Random Happy Makers

What makes you happy? I don't mean the big important stuff, I mean little, random stuff.

These are some of the things that make me randomly, maybe even only momentarily, happy...but enough to make me at least smile:

• Ladybugs
  
• Thunder and lightning storms when I'm safe at home and don't have to go anywhere
• A cold glass bottle of Coca Cola
• Seeing Hubby smile when he doesn't know I'm looking - he may be watching something on TV, or looking at something on the computer, whatever...
• Santa Claus at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
• A run-away balloon floating along...extra happy if it's red
• The sound of an ice cream truck
• Pop Rocks
• Dragonflies
• Watching a little kid spinning around for no reason
• Colored sprinkles
• Spiderwebs
• Rainbows (cliché I know)
• Watching old Cuban men playing dominoes at Domino Park
• My friend Cris' laugh
• Fair/Carnival Food (corn dog, cotton candy, etc.)
• Lying in a hammock
• Batido de Trigo (wheat shake)
• Craig Ferguson
• Red doors
• Sunflowers

How about you?

Yes, another Meme - 7 Random Things

I got this from Robin. I think I've posted a similar meme before, bit since it's random stuff, it's unlikely the same seven random things will come up again.

Official Rules:
Link to your tagger and list the rules
List 7 random facts about yourself
Tag 7 people
If you’re tagged, play along and pass it on!

My Rule:
I'm not tagging anyone, if you want to use this on your Blog, let me know in my Comments.

1. I need to get my bangs cut - I look like the Shaggy Dog (that was a movie right?)
2. I'm at *my* personal happiest place on earth - the Miami International Book Fair today! I'll post about today (Saturday) on Sunday and about tomorrow (Sunday) on Monday. Well, at least that's the plan.
3. I'm not going to continue watching "Dancing With the Stars" for the rest of the season - it's boring this year.
4. I'm fascinated by the whole Obama picking his Cabinet thing
5. I'm having a bad week of sugar readings...
6. I am way too amused by the "throwing under the bus" of Sarah Palin by the whining loser McCain campaign people. It's wrong, I know, I'm a bad person.
7. I like Rachel Maddow way more than I like Keith Olbermann.

OK, your turn.

Random Dots

• Last night I went to see David Sedaris "in concert". It wasn't a book signing at a book store, it was in a theater where he read from different sources. It was a surprise invitation from a dear friend, who advised that it was "her treat". How nice is that? It turns out to be exactly what I needed, a fun night out with a friend with whom I don't spend enough time. Before going to the theater we had dinner at her house with her 14 year old son who was a blast! We had bratwurst, macaroni and cheese, salad and my friend and I enjoyed a lovely Cab/Shiraz blend. We both realized it was the first time we had ever had macaroni and cheese with wine. It's a perfect pairing! Sedaris was fantastic. While I've read all of his books, except the most recent, I haven't liked them all - but he is fantastic in person. He's funny, irreverent, quirky, crude (but in a good way). If you ever get the chance to see him live, do so - it is totally worth it. and if you can do it with a friend all the better!
  


• While I was watching Sedaris, hubby was watching the Philadelphia Phillies winning the National League pennant and making it into the World Series for the first time in 15 years! YAY PHILLIES!



• Because of Sedaris and baseball, we DVRd the third and final (thankfully) Presidential debate. By the time I got home, watched the last 3 innings of the game with Hubby, watched the post-win celebration coverage and dealt with the plethora of calls from the in-laws in Philadelphia, we wound up watching the debate at around 12:30 a.m.. And then we watched the post-debate talking heads. I fell asleep after 4:00 a.m. - and woke up for work at 7:00 a.m. unable to pretty much move - my brain kept sending the signals to my body to move, but it didn't want to. After much cursing and sighing I finally dragged my caffeine-craving carcass into the office. Thus far I haven't fallen down, so I'm counting this as personal victory.



• Regarding the debate - you all know I'm an Obama supporter, so you know I think he won the debate. I will give McCain props for the first half hour - he looked good, made some good points and even got in a couple of good and fair jabs at Obama. Alas, then he started trying to rattle Obama and when that didn't happen McCain pissed himself off and went downhill from there. All the polls, except probably FOX News (DUH!) had Obama winning the debate handily. YAY!



• So about Joe the Plumber - no relation as far as we can tell to Joe Six-Pack - is not a licensed plumber. Oh, and the plumbers' union isn't happy with McCain's apparent appropriation of plumbers and in fact were the first labor union to endorse Obama. I don't know if that's important, but it amused me. Do you think Joe the Plumber knows about Andy Warhol ? Things that make you say hmmmm...

That's it for now...

What did you do last weekend?

I had an OK weekend...

• I got my hair cut. I don't love it. I think I look like Prince Valiant - remember him? I'm 44 years old and the hair stylist gave me a page boy haircut! What is that about? Anyway, it'll go away when I wash my hair and don't blow dry it.
• I went to visit the new local Whole Foods Market. Sadly, I was a week early. Bummer. I'll try again next Saturday. You can't imagine how excited everybody is about this place!
• My refrigerator, which came with the condo and is about 87,000 years old, is acting weird. We have a mysterious daily pooling of water on the bottom shelf - but nothing else is wet, so it's not dripping from the freezer. It's just water that apparently comes from nowhere. It's just there. Of course when hubby and I started discussing getting a new refrigerator, the mysterious pooling stopped.
• Sunday my friend Cris and I made spaghetti squash with a fresh tomato, olive oil and fresh garlic sauce. It was awesome. We also made (invented?) a lovely appetizer: fresh figs cut in half then stuffed with a veined cheese with which I wasn't familiar, topped with a dollop of balsamic vinegar and nuked. The thing is we nuked them a bit too long which made them really tasty - the cheese sort of dissolved into the fig - but not pretty. Further experimentation is required.
• Sunday night/Monday morning I didn't fall asleep till like 4 a.m. then woke up today at 7:00 a.m. and managed to go to work, not fall down, attend a meeting and not fall asleep, and actually wound up being relatively productive. I had, I'm totally not exagerrating, 7 shots of Cuban coffee in two sittings - 4 shots at around 9:30 a.m. and 3 shots at around 2 p.m.

I'm sleepy now...good night.

Birthday Musings

WOOT, WOOT - it's my birthday, boopydoopboop!

I'm 44 today, and here's some of what I'm thinking:

• I watched the whole Live Earth, on Bravo from 9:00 a.m to 2:30 a.m. OK, I TiVO-like substanced it, but I saw the whole thing. It was phenomenal! In addition to the message, which obviously was so important, the music was fantastic. They got everyone! The Police, Madonna, Bon Jovi, Black-Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Shakira, among others were great. Oh - and Nunatak were awesome! And Melissa Etheridge's performance was riveting and so timely. A great effort.
• This is annoying me more than I should let it
• Things that make you say Hmmmm...U.S. Aborted Raid on Qaeda Chiefs in Pakistan in ’05
• We have a pair of orioles that live in the tree that sits in the patio where my favorite easy chair faces. They make me happy.

So, now that I've started my 45th year I look forward to our political climate changing, I hope to make some changes for my health and for the environment (what can I say, the concert inspired me!), and I hope my orioles stick around.

As I celebrate my birthday I recognized how blessed I am and I am thankful.

Mish Mash Hodge Podge

I'm stealing Dixie Peach's bullets today. I've got all sorts of random thoughts in my head...

• I'm happy Jordin won the American Idol shebang. It's the second season in a row my I picked the winner from the Top Twelve.
• The season finale of LOST was awesome! It answered questions, asked new ones, and kept us on a trippy roller-coaster ride during the full two hours.
• I was really, really disturbed by Wednesday's episode of The View. I've always liked Rosie O'Donnell a lot and believe Elisabeth truly hurt and disappointed her. I've been hurt and disappointed by someone I considered to be a friend and it sucks. I think Rosie didn't articulate her position as well as she could have, but to extrapolate that she believes our troops are terrorists is ridiculous - particularly when you take into consideration how much time and money she is dedicating to the returning wounded troops.
• Although I'm disappointed with the war-spending bill Congress presented to Dubyuh, I believe they did the best they could with the situation at hand. It was a given anything with a time-line was going to be vetoed, so I like that they made it crystal-clear that it was the President that was completely disregarding the opinion of the increasing majority of the American public that wants our troops out of Iraq.
• Everyone keeps telling me Dubyuh and company are not going to invade Iran, but this they seem to be doing the same things they did pre-Iraq: exaggerating the danger they pose, military maneuvers in the area, calling for increased sanctions, etc.
• I'm glad to see most of my must-see TV shows coming to a conclusion - be it season finales or series finales - I want to concentrate on other things.
• I'm getting my hair cut this weekend for the first time in a couple of years - I have no idea what I'm going to have done.
• I've been feeling unnecessarily tired lately. I thought it might be that my long-lost period was coming on. Since the joy that is peri-menopause hit, I have no idea when, or if, it's coming. Apparently that wasn't it though. Still, just in case, I'm going out this weekend to a favorite Cuban restaurant and having a big, fat "bistec de higado con cebolla frita" (liver steak smothered in fried onions).
• At the office today we got a copier/printer/scanner/fax machine that basically requires an advanced degree in Engineering (sigh).

That's all for now...