What Time Is It?

"What's the real time?" I ask Dawn. Every year I go through a period of confusion, not unlike old folks at the retirement home.  I show up at my Amish friends and they answer the door in their pajamas.  Have you ever seen Amish pajamas?  Sunday I call Buster, my former next door neighbor in Arizona.  He tells me it's still Saturday out there.

We have a simple dinner and watch the second episode of Wallander.  The clock says it's too early to go to bed.  The choice is to watch A Good Year for the 46th time or go to bed and read. The Pooch and Mandy climb in bed.  The cat mumbles his erps and grunts, rolls on his back, licks Mandy's face and jumps off the bed.  He's not sleepy.  Mandy doesn't care what time it is, as long as she's within sight of me.

In previous years, I complain about the manipulation of time.  Last year I kept the kitchen clock at regular time. I grow a beard but shave my mustache to look more like the Amish.  If I'm dealing with the Amish  Bent and Dent grocery store out on the highway, I ask if the hours on the door are "slow" or "fast" time, in an attempt to be hip Amish.

Breakfast this morning is another time irritation. I sit down to buttermilk pancakes and I'm struck blind.  Because of the angle of the morning sun through the east kitchen window, the white paper of the English novel on the table temporarily causes snow blindness. I reach for my slit type Eskimo glasses.  Our classic American country curtain fabric with the stars and stripes pattern is from China.  The handmade curtains are finished in front but the back part toward the window is rough threads which catch on the hook holding them back.  For the next 157 days I spend 25 minutes daily untangling the threads that catch on the hold-back hook.

When I actually fell asleep last night it was March 13th.  I toss and turn because Dawn takes me to a car dealership to look at race cars.  Salespeople with huge Afros wait in a hallway ready to prey upon the next sucker.  Race car?  "What d'we need a race car for?" I ask. "I thought you said to stop in for a race car," she says.  Another side journey into husband and wife communication dilemmas exacerbated by a Gemini?Capricorn difference in our natal Zodiac.

When I awaken, it's December.  The upstairs north windows have been painted by Jack Frost.  The grass is white with frost and the snow hasn't melted. The clock says 7:21 am. Sonny and Cher are singing, "I Got You Babe" on the radio.  Wait. I thought  Phil already saw his shadow.