It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that life was but a flower
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

And, therefore, take the present time
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crownèd with the prime
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

Shakespeare

Today marks Indiana's first statewide observance of daylight saving time in decades. Hoosier boy that I am, I stumbled out of bed this morning totally oblivious to the fact that it was an hour closer to my morning errands than I had realized.

At any rate, this fellow has decided to capitalize on the confusion and is offering to reset clocks for $10 a household. Meanwhile, flipping from the local to the international, Roger Alford discusses whether Daylight Saving Time is international law.

(For a previous post on Daylight Saving, see here)

April in Paris, Part II

Last night I set out to have dinner at a restaurant I remembered from my previous stay in Paris, but without knowing either the name or the exact location, it was probably a doomed effort from the beginning. Frankly, since all I really remembered was that it was near the Seine, somewhere past the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, on a quiet street, I was surprised to find the place at all, and not very surprised that they weren't taking any more diners when I arrived.

Plan B was a nearby cafe, where I had a plate of meats (jambon de pays, saucisson sec, and a rich, crumbly pate served warm), cheeses (a smooth cantal and a very stinky blue), and salad with a carafe of the house red wine - a light, fruity Rhone. Lingering, I managed to miss the last train (I remain baffled by the entire concept of a last train shortly after midnight in a city where a typical cafe is open until 3 or 4 in the morning. Do Parisians confine their carousing to their own arrondisement? And it's not like there are cabs all over the place either...) and ended up walking back to my hotel.

First stop this morning was once again on the Ile de France, in my second attempt to see Sainte-Chapelle. They'd finished the restoration that was in progress the first two times I was there, and the sun was streaming in gloriously through the windows in the haute-chapelle. However, they'd also added a souvenir shop to the lower chapel - the whole right wall taken up by various faux-medieval knicknacks - and the tourists seemed to take it as a license as well to chatter and exclaim despite the valiant efforts of the attendant to hold the noise level down.

One of the things I dislike about Notre Dame is that despite being a working church, where a few hardy souls still valiantly attempt to pray, the overall atmosphere is approximately as sacred as your average mall, what with the costant stream of visitors, the jumble of eighteenth and nineteenth century decorations, and the ever-present exhortations to buy a candle. Sainte-Chapelle, though entirely a museum, still feels sacred, with the light streaming through the windows looking like it could carry a message from God, and the atmosphere quiet enough that you feel you might be able to hear it. I'd hate to see that disappear.

The next stop was the Musee Rodin, the one major art museum I still hadn't seen in Paris, by way of a long wander through the 6th arrondissement. I still didn't see the museum itself - I decided to tour the garden first, and once I'd made the circut and enjoyed a scoop of passionfruit sorbet (something the weather just wasn't quite warm enough to support) a line that stretched all the way to the gift shop had inexplicably materialized. So it was back to the hotel to (having learned my lesson from yesterday) make a reservation for dinner tonight.