Lost time: Eight things to consider doing before daylight saving time arrives on Sunday
This Sunday morning, we’re losing an hour due to daylight saving time. But after losing an entire year, what’s one more hour?
Here are eight things to consider doing in Spokane before that lost hour arrives this weekend.
Patiently wait for turkeys to cross the road
This is difficult, of course, because those birds should know that, although we’ve rarely left our homes for the past year, we have places to be. Instead, they’ve made it clear that the section of Grand by Manito Park is their territory, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So let’s get stoic about it, practice a little mindfulness and bond with all the other drivers around us from the safety of our cars.
Practice chess openings
If you still haven’t watched “The Queen’s Gambit,” maybe use the hour to watch the first episode. This viewing experience will give you a deep desire to learn chess. Unfortunately, unless you’re really something else, you will be subsequently discouraged by the difficulty and lack of cute outfits from the 1960s.
Recover from a pothole experience
Remember, every one of us will have to endure this harrowing experience at one time or another. So once you’ve watched your life flash before your eyes, take a few minutes to let your soul reincarnate, breathe deeply and apologize to your car.
Learn to make chai
If, like me, you don’t exactly love the sweetness of a Starbucks Chai Tea Latte, please consider this recipe I learned from a TikTok video. You will need a saucepan, mortar and pestle, black loose leaf tea, fresh ginger, cinnamon sticks, green cardamom (in the pods), fresh nutmeg, black peppercorns, water and half-and-half. If you prefer plant-based milks, try oat milk in place of the water and half and half.
Crush the ginger with the mortar and pestle, then set it aside. Crush the cinnamon, cardamom and peppercorns. Grate the nutmeg over the other spices and set aside.
To a saucepan, add one part water and one part half-and-half. Heat until the milk starts to froth, then turn off the heat. Add the ginger, spices and tea, stirring for about 5 minutes. Strain the tea a few times and serve.
Take a walk
Grab a water bottle, put on your best walking shoes, select an audiobook and get ready to ignore your neighbors – it’s your time.
Memorize a poem
Pick a Shakespearean sonnet, Sonnet 116 perhaps. Read it through at least five times at varying speeds. Then take it line-by-line, memorizing it sentence by sentence, gradually repeating larger sections to yourself until you can get through the whole thing twice before looking at the page. This might take longer than an hour, but it’s surprisingly rewarding.
Clean your room
Match your socks, put away your shoes and gather all the sweaters that have been accumulating on various surfaces throughout your home. This could also be a great opportunity to grab a trash bag and take a trip down to your car, but be careful. You wouldn’t want to guilt yourself into anything too extreme.
Learn how to ‘short a stock’
And if you’re feeling especially ambitious, here’s an eighth idea.
I was entirely in the dark on this front until I learned that (1) it is possible to borrow a share, and (2) it is subsequently possible to sell a share that you have borrowed.
With those prerequisites in mind, please enjoy the following step-by-step procedure for stock shorting. It won’t help you do it yourself, but it might help you talk about it at a (post-COVID-19) dinner party.
Identify a stock that you expect to decrease in value over a certain period of time. Borrow a share or a number of shares from someone already invested in that stock. Sell that borrowed share to someone else. Sit around and hope that the stock decreases in value. Once it does, buy it back at the new reduced price and return it to the owner from whom you borrowed it in the first place.
If, as you predicted, the value of the stock has actually lowered, the difference between the price at which you borrowed (and sold) it and the price at which purchased it back will be your profit.