Happiness is the vaporless morning

 The morning is the best, because the imagination is not clouded by the vapours of meat.

-- John Dryden

It's Christmas time again, and you know what that means

 

Happiness is a Double Shot of My Baby's Love (1966)

 

Happiness can has good grammar

 

Happiness is Michael Martin Murphey singing his 1990 "Cowboy Logic"

 

Happiness is Texas logic, aka cowboy logic

 

Happiness is Texas math

 

Happiness is foods for brain health

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out:

added sugars such as high fructose corn syrup, baked goods, sodas; 

fried foods;

potatoes, white bread, white rice;

alcohol;

nitrates.

In:

dark chocolate 70% or higher, 45 grams a week;

strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, one half to one cup a day;

turmeric, black pepper, curry;

dark leafy greens;

fermented foods with live active cultures such as yogurt, kefir, kombucha, miso, sauerkraut, kimchi.

Happiness is a Texas rain gauge

 

Happiness is Kerrygold pure Irish butter

It really does taste amazing, and it most likely has much more vitamin K2, necessary for bone absorption of calcium, than conventional butter:

The measurements we are talking about when measuring levels of MK4 is the μg(microgram). In Anú Dairy butter there is 54μg per 100g of butter; other high quality Irish butters are around half that at 25μg but it can go as low as 7μg or 11μg for conventional indoor feed cattle. Kevin explains that in Europe having a claim of “uniquely rich food”means it needs to be at 30% or above. ...

Butter is a huge industry in Ireland, there are 9 butter plants in Ireland each producing 10,000kg/hr and 140,000 tonnes/year in exports. In terms of scale Anú Dairy is very small and not really in that space, they are a small artisan producer. ...

There are so many different brands of butter, Président butter is white, so there is no grass there, but Kerrygold butter is much better. Even Irelands conventional butter is very good quality compared to international butters and the reputation is very strong overseas. Kevin also mentions there are good small farmers in America such as Maple Hill Creamery, for example.

More. 

 

Happiness is a recipe which helps you cut back on toilet paper!

 For a butt-hole which is clean as a whistle, eat one of these oat flour and wheat bran muffins every morning instead of toast! You'll find yourself using far less toilet paper as a result!

Foil the kitty!

Oat Flour & Wheat Bran Muffins

1 cup oat flour (just grind up one cup whole oats in the coffee grinder)

2 cups wheat bran (I pay $1.29/lb at the health food store for a refrigerated bag of organic; super cheap!)

1.5 t baking powder

0.5 t baking soda

0.5 t ground cinnamon

 

1.25 cups milk

0.33 cup brown sugar

1 egg beaten

0.5 cup apple sauce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/ preheat oven to 400 F

2/ combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another

3/ add the dry to the wet, whisking together

4/ line two 8-bay muffin tins with parchment baking cups

5/ spoon in the completed mixture, about 1/4 cup each

6/ bake 15-20 minutes

7/ let cool thoroughly before storing in the frig or freezer

8/ parchment peels right off once cooled

9/ rewarm in microwave and serve with butter and jam

10/ one a day will do ya

 

 

Happiness is really roughing it

The roots of thistles have my hunger fed,

Two roods of cultur'd barley give me bread,

A rock my pillow, and green moss for my bed. 

-- Walter Harte

Happiness is the rye, and the straw thereof

In champion countrie a pleasure they take

To mow up their haume, for to brew and to bake:

The haume is the straw of the wheat or the rie

Which once being reaped, they mow by and by. 

-- Thomas Tusser

Happiness is the vivid imagination of Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I told John of Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have truss'd him and all his apparel into an eel-skin: the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court.

-- William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2, III.2

Happiness is the sweet oblivion of country life

Oh, could I see my country-seat!

There leaning near a gentle brook,

Sleep, or peruse some ancient book;

And there in sweet oblivion drown

Those cares that haunt the court and town.

 

-- Jonathan Swift

Happiness is Reformation Day, October 31st every year since 1517

 Perhaps you've heard of it?

 

Happiness is Don Ho singing his 1966 hit "Tiny Bubbles"

 

Happiness is savory with sweet

On smoaking lard they dine;

A sav'ry bit that serv'd to relish wine. 

-- John Dryden

Happiness is The Five Reasons Why Men Drink

 

 

If on my theme I rightly think,

There are five reasons why men drink:—

Good wine; a friend; because I'm dry;

Or lest I should be by and by;

Or — any other reason why.

 

-- Henry Aldrich (1647-1710)

Happiness is the one thousand year old oak tree

The King Oak of Denmark may date as early as the first century AD

 

 

 

The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,

Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees;

Three centuries he grows, and three he stays

Supreme in state; and in three more decays.

 

-- John Dryden

Happiness is the champion of Genovese pesto, Roberto Panizza

 

Happiness is Tim Hawkins doing inappropriate songs for when she's walkin' down the aisle

 

Happiness is grill smoke

If from adown the hopeful chops

The fat upon a cinder drops,

To stinking smoke it turns the flame.

 

-- Jonathan Swift

Happiness is nutbrown ale

Young and old come forth to play,

Till the live-long daylight fail,

Then to the spicy nutbrown ale.

-- John Milton

Happiness is learning your water heater isn't leaking and putting all that water on the basement floor

 

Happiness is my Norwegian Forest Cat all vaxxed up and raring to go

 

Happiness is 1937's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"

 

Happiness is a pleasant, productive Saturday

✓ The humidity dropped into the 40s and the temperature into the 50s.

✓ The windows were opened and the oven cleaned.

✓ The wheel bearing job on the old car was finished.

 

✓ Weeds on the sidewalk were torched.

 

✓ Groceries were sorted and frozen.

 

✓ Pizzas were made from scratch, as usual.

 

✓ Jeeves and Wooster provided the entertainment with a cottage set ablaze.

 

✓ The internet and the phone came back.

 

✓ Power was restored after four days without.

 

✓ And the generators finally fell silent.

 

 

Happiness is discovering it's not the COVID, just the English food

 

Happiness is seeing The Four Lads perform their 1953 hit "Istanbul (not Constantinople)" live in 2014

Featuring left to right Frank Busseri, Harry Duvall, John Hasselback, and Don Farrar.

Only Frankie, who died in 2019, was an original member of the group.

 

 

Happiness is an Amadeus (1984) joke

 

Tihs ym tae.

Happiness is I Wanna Be Sedated, Ramones 1978, especially these days

 

Happiness is the master-hand

Musick resembles poetry; in each

Are nameless graces which no methods teach,

And which a master-hand alone can reach.

-- Alexander Pope

Happiness is a cleft tree

The cleft tree

Offers its kind concealment to a few,

Their food its insects, and its moss their nests.

-- James Thomson (1700-1748)

Happiness is the fabulous The Crystals singing the 1963 hit Da Doo Ron Ron

 

When you need to move water, happiness is a 2-in-1 utility pump by Everbilt

This unit functions as a transfer pump for draining a water heater, for example, or as a submersible pump for draining a flooded low spot in the backyard, basement or driveway. Connect to it using a 3/4 inch garden hose.

About $119 at The Home Depot.

Happiness is real lemon, real pepper, Atlantic salmon baked in the oven

 Skip the dry, bottled, lemon-pepper seasoning and do this instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real lemon pepper salmon

 

1 2+lb. Atlantic salmon filet, skinless

canola oil

1-2 fresh lemons, well-washed, sliced thin

ground black pepper

salt

 

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Oil a roasting pan with canola oil

Place the salmon in the pan

Sprinkle, very generously, with ground black pepper

Sprinkle lightly with sea salt or kosher salt, if desired

Arrange the lemon slices all over the top of the salmon

Bake about 25 minutes on the center rack of the oven

Remove and squeeze roasted lemons with a spoon against the pan, if you wish, and spoon over the servings

Serves about four

Happiness is light yellow and cherry, the colors of July

July I would have drawn in a jacket of light yellow, eating cherries, with his face and bosom sunburnt.

-- Henry Peacham

Happiness is lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my!

 

Happiness is clean gutters and downspouts, thanks to a Werner 24' aluminum extension ladder

Werner 24 ft. Aluminum Extension Ladder with 225 lb. Load Capacity Type II Duty Rating

This fella has just enough of the length I needed to reach the second story gutters in the rear comfortably, but only from the first floor patio deck in back, which is itself already elevated almost 6' off the ground.

It also reaches comfortably over the big shrubs and other plantings in front to get to the first level gutters.

I don't think the 20-footer would have worked as well.

The ladder is less than 35 lbs, but the gutter cleaning was still a two-man job.

 

 

Happiness is a cat who catches vermin

Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn

An everlasting foe, with watchful eye

Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,

Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice

Sure ruin.

 

-- John Philips (1676-1709)

Happiness is a silvan scene

Betwixt two rows of rocks, a silvan scene

Appears above, and groves for ever green.

-- John Dryden

Happiness is RMS Queen Mary: My dad came home on her in 1945

After decades of rocky seas in Long Beach, Queen Mary in danger of sinking. Can it be saved?:

'After the start of World War II, it was painted gray and converted into a troopship that ferried Allied soldiers, earning the nickname the “Grey Ghost” for its speed and camouflaged color.'

Arriving in New York Harbor, 20 June 1945, with thousands of US soldiers – there is a prominent degaussing coil running around the outer hull.

 

Happiness is the color of June

 June is drawn in a mantle of dark green.

 

-- Henry Peacham (1578-c.1644)

Happiness is escaping the enemies of the homestead

The nightly wolf is baneful to the fold,

Storms to the wheat, to buds the bitter cold.

-- John Dryden

Happiness is contentment

'Tis better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,

Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.

 

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

Happiness is watching Gordon Ramsay make mayo in less than two minutes

 

The secret is 100ml of neutral oil per egg yolk, added ever so slowly at the start. A three egg yolk recipe seems about right for a standard food processor as in the video. I got away with just two. For small batches of mayo, a smaller food processor is ideal.

The beauty of the Cuisinart that I own is that it comes with a lid with an oil reservoir on top which dispenses the oil through a pinhole at the ideal rate.

I add capers at the end for the Tuesday night beer-battered cod fry tartar sauce. In the absence of the juice of a lemon, substitute white vinegar.

Happiness is a Deltec home, designed to withstand Category 5 hurricanes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Designed for disaster: These homes can withstand a Category 5 hurricane

'Matt Oblinsky, Deltec’s director of engineering, spearheads an effort to constantly find better building materials to further strengthen its designs.

'“After each and every hurricane … we reach out to each and every homeowner in the path of a storm to ask how they are,” Linton said. “99.9 percent of the time we’re seeing ‘we lost a couple shingles’ or ‘we lost a piece of trim, but our neighbor’s home was demolished.’ Our homes have been field-tested for a number of years.”'

Happiness is the nonsense verse chant Flea Fly Flow from Boy Scout camp in the 1960s

The chant is a "repeat after me" or "echo" song. The leader at the campfire chants a line, the boys gathered round are to echo it exactly in reply.

There are many, many versions.

The idea was to make the nonsense lines a little longer each time and to vary the elements in order to make them more tricky to remember, which is great fun but is probably why no one can remember the thing exactly the same way now. 

In this case, the nonsense probably goes all the way back at least to Shakespeare's King Lear of 1605 ("Child Roland to the dark tower came, His word was still, Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man") and was immortalized in the English fable Jack the Giant Killer of 1711 ("Fee-fi-fo-fum").

"Fie!" is an old word which you use when you smell something really bad, i.e. a stench, a subject of some fascination for young boys.

By beginning with an allusion to the form of these then well known lines, the expectation was set for something familiar to come, but is immediately turned into a tongue twister to set the audience of young boys off their balance and arrest their attention and engage them. It needs to be remembered that boys were then relatively better educated than they are these days, and that it was fun to play loose as it were with the otherwise more or less serious subjects of their school days.

Add some strategically placed stick-banging and tub-thumping and it gets to be quite the scene around the bonfire!

The form is a playground for improv, but most if not all of the versions people now remember have regularized the opening tongue twister by incorporating an "L" in each line and element, as in Flea! Flea fly! Flea fly flow! 

This is how I remember it:

Fie!

Fie fly!

Fie fly foh!

Kooma-lotta kooma-lotta kooma-lotta Feast Day!

Oh, no, no, no not the Veesday!

Eeny meany deci-meany Ooo walla walla meeny, Eeny meany, hexa-meany, Ooo walla walla!

Beat belly oaten boaten Bobo benoten botten, Bobo benoten botten, Bobo benoten botten, shhhhh!

Happiness is the fabulous Linda Ronstadt with her 1975 cover of When Will I Be Loved

 

Happiness is Ed Norton from The Honeymooners

 

"Did somebody say I'm trending on Twitter? Well I'm HERE for it!"

Happiness is Do You Know What I Mean? Lee Michaels 1971

She's a dandy, yes indeed, but now she's free.

This is the Rock 'n' Roll you first heard fifty years ago and suddenly you wake up one morning with it playing on continuous loop in your head for some reason.

Happiness is sort-of-Italian opera

 

Happiness is the patriotism of our Irish

 

Happiness is being content with one's share in the blessings common to all

 

Every creature has a share in the common blessings of providence; And every creature should rest well satisfied with its proportion in them.

-- Roger L'Estrange

Happiness is the tree that made America great: The Eastern White Pine

 It's almost an hour long, but it's the fabulous but true story you probably never heard and must see.

Happiness is Not Chick'n Bouillon Cubes

I use this stuff to rev-up my chicken stock/soup, which I do make from the carcass of the leftover chicken. It also works great mixed with extra virgin olive oil made into a paste for rubbing the inside and outside of the roasting chicken before placing in the oven.

Happiness is having a vigorous interior life

(Scarecrow)

I could wile away the hours

Conferrin' with the flowers

Consultin' with the rain

And my head I'd be scratchin'

While my thoughts were busy hatchin'

If I only had a brain

I'd unravel any riddle

For any individ'le

In trouble or in pain

(Dorothy)

With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'

You could be another Lincoln

If you only had a brain

(Scarecrow)

Oh, I would tell you why

The ocean's near the shore

I could think of things I never thunk before

And then I'd sit and think some more

I would not be just a nuffin'

My head all full of stuffin'

My heart all full of pain

I would dance and be merry

Life would be a ding-a-derry

If I only had a brain

Happiness is overcoming adversity

Perhaps human nature meets few more sweetly relishing and cleanly joys, than those that derive from successful trials.

-- Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680)

Happiness is binge-listening to Ennio Morricone on a sunny Easter Sunday, who passed away July 6, 2020 with the comfort of his faith

 

Happiness is a sound egg

This is also evidenced in eggs, whereof the sound ones sink, and such as are addled swim; as do also those that are termed hypanemiae, or wind-eggs.

-- Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Of Swimming, and Floating

Happiness to some people is eating a good head cheese, to others it's watching the laborious process of making one done so well

 

Happiness is knowing how to double your crop

Gather the lowest, and leaving the top,

Shall teach thee a trick for to double thy crop.

-- Thomas Tusser

Happiness is Wright Hickory Smoked Thick Cut Bacon baked in the oven

 

I can't believe I've never prepared this bacon before by baking it in the oven as it suggests on the package. Tonight was the first time, and I'll never go back to frying it in the pan again.

It was simply outstanding, the best bacon I've ever had.

It made the pasta carbonara just that much more special for this particular Friday night's "breakfast".

Instead of a foil lined baking sheet, I used my deep stainless steel roasters to do the job. No splatter at all inside the oven. Turn the bacon every 10 minutes until you get the doneness you prefer. Mine took about 46 minutes total. The fat on the bacon turned out airy like a pork rind.

What a treat.

Happy is the man who has lived so well today, he needs not another

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He who can call to-day his own:

He who secure within can say,

To-morrow do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day.

-- John Dryden

Happiness is building a world of your own in the time of COVID

 You can do it! It's easy if you try.

Happiness is shiny steel and polished wood

Happiness is knowing Joe Biden has two shotguns

 

Happiness is birds of little throats, and short

Birds that are most canorous,

and whose notes we most commend,

are of little throats, and short.

-- Sir Thomas Browne, Enquiries into Common and Vulgar Errors, 1646

Happiness is binge watching British chef Marco Pierre White on YouTube on a wintry Sunday

 

Happiness is mnemonic calendar verse which actually rhymes

30 days hath September

April, June, and November.

31 the others date,

Excepting February 28.

But in a leap year we divine

February, 29.

or

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November.

When short February's done,

All the rest have 31.

or

    Thirty days hath September,

    April, June, and November;

    Thirty-one the others date,

    Excepting February, twenty-eight;

    But in leap year we assign

    February, twenty-nine.

The earliest known example of the poem dates to approximately 1425 AD:

Thirty days hath November,

April, June, and September.

Of 28 is but one

And all the remnant 30 and 1. 

Happy New Year: It's Green, Green they say

 

Happiness is a headlamp for aging eyes

 The warm light of this headlamp, as opposed to the white light of so many comparable LEDs, is very natural. I get so much more done so quickly wearing this in the winter mornings and evenings. A wonderful gift!

Happiness is a very young John Anderson, singing "1959" released in November 1980

Happiness is Johnny Horton singing 1960's North to Alaska with a Dwight Yoakam cover

Happiness is John Anderson singing "Chicken Truck" in February 2014 at the Redneck Country Club in Stafford, Texas

 

Norm Crosby has died: May he wrest in piece

 His many happy conflagrations to the English languidage will never be forgotten.

Happiness is a martial birthday

A birthday happens not by chance,

it's not at all in our control.

Each a marker on a mission,

one by one they call, they beckon.

Every year makes its advance,

another checkpoint on patrol.

Take five to pause and to inspect

your kit to see if it's complete,

to get you through to duty's end

with what you need or must amend,

a time to rest and to reject

every thought of sad retreat.

We cannot know the outcome now,

but only that our part we play.

And when at last our task is done, 

and we our final course have run,

we trust our Captain will endow

the vict'ry ribbon to repay.

-- Johnny (For Monica, 4 October 2020)

Happiness is homemade tincture of lavender

Homemade tincture of lavender

2 cups vodka

1/2 cup culinary lavender flower buds (e.g. Folgate or Royal Velvet, aka English)

parchment paper

large clean canning jar with a secure lid (I use an old 48oz honey jar)

1) Add the buds to the jar.

The best culinary lavender buds are well sifted, with hardly any brown bracts or stems remaining. Fresh means the buds are bright and not faded.

Don't even THINK about using sachet-grade lavender. If you use e.g. Grosso, it will turn out . . . gross, perhaps even toxic.  

2) Pour the vodka into the jar.

3) Cut a generous piece of parchment paper for a lid liner. Wrap the parchment over the opening and screw on the lid over that. The parchment helps prevent any reaction between the contents and the lid's rubber and metal components.

4) Give the contents a whirl and store in a pantry away from light and heat for a month or so. At least weekly give it whirl to keep it mixed up.

5) Strain the contents through a sieve after a month and return the liquid to the same jar with the parchment between the lid and the jar for indefinite keeping on the shelf.

6) The tincture makes a refreshing cocktail in the summers over ice with some added sweetener and water, and is reminiscent of Ouzo or Anisette. Or jazz up your fresh-squeezed lemonade by adding some lavender tincture to it.

7) But mainly I use a tablespoon or two in hot tea made with honey and lemon in the colder months when I feel a cold or flu coming on. It usually stops the cold dead in its tracks if you begin with the tincture immediately on symptom onset, in my experience.  This is not medical advice. 

Happiness is David Seville and The Chipmunks from 1958 (you probably remember them as Alvin and The Chipmunks)

 

Happiness is the 1951 pro-police film . . . The Day the Earth Stood Still

Yes, Gort is actually a cop:

"There must be security for all -- or no one is secure... This does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves -- and hired policemen to enforce them. We of the other planets have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets -- and for the complete elimination of aggression. A sort of United Nations on the Planetary level... The test of any such higher authority, of course, is the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots-- Their function is to patrol the planets -- in space ships like this one -- and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. At the first sign of violence they act automatically against the aggressor. And the penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk."

Happiness is Mediterranean Tomato Sauce from Rosso and Lukins' THE NEW BASICS

Mediterranean Tomato Sauce, adapted

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

1 2oz can anchovies in oil

4 cloves garlic

2 28oz cans San Marzano tomatoes

3 T capers in salt, rinsed

1/2 c pitted Kalamata olives

ground black pepper

1) Combine EVOO, anchovies and all their oil, and garlic in a ceramic-coated dutch oven, mash gently and saute over medium heat a couple of minutes. To speed this up I just throw it all in the food processor first to chop it up, then add it to the dutch oven.

2) Add the tomatoes and crush, then add the capers and olives, bring up to heat, then simmer on low covered about an hour, stirring frequently.

3) Before using or storing, grind over some black pepper to taste.

4) Rosso and Lukins use only 35oz of tomatoes but triple the olives, 1.5 c.

We use this on Rosso and Lukins' Mediterranean Hero sandwich from the same cookbook, which is, in my opinion, absolutely fabulous, but is sort of a cheater's Pan Bagnat. We stir together canned atlantic salmon, chopped tomato, and red onion, and place this mixture in a hollowed-out side of an oiled french baguette cut lengthwise (stale is best). You top that with this sauce, then top that with sliced hard-boiled eggs and the other half of the baguette. Then we toast it in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes or so. Before serving we add romaine lettuce, and even avocado. The thing is glorious warm, room temperature, or cold. But this might be more glorious:

You haven't lived until you've tasted a FatBoy Ice Cream Sandwich

Easily the best ice cream sandwich I have ever had. And why not? Look at all that saturated fat in there.

I found an 18-pack for $9.98 at Sam's Club.

Happiness is The Reflections singing 1964's Just Like Romeo and Juliet

Happiness is just a state of mind

Happiness is . . . loving it!

Happiness is the 102 year old woman who says "Jesus did not change water into wine so that I could look at it"

Advice from a woman who survived covid-19, the 1918 flu - and cancer:

But when she's being introspective, she credits a strong immune system, avoidance of excessive worry and even her love of red wine. She was known to say, "Jesus did not change water into wine so that I could look at it."

Happiness is good instant coffee when you're up early and need to be quiet because no one else is

Yes, happiness is being "closer, and closer, and closer, like we used to be"

Happiness is making the morning coffee and suddenly this song pops into your head for no good reason

Happiness is super easy side-dish "Southwestern Rice" made with RO-TEL

1 can "original" RO-TEL, undrained

4 oz. prepared black beans, fully rinsed

4 oz. frozen sweet corn kernels, steamed and warm

1 cup already prepared Basmati rice, warm

Mix everything together in a heat-proof covered casserole dish and pop it in the oven on "warm" 20 minutes or so before serving. The tomatoes in the recipe prepared this way remain perkier than cooking the RO-TEL together with the rice.

You don't have to make your beans from scratch, but I did. Took about 3 hours. Rinse, cover with water in a heavy pot, boil, turn off heat & cover 1 hour. Return to boil, then to low, simmer 2 hours covered. Drain and rinse well. Ba-da-bing.