Happiness is easy for you to say

 This song came out in 1988, the year I had a close uncle die, then another, then my car, and then my career.

But I'm still here, dammit!

 

 

Happiness is a life in revolutions per minute

 

Happiness is the kitchen time zone

 

Happiness is Yul Brynner saying et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

 

Orwell's dumpster

 

Why beans are best avoided when pregnant

  If the mother eat much beans, or such vaporous food, it endangereth the child to become lunatick.

 

 -- Francis Bacon

Happiness is having the world in the bag

 

Happiness is supper by five

 

Let it be so hasted, that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock.

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 2 Scene 2 

Happiness is no signs anywhere

 

Happiness is a really absurd expiration date

 

Happiness is January, right Jack?

 

Happiness is an extremity you'll do well to avoid

 The East and West

Upon the globe, a mathematick point

Only divides: thus happiness and misery,

And all extremes, are still contiguous.

 

-- Sir John Denham (1614/15-1669) 

Happiness is roast beef and gravy on a Tuesday, a lousy Tuesday

 

Happiness is my green tambourine: The Lemon Pipers, November 1967

Drop your silver in.

 

Happiness is a black-hearted kitty cat ear

 

Happiness is watching the president make a complete fool of himself by memorializing himself when he isn't even dead yet lol

Or maybe that guy we see walking around who looks like Trump isn't @realdonaldtrump after all.

 

Happiness is Kenji's Ski Lodge Chili

 

 Adapted from the recipe here.

Kenji's Ski Lodge Chili

Ingredients in the order I used:

2T avocado oil

1 lb ground beef

1/2 large white onion, diced

1 garlic clove, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced

2T tomato paste

 

Seasoning blend (my basic rule of thumb is 1/2-t per pound of ingredients, adjusted later to taste): salt, black pepper (1/4-t per pound), chili powder, red pepper flakes, cumin powder, oregano leaf. 

 

1 can Original Ro-Tel Tomatoes

1 empty Ro-Tel can chicken stock

1 lb already prepared black beans from an Instant Pot or canned

3 bay leaves

3 oz shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese

sour cream

2 diced green onions

1 handful chopped cilantro 

 

Method:

 

1-Brown meat on one side on high heat in oil, spread out in the bottom of a porcelain Dutch oven or stainless steel Dutch oven, large saute pan, or heavy bottom stock pot, while you dice.

2-Turn the browned meat and add the diced onion, garlic, and jalapeno and finish the browning and sweat the vegetables for a few minutes.

3-Make a well in this mixture and briefly cook the tomato paste and mix.

4-Make a well again and briefly cook the seasoning blend in the juices and mix.

5-Add the Ro-Tel and mix.

6-Add the chicken stock and mix.

7-Add the beans and mix.

8-Add one more can chicken stock and mix.

9-Add bay leaves and cover to simmer on low for 30 minutes.

10-Stir, taste, adjust seasoning and liquid as needed.

11-Serve topped with cheddar cheese, green onion, cilantro, and sour cream, with corn bread and side salad.

Happiness is an eager bride

A bride

Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,

As souls from bodies steal, and are not spy'd.

 

-- John Donne 

Happiness is General Charles de Gaulle, who loved his Down Syndrome daughter Anne

 

Anne was "My joy. She helped me overcome the failings in all men, and to look beyond them."

Happiness is a man of maximum practical application

 

... His father, Ed Gelvin, was more diversified. Over the years, he had become, it seems safe to say, as much as anyone in Alaska an example of what Steve Ulvi has in mind when he speaks so admiringly of "the man of maximum practical application". Mining, as it happened, was what first drew Ed and his wife, Ginny, into the country. ... Trapper, sawyer, pilot, plumber, licensed big-game guide, welder, ironworker, mechanic, carpenter, builder of boats and sleds, he suffered no lack of occupation. ...

-- John McPhee, Coming Into The Country (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977, 1991 paperback), pp. 232f.