Oh Joy!

Greetings to all from the “frozen North” – where it’s currently in the mid-50’s or 60’s and pouring buckets. Egads boys – the igloos are a-meltin’!! Someone call “Bob” in Vancouver…we all know him, right? We MUST. He apparently lives “up here” – albeit five provinces and about three time zones away. No matter! Tell him to bring some of that Canadian bacon over when he shows up since we eat ours so fast that we just can’t keep a steady supply. Someone suggested once that we just try HAM… nahhhhhh it couldn’t possibly be the same, could it? Have I covered enough Canadian stereotypes in one paragraph yet? NO? Well gee… let me put down my Labatt’s and I’ll ask for some decorative stationery from the newly-married gay couple next door so I can take more notes. ::: grin ::: Sorry folks. Just having a little fun at the expense of my “South of the Border” friends and loved ones. Thank heavens ya’ll have a sense o’ humor <= note the Americanized spelling, would ya? I’m REALLY sucking up now. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I’m in such a good mood lately. Where I live, this kind of euphoric state is usually coined “joie de vivre”… or, literally translated, “joy of living”. I started to think about that the other day. Joy of living. To what miraculous events, to what momentous occasions, do we attribute this abundance of happiness best summed up in three simple letters… J-O-Y? I mean, even Martha Stewart never called it the JOY of living… just “Living” – which, in light of current circumstances, was probably a good choice. I decided to pay closer attention and I now realize how we truly abuse the term. For instance, the joy of cooking? Yeah right. Anyone who has ever tried to stretch – and please feel free to join me as I break into song - six soft potatoes, five dried out carrots, four cans of creamed corn, three rows of crackers, two cups of milk and a pound of frozen ground beeeeeeeeeef until pay day finds NO joy in cooking, I’m sure. Since I seem to have some time on my hands lately, I turned to my trusty search engine to see what else people have deemed joyous. Expecting nothing short of an epiphany, imagine my surprise at what I found. A website about the joy of socks! A PBS featured program called “The Joy of Pigs”. Another website on the joy of home winemaking – well ok, I am pretty sure I could be downright ecstatic once the wine was already made. The joy of sects - WHEEEE! Oh WAIT! Damn. That’s not spelled right, is it? :::sigh::: Keep looking… the joy of handspinning – that sounded WAY too “Exorcist-y” for me until I dared to click a link and saw spinning wheels and yarn. “The Joy of Weight Loss” by Norman Chumley?! Mr. Chumley, with all due respect, I’ll be glad to let you know how joyous that feels too, along with the joys of climbing Mount Everest and winning the lottery – since I have about an equal chance of accomplishing any one of those things! The simplest dictionary definition for joy is “intense happiness”. I suppose no matter who we are, where we live, what we do in our lives, we all someday experience intense happiness. For some, it comes with the birth of a child. For others, it’s the accomplishment of a life-long goal. For me? Intense happiness occurs in many ways… like finally seeing the light at the end of a tunnel and it doesn’t turn out to be an oncoming train. It has taken me a lot of years but I’ve finally learned that I earn my joys in small doses and I appreciate each and every one. But, for now, you’ll have to excuse me. I just corrected a nasty little spelling error I made earlier and suddenly have some further “joys” to brush up on. How did I ever manage to spell it “sects” in the first place??