BLUE MONDAY 2.0

            So how did your Blue Monday go? Not surprisingly, and true to form for me, I had a pretty good day. You know, I’ve always had a problem with being told what to do. If I hadn’t been told that Monday January 18^th was mathematically proven to be the most depressing day of the year, thus Blue Monday, chances are I would have been pretty gloomy, too, with it being a Monday, after all, and colder than a ……….you pick one…..out there and I’m still driving to work in the dark and it’s a Saskatchewan January and…

            But you know what? When the sun did start to come up over the horizon it revealed the most beautiful, colourful sunrise and there was fresh hoar frost on the trees adding more beauty to the scenery and even with the “Extreme Cold Warning” flashing across the Weather Network screen there was very little wind to speak of making it a decent enough day for the middle of January in Saskatchewan.

Just because I don’t really like the cold weather doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the beauty that this time of year can bring and although it wasn’t a beach along the Caribbean Sea with a blazing sun and a cold beverage within arms reach it wasn’t the coldest place on the planet either. This time.

            It’s pretty hard not to get sucked into the post-Christmas Winter Blues anyway, let alone have it reinforced in us by a mathematician who’s got way too much time on his hands to be figuring out a mathematical equation to pinpoint exactly when the majority of people are reaching their lowest point in this too-long winter. I’m thinking most of us would have gotten there without being told the exact date.

            I do not mean to diminish the true effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder, (SAD), the clinical definition of Winter Blues, because it is a clinically proven mental health issue and one cannot just “attitude” depression and anxiety away, regardless of the cause. That said, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be as positive as possible whenever we can.

            Oil is under $30 a barrel, the loonie’s tanking and every news channel’s got their economic scare tactics going in full bloom. Again, I do not want to take away from the economic downturn and its life-altering side effects but do we need to talk about it ad nauseum? How about refocusing a little attention on a solution instead of whining about the problem? But that’s maybe something else that cannot be “attitude adjusted”.

            But, hey, we’re gaining a couple of minutes of sunlight every day and the worst day is already behind us, if we believe the mathematician, and despite a couple of cold spells this winter hasn’t been nearly as cold as last winter’s version. Thank you El Nino.

            The economic situation has made many people rethink their priorities, too, and “Stay-cations” are being considered over the usual “Hot Holiday” destinations. That might not be a bad thing for Canadian tourism and its spinoff economic benefits. I saw a report that said that many Canadian winter sport resorts are enjoying their best year ever. Keeping some money at home can’t be all that bad, don’t you think?

             Thankfully Blue Monday is fading from our memory and it’s time to move forward with hope and faith. The year’s still young. There’s a lot to look forward to and nowhere to go but up.

“Every day may not be good…but there’s something good in every day.”-Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911).

BLUE MONDAY!

            January is to the year what Monday is to the week. January is the first month of the New Year following a month-long, or longer, binge of fun, food and frivolity which is just a larger and longer version of a Monday following a good weekend.

            A start is a start whether it’s starting a new year or a new week. The tendencies, not for everyone mind you, but for a large majority of the people, are to start the new week or New Year fresh with some renewed vim and vigor but the best laid plans have a tendency to fall flat come alarm time on Monday morning or the flipping of the calendar page on January 1^st. Depending, of course, on how wild the weekend or the last month and its final day of the year was.

            Taking a look inside your empty wallet on a Monday morning or your chequing account on January 2nd is probably depressing enough let alone realizing that you’ve still got the remaining days of the week to get through or another eleven months before you will recover enough to blow those kinds of funds all over again.

            Even the most bubbly, optimistic, happy, happy, happy person goes, “Monday? Already?…grrrrr” How often have you heard, “Thank God It’s Monday”? Hmmm? Me too. That kind of thinking explains why they make the Monday the holiday on the long weekends instead of the Friday, don’t you think? We want Fridays. We love Fridays. Mondays…not so much.

            January is named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, coming from the Latin word for door, (janua), since January is the door to the New Year. Odd to me, though, is that January is considered new and when I think of new I think of something that makes you feel good like a new car or a new outfit or a cuddly new puppy or a new baby, or something, but a Canadian January is cold and dry and off-putting; it doesn’t really have the feeling of new to me at all. Definitely not a warm and fuzzy-type feeling, that’s for sure.

            So now you take your depressing Monday and you combine it with your depressing January and you know what you’ve got? BLUE MONDAY! That’s right, Blue Monday, which has been calculated to be the most depressing day of the year.

            Using factors such as weather conditions, debt level, time elapsed since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and assorted other pseudoscientific data, a mathematics tutor created an equation that pinpointed the most depressing day of the year as the third Monday in January. 2016’s version is the 18^th of January.

            The good news is that once that’s over with there’s nowhere to go but up. Let’s get our lowest day of the year out of the way before the first month’s done. That way we only have to put up with the depressing Mondays for the rest of the year. The non-long-weekend Mondays, that is.

            There are usually some redeeming qualities in anything, regardless of their ability to depress us or not, but I’m writing this on a January Monday a week before Blue Monday so I don’t think I’ll even bother looking. I think I’ll just hunker down and ride this one out. Wallow in your Blue Monday everyone. Get it out of the way. It’ll get better.

“Feeling a little blue in January is normal,”- Marilu Henner (1952-).

DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS

           A couple of columns ago I had mentioned that I was fast approaching the last birthday I will reach in my 50’s. As a matter of fact, I started writing this column on December the 12^th and it’s my birthday. 59 years-old. Yikes! Well, at least it’s not 60!

            I was born at five minutes past midnight; a fact that has bothered my sister Judy for…I don’t know… some 59 years, I guess. You see, she was born on December 11^th about a decade before me and I was going to be her actual birthday present. I was going to be born on her birthday and I missed it by five minutes! Well, technically, I didn’t have anything to do with it. It wasn’t my call, I don’t think. I didn’t even hear about it until I was much older.

            Being born two weeks before Christmas has no advantages whatsoever to speak of. That’s the way I see it and my sister Judy concurs. It’s pretty tough to get a really great birthday present when the parents are hard-pressed to supply enough Christmas gifts for their nine children let alone throw in a couple of birthday presents in there to boot. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the people born on the 25^th, though. That’s a tough one. But still.

            And you can forget about a birthday party altogether as there is no way you are going to gather a bunch of kids in the house when we’re only two weeks away from Christmas. What with all of the cleaning and baking and wrapping and shopping who has time to organize, conduct and clean up after a bunch of wild boys? Forget it!

            Mom’s solution was to combine my birthday party around the time when my older brother Gordon celebrates his very timely May 1^st birthday. Five months after mine. You know, have them together. Nobody’d think it’s just Gordie’s party. Why would they think that?

Out of the whole year, May 1^st has got to be one of the most ideal times for a birthday party. Everything can be held outside, nobody should get sunburnt like they can at those July birthday parties, most of ‘em probably won’t even use the bathroom in the house, there’s very little chance of them breaking anything in there, either, and their noise will mostly disappear into the air, saving on the headache medication.

But it was okay in the end anyway. Gord was only a year older than I was and his friends were my friends and my friends were his. We all hung out and did the same goofy things we always did together. We ended up having a great time, as usual, with very little household upheaval. Funny, too, though, for all my talk about presents and gift receiving I can’t remember any specific gift at all. All the fun must have blocked it out.

Well, that was my pity party. Thanks for coming. Now it’s time to get ready for the real party. Enough whining. 59 years-old and counting. And I hope for a while, yet.

 

“Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”-Satchel Paige (1906-1982).

THE 300TH

           Let the bells ring out and the banners fly…it’s hear, it’s hear! Number 300 is here, that is. That’s right folks, you are now reading the 300^th submission of the “In My Humble Opinion” weekly column. I know! Already? For a part-time-cover-the-maternity-leave-temporary-position I seem to have been at this for a long time. How long does it take to have that baby anyway? Hmmmmm? I will have been doing this column for six years as of February 7th of 2016.

            Obviously, the previous page four Columnist, Darcie Khounnoraj, decided on a different career path as she did not return to The Citizen after her maternity leave and you’ve been stuck with me ever since.

            So what have you learned, Dear Reader, after all of this time together? One thing I’m sure that you have learned is that I can procrastinate with the best of them, hence 300 submissions but not 300 original columns, as I have submitted some of the columns more than once, due, in part, to those finely honed skills of putting things off.  And, yes, I know, I know, I should be working on that and I will, I will…some…day.

            Another thing you may have noted, over our time together, is that I like sports. Many sports, in fact, and I write about them often. There might be more than a few sports-themed columns in those 300+/- page-four articles.

            If you hadn’t noticed, over these many years, I am also very fond of Daylight Savings Time. Do you remember what Daylight Savings Time is folks? We’ve never had it around here but I’ve heard of other places that do it. If you didn’t know, it’s the twice-yearly altering of the clocks that is done in every other jurisdiction of our country, save Saskatchewan, because Saskatchewanians prefer our daylight early, early, early in the day.

            Do you know what else I like? That’s right, Dear Reader, I really, really like sarcasm. Sarcasm is so very useful as a writing tool, don’t you think? Sometimes you can even get a laugh without really trying. Ahhhh, such a wonderful thing.

            There are other real joys to being a writer from Saskatchewan, besides the fact that we don’t have to confuse ourselves with all that clock altering and everything, and that is this province provides us with a convenient subject that one can never say enough about. And that is the weather. It is so varied and different and changes hourly not just seasonally or yearly giving one reams of material.

            Frankly, subjects are rarely hard to find with so much weird happening in the world all of the time. We are so inundated with information that it would appear difficult not to find something to write about. Yet, it happens.

            So, now what? 300 down 300 to go? I’m not sure about that but we’ll see. I’ve kind of gotten used to this temporary permanent position, though.

 

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”-American writer E.L. Doctorow (1931-2015).

DECEMBER IS HERE!

            2015’s version of Agribition, the 103^rd Grey Cup Game and Movember are once again filed away into the memory banks so that must mean that November is over and December is upon us already. That’s another year almost gone. How’d that happen so fast?

            December will also fly by, I’m expecting, as it is the busiest, as well as, the most wonderful time of the year. There are a number of significant events and activities crammed into these next 31 days. Christmas music concerts, local Dinner Theatre performances, school productions, staff parties, decorating, shopping, baking, hangover recuperations…yikes! I’m getting exhausted thinking about it.

            Speaking of hangover recuperating, it turns out that I will be celebrating my last birthday “in my 50’s” this month. More yikes! And more, “how’d that happen so fast?!” questioning as well. Then again, at the very least, I will be celebrating another birthday which is an event, sad to say, that many people will be unable to do.

            Besides my birthday, there’s another birth event that many of us celebrate on the 25^th of this month. You know who I’m talking about? Yes, Christmas is coming fast and if you didn’t know that there are less than three weeks of shopping left you’d better get at it. That is, of course, unless you’re one of those keeners who have all of their shopping done and hidden away somewhere. I’m so happy for you.

            Seeing as how I mentioned my birthday ahead of Jesus’ it may be of note that December’s birth flower is the narcissus. Hmmmm…that’s an interesting tidbit of information. Also sharing December birthdates are the likes of Woody Allen, Ozzy Osborne, George Armstrong Custer, Keifer Sutherland, Frank Sinatra, (same day as me), and our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, (same day as Jesus), to name but a few.

            There are many other notable event anniversaries in the month of December. It was on December 1^st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a municipal bus to a white man marking the beginning of the modern American Civil Rights Movement.

            On December 2^nd, 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of France by Pope Pius VII in Paris, then on December 2^nd, 1852 The Second Empire was proclaimed in France with Napoleon III as Emperor.

            On December 5^th, 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered Haiti. Of course, there was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7^th, 1941. On December 15^th, 1964 Canada adopted its new red and white flag. The list goes on and on.

            December really is the most wonderful time of the year. To me it is, anyway. I’m not saying I don’t mind the milder El Nino induced temperatures that we have been getting this last little while but I think we could use a little snow around here. At least for Christmas. Nothing stupid or anything but a few inches wouldn’t hurt the scenery would it? Pretty hard to sleigh ride in the gravel too, I’d think.

            I hope you have a great December. Enjoy the preparations and the festivities. Take the time to soak it all up. It only comes around once a year and you know how fast that goes by, don’t you?

            “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is her before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”-Dr. Seuss.

I JUST WANTED TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT

           A few weeks ago I was sitting in my favourite chair with my laptop, appropriately enough, in my lap and the Blue Jays' Playoff Game on the big screen, snacks and beverages lined up around me, with my smart phone in my hand to check on the TV announcers’ facts, you know, like all modern sports fanatics do, when an ad caught my eye between innings. Usually I don’t see many ads as I am quite deadly with the remote control flipping through the other channels during the commercial breaks and all but this time I didn’t have a hand free for the remote so I had to watch the whole ad. It was an ad for Crave TV. Hmmm... this looks interesting, I thought.

            So, while I'm watching the game I start Googling Crave TV, which is a Canadian pay television video on demand service, and investigating how we could sign up for the service because it’s looking pretty good. During the investigation I find out that you have to be either a Bell Satellite TV customer or subscribe to SaskTel Max Cable to be able to receive the service in Saskatchewan. By the way, CraveTV is owned by Bell Canada. We don’t have cable and Bell Canada isn’t our satellite provider.

            There are a lot of spare minutes during the watching of a nine-inning baseball game what with the batters taking forrrevverrrr between strikes and the numerous pitching changes and everything so without the risk of missing too much of the ball game I thought I’d give old Bell Canada a call just to see what they have to offer for satellite services and further check out this CraveTV.

            By the time I went through the pushbutton phone directions I finally got through to a human voice which seemed to belong to a fourteen year-old boy. Anyway, he announces that it’s my lucky day and he can provide this, that and the other thing for half of what we’re paying for our current services with CraveTV thrown in to boot. Installed! Excellent! I like it! Sign me up!

            He walks me through all of the information which included my name and physical home address, something fairly important to the delivery of their services, mind you, and he tells me we’d be receiving a confirmation email and the technicians would be out in about ten days to install the system. Sounds great. Back to the ballgame I go.

            I watched the rest of that game and another one, too, forgetting about the confirmation email until the following day. I opened it up and noticed that the Bell-boy/sales rep had mistakenly recorded my name and physical address wrong. They had me as a Mr. Terry Hubbard and our house street address where the Kipling Post Office currently sits. Terry is as good a name as any but it isn’t mine and we don’t live at 600 1^st St. Again, information fairly important to the delivery of their services.

            I had to call back in to Bell to make the changes and after another forty minutes on the phone I get reassured that everything is a go and they corrected the name and address. A couple of days later I receive another phone call from Bell stating that the installation service is only provided in Ontario and Quebec. Really? Okay then. Whatever.

            However, upon reflection, I wasn't quite ready to give up just yet so I phoned a local Bell Store and the rep there assured me that Bell Canada does provide the installation service in Saskatchewan so she gave me a different phone number to call and I did that and after another forty-five minutes of runaround the rep on the phone assures me that we'll be getting our new Bell Canada satellite TV system as first arranged. Sounds good.

            The final straw in the whole Bell Canada fiasco came to an end a couple of days later when the last spokesperson that I would be talking to from Bell called to tell me that they don't even know what a Saskatchewan IS let alone find it to put in a TV system at 600 1st St in Kipling...THAT'S NOT MY ADDR....nevermind. I give up.

            All I ever wanted to do was buy Bell Canada's product. It should have been easy. It wasn't. Now, all I'm left to do is chalk it up as another one of life's curveballs thrown my way, forget about the wasted time and continue on with life sans Bell Canada Television.

 

"The best customer service is if the customer doesn't need to call you, doesn't need to talk to you. It just works."-Jeff Bezos (1964-).

PRETTY SAFE HERE, I THINK

            As if the residents of the province of Saskatchewan didn’t have reason enough to love our rectangular shaped province the outbreak of more terrorist attacks in Paris, France, on Friday November the 13^th may have solidified that love. Well, maybe you don’t “love” the province but I would dare say that you would be hard-pressed to find a safer place on the planet to live.

One could Google exactly where the safest place on Earth would be but because there seem to be so few people, including our own fellow Canadian citizens, who know where Sask-at-chee-wan is it’s unlikely that the province of Saskatchewan  would be in the top ten, or even on the radar for that matter. What’s more unlikely is a terrorist strike here…but, then again, you never know, do you? Anonymity can be a good thing sometimes, though, don’t you think?

            I’m certain that if one were to spend hours upon hours upon hours of reading and researching and reading some more and researching and interviewing and digesting the motives and actions of some fanatical zealots who seem to have morphed from Al Qaeda to ISIS but still continue their murderous terrorist actions one could ascertain how these types of people believe they are performing “religious acts”. Hmmm… “religious acts?” It’s a head scratcher to me, I’ll tell you.

            Then again, if you were to read one of the definitions of “religion” in the English Oxford dictionary, (“The freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching encompassing a broad range of acts.”), you might stretch the argument to include suicide bombings and innocent civilian murders and online decapitations etc as religious events but, as mentioned, it’s more than a bit of a stretch. At least to this humble scribe it is.

            A 700 word, or thereabouts, essay on page four of a weekly newspaper can hardly do justice to the deep theological discussions that would be required to fully digest the advantages and disadvantages of organized religion, so I will not attempt it here. Suffice to say, though, that it is not only the followers of the Quran who have killed for religious reasons. Please do not misinterpret the above statement as condoning murderous or violent actions for religions’ sake. I do not. Ever.

            Saskatchewan can be a cold, hard place to live in for many weeks of the year and I don’t think I’m alone when sometimes I wonder why our forefathers decided that this was the place to stop and put down their roots, it must have been a nice June or September or something, but the one common theme amongst the pioneers of the prairies was that they were looking for a better place to live and by all accounts, I think they found it.

            “There is nothing more important than a good, safe, secure home,”- Rosalynn Carter (1927-).