Happiness is getting your favorite thing for your birthday

Happiness is a cat with heart disease who wants to live

Here she is, all sick like, trying to catch some rays before judgment day.

Well, it's judgment day, and wouldn't you know it, she bestirred herself, rose up from the sick bed at 06:00, ate some dry food and trotted upstairs. Then she jumped to her happy place on the coffee table for a little rubdown, and then to the fountain for a good long drink like she hadn't drunk in two days. Well, she hadn't drunk in two days, nor eaten. And then she turns up in the kitchen at her feeding spot, looking at me like what's for breakfast, tender tuna or chicken? 

She's definitely turned a corner. Judgment day, postponed.

Happiness is Steve Earle's 1986 hit Guitar Town

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From Lost Highway:  History of Country Music III

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Official video.

Happiness is the ice cream sundae, invented in Two Rivers, WI in 1881

Happiness is a room somewhere

"My Fair Lady", Wouldn't It Be Loverly? - Audrey Hepburn

Happiness is spinach because it contains a natural steroid which really does build stronger muscles

Study: Spinach Is Pretty Much a Steroid, Maybe We Should Ban It

Happiness is Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano as Ulysses and Penelope in 1954's "Ulysses"

Mangano manages to get her share of screen time in the episode where the lonely witch Circe disguises herself as Ulysses' seductive wife.

The camera work of the blinding of Polyphemus is noteworthy for the way it makes the viewer use his imagination.

And a relatively young Anthony Quinn (age 39) takes one in the shoulder in the end.

Happiness is a good auto mechanic: Dutton Automotive

Happiness is the understanding of Pa in Little House on the Prairie

"There's nothing stricter than a reformed reprobate," says Pa reassuring Johnny Johnson's father about Mr. Edwards, in the episode "To See The World".

Happiness is make-ahead Italian lentil loaf

Italian lentil loaf                                                        

                                                       

2 cups lentils

1 bay leaf

1 cup fine bulgur wheat

1 egg

1 T tomato paste

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

1T extra virgin olive oil

4 oz rapini, blanched and finely chopped

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/4 t black pepper

1/2 t ground fennel seed

1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes, ground

1 t salt

1 t Hungarian paprika

2/3 cup grated Romano cheese

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

Ketchup or tomato sauce

1) Prepare the lentils by washing them. Bring 6 cups water to a boil in a saucepan, add the lentils and bay leaf, return to a boil and cover. Simmer on lowest setting for about 45 minutes. When tender, drain and reserve both the lentils and the cooking liquid to cool. Discard the bay leaf.

2) Prepare the bulgur. Boil two cups of liquid made from the reserved lentil broth in a saucepan, add the bulgur, stir, cover and turn off the heat and let bulgur cook 15 minutes. Then uncover to cool.

3) Whisk an egg in a mixing bowl. Whisk in the tomato paste, onion, olive oil, rapini, garlic, black pepper, fennel, red pepper, salt and paprika.

4) Using a large silicone spatula, stir in the cheese, bulgur and lentils, finishing with the bread crumbs.

5) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

6) Grease two glass bread pans with Crisco.

7) Press the lentil mixture into the bread pans and bake about 40 minutes. The loaves are done when a toothpick comes out clean.

8) At this point paint the loaves with some tomato sauce or ketchup and bake 5 minutes more.

9) Let the loaves cool on the stove top until cool to the touch. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight for serving the next day with more ketchup or tomato sauce and a side salad. The loaves slice evenly and cleanly and servings can be easily reheated in the microwave on a plate and kept warm in the oven as you prepare the salad.

Serves at least six.     

Happiness is the ARGO Corn Maiden image, vintage 1992

And of course there's a blog for that.

The image at left is of my own box, now finally empty.

When I was 11 years old, this man's victory in the ICE BOWL of 1967 made every boy in Wisconsin want to be Bart Starr

Bryan Bartlett Starr, January 9, 1934 – May 26, 2019, RIP.

Happiness is "quick" rustic loaves in the Chicago Metallic French Bread Pan

2 t yeast

1.5 c lukewarm water

dash sugar

2 t salt, generously rounded

.25 c rye flour
.25 c white whole wheat flour

3 c unbleached all purpose flour

splash olive oil

1) whisk water yeast and sugar in mixer bowl and let stand five minutes

2) add flour a little at a time starting with the rye and whole wheat and mix, using a silicone spatula to incorporate if needed, and add the salt when you still have one cup left to go

3) when you have one half cup left to go, add a generous splash of olive oil 

4) use spatula to turn out onto a floured board and knead-in the flour (dough will be sticky to start, so flour your hands also)

5) divide into two equal parts and roll out lengths to fit your pan

6) place in pan covered loosely with a clean damp dish towel to rise in a warm spot, about one hour

7) bake at 450 degrees F for 25 minutes on the middle level
8) allow to cool thoroughly on a rack before slicing  

Happiness is when the birdie does a self portrait on the window of your car

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Birdie.

There's an artist in everyone, sometimes just bursting forth.

As quickly as the one hit wonder struck, it was gone, never to be heard from again.

Happiness is 1961's "Who put the bomp" by Barry Mann

Who Put The Bomp - Barry Mann

Happiness is Slim Whitman singing "Paloma Blanca"

Happiness is lavender oil for anxiety

Have never tried it internally, but externally it's great!

Doctors should dish out LAVENDER OIL as a first-line treatment for people with anxiety instead of addictive drugs, psychiatrist claims:

Professor Hans Peter-Volz said doctors are too quick to dish out benzodiazepines and other drugs to patients with anxiety. ...

Professor Volz claimed lavender oil capsules have been shown to be as strong as commonly used anti-anxiety medications. ...

Professor Volz is the medical director of the Hospital for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine in Schloss, Germany.

Happiness is odds made even

The fox, the ape, and the bumble bee,

Were still at odds, being but three;

Until the goose came out of door,

And staid the odds by adding four.

-- William Shakespeare, Loves Labours Lost, Act III, Scene 1

Happiness is an Omaha Steaks Filet Mignon Burger on the grill

About $5 a pop for 5.3 oz. of delicious, tender beef with a whopping 16g of saturated fat per burger, a full day's allocation of dangerous, heart-clogging lard if you have coronary artery disease, or want to get it.

Still, a nice gift for that occasional transgression of the rules.

I washed it down with a head of broccoli!

Hail bounteous May . . .

 

Hail! bounteous May, that dost inspire

Mirth and youth, and warm desire;

Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.

-- John Milton (1608-1674)