Happiness is a vacation to Puerto Backyarda

 

Happiness is an oldie but a goodie

 

Happiness is clover when you have no manure

  

 Clover is the best way of improving clays, where manure is scarce.

-- John Mortimer (c.1656-1736)

Happiness is Radio Taiso Snow Edition

 

Happiness is a toasted plain bagel for breakfast, with ricotta cheese and jam

 

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Happiness is Granny Hawkins: I say that big talk's worth doodly-squat

Decoration Day

 

 Embrace again, my sons! be foes no more;

Nor stain your country with her children's gore.

-- John Dryden

Happiness is Vera Lynn, 1917-2020, "the Forces' Sweetheart" and the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the 20th century

Read all about the amazing woman who bested the Beatles, and Bob Dylan, here.

Vincenzo's Plate got me to try Mutti Passata from a jar, available at my grocery: What a revelation of tomato sauce goodness

 

Happiness is fresh spring air

 Gentle gales,

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

These balmy spoils.

-- John Milton

Happiness is a Neapolitan coffee pot: La cuccuma napoletana

 

Happiness is a Bud Light meme, unless you are Bud Light

 

You don't have to be rich to biddy biddy bum

 

Otherwise, I putz in my yard. I do a bit of writing. Once in a while, I have small get-togethers at my apartment. I’m kind of embarrassed by how deeply satisfying and comforting my simple routines are, and by how much I care for my cats. 

More.

Happiness is Dave's Good Seed Bread

 Especially toasted with butter and cherry jam, accompanied by scrambled eggs and coffee.

What a breakfast!

 

Happiness is Teenager in Love by Dion and the Belmonts 1959

 

Happiness is being born again

 

Happiness is Wanda Jackson singing her 1957 Fujiyama Mama which was a #1 in Japan for six months in 1958

 

Happiness is a brick collection

 

Happiness is a map of the many cheeses of France

 

Happiness is the nearby hu-hu-hu sound of an owl on a winter evening

 

Happiness is finally discovering the secret to good television reception

 

Happiness is The Bayerische Staatsoper Opern Studio performing Funiculi, funiculà with maestro Villazón

 

Happiness is dark chocolate, despite the "heavy metals" brouhaha

 The Consumer Reports story has now made it to CNBC:

5 brands—including Trader Joe’s—whose dark chocolate tested high for lead, cadmium

When the story first came out I was alarmed because I regularly consume two or three small squares of the very worst chocolate bar in the original report.

Long story short, I calculate that I have consumed 0.72 micrograms lead per day for some time.

In 2022 the FDA fixed the lead limit for women of childbearing age at 8.8 micrograms per day:

The FDA lowered its IRLs for dietary lead to 2.2 μg/day for children and 8.8 μg/day for females of childbearing age.

Like everything else from California, its "maximum allowable dose level (MADL)" is hysterical.

 

I may change brands in the future, but I'm in no hurry.

What? Me worry?

 

Happiness is a wealthy redneck woodstove

 

Happiness is an avocado, but not because it has flavor

 The fruit is of itself very insipid, for which reason they generally eat it with the juice of lemons and sugar, to give it a poignancy.

-- Phillip Miller (1691-1771)

Happiness is beans, beans the magical fruit

 A nutritionist shares the ‘underrated’ longevity food she eats every day to boost her immune system :

According to a 2022 study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, swapping out red meats and processed foods for legumes, whole grains, vegetables can increase life expectancy by more than a decade for people in their 20s or 30s. ...

In fact, the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association recommend eating legumes as an alternative to animal proteins to help lower the risk of cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Happiness is the five pillars of a longevity diet

Whole grains like corn, rice and oats (complex carb)

Greens

Tubers, including potatoes and yams (complex carb)

Nuts

Beans (complex carb)

 

More.

Happiness is chastity, an obscene word which has a tit in it

 

Happiness is a ridinghood in winter

 Good housewives all the winter's rage despise,

Defended by the ridinghood's disguise.

 

-- John Gay (1685-1732)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in New Jersey

 

Happiness is the end of election season

 

Happiness is oats in England, if you are a horse

 

A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. 

-- Samuel Johnson

Happiness is retiring to the country with your friends

 All hail, ye fields, where constant peace attends!

All hail, ye sacred, solitary groves!

All hail, ye books, my true, my real friends,

Whose conversation pleases and improves!

-- William Walsh (1663-1708)

Happiness is a silver saucepan

 If your butter when melted tastes of brass, it is your master's fault who will not allow you a silver saucepan. 

-- Jonathan Swift

Happiness is the word queue

 

Happiness is freedom from anxiety

 To be happy, is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience, and tranquillity of mind.

-- John Tillotson (1630-1694)

Happiness is whole wheat toast, raw honey, Saigon cinnamon, and pecan halves: The faster, easier, cheaper, and healthier morning cinnamon roll

 Still works for me!

toast it

slather it

sprinkle it

top it

Happiness is Enrico Caruso singing Verdi, Rigoletto: Act III: La donna é mobile

 

Woman is flighty.
Like a feather in the wind,
she changes in voice
and in thought.

Always a lovely,
pretty face,
in tears or in laughter,
it is untrue.

Refrain
Woman is fickle.
Like a feather in the wind,
she changes her words
and her thoughts!

Always miserable
is he who trusts her,
he who confides in her
his unwary heart!

Yet one never feels
fully happy
who from that bosom
does not drink love!

Refrain
Woman is fickle.
Like a feather in the wind,
she changes her words,
and her thoughts!

Happiness is grape season

 Come, thou monarch of the vine,

Plumpy Bacchus, with pink eyne,

In thy vats our cares be drown'd.

-- William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene 7

Happiness is the Ramones 1992 It's Gonna Be Alright

 

Happiness is June Carter and Johnny Cash singing Jackson

 

Apples harvested too early can taste like the soil

 

 The cyder at first is very luscious, but if ground more early, it is more racy.

-- John Mortimer (c.1656-1736), The Whole Art of Husbandry

Happiness is 15 minutes of solar noon sunlight

  For most white people, a half-hour in the summer sun in a bathing suit can initiate the release of 50,000 IU (1.25 mg) vitamin D into the circulation within 24 hours of exposure; this same amount of exposure yields 20,000–30,000 IU in tanned individuals and 8,000–10,000 IU in dark-skinned people. ... spending a few minutes outdoors (3–15 minutes for whites and 15–30 minutes for blacks) when the sun is highest in the sky, with 40% of the skin area exposed.

 

For more see "Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health".

Happiness is a '68 magic bus

 

Happiness is neither poverty nor riches

Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.

-- Proverbs 30:8f.

Happiness is the electric performance by Paul Anka of his 1957 hit Diana, inspired by a boyhood crush

 

Happiness is Number 1 by the 1960s folk band The Highwaymen

 It's a long way down . . .

Happiness is Joe's two cents for your thoughts

 

Happiness is the clear head of the morning

 As soon as Phoebus' rays inspect us,

First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.

-- Matthew Prior

Happiness is belly-timber

 The strength of every other member

Is founded on your belly-timber.

-- Matthew Prior

Happiness is fourteen miles to the Cumberland Gap

 

 

Lay down, Boys, and take a little nap, Lay down, Boys, and take a little nap, Lay down, Boys, and take a little nap, Fourteen miles to the Cumberland Gap.

Cumberland Gap with its cliffs and rocks Home of the panther, bear and fox. The first white man in Cumberland Gap, Was a Doctor Walker, an English chap.

Happiness is jibber jabber, just not in my courtroom

 

Happiness is the 1982 "Mumbo Jumbo" TV ad

 

Happiness is the most important difference between your smart phone and your dumb phone

 With the smart phone you can butt-dial a conference call and piss-off multiple people all at once instead of annoying just one person by mistake.

Happiness is the 1960 hit "Wings of a Dove" performed by Ferlin Husky

 

Happiness is having a pulse!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nyuk, nyuk.

Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. ... And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat. 

-- Daniel 1:12, 15

Happiness is correct use of the comparative degree

 

Happiness is the cowslip

 And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:

-- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2, Scene 1

Happiness is a ground-dwelling bird

 Have you mark'd a partridge quake,

Viewing the tow'ring falcon nigh?

She cuddles low behind the brake;

Nor would she stay, nor dares she fly.

 

-- Matthew Prior

Happiness is Sam Cooke's 1960 "Wonderful World"

 

Happiness is my new "go-to" canned tomatoes: Contadina San Marzano Style

 

"Product of Italy" available on the shelf right here in Michigan, right now.

Happiness is fast and easy roasted red pepper sauce

Fast and Easy Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

1 jar Mezzetta Roasted Red Bell Peppers, drained

1 ripe avocado

2 T extra virgin olive oil

1-2 T fresh lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, pressed

0.5 t salt

0.5 t black pepper

0.5 t crushed red pepper flakes

Add everything to a food processor and blend until smooth. Makes about 2.5 cups. Freeze half and use the rest on cooked black beans, pasta, vegetables, or sandwiches.

Happiness is seeing a crimson-red Scarlet Tanager, which stands out even from the everyday Cardinals

 

Happy Mother's Day

The carnation does not drop its petals, but hugs them to its heart as it dies, and so, too, mothers hug their children to their hearts, their mother love never dying.

-- Anna Jarvis

When you have your health, you have everything

Jesus Ben Sirach, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no riches above a sound body, and no joy above the joy of the heart.

-- Ecclesiasticus 30:16

Delight each May morning

 The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,

For they delight each May morning.

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

-- William Shakespeare