This is a curmudgeonly blog so if you don’t want to hear me whine, have a look at the new photo on the teaching page of this web site.  Doesn’t that look cozy and delightful?  My nose is not that big.

Ok, here it comes:  I hate daylight savings time.  I have always hated it but I hate it even more since it started a full month earlier than it used to.  Ok, well, I just fact-checked this and it’s actually only two weeks early.  But the hate-chill factor makes it feel a month early.

We used to spring forward in early April but about 4 years ago, Congress decided to change the date.  Congress. It takes several administrations to pass anything of value but they can agree on this.  Most likely it was some upstart freshman who wanted more light for his golf game after twiddling away the day on the floor who pushed it through.  Little twerp.

I could cry discrimination.  This is, after all, the country of freedom to cry discrimination and to scream obscenities.  This earlier daylight savings time date discriminates against those of us who get up early, love the morning light, and who don’t golf.

Four years ago I did scream obscenities when I got up at my usual 5:30, knowing that the sun would have risen by the time I was settled in with my book, breakfast, and tea; and found instead that it was still the dead of night.  I stood at the window and actually wrung my hands, wondering how this had happened.

In the past few years, I have spent the first part of March watching the early morning light, and saying to myself, “Don’t get used to it.  Don’t look outside.  Ignore it.  It’s going to be snatched away from you in a week.  In 5 days.  Tomorrow!”

Yes, I do have better things to do, thanks for asking, but I’d rather do this.

Because I had the flu last week, I cancelled the Tuesday night church choir rehearsal, and told the choir to be at the church at 9:30 Sunday morning to run through the anthem. This is a lot to expect of people who have lost an hour on Saturday night in the middle of March.

On Sunday at 9:30, one soprano who sings the melody, and another who sings whatever notes she wants to sing were there, as well as the pastor who holds down the entire bass section.  We sang through the anthem.

At 9:40, two altos and a tenor who had left his reading glasses at home arrived.  The tenor was offered three pairs of reading glasses before he found a pair he could use.  We sang through the anthem again.

At 9:45, Mary, the soloist, arrived, hoping to get some warm up time.  Then Chris who still had the jagged ends of a bad cold, arrived.  Chris, the basically unclassifiable, but who is a great tenor.  I played the tenor part with Chris and the other tenor who had spent much of the second sing- through adjusting his borrowed reading glasses.

At 9:55, Mary asked if she could warm up before singing the prelude.

“What, you want to do scales? Now?”

“No,” she said putting her gum on the edge of the piano. “Can I just ooh through it once before I start the words?”

“OK.” I said.  I looked at the little green gob on my music rack.  “If you forget that, I’ll put it in the offering plate.”

Mary and I got through the prelude.  The service was ten minutes late getting started because of the people who having lost an hour during the night were ten minutes late to church.  I kept vamping the prelude even after Mary stopped singing.

I played the anthem introduction as the choir trooped up to the platform.  I played it again while looking into the narthex where Chris, the unclassifiable, loitered.  I repeated the last two lines of the introduction. Chris didn’t look like she was planning to join us any time soon, so we sang without her.

After the service, I ran her to ground.  “Thank you for showing up at all,” I said.

“Didn’t you hear me coughing out there?”

“No.”

“Well, I was.  Every time I try to sing, I start coughing.”

You know what?  Here are my sentiments for everyone for the rest of this dark, wet month: Thank you for showing up at all.

Oh yeah, and have fun out there on the golf course in this rain.