Falling back (again) + just in time for Halloween, our elevator is haunted

What time is it where you are?

Photo by Luis Cortes on Unsplash

I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning to my husband already in the kitchen brewing coffee and feeding our two dogs.

I got up, summoned my inner German, went down the hall, and rage-whispered into the darkness, “It’s Sunday! Why are you feeding them so early?”

“It’s almost five,” he shrugged. (Note: That’s when when normally get up during the week, though we’ve gotten the dogs used to sleeping a bit later on weekends.)

“It’s not!” I hissed back, flashing him the front of my phone screen.

The time change strikes again.

It always sneaks up on us and ruins my day, one way or another.

This time, my husband’s internal circadian rhythm woke him up at the normal weekday morning time, which was now an hour earlier than clock time.

In 2019, the European Parliament voted to end the time change across the EU starting in 2021, but member states have been unable to agree which time to stick with Standard or Daylight.

Thus, here we are staggering into 2026, still time traveling.

To make matters worse, our building’s elevator became possessed by some kind of angry poltergeist. (The spirit of someone who hates getting up early on the weekend?) As I was writing this post, I kept hearing loud, metallic bangs in the hallway like someone was using a sledgehammer against a door.

At first, I thought it was just kids playing. But as the sounds continued and then got louder, I went outside to investigate.

The sounds appeared to be coming from the elevator. As I watched, the doors slid open, but no one was in the car. The door remained open and the elevator remained on the ground floor while several loud bangs emanated from the shaft. Then, the doors closed again, the elevator went up to another floor, and the process repeated itself.

This went on for about an hour. The elevator moving from floor to floor, randomly stopping and banging. I texted our building’s group chat and the hausmeister to see what could be done. But I knew, since it is Sunday, options were limited.

The hausmeister said he would put in a call to the elevator company, but could only put up a sign and report the problem himself.

After about an hour, the elevator appeared stuck at the ground floor with the door stuck halfway open and dull thuds and a rough grinding sound replacing the bangs.

By 5 p.m. the sounds had all stopped, so I assume someone showed up who could turn the whole thing off.

This is the second time that the elevator has stopped working in the three years we have lived here. I think I’ll be taking the stairs from now on.

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🖥️ What I’m watching

I found this video of sunken shipwrecks in Mallows Bay near the mouth of the Potomac River strangely beautiful.

Two recent studies have revealed a surprising variety of marine life living on and near shipwrecks and discarded bombs from both world wars.

The first study looked at a dump site for World War II bombs in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of northern Germany. Researchers found that crabs, starfish, and other sea creatures were drawn to the hard exteriors of discarded V-1 flying bombs, German cruise missiles used in the Battle of Britain. …Barnacles, anemones, sea squirts, and other creatures are better able to take hold on hard surfaces, so the bombs offered a more suitable home than sandy areas nearby.

The half-submerged boats in Maryland were used in World War 1 but were deliberately sunk in the bay in 1920, and “have created shallows, wetlands, and forests in the brackish waters of the lower Potomac.”

H/t 404 Media.

📙 Reading

Amateur historian Matthew Dorkings has an interesting piece about the Beatles’ time in Hamburg and the connection between that city and the British music scene in the 1950s and 60s.

The group were expected to play for hours straight, every single evening, inevitably relying on a diet of alcohol and pills to keep going. Yet despite the grime and squalor of their circumstances, it was their experience in Germany which propelled them to stardom. Like most of their fellow Liverpudlian bands, The Beatles were almost exclusively playing covers of American rock &roll tunes. Consequently, it was their performance that needed to distinguish them. The constant demand to play, incessantly, for hours on end, night after night, week after week, meant the group had to improve their performing style and offer something different to the crowds.

Check out the rest here:

Komm, gib mir deine Hand!

🔊 And listening to …

Fellow German language learners will appreciate this episode of the Easy German podcast, which talks about how younger Germans have adopted the English adjective ‘nice,’ but given it a new meaning.

This is often the case with loanwords borrowed from other languages, but it’s still interesting to note how some English terms have been used here—as they are also subjected to the famous German case declineations, and as Manuel says in the podcast, ‘verdeutsched.’

That’s it for this week.

I’ll close with yet another reader poll for engagement. Let me know what zou think!