Happiness is the Spam Folder

~ Jenny

Akismet does a really good job with the spam on this blog, so I only need to go into the spam folder every month or two and delete the porn and general grunge and rescue the Argh People who have tripped and fallen in there. But this week I went in there and found this:

“Magnifіcent goods from you, man. I have understand your stuff prior to аnd you’re simply too wonderfuⅼ.”

I’ve been struggling this week, and that cheered me up enormously. I really needed to hear that I was producing magnificent goods. I kind of want a t-shirt with that on it, although possibly not a good idea to emblazon it on my bust. Still, that spam was simply too wonderful.

What magnificent goods made you happy this week?

83 thoughts on “Happiness is the Spam Folder”

  1. Not really magnificent goods, but I did get a clean report from my routine screening colonoscopy this week. So, I don’t have to do that again for 10 years, and that makes me very happy.

  2. You ARE simply too wonderful. And I’m sure your bust is too, although admittedly I haven’t seen it in years. Emblazon away.

    My happy this week was finally making a serious dent in the current Llewellyn manuscript (followed by the return of the headaches and eye strain, so not an unmixed blessing).

    But yesterday I got an unexpected hit of happiness. My group was having a belated get together for Lammas (the first of three Pagan harvest festivals, it actually fell on August 1st/2nd, but we couldn’t do last weekend). It was just going to be three of us, since our other group member has a family in crisis, and our other intermittent member was out of town. But Alicia, my former housemate, surprised me by showing up at the last minute. She’s a Witch too, and always attended while she lived with me, so I invite her to everything, but she’s only made it to one ritual since she moved out last October. I wasn’t expecting her at all, so when she drove into the driveway, it took me a minute to figure out who it was. The big hugs I got made my week.

    1. I got to celebrate Lammas with the group I attend, finally. It’s been long two years and some months! It’s not a big-time rite, but it was a nice sharing of produce and baking.

  3. I want that t shirt too! Can you somehow work it into your current work in progress?
    Your post is my happy for today!

  4. On Friday I learned that my tumor scored low enough for cancer markers that chemotherapy isn’t warranted. So, a few more weeks of waiting for the wound vac to close up the hole in my chest and life will be reasonably back to normal.

      1. Isn’t that wound vac a weird thing?

        I’m glad that you don’t need chemotherapy. What’s the long term diagnosis (or is that prognosis?)?

        1. With Tamoxifen, there’s a 6% chance of recurrence. Without it, 15%.

          I’ll start on that next week for 5 years. Hoping I can tolerate it. I refused a similar drug 5 years ago, figuring an 85% chance of staying cancer-free was good enough. The drug made my joints hurt so much that I’d make the same choice again.

          Tamoxifen has different side effects–fatigue and moodiness similar to PMS or menopause. So we’ll see.

  5. You are indeed magnificent goods! This morning my son sent me a notice that the Apple Pencil was on sale for 99.99.
    That is a magnificent good also. I’ve been wanting one so I can learn to use procreate on the iPad and since I will be working tomorrow when I get home for three days on jury duty the TV series I ordered it. Happy week everyone.

  6. I made it through my first week of the new job (relatively) unscathed, so I’m going to get a Carvel ice cream cake to celebrate! I mean I was going to get one whether it was a success (celebration) or not (consolation), but it’s something I’ve been looking forward to all week

    1. Yay for you, also I now want an ice cream cake, we don’t have Carvels in the UK, though there is now a S’mores ice cream cake I must get when I have people to help me eat it.

    3. I used to live near a Carvel store, and their ice cream cakes were indeed cause for celebration all by themselves. May you continue unscathed!

  7. I have been released from covid isolation and am officially considered to be not infectious anymore. This is a wonderful thing because I live in a building with a communal laundry and haven’t been able to use it while isolating. So now I have clean underwear, and that is marvellous. I’m also feeling much better. 🙂

    1. Congratulations. Clean underwear is not to be underestimated. I hope there are no lingering side effects of Covid.

  8. I suspect my spam folder is somewhat emptier than yours. That’s enough to make me happy right there.

    I was cooking (and reading and gardening and eating and exercising [a teensy bit]) and I looked at the olive oil I had just splashed in my frying pan. It did not say, “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” on the label, so I noted it in my food log as “Sufficiently Virgin Olive Oil.” I’m sure there are publicly acknowledged grades of olive oil, but that one will be my favorite.

  9. I love the spam. I wish I would get anything so cheerful.

    My cancer is still not growing, so I am now a statistical anomaly. My doctor said she was thrilled to start her day with good news. It made me realize she probably spends alot of her day dealing with unhappy news.

    My brother’s were in town. One has a goal of going to every minor league baseball park, so we went to a couple of games around us. Lots of fun just hanging out.

    1. Go, Phred!! Power to the body doing its job. I hope it begins to shrink, now. It’s good to be a statistical anomaly, in your case.

  10. This week:
    Someone confided in me
    Someone asked for my help
    Neighbor stopped her car to say hi as DH and I were walking.

    Makes me feel like a successful human being. I know I am, but sometimes I get wrapped up in the efforts, and don’t notice the living life well things.

  11. I want to know more about that porn! LOL I get invitations from men and women in my spam file. It’s very intriguing, but I don’t open them. My “magnificent goods” is that I booked a flight to Arizona in October this week, to visit my son and his family, and my brother, and step-dad, and their family and dogs. It will be nice to be in the desert, again. It’s been since last May that I visited. A long time, even though my son has flown in a few times.

  12. Magnificent goods at a lunch date/mini reunion with a former student who still teaches, two former students (brother & sister) who manage a Starbucks and are applying for public radio jobs, a former colleague’s daughter who is a retired teacher and her think tank husband produced great Japanese food and a gift—tote bag from ACLU saying “I read banned books.”

    Made me & my hubby happy.

  13. I’m happy to read so much good medical news here! I had a big personal happy this week, but also a loss.

    The happy was that my husband took me on a surprise trip to the wilds of northern PA, to one of the few areas on the US east coast with no light pollution, and we had a spectacularly clear night for a stargazing tour! Seeing the arc of the Milky Way from horizon to horizon, plus so many other stars we normally can’t see with the naked eye, made me cry. (Yes, I am THAT nerd.)

    This was tacked on at the end of a three-day trip to upstate NY, so we were gone for four days. We returned home to find our old girl, a 19.5-year-old tortie cat, in bad shape. She always hides from the pet sitter so it’s hard to know whether she ate at all while we were gone. After a few days of trips to the vet and IV treatments, she was not improving. We said goodbye to her Thursday night. We were lucky to have her for so long, and she died peacefully in our arms. But we are still heartbroken.

    1. I’m so sorry. Nineteen-plus is an amazingly long feline life! Which is both a blessing while she’s with you and a challenge for adjusting to life without her.

    3. So sorry. It’s a blessing to have them in our lives, and a hardship to let them go.

    4. I’m so sorry, Nancy. Perhaps she was so inspired by your viewing of the stars that she decided to go visit them. That’s an amazing lifespan for a cat. You obviously took very good care of her. *hugs* And I’m glad your trip was so wonderful, even with the bittersweet ending.

      1. Me too. I grieve for you; I’ve lost five cats over the years after long happy lives, and each one was a wrenching loss. The thing I always realized, though, was that for a cat, the restrictions and probably the pains involved in being very old for a feline made the final departure a relief to them. But good luck with the recovery for your family.

    5. So sorry for your loss. It’s never easy when our fur babies leave but I can’t imagine what life would have been without them.

    6. I am so sorry for your loss! It’s never easy to let go of a loved fur kid, especially when you have had her for so many years.

    7. So sorry, Nancy. One of my cats went at about the same age. Very sad to see them pass on but also such a blessing to have had them for so long. Wishing both you and your old girl peace.

    8. You were lucky to have her with you for so long and I hope the fact that there are two of you missing her will make her absence easier to bear.

  14. Apparently after discussions here about surprise lilies I bought a bulb, planted it, and forgot about it. It’s now blooming. Unfortunately it’s kinda hidden behind some tall zinnias.

    We also acquired a turtle, originally named Twinkles, which I promptly renamed the lesser A’Tuin. A family who lived on the block for 20 years is getting divorced and selling their house. We used to be reasonably friendly with them, but more recently grown distant. The mom asked us if we could take the turtle that they have had for 10 years. (Note: everyone on the block who we tell this to immediately says “It’s still alive ?” Because it kept getting lost for long periods.)
    My husband originally said we would take it until we could find a new home , but now he’s in love with it. He has built it two homes (one for indoors and one for outdoors —I think the prior owner let it wander around the house or kept it in a shoe). And I learned they can live to be 100. So a temporary commitment is now something we have to put in our wills…
    This doesn’t make me happy but it definitely makes him happy. And I like the name at least.

    Also, they finally almost finished counting our primary ballots and the guy I wanted for county executive won by about 42 votes (they apparently have 30 more to count today). Out of about 140,000 votes. There will be a recount.

    This is the second time the runner up lost to my candidate—last time by 77 votes. And this time he either helped create or accepted the support of a highly misleading PAC called progressives for progress that was entirely funded by developers and realtors. So I’m very, if cautiously, happy that the right guy won.

    1. Debbie, my Amaryllis belladonna lilies are blooming, too. Last fall, I dug up a whole lot of them and gave them away, but those suckers either hid from me, or multiplied in the spring. Anyway, they are pretty. But brace yourself for incoming, as they spread. Turtles are amazing, aren’t they? You will definitely need to make plans for its care if/when you can no longer do it. I hope your candidate wins.

    2. Debbie – one of the things i loved about the tv series ‘elementary’ (Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Joan Watson) was the turtle – Clyde! Hope your husband has as much fun with A’Tuin as Sherlock had with Clyde.

  15. I’m so sorry for your loss Nancy. I’m glad you were able to be with her at the end and you must have taken amazing care of her for her to have stayed almost 20 years. I pray my two fur friends stay with me as long.

  16. I’m mostly cranky from the heat wave (and the forecasters lied to us, saying it would end tomorrow, but now they’ve added another day, and I don’t remember the last time before this year that we had a heat wave that went for a full 7 days — now 8 — instead of the minimum 3 days required to qualify for the label, and now it’s happened twice this summer, which is worrisome as well as crankiness-inducing).

    BUT, my happy is that my big, old-ish orange cat Todd gave me a scare on Friday (why is it always right when the local vet closes for the weekend?), and I thought he might be running out his ninth life (he’s got diabetes, which is hard on cats, even when controlled by insulin), and he was indeed having a spike in blood sugar, but I was able to get it down and get him eating again (not eating, even for a relatively short period, can be fatal for cats), and some of the symptoms (lethargy, lack of appetite) were apparently because he hates the hot weather as much as I do but refuses to come into the air conditioned bedroom, and as of this morning, he seems to be back to his usual self, just a little less active due to the heat.

    Also, Jorts the Cat makes me laugh. There was a twitter thread about how all women want out of life is a big orange cat to sit in our laps, and someone said that was all men wanted too, and Jorts (big advocate of labor unions) popped in to say “lapitalism > capitalism,” and now that’s the t-shirt I want, with a picture of my big orange cat, even though I don’t actually wear t-shirts. Maybe a throw pillow instead.

  17. One of my recent spams was from an eyewear company that said, “Eyewear should make you happy and good-looking. Glasses, sunglasses, and contacts—we’ve got your eyes covered.”

    Glad to know eyewear should make me happy and good-looking. LOL

  18. Sticky hot day, with no movie to go to for refuge, at least not that my 92 year old parents would enjoy. I would go see Minions origin story, but that’s just me.

      1. I ended up laying on my bed in the direct path of a large fan, binging on the new Sandman series on Netflix. And the folks ended up sitting in front of the fan watching gold. So we were all fairly content.

  19. OK – this post spurred me to do something that I’ve been thinking about for YEARS. I’ve read your blog off and on over the years and have enjoyed your and the other’s comments immensely, but have always felt rather shy about jumping in myself.

    However, I have – for SO very long – wanted to simply say “Thank You!” I cannot begin to tell you how much joy and solace your books have given me, especially when things have been tough – and I’m not just talking about the pandemic. The pandemic, for me, was truly an extension of how things were going in general. Your books, especially, have given me a much-needed escape. Of course I read other authors, but your work is at the top of my list. It has inspired me to laugh, and hope, and especially to fight, and to continue fighting.

    And no – this isn’t about my health. It’s about family, and vicious betrayal, and sorrow, and having my voice high-jacked, and fighting to be heard.

    So – Thank You! From the bottom of my heart. You do indeed produce magnificent goods! 🙂

  20. I’m very happy that my favorite TV show (Bargain Block) is on HGTV all afternoon. SO many tasks that coincidentally occur in the living room near the TV….

  21. We/I gave the grandog a bath this week. The grandchildren told me that she will go into the bathroom when she is called for a bath but I didn’t believe them. So I ran the water and said “time for a bath” and she slowly, reluctantly lowered her head not even looking at me and dragged her paws over the floor and into the bathroom and tub. They must give her lots of baths at home. I didn’t dare run the hose outside because of all the warning reverse phone calls regarding water usage and possible fines. Yes, she sulked afterwards and then ran out and rolled onto the dry grass. My husband took her bed and put it into the washer, I thought for sure the machine would rock off balance but the way he did it was to put the middle over the agitator and let the sides swish in the soapy water.

    Our lawn has only been mowed twice this summer so far because of no rain and heat.

    This week I also watched Lost in Scotland on You Tube with Alan Cummings and Miriam Margolis. I laughed and also gathered that he carries a lot of baggage from his childhood but really he has put himself above it and made a wonderful life for himself.

    This week I also read New York Minute by Jenny’s collaborator Bob Mayer. I was curious about the character Will Kane also the time period. The seventies the summer of 77 was the summer my husband bought a trailer from his cousin and refitted the bunks, stove, small refrigerator and toilet into a camper, took a month off from work and we travelled cross country with the kids. All this while fictional Will was trying to figure out his life after a devastating personal loss and end of his career amongst the Son of Sam era, the mob, CIA, family and friends. I have the next book TBR after I read some fluff.

    1. Yay! Someone else watched the Lost In Scotland thing – I loved it.

      Also a fan of Bob’s books but you definitely have to put some fluff in between.

  22. I went to see Lightscape in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens on Friday night with a friend, which was just wonderful. It was a cold rainy day, but the rain stopped a couple of hours before we were due to walk through. It was a cold night, but there was a variety of food trucks with delicious things on offer, and the night was a riot of spectacularly lit gardens, great food, and mulled wine. So much fun.

    I have fallen into a black hole again, but this time with the sparkles that is Ted Lasso. Friends that have watched it said that it was great, but I resisted because I’m not a fan of Jason Sudeikis. But for some reason started to watch it on Saturday, and yeah, it’s really good. I usually don’t binge watch, but I’ve watched 1.5 seasons in 2 days.

    And finally work is settling down.
    I’d inherited a very unhappy team, but after lots of work on my side, that’s improving. I still need to convince one of my team that their attitude needs to change, and if it doesn’t, help her to find somewhere else to work, but I’ve got her to the point that she’s not venting continuously in an open office, so that’s good.
    I haven’t had a direct line manager for the last 6 months due to an open position and I’ve been “reporting” to our CIO. They’ve finally made an offer to someone, but at that level the notice period is 3 months so they don’t start until Oct. They are at least on their way.
    Reporting to someone who has a team of around 500 people had meant that I’ve had very little guidance or support – they just don’t have the time – however it also means I can just do what I think is needed, without having to justify/ ask for permission. It’s taken me a while to see the benefits of this 🙂

    1. Philby, the only reason I subscribe to Apple TV sporadically is to get Ted Lasso. I’m really bummed that it’s taking so long for the third season to appear. The writing is great, and the filming is also great. That funeral episode in season two was exquisitely engineered, with two of the main characters telling the story of how their dad traumatized them. The switching back and forth between them was pure poetry. I also like that Ted is such a nice guy! And he’s from Kansas, Ted and Jason, both. My other favorite episode is the Christmas one.

      1. I love that show. I watched it again with a friend. We would watch it at the same time and text comments back and forth. I love the friendships on that show.

        The Christmas episode is one of my all time favorites. I would date it up there with WKRP’s Thanksgiving episode.

          1. What I’m loving about the show, aside from the humour, is the positive male relationships. I don’t watch much TV these days, there is too many shows that celebrate people doing bad things, so it’s really nice to have overall lightness, humour, and care for one another, without being sickly sweet.

            The Christmas ep is a favourite, haven’t seen the funeral one yet, I probably will tonight as I finish watching series 2! 🙂

  23. We have exhausted our social calendar for the year. Thursday the opera. The next three things were for the wedding of my next door neighbor’s daughter, who wanted us included in all the family events – since after 30 years we know all the family and have hosted them to provide the overflow guest room – it made me happy that she thinks of us as part of her family. Friday a cocktail party on the roof top of a local hotel. Saturday, a small garden wedding complete with chamber music trio playing classical music, followed by a reception at a local restaurant. Sunday after wedding brunch in the neighbor’s garden with jazz trio providing music.

    The bride and groom have known one another for 18 years and have been friends while each were involved in other relationships and gave emotional support as those previous relationships crashed and burned. They are so happy and so much in love. It was wonderful. They had some additional vows that are not usually included: she had to agree he could take her 5 year old daughter for ice cream every Friday and attend football games without complaint. He had to agree not to complain about watching vampire and horror movies which she loves.

    Now I am awaiting the arrival of good friends who are coming to spend the night. I see games of Wingspan and Boggle in my future.

    Oh, and I am happy the air conditioning is working like a champ. It is hot out here.

  24. It’s raining! The rain barrel is full again. And the temperatures should drop later this week.

    I mowed the lawn yesterday after not having to for the last three weeks. So glad I got that out of the way.

    I got some pickling cucumbers from the local farm and now have dill/garlic pickles to enjoy. It’s a cracker barrel type pickle. Won’t do anything for my sodium levels but I love them.

    I’ve had an easy couple of weeks but this week it’s meeting, in person and zoom, and a dental appointment.

  25. We are on the downward slope of our quarterly busy period, which always makes me happy.

    The garden is producing a lot of tomatoes and the worms in my compost bin are going to town on all my veg scraps. The herb section looks good.

    And after procrastinating all day, I have finally sat down to work on an assignment for the work class I am taking in a couple of weeks. I am just dreading it, but it has to be done, so… I have to talk myself up and then it will be critiqued, and that is two things I hate. But yay me for sitting down to do it!

    1. Karen, do you know the joke about the dear Christian lady who was so kind to all creatures that she even fed the worms? My grandmother had a worm bed, and they ate well!

  26. Sometimes being an adult, married to an adult, doing adult things is happy making. Paul works with a guy who is an overgrown baby married (scared to stay at home alone, has alcohol issues) to an overgrown baby (spends every weekend at her parents’ place, has alcohol issues) and they are trying to solve their marriage issues by having another baby (this requires IVF so $10,000+ a treatment round). A few days ago they were so on the rocks that she told him to sleep at a friend’s house. Babies. Fixing bad marriages since never.

    I’m doing yard work in the sunshine and feeling better about how some things look. It feels good to make progress on this particular project and get the patio cleaned up.

    Hannah’s ears are trying to decide if they want to stand up or flop over and she looks so goofy. It’s really quite cute. I might not have wanted her when we got her but she has wiggle-squiggled her way into my heart. As they do.

    I found 2 yellow roses in 2 gallon pots on sale on Monday and I planted them today. I’ve found the peonies I want for the rest of that bed,I just have to wait for the vendor to start her sale to buy them. I have a red peony in there that doesn’t fir with the pink/yellow/coral colour scheme so I have to find a place to move it too.

    1. Paul should tell them to get a pet instead and try and keep it alive first … instead of ruining lives sigh. My sister had a baby recently, she’s practical, competent and capable and it takes everything she has and she’s barely surviving on a couple of hours sleep

      1. They should start small like a pet rock or fake baby with a built in cry timer (I don’t want any animals to suffer either)

          1. People can’t love one another and assume a baby will love them and give them something to love. Instead of being another bone of contention.

  27. My happys this week:
    Finding the following sentence in Jayne Ann Krentz novel Amaryllis – “Vision precedes reality.” So short & succinct & profound & true! I love it.

    Dark Wind season 1 – the author Tony Hillerman wrote great books and Robert Redford & George R. R. Martin are doing a great job of putting them in the series. The cast is full of good actors also!

    Did some writing myself. Always feels good when I succeed in getting my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard.

    The lovely community created by this blog makes me happy every week.

    Nothing but good times ahead!

  28. Tomorrow — new contact lenses so I’ll be back in focus again. Tuesday — physical therapy session to continue improvement on lower vertebrae.

    This last week the delightful wild moments in the Alex Jones trial. This coming week I believe the Connecticut trials begin; looking forward to seeing whether the phone material adds to the interest and delighted that Connecticut law does not cap punitive damages! Real-life version of one of my favorite tropes, The Comeuppance!

  29. A family friend (who is the sister of my heart) visited with her 16 yo daughter. They live in another province and due to Covid, we haven’t seen each other in over 2 years. We FaceTime regularly but it was so wonderful to be able to give her a hug. We went white water rafting on a river that runs through the city.

    The bush beans in my garden are finally producing and we’ve been eating them daily. They are so delicious that I ate a large handful raw, standing at my counter. Better for my health than potato chips.

    DH helped me clean out my desk – I hadn’t touched it since I finished school in January. It was way past time but I was overwhelmed by the mess. He went through my piles of sticky notes and random bits and asked me whether I needed it. I threw 4 big binders full of school assignments into the recycling bin. My desk is finally a functional space again.

  30. It’s been so long since I was here that the name fields aren’t auto-filled.

    I am slowly getting my communication and efficiency issues right. Bought a new phone, trying out different concentration improving medications, pretty soon I’ll be able to read a novel through again. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤

    Love and hugs to everyone. Hope everyone stays in good and safe health and bears our losses well. May you thrive, not just survive.

  31. I indulged in some happy nostalgia this weekend as I digitized my 2018 scrapbook and then spent hours cleaning up my photo archive from 2005 (first trip to Yosemite!) and 2016 (last trip to Yosemite). Haven’t quite finished 2016. During those intervening 11 years I became a digital camera user and the predictable consequence was thousands of pictures. Then I accidentally copied over a lot of the pictures twice when changing from old laptop to new desktop. Argh!

    So I’m going through and deleting the duplicates (and the flat-out-terrible photos), plus sorting or re-sorting. I put everything in folders when I download the camera, because control freak, but there have been plenty of times I’ve gotten back from a trip and thought ‘argh’ and did nothing more than that.

    Happy to hear about everyone’s happies. 🙂

  32. Happiness is a long involved email chat with Jen+B about the Captive Prince series. Lupe, I feel incomplete without having you participate in this. Want to reveal your email to me (purposely this time) or send me an email to tammy at hrtransformations dot come and I’ll add you to the chat? Not to be missed…

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