Happiness is Music

~ Jenny

I’ve been making myself crazy between the book and the house and a thousand everyday things, and then Bob started talking about ring tones, and then after he quit for the night (he’s a day writer which I don’t get, must be a military thing), I started just searching for music in general and ended up with Cyndi Lauper singing “I Drove All Night,” and Rihanna doing “Umbrella” (yes, of course I watched the Tom Holland lip sync again) and Kelly Clarkson ripping her boy friend a new one along with his leather seats and tires with “Before He Cheats,” and Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance” and Sugarland doing “Come On, Eileen” with Sara Bareilles . . . well, there was more, and that’s when I remembered that playing music has kept me sane and happy all my life, something I forget when I get too far up in my own head. So I owe Bob for that one, too.

I told him Liz’s ringtone for Vince at the end of Lavender’s Blue is “Break on Me” which Bob doesn’t like because he says it’s boring. He’s wrong, it’s wonderful and sensitive and . . . but I am a cooperative collaborator so now Vince’s ringtone is “I’m Still A Guy.”

Music: Happiness three minutes at a time.

What made you happy this week?

53 thoughts on “Happiness is Music”

  1. I finally made a playlist of music that was popular when my friends and I were in school. Because… THEY CAME HOME. 6 out of the 8 core group could make it. Yayness. Made me extremely happy. We talked so much we didn’t even get time to play silly card games. I am still so damn happy. It’s ridiculously.

  2. Busy week on the flower farm. I planted lots of seedlings this week and seeded lots of sunflowers, stock and other late summer flowers. One of my favourite tasks as I get to watch them grow throughout the season and then harvest them.

    My brother and SIL stayed overnight and we had a lovely late dinner under our gazebo. I won’t see my brother before he heads back to California but I’ve enjoyed our visits.

    My new purse arrived – it’s bright green, in between grass and melon. I know it’s just an object but the colour is bright and happy and makes me smile every time I use it.

  3. Was entertained by LN mentioning an Apocalypse library. My dear sister bought paper Murderbot Diaries for this exactly identified reason.

    Have felt fairly productive this week, which is nice. Except for the paid job (“I thought I told you not to send that person a statement” whoops “Why did you get a price quote on 8 nights when I only need a hotel for 6?” uhm…..) but completed the physical inventory without any mysteries, so that is always lovely.

    Have two people reading and enjoying T Kingfisher’s Paladin series, so vicarious pleasure there. I just bought the third one, which I will save as a reward for reading something I am finding tedious, but must read for our small reading group.

    Have fun things to eat before starting extreme virtue after the 4th. And Happy 4th to all you USA folk.

    1. The new Eli Easton dropped on Friday which I read about in her newsletter while having breakfast with my parents. There I had Wifi, so was sble to download it immedeately (KU even!). Hurray! Got totally immersed in Hot Pursuit on the train ride and managed to finish it just 5 minutes ago.
      Happiness is having the chance to dive into a good book with only the minor distractions of the day job and family…
      Didn’t want to wait until GBT to mention that it’s a very pleasant book and a nice mystery, book 3 in the Hot Cannoli series, this time with Uncle Rick, the homicide cop, in the centre. I very much liked the love interest, too. No big misunderstanding for suspense around 85 %, but a critical situation with the case they are working on. Good!

      1. Sorry, didn’t intend to reply but obviously was too impatient to scroll down far enough for the comments field…

    2. I don’t have an apocalypse library so much as a “someday Jeff Bezos is going to decide that I don’t have the rights to the books I bought for some obscure reason, ” library.

      Also, I enjoy paper books and collecting, and hunting out the ones I want to own at sales and such. It’s really three hobbies in one.

      1. Also, the advantage of an Apocalypse Library is that, your kids and grand kids (none yet for me but I am looking forward to having some at some point) can easily dip in it.

        I got into SF because my dad and my uncle had a bunch of SF novels tucked away in a cupboard at my grand mother’s house. I read and reread those books so much. Lots of classic stuff: Arthur C Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Van Voght …
        If these had all been locked away in an e reader, I would have missed out so much.

        1. I may need to build a false back on some of my bookshelves and hide some stuff before descendants wander through… Definitely some of the manga. 😛

      2. Yes, I heard a rumour all you have to do is move to another region and you might not be able to access some things you bought online.

  4. So, did the dilatory power cords ever loiter their way into the music house? (Crossed fingers are hoping to know.)

    1. Nope. Still depending on one.
      But Apple is sending me new ones. Still trying to get my $8 overnight shipping charge refunded.

  5. Agree. Some songs just stick with you.

    I still have the album with Cyndi Lauper’s “She Drove all Night” and Come on Eileen somewhere. I also have a rendition of Celine Dion doing “Drove All Night.”

    Since I’ve been down a rabbit hole of learning all about the brain over the past couple years, I learned there are reasons music has such an impact on our brains and moods. Especially music of the nostalgic sort. So yay for the songs that make you happy:)

    The happy here is that the weather has been fab for the long weekend. Plus, they moved the fireworks in our neighbourhood this year near us and we could see them out the window. We literally had the best seats in the house for the show. Fireworks here were Friday for Canada Day and very pretty. Also very loud, but thankfully the pup didn’t mind which made us all happy.

    1. We’re in for a rough weekend here: Mona hates thunder and any loud bangs. She crawls up, tries to sit on my shoulder and bury her face in my neck. I build a nest of pillows next to me that she can burrow into and pat her whenever I stop typing.

      1. Totally get it. We had that with some pups, too. Serious fear issues. Now, we seem to be good so long as we close windows. But good on you with the nested pillows idea–tucking that away to try if our pup has more problems as she gets older.

  6. This conversation makes me think about how Stranger Things used music in the newest season.

    And I really love how it has brought Kate Bush to the younger generation. Her music deserves more attention and I appreciate that they picked someone relatively obscure to highlight. It’s a win win, and that makes me happy.

    Now I just have to survive all the @#$& fireworks for the next three days. Looking forward to finally sleeping after that…

  7. While useful in giving character insight, my impression is that music ringtones are, like Facebook, a thing that’s more for the Baby Boomers than Gen X on down. Obviously that may vary, but if your small Ohioan town is anything like my small Pennsylvanian town, it might hold up.

  8. First off, the big happy, I finished the first draft on the book. I’m tickled so much about it, and I love how it playes with the tropes and subverts standard expectations. It’ll be a bit different for folks who’ve read any of my longer stuff, because I pretty much stick to one genre this time.

    Yes, music is important. (to me it’s pretty much life, but that’s common for folks who get a degree in it) Early in the week the muse pulled one of those, “we interrupt your creative endeavor with a special notice: Here, have this new melody, rhythm, and bass line.” I’ve learned to deal with the muse’s mercurial nature, so I popped into the Zen Room, fired up my live keyboard rig, and played the melody into the sequencer. I thought about doing the rhythm and bass too, but I figured I could remember those from the melody, so I saved, shut it down, and went back to writing. Because sometimes you’ve got to show the muse who’s boss.

    And I’m happy that none of my friends fell off the life bus this last week. There’s been too much of that in the last few years.

  9. I am happy that the library has decided my card exists again. For some strange reason their computer decided that my account did not exist. For the best part of a week, any time I tried to log into my account, I got a message saying that neither my library card number nor my pin number could be found. What made this particularly confusing was the fact that I still got a robocall saying that a book that I ordered was ready to pick up. Since 2 books had been listed as In Transit the previous week, I believed the robocall and not my computer. When I went to the library to pick up the books, I had no trouble checking them out and yesterday I was able to log on to my account as if nothing had ever happened. I would chalk this up to a bug in the library’s computer except that I didn’t receive any emails from Argh this week and Mollie just got my name back on the list a few weeks ago. So I am happy that the library account is functioning again, but I think there is still something wrong with my computer.

  10. I’m happy that I’m on vacation for the whole week, even if it’s a staycation so my routine won’t change that much, except my days will be all about “wanna” and not “should.”

    Also, the black raspberries in my yard should be ripe sometime this week, and I wanna eat them all.

    1. You have black raspberries? I’m so envious. I’ve tried to explain to many people that blackberries are not the same as black raspberries. I grew up in western Pennsylvania and we had black raspberries growing wild that were so delicious. I do so miss that summer treasure.

      1. I have some blackberries too, despite doing my best to kill them off (birds plant more), but blech to blackberries! Never did understand the enthusiasm for them. The ones I had in the yard as a kid were bigger and juicier compared to the ones in my current yard, and they made great pies, but for fresh eating, they weren’t anywhere near as good as black raspberries.

        1. I grew up eating wild blackberries, which are ground hugging vines that are about 2 or 3 inches high and spread widely. They have a very intense flavor and frequently grow in forest areas in the mountains that have recently been burned. They taste nothing like the overgrown shrub blackberries that were introduced by European settlers. We call those Evergreen or Himalayan blackberries. There is nothing like pie made from wild blackberries.

      2. Cathy, I grew up in western PA too, and we had both black raspberries and blackberries growing wild. There is a definite difference between them (one is not better than the other, both are good, but definitely different).

  11. So far not too many fireworks. Certainly fewer that I was expecting. And Pixie seems more inclined to bark at them than to be afraid. We’ll see what happens later since they will get more intense.

    Happiness is purple fingers. I have black raspberries growing in my yard. I eat a few every time I pass the bushes.

    No meetings this week! No rallies! No appointments!

    Spent 3 hours at Verizon switching my old slider (5G is coming!) to an iPhone. Happy I had them do it. Saved me a lot of frustration. Also would have been really unhappy to discover that they only include part of the charging cord. The part that plugs into the outlet is separate. Really bad part was having to key in all of my contacts since iPhone security wouldn’t permit a download. Anyway it’s all done.

    1. Another person blessed with black raspberries! (I’ll just go sit in a corner and petulantly pout with envy.)

  12. Three day weekend! Yesterday I went to a museum exhibit, did a lot of shopping, went out to lunch and did karaoke (masked). Today is “lie around the house all day” day, I think. I stopped sleeping circa 5 a.m. (I’m sick of 5 a.m. wakeups) but didn’t get out of bed until nearly 11. Probably gonna hang out at the park tomorrow.

    I did get into Beauty and the Beast (ensemble as usual). So I get to go back to theater on Tuesday, and thank god. June has been a loooooong month off.

  13. Um, it’s Carrie Underwood that wrote/sang “Before He Cheats.” Kelly Clarkson has the terrific anthem, “Since You’ve Been Gone” (and a long long time ago, someone made a Gilmore Girls eff-you-to-Chris version using that song as the background that’s terrific).

    Three-day weekend brings a lot of happy. I’m drawing plans because we are finally going to finish the remodel. I actually went shopping for flooring yesterday and the Floor & Decor near me had, apparently in the month since I’ve been there, expanded into the space next door and it’s HUGE. I had that moment when I walked in and it feels like a couple of football fields of pretty stuff — tile, flooring, cabinets, sinks, etc., and I practically got dizzy from the happy.

    2. I saw that too, thought maybe she covered it, so I put Before he cheats, Kelly Clarkson, into youtube. her version is pretty good.

      1. Nope, the one I was listening to is Underwood. I found it by accident. The other songs are old faves, so I was less likely to screw them up.

    3. Oh, hell, that’s what I get for not checking.
      Thank you, Toni!
      Is this still the big building in New Orleans that the historical society was making at PITA?

  14.       Okay, I must admit that I enjoyed (very much!) some of the music you listed. It also made me take another look at what’s on my computer. Best of the Moody Blues, Best of the Beach Boys, several Simon and Garfunkel albums, a Garfunkel and Oates album, the three CD set best of Queen, a couple Urban Tapestry albums (You and Krissie remind me of the friendship song)(and I like to sing Sex and Chocolate for grins and giggles), The Best of the Doobie Brothers… and a few individual songs, like Because I Knew You from Wicked, and Come On Eileen from your list, and others. Most of my music directory is audiobooks. All that made me happy this afternoon.
          But I was already happy today. All my tea orders from Amazon but one have arrived. Today was Mu-16 and Lady Grey. My sample box isn’t even half empty yet. I may accidentally lose some of them. Some of the herbals were interesting, but others… meh. Still happy, though.
          I don’t know if it made me happy or insane; Click & Grow sent me a coupon for another Smart Garden-3 for less than half price. I have five of them – why would I need a sixth? I deleted the email.
          Just in case I missed it the first time, they resent the email, causing me to relive my favorite Oscar Wilde quote: I can resist anything except temptation. Yes, a sixth Smot Gahden is on the way. I shall name it Ranch Zero and call it Zed. Or maybe Zod. But six is the limit! I won’t fall for their tricks again. Maybe. Oh, just hell.

  15. I love the playlist, Jenny.

    I’ve been listening to a lot of different covers of Breathless by The Corrs for a fanfic I’m working on. I have a different cover of the same song for each of the main characters. Also Cry to Me (Solomon Burke) and Shivers (Ed Sheeran). And Sucker (Jonas Brothers).

  17. In Kelowna visiting my cousin. We are having a great time. Not happy about the vehicle breaking down. But, that meant more time with Geri. Long weekend meant waiting until tomorrow to get it fixed. Very expensive and unplanned weekend. But, more time with Geri. We haven’t seen each other for 4 years.

  18. I’m a week into my leave and spending time with my family all together. It’s really wonderful to see them all, but stressful in that special way only family can be. And I miss my cats. It’s harder to sleep without them snuggling in.

  19. My husband and I have both been struggling with Covid. It’s been 3 weeks now and we are still sick. So it’s been hard to find some happiness to report. But now there’s Wimbledon, which has come at just the right time in my recovery when I (1) can focus on the TV, (2) am bored, and (3) have no energy to get off the couch. So I’m thankful for Wimbledon.

  20. My favorite place to listen to music is driving my Kia Soul – which I love. Yesterday I listened to couple of songs by Tori Amos & then a couple by Florence & the Machine & then at least 5 by First Aid Kit.
    I am happy because – I finished the 5 minute write for my memoir class. Also finished a kick ass poem that I am going to read on the Pinellas Writers Zoom meeting. It is called Margaret Sanger Is Rolling In Her Grave & I love it. (If I can say that about my poem that I wrote.)

    1. I think you have to say it. Some writers spend too much time looking at their stuff and thinking it’s lousy because it isn’t perfect.
      Thank god I’m not like that.

      1. lol good thing you have arghers to remind you how good your writing is!
        Also it’s a new day and I am starting it with Silver Linings by First Aid Kit stuck in my head. “I won’t take the easy road, the easy road, the eeeeeeasy road.”

  21. The two roses I moved to the allotment in February have started flowering, and look happy – I’m especially pleased about the one whose roots broke when I dug it up. I’m also enjoying a tubful of early potatoes, started in the greenhouse. And the blueberries are just beginning, now I’ve netted them from the birds.

    I kept checking Newsify yesterday and this morning, but this post is still not showing there – I eventually found it by checking Argh direct. It’s probably one of Newsify’s odd delays, which happen from time to time.

  22. Happiness is being back home from vacation, despite a lovely time, because I missed my husband and dogs who were gratifyingly happy to see me. Unfortunately and predictably, my very own personal super spreader event did indeed result in my testing positive for COVID but I’ve had symptoms since Tuesday and they are getting better so cause for optimism.

    And most important: Happy July 4th to my American friends!

      1. I’m really much better. However, I’ve developed weird rashes which I now have a a macabre fascination for.

  23. Music definitely made me happy this week. Yesterday I made 276 banana muffins for Paul to take in his lunch and I listened to music the entire time, Billie Holiday and Colin James to be precise with some Paul Simon thrown in while I was cutting up strawberries for dessert. That’s enough muffins for 19 shifts or around 9 months.
    There’s a reason I only do this twice a year…

    I’ve started work on fixing the flower beds in the front near the house, I just have to make a plan with Paul for how wide one of them is going to be and then start de-grassing the area so we can put the edges down. I bought some white PVC panels at Costco that are advertised as for raised garden beds but they will work for this nicely. We hauled the rock edges out late last week with the help of some hired (teenage) muscle. Some of the rocks were huge and it took two of us to carry them.

  24. I can be happy that most of June, and even up unto last night, was free of Obnoxious Bangs and still be pissed off that they’ve started now, right? Noon seems ridiculously early for fireworks, which in my opinion should exist for the purpose of pretty light shows in the night sky and never solely for Obnoxious Bangs.

    Anyway. We spent the weekend watching all three Tom Holland Spiderman movies. I’m a bit pissed off with the last one, because I was really enjoying a superhero who had some happy relationships and JFC this poor guy. Liked it more than I liked the Doctor Strange one that just came out, though. That was just … well, there was no reason, in my opinion, for 2+ hours of special-effects pyrotechnics and grief/rage/cruelty to be deployed on ten minutes’ worth of character development. If you want a Marvel fix and haven’t seen the Strange yet, may I recommend instead the short ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer’?

    DH is doing his patient notes while I am working on Chapter 21 of the WIP novel. At some point he will toddle over to El Torito and procure mass quantities of Mexican food to scarf down while we watch ‘Independence Day’ for the 20-somethingth time. Tradition!

  25. It’s Tuesday evening. I’m still happy. The second order of MU-16 arrived (at the same time as my sixth Smart Garden, about which this post isn’t.) I have not yet brewed a pot of MU-16. Boiling a quart at a time for ten minutes… I’ll get there. Not today.

    All the discussion of black raspberries? There was a black raspberry herbal tea. I liked it. Just now I’m steeping Nightly Calm, chamomile and peppermint with lemongrass. I used the lemon stevia. That might be overkill. I have some unflavored sweetener. I should have stuck to that.

    This won’t be on the list of “Wottinell Was I Thinking?!” herbal teas. I wonder if I’m the only Argher to ignore the “Steep for 4 minutes” instruction. I just leave the bag in there until I finish the mug.

    And I’m still doing the blind selection of my next sample. It’s been… interesting.

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