Quiz # 40. The Pursuit of Happiness
Why making a video of Happy being happy didn't make me happy... plus tips on making a perfect "10" grilled-cheese sandwich.
Tuesday’s are tough.
You try to grin and bear it--but then you hit a wall and then another. Frustration sets in and you begin to wonder: will the week ever end? More broadly, when will all of this be over?
(See Quiz #10. Tuesday for more on my long-held theory that Tuesday is the worst day of the week).
So, this Tuesday morning, April 28th, I tried to continue the practice recommended by Annie, my daughter, in Quiz #38. Short and Sweet. Annie told me that making a list each night of 3 things that made her happy each day had helped her to be more positive. Tuesday, I woke up committed to pursuing my happiness--but where to begin? Over coffee, I came up with what I thought was a great idea. I’d return to those things which had made me happy on Monday--and see if they could do the trick for Tuesday. And so it was that I decided to bring my small tripod on my dog walk with Happy. I’d record a video of Happy’s happiness at now having found two lacrosse balls that she can chase at the school field near our house. There was no one on the field so I let her run free even though I’d put her on a 30-foot leash. She ran and semi-fetched before knocking the tripod over.
(The grass on the field had just been cut so I had to interrupt Happy rolling in the grass to get her to play semi-fetch.)
Undaunted, I brought Happy and the video home to show Sara. The video’s not great. It’s too long and you can’t really see the balls, but the first thing Sara noticed was that Happy was running free. Although Happy’s been very happy during the stay-at-home weeks of the coronavirus, the truth is that she’s a very anxious dog., We tried to take her to obedience school and gave up. In part, she is afraid of strangers--and especially so with children. When we pass children on our walk, I have to keep Happy at bay for fear she’ll lunge at them. We’ve never had an incident with Happy--but only because we’re careful. Whenever our grandchildren visit, we board Happy and Stella in a kennel just to be safe.
But this Tuesday morning, in my pursuit of happiness--and my pursuit of recording and preserving that happiness--I’d thrown caution to the wind and let Happy run free. It was a bad idea. Worse, I was so excited about recording the video that I put aside the fact that I had told Sara that I would not let Happy run free--even on a field with a long leash. Showing Sara the video--which wasn’t that good because the shot was too wide and you couldn’t really see Happy chasing the balls--the only thing Sara saw was Happy running without a leash. A surprise, to be sure—and certainly not a moment of happiness. Sara was worried Happy might have run off and done something bad--all perfectly reasonable concerns given her history.
Strike one.
Monday, we’d gotten word that the Blue Angels were set to do a flyover for first responders in the New York City area. They’d come down the Hudson River from upstate New York and were set to fly over Newark, New Jersey at noon. We live just 10 miles west of Newark and are in the flight path for jets that we often see climbing through the sky after they take off from Newark Airport, looking east from our back deck.
At 11:45am, Sara and I joined John on the back deck to see if we could see the flyover on the distant horizon in Newark. Again, I pulled out my tripod and had my phone set up to record a video. I figured slow motion would do the trick. It was a beautiful spring day as Sara and I sat there with the dogs as John worked on his laptop.. Noon passed, no flyover, not even a sound of jets roaring. Maybe they were late. At 12:10, John told us he’d seen a Twitter post of the Blue Angel flyover from Manhattan. We were, in fact, too far away. Pursuing--and now trying to schedule happiness--wasn’t working out so well.
Strike two.
Ready for the Blue Angels (Note Happy’s anxious nibbles on the deck furniture)
No Blue Angels, no problem. I decided to make lunch. I offered to make grilled cheese sandwiches for Sara, John and me. I used fresh baked bread and grated cheddar cheese. (We’re out of sliced cheese.) I’d used the grated cheese on Monday and found out quite by accident that when the shreds of cheese fell off the bread as I flipped them over, the cheese stuck to the side of the bread and caramelized on the edge of the sandwich with a golden brown cheesy crust. This time, I tried to make that kind of sandwich on purpose. I loaded the pan with melted butter, intentionally dropped a few shreds of cheese into the pan and then pushed them against the side of the sandwich bread.
I brought them out to Sara and John. John’s report, “Steve, I think this is a 10.”
Shredded cheese, browned to a golden crust on the outside of the bread for a perfect grilled cheese sandwich
Days earlier, John had crushed my soul when I made my third attempt at homemade chocolate, peanut butter candies from a recipe by the sports blogger, @jomboy. The third time I’d made them, I thought I had used just the right amount of chocolate and peanut butter. I’d asked John for his assessment and he said that were between an 8 and a 9, adding, “I know you can do better.” That made Tuesday’s “10” all the more satisfying.
Home run.
Yes, it was just a grilled cheese sandwich, but it was damn good. It made me happy to be able to “recreate” it from Monday--and the “10” was an unexpected delight. For a Tuesday, I can do no better.
Editor's Note
I have now added “Share” and “Sign up now” buttons to the bottom of each quiz. If you like the quiz and find it amusing or helpful, please share it with your people. If you want to read it every day, subscribe and it will be sent to your in-box.
Monday night, I also went back through the archive of quizzes to create separate posts within Substack for the answer to each quiz. In doing so, I accidently sent out a few random answers to all subscribers. Sorry for the spam.
What did NOT happen?
A. Betsy sent me an awesome picture of Manhattan from her morning run in Hoboken. At lunch, she just happened to be out walking her dogs Fred and Brownie when she saw the Blue Angel flyover;
B. Annie posted a video to Facebook showing the flyover at Elmhurst Hospital. She said I could only post it here “if you continue to keep things on the lighter side.” She also revealed that today they played “This is How We Do It” over the loudspeaker, signifying that someone had been taken off a ventilator;
C. We got a delivery from a liquor store today. We’re not big drinkers, but it’s something. I got a bottle of gin. Sara and I had gotten tonic water back in February. (All we need are limes. Got any?);
D. Will stayed up until 1am Tuesday morning and got us a slot for our next delivery of groceries on May 11th. Our first delivery in a month;
E. I’m now taking my blood pressure every day. Today’s top number was down more than 10 points from Tuesday--and that’s something to be very happy about too.
Image from Betsy
Blue Angel flyover video from Annie
Want the answer?
Answer #40. The Pursuit of Happiness, April 28, 2020
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Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #41. Ridiculous.
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #39. Short and Sweet.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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