feel warm when he got out. He was glad to get into his commemorative sweatshirt, though:
and we were all glad to be there to support him. Jonathan and Megan raised about $300, and it’s great to know that the money will stay local and benefit local residents. Just being there was exhilarating!
A YEAR AGO: At the Polar Plunge, of course.