THE HEARTBREAK THAT IS BOB'S HOLIDAY SCHEDULE FOR THE COMING YEAR

I know this is way less than a pixel in the big picture, it's purely a personal thing like a chipped molar you just can't keep your tongue away from and who else even knows or cares. Well this year is the chipped molar and I'm the tongue. Ok maybe another metaphor would be better but you get enough of the picture, which isn't a pretty one as I stand here head bowed over a Japanese calendar, fully aware that this is of no interest to anybody other than myself but I've got to put this microgripe somewhere so why not as graffiti on my cyberwall, like I say I can't keep my mind's tongue away from this chipped molar of a year, metaphors run amok, get as out of control as... as... my Japanese holidays. Life after all is a balance of panorama and pixel count.

You've heard of Job, the troubles he had - such as they were - well that was several thousand years ago if a day, but I know just how he felt, though I can safely say his vacation problems paled in comparison to mine, probability-wise. Let's talk about my holidays, and how the universe can get really nasty with small stuff like me.

Now that I've retired, I only work in the Big City on three days a week: on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. That's: Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I'm off on two weekdays, Monday and Wednesday. That's: Monday and Wednesday. So the odds are 3 to 2, better than a coin toss, that any given Japanese national holiday (there are 13) will not fall useless and forlorn as a Daliesque clock on one of my days off, but will settle graciously and delightfully as a butterfly on one of my workdays. So out of 13 holidays, if probability has any meaning in this holiday-deficient world, 8 of them will fall on my workdays and give me more than an extra week off!

Visit again tomorrow for Part II of the engrossing, probability-violating heartbreak that is Bob's Holiday schedule! Right now I have to work.