The Best Stats Are No Stats

I`m not presuming to speak for everyone, Gentle Reader, otherwise I would have no right to pontificate as I often do from in front of my creaky old laptop (five years and counting!) but generally speaking, I hate statutory holidays.  It isn`t that the working stiffs aren't entitled to a few paid days off a year to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving etcetera.  It's more that I tend to lose out.  On all levels.  My cheapskate employer doesn't have to pay me for stats because I'm a contract worker.  On Thanksgiving Day I lose income.  I have no family, therefore I never get invited anywhere for Christmas.  Fortunately I still get paid, because I work Christmas Day, with my clients in a small psychiatric centre where I am employed.  I get something to do and people to see, they have a worker on hand to offer them support and we all get dinner thrown in together.  My various friends are generally missing in action during statutory holidays leaving me often alone and struggling against depression and self-pity.  It isn't fun, especially seeing so many other people out together apparently enjoying themselves.

I do manage to make the best of it.  It is still time off and I try to embrace it as such but really I more often than not find myself clenching my teeth and just waiting for the day to end so that normal life can resume again tomorrow.  I seem to have always lived my life walking against the crowd.

It isn`t easy, this often going against the flow, and I don't do it to be ornery.  I simply don't share a lot of the values of mainstream society and so I often find myself feeling socially isolated, which kind of sucks because I actually enjoy being with other people.  Within reason of course.  I had to leave early one of my favourite coffee shops today because I just couldn't really settle anywhere.  One area was dominated by a rather stupid looking German woman watching with her children and a bunch of their little friends the soccer game between Germany and Italy.  It wasn't on loud but she was and I really had to resist the temptation to tell her to shut up, since anyone who doesn't speak it knows that German is not an easy language for the ears (if Hell has an official language it must be German), unlike Spanish or French which are two of the most beautiful languages in the world.  The patio was occupied by noisy teenage boys.  When they left I moved outside only to see the next table, seconds later, taken over by yet more noisy teenage boys.

Now to cut everyone a little slack I have a full disclosure here: yesterday and today, because of the Canada Day holiday yesterday and my usual isolation, I was battling depression.  I feel much better now.  I simply left the café on the early side, went for a walk in the woods, stopped at Safeway to pick up some Dijon then went home where I cooked up some potatoes, broccoli and eggs for a dinner potato salad and while they were cooling relaxed with the weekend Globe and Mail and an intermittent nap.  I suddenly noticed that I was better, thanks to good old fashioned self-care and feel ready again to greet the day.

Here's how I made the potato salad:

six red skinned potatoes boiled with peel
two generous crowns of broccoli, boiled,
six hard boiled eggs
half a red onion, chopped
package of extra firm tofu
Dijon mustard to taste
full fat plain yogurt to taste
soy sauce to taste
wine vinegar to taste
blue cheese to taste
small sprinkle of garlic powder
small sprinkle of nutmeg
small sprinkle of allspice

Cook potatoes, broccoli and eggs.  Set aside for one hour to cool.  Chop potatoes and combine in a large serving bowl with broccoli, red onion, mix in one to two cups of yogurt, maybe two-three teaspoons Dijon and add a few generous dashes of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, nutmeg and allspice and mix till everything is well integrated.  Add chopped tofu and chopped blue cheese, mix again.  Top with six hard boiled eggs, peeled and halved.

Provecho!