Happiness is

Happiness is a ‘step in’ shower.  I am no longer fit enough to scramble over the sides of baths.

Happiness is a chair in the shower.  Now I can stay longer than my wobbly knees allow and enjoy the ‘long and hot’ flow of water.

Happiness is having a conversation with my husband when the surroundings are new and there has not been time  enough for him to lock into the ‘but we always do’ conversation  that comes from the second visit.

Happiness is  being met at the door by three cats eager for affection.  They were also eager to play in the garage as someone called ‘son’ had let them out to play and now they have the ‘but we always do’ mentality.

Happiness is finding a place  where a ‘toasted cheese sandwich’  bears a resemblance to  the  ‘toasted cheese sandwich’ which we had in our minds.  Most had pickles and mustard and some strange kind of meat they called ham.

Happiness is miles and miles of green trees.  I love trees.

Happiness is being the first to spot a bear  and the culture change in the group who learned quickly to call such things as ‘Bear on the right’, ‘Elk on the left’  I loved the bonding of that activity. even though I missed the Wolf.

Sadness is being the person who coughed their way through Canada and the potential friends I missed because of it.

Sadness  is  bearing the cross of asthma which slows me down and stops me from making friendships stronger.

Happiness is a karaoke song that surprised my new friends.  Yes I can sing (when I stop coughing. – Strange how I don’t cough when I sing. ) It is similar to the phenomena when stutterers don’t stutter when they sing.  Let’s have more singing in the world.   Just a question – why do ship’s activity directors restrict Karaoke to ONE hour ? Don’t they know that it takes time to find the right song and while you are doing that you can’t be drinking to get the courage to sing.

Terror is being told by a doctor in the middle of Canada that we should both be in hospital and the advice that we should not continue the journey.  We took his scripts but not his advice and got better en route with a little help from our friends.

Happiness was a message from home. My son was  watching TV with the cats and asked me if I knew James (the male cat) liked chips.  Not if he was fed them – only if he stole them.

The Ultimate happiness was finding one channel on the ‘Dam’ ship to Alaska that played vocal jazz 24 hours a day.  Pure heaven.  I wanted to being it home.

Happiness is arriving home to find an invite to fellow resident’s birthday party where they will be featuring the Caxton Street Jazz Band.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFvaSOqGfXs  I can’t wait.

Sadness is arriving home to find friend who was tending the cats had fallen and broken her wrist.  Now its payback time  as she has been my support for months.

Sadness is ‘losing’ my grand daughter’s birthday over the date line.  We left on June 22 and arrived on June 24th.  Where did the 23rd go?