sundowner sin-drome

This is the last week you will see one of these in Barra de Navidad.

At least, it is the last one you will see if you show up at 7:30 in the evening next week to enjoy the free nightly light show. If you show up at 7:30 next Sunday, you will experience a beautiful black sky, but not a sunset.

You all know why. It is that time of year again when we switch from daylight saving time to standard time. And this time we get the hour we invested last Spring in the Daylight Saving and Loan Association. Without interest.

I am not going to mount my mango crate and do my impression of a Hyde Corner orator. We all have our opinion about the utility of this clock-moving exercise, but I will refrain from sharing mine. Though the word "futility" almost snuck into that sentence.

This is simply a two-prong public service announcement from Mexpatriate.

The first prong is to once again warn those of us who are here in Mexico, that The Change comes this Sunday -- 31 October. Halloween, for those of you who follow The Old Religion.

Canada and The States do not switch back until the next Sunday -- 7 November. So, for one week, the usual time zone differences will be off an hour for a week. The same problem arises in Spring with the leap ahead -- but that difference lasts two weeks.

The second prong derives from the first. Because there of this periodic chronological anomaly between Mexico and its two northern neighbors, customary international airline arrival times and departures will alter by one hour. My advice (and I learned this one the hard way) is to rely on your ticket, not on your memory -- even if you fly in and out of Manzanillo monthly. Especially, if you fly in and out of Manzanillo monthly. 

The only people who are going to be inconvenienced by the shift back to standard time here on the Costalegre are people who preferred to eat their dinner while watching the sun drown. Hoping for a glimpse of the proverbial green flash.

Of course, they still can. They will just need to join the Denny's Early Bird Special crowd.

I will have mine with the chicken-fried steak special.