Quote of the Day           “ “That,” I said to Yasmin as I polished off the last succulent lobster claw–and by the way, don’t you love it when you are able to draw the flesh of the claw out of the shell whole and pinky-red in one piece?  There is some kind of tiny personal triumph in that.  I may be childish, but I experience a similar triumph when I succeed in getting a walnut out of its shell without breaking it in two.  As a matter of fact, I never approach a walnut without this particular ambition in mind.  Life is more fun if you play games. But back to Yasmin–”            — Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald

The passage above came to mind this evening as I struck a particularly pleasing vein of marshmallow in my Phish Food.  It is the little things that can really make your day. Well, the big things can make your day too, but how often do the big things come around?  If we don’t delight in the little things that give us a charge we’ll spend a lot of time stuck in neutral or worse waiting around on those big things.  Anyway, it got me thinking about what some of those little things were.  There are too many to catalog, but here are a few, not counting a good marshmallow vein in your ice cream and Dahl’s two contributions.

I love it when someone else suggests pizza.  It’s doubly good when they say something like, “you don’t mind if it doesn’t have veggies, do you?”  A low hanging oversized orange full moon just around nightfall always surprises me and gives me joy.  I usually feel the need to call someone to go outside and check it out so I can share the moment.  Seeing a deer, a rabbit or some other wild animal when I’m driving through the woods, especially if I spot it before my passenger feels like a small triumph; but even if you see it second, so long as you see it, you share the feeling.  To miss out on such a sighting is to suffer inglorious defeat, if only for a fraction of a second.  Another way to get a shared electrical charge in the car is to answer a companion’s query on the name of a band or a song;  it is almost as good to get the answer from someone else when the information is so close to the output area of your brain that it almost causes physical pain, only to be released in a rush of endorphins when the brain lock is untangled.  This is doubly good if you answer the question via unexpected phone call, and triple points if they are in a bar with friends.  Just a few more things–hitting nothing but net, even if your not playing a game; walking in to the movie just as the lights begin to dim; zooming through that light you always seem to catch; the sound of a pop tab on an icy cold beer–it sounds different than one coming off a soda, I swear; and waking up and seeing your clock shows two, when you were certain it would be more like four.

Maybe on some Monday I’ll indulge in the dark side and post about the little things that drive you insane. But its Friday night, and the very idea of that always gives me a charge.  And life is good.