Time, why you punish me?

I got nothin'.

The end of daylight savings time has hit me pretty hard this year, and I'm blaming that. Sure, I'm stressed, and I'm working on a project I don't like, but I'm always stressed, and I'm almost always working on a project I don't like. As a former coworker once told me, "That's why they call it work. If it was fun they'd call it play."

In years past I might get a little saddened when the clocks fell back. I'd leave work and emerge from the building in darkness. Meh, dark now, oh well. If you're young and something like that bothers you, you can just find someone and get a drink.

What's bothering me now isn't the darkness so much as that I just can't catch up. I'm writing this draft after nine p.m. on Tuesday and I feel like it's past ten. That's another thing: When you're in your early twenties, the first blush of youth, you don't feel different at 9:30 or 10:30. When you're older, you do. Time plays a lot of tricks on you.

I can't remember ever having so much trouble resetting the internal clock. I know the dogs are making it harder. For days now their bladders are telling them it's six a.m. when it's actually five. They're patient about that, but less so when the end of the day comes and they want to play and have dinner because the sun is going down, and when it did that on Saturday they had already played and were about to have dinner. Dogs have trouble grasping the notion of time. Snoopy isn't the only dog who goes by his stomach clock.

So I'm tired and grouchy and the dogs are confused and it's dark all the time. I hope I'll feel better tomorrow. And closer to on time.

Last-minute pitch.

My fellow Americans,

Today I address you with concern and urgency. Concergency, I call it. Has a certain ring to it.

This is election day, as you know, because our technological overlords in Silicon Valley continue to remind us to vote. And we simple subjects know that vote we must, no matter how ignorant we may be. You may have been sitting there, looking for cat videos on Facebook, and suddenly Facebook reminded you to vote. Quick! Drop your iPad! Run out the door! Find a polling place! It hardly matters which! Just vote!

Yes, friends, the message behind my concergency (see? It's catching on) is this: Vote. Why? Because. Because we politicians need jobs. You have the power to provide them. You can make a difference. You, and a large variety of voters, dead voters, felons, and illegal al-- I mean, undocumented dreamers, can vote, and in some precincts may be able to vote many times. See what you can do.

Without your votes, we politicians have no jobs. It's sad to watch a fifteen-term congressman shuffle off, rejected by his constituency, to accept another $50 million paycheck as a K Street lobbyist. How much sadder if he's only been there five terms, and is worth so much less. Is it too much to ask that you do your bit to keep him going until he can get the big money? It would mean so much.

But make sure you don't waste your vote by voting for them. No, not THEM. They want to cut your benefits. They want to throw Grandma in the street. They want to burn down your schools. They want to arm toddlers with Uzis. Do you know how much recoil an Uzi has? They don't care. They're in the pockets of Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Coal, Big Chem, Big Banks, Big Rutabaga. You'd have to have a three-piece suit with two pairs of pants for all the pockets they are in.

We want sunshine and lollipops and unicorns and fairy dust. You like sunshine, don't you? Here's some now. Free!

🌞

I've heard your concerns. I know what you want in politics. You want clean government. You want lower taxes. You want jobs. You want all kinds of goodies like strong defense and healthcare and retirement money and free college and art grants and carve-outs for your industry. And I am here today to tell you, if you vote for me, you will be sure to get something. Not this stuff, but something. I guarantee it.

People worry that there's too much graft, too much nepotism, too much waste, too much bureaucratic nonsense. And I share your worries. In fact, my office paid my nephew to write a 15,000-page report on graft, nepotism, waste, and bureaucratic nonsense so we can get to the bottom of these problems, and indeed we will if he ever writes it and I ever read it.

You see, it's not a matter of pride or civic duty. It comes down to simple economics. Yes, it's the economy, stupid. Not that you're stupid! No, I'd never say that on a live microphone! What I mean is, you need a congressman, I need to keep my job, and we can work it out. And if you don't wish to vote for me, remember, there's a caravan of new voters heading for the border as we speak; next November will be a different story.

Yes, my concergency (yay new word!) should be yours, and thus you should definitely pull the lever to send me back to Congress. Please. At least until there are a few more openings on K Street.

Magically delicious?

Umm...

Yes, I spotted this box of Kellogg's Unicorn Cereal in the supermarket last week. I have to confess, I'm confused by it for several reasons, which, if you'll indulge me, I will share with you:

1) The unicorn is serious. Not like, I'm gonna spear you serious, but like a little girl would draw. Not snarky, like a modern My Little Pony. Like, really supposed to look like a pretty, gentle, magical fantasy horsey creature. Cartoon cereal mascots usually look either half insane (Cap'n Crunch) or completely insane (Krave squares).

Crunch-a-tize me not, Cap'n

As long as it lives, no one is safe

Sorry, but I'm just so stunned to see a non-wacky and non-snide illustration that I'm not sure I know what to do with it.

2) It's billed as a limited edition, but the US Patent and Trademark Office confirms that Kellogg's has trademarked the name "Unicorn Cereal." It's a bigger pain in the rear end to trademark something than most people think; it actually takes years of work for even a huge corporation to get a valid trademark. Unlike a copyright, you have to prove you are using the product name in commerce, for one thing. So why "limited edition"? I think they're being coy.

3) If Kellogg's intends to keep the unicorn character around, why no name? Frosted Flakes has Tony the Tiger; Froot Loops has Toucan Sam; Rice Krispies has Snap, Crackle, and Pop; Apple Jacks has Apple and CinnaMon. Why no name for the unicorn? (I like Misty.)

4) The cereal itself appears to be in just three colors, red, purple, and blue, not the full rainbow. Toucan Sam's cereal has red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and blue (although the latter three were added in the 1990s). You'd think a magical unicorn would have more colors than a toucan.

5) I thought Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino was going to be the end of the unicorn craze, but apparently not. Generally speaking, the overlap for drinkers of fancy coffees and eaters of sugared cereals is not large, but who knows. Can't put anything past Millennials.

6) Kellogg's says it tastes like birthday cake (or "magic cupcake"), which is something I've seen a lot, starting with Perry's ice cream and later M&M's, gummies, protein bars, and doughnuts. Really "birthday cake" just means cake, since birthday cake, however decorated, is a basic cake. Same for magic cupcakes.

7) I couldn't bring myself to buy it. You all know that I've bought tons of ridiculous cereals to review for my public; everything from French-toastie cereals to candy-inspired cereals to superhero cereals to Girl Scout cookie cereals. But this was a bridge too far. Even the irrepressible Mr. Breakfast has failed thus far to review Unicorn Cereal, although he does mention that the cereal or one very like it is marketed in the UK as Unicorn Froot Loops. So that's interesting.

I don't know -- I may break down and try it just for the challenge. I'm trying to get off the sugar bandwagon, but with the holidays approaching anyway.... Still, purchasing a girly cereal for personal consumption would push me into Brony territory, I fear, and there's a stigma.

Of course, if it turns out that Kellogg's named the unicorn Misty, I would have to buy a box. I like Misty.

Retro rockets.

You will never guess what this is! Actually, you probably will guess right away.

Yes, it's old friend the poop bag, sometimes known as the pet waste bag. A clean, unused one, thank you.

Why should I show you such a thing? The graphic design, of course.

Dog owners know that these kinds of bags come with a variety of virtues. You can have bags that are extra-large, for your big boys; extra-tough, for nervous types; bags that are scented, like hyacinth, or have odor-killer coatings; bags that have handles for easy tying; even bags that glow in the dark so you can find where you left them behind the house when you're trying to get the trash together in the night. Some have camouflage patterns. Some have the silly dog trio of symbols: paw, bone, hydrant. And then there are the ones above.

Glad sells them, and they're pretty cool. They are mildly scented, and have a white stripe where you tear the bag off the roll, a feature all rolls of bags should have--when it's hard to find the perforation you can rip a bag. Glad is one of the top names in trash disposal, so they did not have to do goofy dog drawings all over the friendly green background, but they did. I really like the design. It is a very pre-hippie sixties look, comic and happy. (I think the actual Glad company, a division of Clorox, may have franchised the name for their pet products, but whoever put these together did a great job.)

I think it may be a style revival. A friend of a friend was thrilled to find these big-boy sheets for her son at Pottery Barn Kids:

The Things That Go sheets are a classic mid-century design, fun and cute and bouncing with energy.

It evokes a kind of cheeriness and optimism that has been missing from our national culture since Vietnam. So much of our misery is political; for half the country the era of Reagan was morning in America, while for the other half it was five seconds to an Armageddon that almost but didn't quite make it. Such doomsayers were available in plenty in the 1950s and 1960s, but they were not the dominant culture as they are now.

What I'd love to see is a happy culture than can produce stuff like this for more than its most innocent members (kids and pets). I'd like Googie revival. But Googie doesn't mix with snark, and it recoils from screaming, and that's what we have now.

Well, at least some designers are trying. If, as the highly annoying Shelley said, "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world," then we need some Glad bags because they've been doing a crappy job. Let the graphic designers have a shot.

You don't want to see Day Three.

Why, yes, things were a little quiet here this week ... Why do you ask?

First week of November.

Just wanted to share a couple of quick thoughts with you on Halloween and the start of November...

1) The schools closed early on Halloween. Yup, our local school system, to which I have just contributed almost nine thousand bucks, sent all the kids home around lunchtime. Now, they called it an educator enrichment session or something like that, but I think it was really a we don't want to deal with your kids who're all worked up on Halloween session. But the joke's on them, because they had to deal with the kids the day after, when they were suffering from horrible candy hangovers (possibly in the high school, hangover hangovers).

2) Junior Varsity Dog Nipper, who barked at the moon a couple of weeks ago, saw this candy bucket that I'd left on top of the coat rack:

It had a sack of candy in it, including Reese's, and if any candy will attract dogs it's probably them, which is bad because chocolate is bad for dogs. Anyway, Nipper saw that ghostly face and went growling and was a second away from losing his mind barking. I hustled the thing out of eyeshot quickly. This kid is on high alert.

3) Definitely saw more scarecrows around as decorations this year. I think Walmart may have been selling cheap made-in-China scarecrows. They're nice because they're attuned to autumn; you can use them as Thanksgiving decorations too. Keep 'em up until you put up the Christmas lights.

Come to think of it, though -- I haven't seen as many crows around lately!

😨

4) It's November! And the weather started off great! And we still have leaves! Pick your colors! Do you like yellow?

Or red?

Either way, every bit of blue sky we can get in November feels like a lucky break.

5) I came about as close as I ever have to getting just the right amount of candy. I would have been almost perfect except I belatedly thought to get some Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops, in case we had any Teal Pumpkin kids. We didn't, as it turned out. So, I overbought, which is fine. As with so many things, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

6) Hi from the chickens!

Okay, they're are not my chickens. I saw them on Sunday. Whoever owns them I'm sure was thrilled that the CDC said it was safe to dress up your chickens in little chicken costumes for Halloween. I'm sure these chaps were decked out appropriately on Wednesday. Ready for a little cluck-or-treating.

🐔🐔🐔

So now the next blow is the end of Daylight Savings Time, the brighter mornings and the dark, dark nights. Come right on in, seasonal affective disorder!

Another page turned.

Here we are, peeling back a little farther on the banana that is 2018. Every year feels like that, the slow peeling past the annual events -- holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, duties. Presidents Day? Check. Dental visit? Check. Memorial Day? Check. September 11? Check. Wife's birthday? Check. And so on. Sometimes these dates feel like stepping-stones, rocks to jump on, one to the next, to get across the rushing river of time. Some rocks are large, like Labor Day, some small, like my annual physical. And then there's the four big rocks near the end.

Halloween has become a big event; Thanksgiving always has been; Christmas more so; New Year's marks the end of so many things, being the last (and first) rock on the river. They seem like a strange collection of events, things that don't quite go together, holidays that collected at the end of the year in strange ways, but in fact, I'm starting to think they fit together quite well, and in order.

Thanks to BGBear for the awesome picture. Halloween cheats at cards, BTW.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. Fear, Gratitude, Peace, Renewal. Four phases we go through to end the year. Four phases we go through, period.

Notice that the gratitude must come before the peace, before the new beginnings. I think that's the key, something I need to remember, because fear strikes us all at different times and reasons, and there seems to be no cure for it. I must try to have courage, but that gets me through fear; it doesn't solve it. Gratitude is hard, maybe harder than courage, but I've found it to be a better treatment for the affliction of fear. Gratitude is the enemy of fear. It doesn't make it run away--sometimes fear wins. But not always.

Fear has its place; it is the great motivator. Peace is the destination we want, and gratitude is the way to find it. It is not always easy.

People say the holidays are a trial. They can be a trial, and they can also be a trail, one we can follow to a new and better place, where we can try again.

Happy 2019 to you--but let's get through the rest of 2018 first.