Today is known as Blue Monday - the most depressing day of the year.
"It is calculated using a series of factors in a (not particularly scientific) mathematical formula. The factors are: the weather, debt level (specifically, the difference between debt and our ability to pay), the amount of time since Christmas, time since failing our new year's resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take charge of the situation".
This was started as a public relations invention in 2005, and January 24th was the first Blue Monday. It generally falls on the third Monday in January. I noticed it this year as there are Blue Monday sales being advertised. The equation has been called farcical and nonsensical, but it seems to live on as an observed day. I took a look at what the Snopes rating is for Blue Monday - true or false - the most depressing day of the year. Of course, they rated it false.
What is Blue Monday competing with for national observances? This is Martin Luther King Day, Civil Rights Day, Hat Day, National Crowd Feed Day, Strawberry Ice Cream Day.
If we were to skip to tomorrow, Tuesday January 16th is Nothing Day. Is that 0 day, null day, nought day? It was started by newspaper columnist Harld Pullman Coffin in 1973. The unofficial holiday aims to provide people "with a day where they can just sit without celebrating, observing or honouring anything." It is considered an "un-event."
Isn't this picture amazing for its vivid green? This was taken in July 2017 on a rainy day in Niagara-on-the-Lake. What I notice about the composition that makes me laugh is the contrast between the pattern of graceful arching maple trees and the vertical tree slicing up the image. Oh well...
Yesterday I participated in roadside clean-up. We all see the Adopt-a-Highway signs with a sponsoring group. The Rotary in Grimsby sponsor the clean-up of the east and west ends of Main Street - where they are in the country. If you think about the side of the road in the city or a town, the property owner has a stake in maintaining cleanliness. In the country, the property owner doesn't see the garbage or doesn't live at the site, or doesn't experience a need to clean up the garbage, so there it is.
There re so many stories roadside: The soggy plastic-bagged newspapers in deep ditches that failed to make the driveway and really weighed down the garbage bag. Then there are the Tim Horton's and McDonalds cups that supposedly are recyclables but look like they could last for 10 years on the roadside. The number of cigarette butts is astonishing. As they don't break down, we see years of accumulation and I left them there. Sometimes there was a little gathering of garbage: did the car pull over and they ate snacks, drank beer, threw out the empties, and then left?
The highlight find were the accident pieces on both sides of the road. On the other side was glass, and on my side were pieces of a front grill.
There are rules in garbage pick-up: don't touch anything you can't identify, don't touch air brakes. don't go onto private property to pick up garbage, don't go out alone, take a cell phone, and so on.
Today's images are roadside signs that have decayed over the years. This was at the Mexican Pub and Grill that once was the White Eagle on Highway 8 near Beamsville.
