Happiness is a Government Agency with a Sense of Humor

~ Jenny

I remember how happy I was when I found out the CDC had a zombie apocalypse plan, which they have now tragically retired. And when California came up with a plan for sharks in a tornado, that was great, but now it appears to be gone, too. But then I found out about the National Park Service.

The whole twitter feed is great, relentlessly upbeat while suggesting that tourists stay away from the wildlife; avoiding “the bitey ends.” It’s the Twitter version of the Tom Holland Lip Sync: spend three minutes and feel better.

How did you achieve happiness the week by avoiding the bitey ends?

60 thoughts on “Happiness is a Government Agency with a Sense of Humor”

  1. I clicked on The Whole Twitter Feed and scrolled down to where it brought up the wild turkeys. Last week in the yard the grandog confronted a turkey browsing around the perimeter of the cottage next door. With the dog barking the turkey flew up onto the roof and paced back and forth for a good ten minutes. On one side she could have flown over to the beach but there was traffic back and forth on the street and could have miscalculated and either been hit by a car or hit the seawall. Back she came to the other end and looked over the yard and ten foot fence took a leap of faith and flew over the dog, yard and fence to freedom. And I thought they were dumb.

    1. Yesterday was a good day. The hubby and I participated in a fundraiser for suicide prevention, a sponsored walk and in the middle of it we saw a yard sale. And he said, we are stopping, so we did and then resumed our walk.

      And we had brunch at a new restaurant that offers Korean and Japanese fusion dishes, both of which are hard to come by in this town. He had the okinomyaki and I had the thai omelette. Both very good, and the building was a gorgeous refurbished house that we poked around in after.

  2. My business partner and I came early to Phoenix for the two conferences we are attending next week. We are staying in a glorious resort! We went hiking up Pinnacle Peak yesterday and are trying the Gateway Loop today. Then we will tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s house Taliesin, get a spa treatment, maybe some pool time, and finish off with a great meal. So blissful.

  3. Happiness is having our two dogs show up after three days missing. What a long three days for us, but they looked great. Neither was gaunt and particularly hungry. I’d given the old dog some pain killer just before they disappeared. I think she thought she was young again and went on a walk about. LOL
    She’s very tired and sore but Moose is doing great although I think he’s very glad to be home. He’s a bit of a homebody like me.

  4. Someone had given me a rubber ball that people use to play handball ages ago, and this week I remembered I had it and took it to the park/playground a few blocks down to try hitting it against a wall a few times. It’s surprising how nice it is to run after a ball a bit, trying to predict where it will go and working on your aim. After two sessions on separate days, I’ve already noticed a slight improvement in my aim and ability to actually connect with the ball (another moment of joy is when you miss the ball entirely, which just makes you laugh). It’s a weird thing, but irregular exercise (by which I mean exercise where you’re not following set exercises at a set rhythm but doing something a bit erratic) is really nice and feels a bit freeing somehow.

  5. I love The National Park feed. So funny!

    At one point, the Sasquatch was on the list of endangered animals in British Columbia, along with the Ogopogo (our version of the Loch Ness Monster). 🤣🤣 I will.have to see.if they still are.

    I’d be a lot happier today if we had any sunshine, but at least it’s not snowing.

  6. It’s been a challenging week, but happiness is an old friend who has moved back to town after living in NC for 8 years. (We’ve known each other so long, he was in the back of the church at my wedding when I was 24, laughing with all my other friends who knew I was making a ridiculous mistake. I’m turning 63 on Friday, so that is one of my longest friendships.) He has come over a couple of times since I recovered from Covid for dinner and a movie night. And offered to take me out to dinner for my birthday next Friday, which was very sweet. I wasn’t planning to do anything, which was fine, but it will be nice to share it with someone.

    My cat Koshka seems to have decided John belongs to him… https://www.instagram.com/p/CrYTCcSO_FJ/

  7. Happiness has been visiting Family and celebrating husband’s uncle’s 80th. Great dinner last night. Lots of walking. Cooking, yes, cooking. Aunt is a terrific cook and baker. Fluffy soft dinner buns. Yum. Flying home tomorrow. Reading 10lb Penalty (Dick Francis). Staying up late to finish it. Anxious to get home. Only one more annual year end to complete. Then garden, donate, throw out ruthlessly and keeping health on track.

    The social media post has been very enlightening. When I first discovered you, Jenny, well the ocd kicked in and read everything past, present, and future works posted. I have a box of writing info you posted over the years. Then I met Bob at the SiWC, more best writing info. (Not your best experience at a writers conference). I might just follow you down a creepy street. Most likely.

  8. The Great Lakes have some fun accounts too. Yesterday, after noting that dead celebrities were getting blue checks imposed on them, Lake Superior joked that she (pronouns in bio) would “give up her dead” before she paid for a blue check. https://twitter.com/LakeSuperior

    My happy this week came, once again, from helping a friend who was overwhelmed (and still is, a bit, but we can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel of paperwork).

    Oh, and how could I forget — some good medical news! I thought I was going to have to have my thyroids radiated (standard treatment for hyperactive thyroids that don’t respond to anti-thyroid meds), and I wasn’t looking forward to the side effects (brain fog), but the thyroid specialist said that the latest research indicates it’s fine (and actually less risky) to stay on anti-thyroid meds indefinitely (which until recently was NOT recommended). That was happy-inducing in itself — I won’t spend months this summer in brain fog and dealing with medical appointments — but then a follow-up test arrived and suggests that the hyperthyroidism is actually in remission (a fairly common occurrence, just took longer for me than average), although we’ll need to re-test in a couple months to be sure. Also a happy. And then when I went looking for information on the test that indicated remission, the first medical journal article I found was co-authored by my new thyroid doc! I love being seen at a teaching hospital, because they really do have the latest info and have often done the research themselves!

  9. Tony n’ Tina is going well. Making new friends there. My birthday is tomorrow and I’m taking the day off. I won’t be doing much of anything other than rehearsal and getting my hair re-reddened.

  10. Accomplished some good things in various life areas, which is always good for morale.

    Tuesday the plumber comes to fix the hole in our pipe, which means we will be able to use both bathrooms again. Though the hole is a bad thing, many small goods were part of the process (DH and I sleuthed well together, I remembered the carpet shampooer I bought years ago has a water extraction feature which worked, and last but not least, thank all deities that our two toilets are on different parts of the plumbing!!!!!!)

    I made walnut cookies with the idea they would hold up leftover chocolate buttercream well. Yep – this is a real winner. Only bad thing is there are more of them than expected left in the house after yesterday’s guests. Well, good and bad. Good for the mouth, bad for the waistline. Or where the waistline used to be, I guess,

    2. I have the one that says “No cell service and terrible wifi” framed on my wall. I love those.

  12. I have spent the week in the Dominican with a friend. The weather has been lovely and I’ve been walking the beach every day. I tend to be a glass half full person and I’m using this time to reflect on how fortunate I am – a loving husband and son, amazing friends, good health, and a decent income. When I get home, I want to continue focusing on the positives, and less on the bitey bits, rather than my usual lens of the other way around.

    DH got good news from the ortho doc – his ripped tendon is healing and he no longer needs a full leg brace.

  13. The fan-trained cherry on the allotment’s about to flower and there are buds on the apple trees, so there should be lots of fruit to enjoy for the first time this year. I’ve photographed some wonderfully colourful tulips this week, and sown more flowers and veg. Connected with various friends, and one’s coming to stay for a night or two tomorrow – so I’m looking forward to lots of conversation and a boozy evening.

    1. Jane, did you have to plant more than one apple tree to ensure cross-pollination on your allotment, or are there other apple trees there in the plots of other allotment-ers?

      1. There are plenty of fruit trees around, Jinx. I was more concerned about the apple I planted last year at home – and delighted when the mature apple a couple of gardens along flowered at the same time. The cross-pollination stuff can get complicated!

        1. My apple tree which died some time last winter and fell over this spring (it was probably almost as old as this house–1970–so not very productive and the deer got them all) was luckily self-fertile.

  14. I have several happy things to share. I’ve had foot pain for months and suspected it might be stress fractures, which of course don’t heal when you’re either barefoot or wearing five finger shoes most of the time and walking 3-4 miles a night. I saw the doctor, who thinks it could also be arthritis (I may be 65, but I’m too young for that!), and he said yeah, try a post-op boot for a few weeks. I bought one on Amazon and sure enough, I can walk without pain when I get up in the morning. It aches after a bit, though, so still some healing to do. I miss my walks a lot, though.
    Other happiness is rereading – listening for the first time, actually, though I’ve read it before – to Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. Extra bonus is an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss.

  15. I may have said, “The government has no sense of humor” multiple times in my life. As I recall, my late wife and my late brother were known to have replied, “Sure they do – they hired you didn’t they?”

  16. This weekend’s happiness was getting a massive amount of yardkeeping done AND a massive amount of writer business done.

    Am considering where to focus next on the ‘new things to write’ side. Votes solicited: should it be the one about a movie star with a life-threatening injury, or the age-gap marriage of convenience featuring a NYC lawyer and a small-town marketing guy?

    1. I want the movie star with the life threatening injury to be the small town marketing guy’s mother, who gets involved with the NYC lawyer’s boss? Don’t let me play in your sandbox!

  17. My happy at the moment is that when I hit a deer on the way to work this morning it only slightly cracked the bumper. The last time I hit a deer, about fifteen years ago, it cost $5000 to fix the Jeep.

  18. I got a bonus at work & thought I would play with it but instead I got to pay the plumber. Sink & dishwasher stopped up in the kitchen. Ended up with pipes needing to be replaced instead of unclogged. Still at least I had the money to pay.

    Really, really happy watching Limitless. It’s on Natgeo on Disney+. Just when you thought Chris Hemsworth could not get any hunkier – 6 shows where he is working his body to various limits designed to make him live longer. And since he’s mostly with his shirt off one wants him to live as long as possible.

    Seriously – it is a really good show about the things that go into longevity.

    I wrote something fun and it got good reception at critique on Tuesday.

    All the usual happys – family, friends, good books.

  19. I love the Twitter feed, and those posters are to die for. The trees get in the way of the view. Love that one. Well, my son has been creating a TikTok feed for me so we put our we put up for posts I think last Monday I had 55 followers, now I think I have 9800. This is extremely weird but I’m hoping it can parlay into something where I can review books. But first I have to get the TikTok established.
    @susanjamesberger
    I’m thrilled at how popular Jury Duty seems to be becoming.
    Saturday. I went to one of the cast members birthdays, and most of us were there, including Ronald and his girlfriend. They are the most delightful people.
    I I’m thrilled at how popular Jury Duty seems to be becoming Saturday. I went to one of the cast members birthdays and most of us were there, including Ronald and his girlfriend. They are the most delightful people.
    Tuesday Amazon Freevee is staging a red carpet event at Margaritaville. The dress is smart casual. I have no idea what that means. But I bought bling to put on my black crocs.

  20. I felt in the need for something amusing so picked up Strange Bedfellows. My favorite part of the book is the dinner from hell and the following day when Tess announces that she bought Park’s mother a 5 year subscription to the National Enquirer. That whole thing makes me laugh out loud every time I read it.

  22. Paris today! Spent the day in the local neighbourhood and had wonderful time. Didn’t see a single major monument or wait in any lines. I did find an Irish coffee served by a friendly and charming waiter “coffee sans caffine avec whisky” and a yarn shop that had good yarn in the colours requested for my next project. They’ve been surprisingly hard to find all in same kind of yarn.
    I may also have found my all time favourite park too. Huge play area, not my thing anymore but it looked fun. Gorgeous green walk with heaps of benches. Weird little drinking fountain shaped like a lizard. Long elaborate creek with kids playing along it and not one tantrum the whole time I was there. Blooming trees with more benches underneath. A man playing beautiful peaceful melodies on a guitar, not busking, apparently just for his friend sitting on the other end of the bench drinking from a thermos.
    I literally felt my shoulders relaxing. I hadn’t realised they were that tight. Such a good day.

  23. I had a post and then the browser closed. Le sigh.

    We have changed our plans around the cruise and are now driving to Vancouver. We have safe-ish parking for the car (at a hotel that offers long-term parking), hotels for the way down, and time off work/care for the beasts set up so we are good to go. Paul said yesterday he could go at any time and I told him it would be an awfully expensive wait at the cruise dock.

    I found shoes to wear with the new outfit I will buy for formal night which is a huge relief because I have huge feet and shoe shopping sucks. I can get away with men’s runners but not men’s dress shoes!

    I bought the first plants for my containers this year – canna lillies. Fingers crossed they grow like they are supposed to!

  24. Love those posters.

    My bitey end last week was a failing landline. Fixed today. The outside wires were falling part at the pole. Lineman said the wire looked to be over 50 years old. That sounds about right. Anyway finally have a good internet connection and no static on the phone.

    Nothing but good times ahead.

    1. We had five house guests —friends from when we all lived in Brooklyn and saw eachother regularly. Two of them were my roommates.
      As a group it’s the first time we saw each other in 30 years although I have seen them all in 1s and 2s. And we went right back to talking and laughing the way we did back then. It’s one thing to have a friend you can do this with; another to have a group of 7.
      Then one friend and former roommate stayed through tomorrow morning so that we could host a dinner tonight with another roommate (because the local roommate didn’t over lap with or know anyone except this one roommate in the reunion group.)
      And because he stayed, my former roommate and I could play a sort of in person version of good book Thursday and I have LOTS more ideas for books to read, and then we went to Politics and Prose and heroically only bought five books between the two of us.

      Truly a lovely weekend.

      Also DH took the car to get the AC fixed and paid $500 to learn it would cost $3000 to fix it and has agreed it’s time for a new car —which the repair shop / dealer could not sell us because they have no cars to sell. This is actually good news because I have been saying for a couple of years that it’s time to replace the car which we have had for 17 years and which has superglue and duct tape holding on a major part of the back. And that we should do it before the car dies since there are so few cars in the lots and we might need to wait for months. He kept saying we shouldn’t get a new car because he was waiting until better electric models are on the market but now he agrees! We just have to find a car for sale. We do have a second car that is only 16 years old and has working AC and no duct tape so we do have something we can drive in the heat. And we don’t drive much. But my nephew is coming to live with us for 6 weeks to do an internship so it would have been nice to have a second fully functional car.

      2. I have been keeping a close eye on used electrics in my area, because the truck is 18 and the Jeep (non-functional, needs new drive-shaft and rear brakes, scary to drive the last time I did) is 19. There is depressingly little available that interests me (I don’t want a Tesla or a Mustang, even if I could afford their astounding used prices). But I’ve been wanting an electric since I was eighteen, fifty-two years ago. Patience.

        1. This is why I wanted to start the car search before the Prius was nonfunctional. Which it essentially is for daytime drives of more than 10 minutes in the DC area . (Something to do with suspension and something else are also issues.)

      3. On cars, have you checked out Carmax? They sell used cars that they have done rehab work on — some of them are quite new models. You can test drive, look up background of a possible car online, get the carfax, etc. Their lots always seem to be full of vehicles.

        1. This would be to find a transition car until your husband can find the future electric vehicle that meets his approval, by the way….

          1. It’s a definite thought. Since we only learned this yesterday with a house full of guests we have yet to have a real conversation about the options; I will include this.

  25. I finally saw the Sharknado movies. Binged everything except movie 4. I couldn’t find it anywhere.
    I’m a fan. My brother is a fan. My neighbour is a fan. Not kidding. We had a sleepover just to watch these movies.

    They are fun & unpredictable. It was wonderful watching the world grow & the sharks evolved with every movie.

    The actor who played Fin is wonderful and I finally get why this movie is a cult classic.

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