Time?

The Gringa is musing this morning about time in Apartamento #1102 at 291 Praia de Icarai, Niteroi, RJ, Brasil.  This is a definite place in time--this three bedroom, two bath apartment--but time is much more ethereal here.

Before you think I've gotten all New Age or come up two tacos short on the Special Plate at Los Brazos, let me explain.

Steve had warned me to turn off the roaming feature on my phone when I got to Brasil in order to avoid exorbitant charges.  Done.  But the time was stuck in some US zone that was not relavant to either home or Niteroi.  Same with my iPad--connected to high speed internet in the apartment, only stuck in a different US time zone than my phone!   After 5 weeks of subtracting 3 hours from the time stamp of my smart phone in order to decipher current time, I called on Will, resident Techno Geek, to help synchronize my i's, and was delighted to be able to refer to either when I wanted to know the proper local time.

Yesterday morning I woke up and checked my iPhone clock like I do every morning.  It read "Saturday, March 3."  Well!!  I thought that a little strange, since I was pretty sure it was Friday, March 2.  At least, when I went to bed the night before, I was anticipating that it would be Friday when I awakened.  Okay, Gringa--check your iPad.  It's accurate--after all, this is smart technology, right?  Again, "Saturday, March 3."

Now I'm not even interested in the time of day; I just want to know what day it is.  Did I sleep through an entire 24 hour period?  It's possible, considering the level of sleep deprivation that lays over the three adults here like one of  20 day-old Daniel's gauzy swaddling blankets.  But if I did sleep through, then I missed a Skype date with my dear friend Jo, scheduled for Friday evening.  I'm feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland, minus the potions.

Posting the date question on FaceBook, I trusted that someone in the 'real world' of cyberspace would be able to re-orient the Gringa.  Then I settled in to the morning; whatever the day, our routine is fairly fluid here.  It revolves around Little Man, who, as I mentioned, is nearing his 3 week birthday.

In Texas, we have three clocks on the wall in Steve's study.  One is set to the current time in Cypress, Texas; a second is set to the current time in Brussels, Belgium,  where our niece lives with her husband and two daughters; the third is set to the current time in Niteroi, Brasil.  Though we change the times according to the ebb and flow of Daylight Savings here and there, we can always count on our battery-operated clocks to keep us up-to-the-minute.

In Apartamento #1102, the kitchen stove has a clock, which BTW is set to international time, like 0:36 or 23:45.  (This presents a minor challenge to the Gringa when it gets to be after noon and I need to translate by subtraction.)  However, there have been so many overnight power outages lately, that the stove clock is often flashing and inaccurate.  Will and Cecilia's house phone has the time on its face, and because it has a battery back-up, I count on it to be correct.  At least, until last week when Daylight Savings ended in Brasil and it was an hour off . . . sigh . . .....

So, I checked back on FaceBook a little later yesterday morning, and Thank Goodness my brother Doug had solved the mystery!  He suggested that it had to do with the Leap Year.  Also, my friend Robyn had posted a reference to Texas Independence Day as well.  Every red-blooded Texan knows it's March 2nd for sure.  Now my addled brain was set at ease.  It was still Friday, March 2nd, and I hadn't missed my Skype date; and better still, there were still 3 tacos on my Special Plate at Los Brazos.



FYI--We are now 3 hours ahead of US Central Daylight Savings Time.  It is Saturday, March 3, 2012.  The local International Time is 9:45.