Kage Baker simply detested Daylight Savings. She didn’t really care about getting more daylight for the merchants’ convenience – as she observed, we were in modern times and had lots of artificial lighting available.

And people had managed even back when streetlights were flambeaux or candles, and stores were lit after sunset with whale oil lanterns. Or, as she acerbically noted, “You know, like, they closed.” She actually felt that the Monday after DST started should be a therapeutic holiday.

The main things Kage disliked were simple. First, she objected to arbitrarily mucking about with dawn and sunset: it was not only unnatural but not historical. She could pardon considerable unnaturalness, but in-authenticity really narked her.

Second, Kage hated being robbed of her sleep. She felt the loss of the vernal advance in time very keenly; she did not feel the equinoctial take back was sufficient recompense for the initial theft. So she hated it. I told her that if she didn’t obsess about it, she wouldn’t notice it; the human temporal sense is not that sensitive.

“Mine is”, Kage would aver with a glare. I didn’t know if she meant she wasn’t human, or that the rest of us were sensorially deficient. Even odds, probably. In any event, she ignored it as much as possible – as she did most clocks, to be honest.

Besides, Kage felt that DST was a cheap-jack method of time travel.

In my advancing age. I have solved all my personal problems with DST by adopting Kage’s solution: I ignore it. I don’t care when television shows come on, because Kimberly tapes the few I still watch. And I sleep whenever I can, which seems to be based on a 33-hour diurnal period anyway – so who cares what the clock says? I tend to leave my Kit Kat Klock on Standard time, anyway. It enhances the retro effect.

But in deference to Kage’s habits, I do as little as possible on The Day. Today, I have binge-watched NCIS and read FBI profilers’ memoirs. And I am writing this blog, of course, to keep faith with you, Dear Readers.

But for now, my armchair beckons. There are still some chapters left with the steely-jawed FBI. And then, I think I will explore some well-tuned Cthulhu pastiches.

On this cusp between real and artificial times, it’s a good place to hobnob with a few monsters.