things that have been making me especially happy as of late

--I was sitting in the waiting room at the orthodontist Tuesday and there was this guy (maybe a little younger than me? but then I'm terrible at guessing age) sitting with his mother. And she kept nodding off--not just falling asleep for a minute or two, but the kind where you're sitting there and your head actually is falling forward and jerking back up. And the guy reached his hand over and sort of steadied her head and neck so she could go on sleeping without all the jerking around.

--For three days now--four if you count today--when I leave work to take my lunch, there has been a man sitting across the street wearing a red tank top sitting on a picnic table. On it like on the table, with his feet on the bench. He's always there when I leave, sitting the same way. I don't know him, but he sees me too, and I wonder how long he'll be there come one o'clock.

--I'm getting my braces off before I leave for Romania. And even if he said I couldn't, my orthodontist is one of my favorite people to be around.

--The heat--I know it's weird. Even I think it's strange that the heat should be making me so happy, but there you have it.

--Even though I've only learned about three words in Romanian, I read the other day that lei means lion. And then I found out that the Romanians don't use the Euro, that their currency is the Lei. They pay in lions! Just wow.