Happy

OK...not sure how it happened that I stopped my "happiness list" at number 2. Honestly, I haven't really been that unhappy, case in point:

Jasper and me at Kim's place which is always filled with allconsuming love and really really good food.

Happy day 2

Last time I wrote about Japanese animation my friend Yuki mentioned that her favourite Studio Ghibli film is "My Neighbour Totoro." I have to agree with you Yuki, it makes me SO HAPPY. It's the story of two sisters whose mother is sick in hospital, so they spend the summer in the country with their father who teaches Archaeology at the local university. The scene which makes me the happiest is the one in which the two girls are waiting to meet him at the bus-stop with an umbrella, but he's late, and Totoro joins them and waits with them. Oh no, wait, my favourite scene is actually when they catch the bus that's shaped like a cat and it takes them to visit their mother and they sit on the top branch of a tree and look into the hospital window and see her talking with their father. No, no, I've changed my mind...I think my favourite scene is when the lovely old lady who is looking after the little sister brings her to the school where the big sister studies because she won't stop crying, so the little sister joins the class for the rest of the day.

I'll stop now and let you watch the trailer in peace and quiet.




This then doubles my happiness, Totoro making an appearance in Toy Story 3 as an homage to Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki and Lasseter are friends, that makes me so so happy:

Happy tag

The beautiful Duyvken tagged me, so I'm going to come up with 10 things that make me happy. Thanks Duvvy xxxx

I hope it's still within the rules if I post one thing every day. For ten days in a row I'll post what made me happy on each of the days, all right?

So, here goes....

Today, I was very happy to discover this piece of music:







This music is actually one precious link in an entire necklace of musical happinesses. I first heard this tune on the television programme "In Treatment," which makes me very happy whenever I watch it. This is the story behind the music:

Mia was Paul's patient when she was in her late teens, she returns to him as a patient twenty years later and blames him for a decision she made in her youth. She also claims that he didn't truly care for her when he originally treated her. Paul gets up from his chair, walks towards the stereo and presses the play button - this music comes on. It's a tape which Mia had given him many years ago of her own piano playing, and which he has saved all these years. That scene makes me happy.

Each of Paul's patients has a musical theme, and each one makes me happy. For example, this is Sophie's theme:



April's theme:



Paul's own theme when he visits his own therapist Gina:



Sometimes happiness is soft and thoughtful, with an undertone of a good type of sadness. Today my happiness is like a salted caramel - it's sweeter and better because of the salt.

Back home

Hello all,

If you're still here reading this blog then it means you knew me back when...you know...back when I used to post regularly.


It took me several weeks to feel "at home" again at home, and I just didn't feel like writing about it. This is a time of big changes in my role as mother/housewife/woman and some days I seem to be completely lost. Miss Cb is working in America for a few months, Master Cb is very independent and happy in his own world of school and friends, and for the first time ever I'm suddenly reminiscing about the "early years" of the family and wondering what exactly my role is in the present years.

I watched this film last week - "Only Yesterday" - and I had the most wonderful cry at the end of it. Such a wonderful feeling to cry at the end of a movie, really it is! I think the Japanese audience especially loves a good cry, and I'm so thankful for that. It's all very well to watch clever, fast-paced, witty or three-dimensional Hollywood films, but sometimes all you want is a good cry.

I love the idea of a woman in her mid-twenties taking along her younger self as she travels to her summer destination. I love the interweaving of the two love narratives - her first love with the school's baseball star and the deep love which she slowly discovers while picking safflowers. And then there are all of the perfect, tiny details which are added in the animation (painstakingly hand-drawn by the wonderful Studio Ghibli) - the father's puff of cigarette smoke, the cat walking past, her glancing at the mirror while talking on the phone, and best of all - the catcher's mitt glimpse when the little girl and little boy agree on their favourite kind of day.

Thought it might brighten your day as well.....

Dinner with a blogging legend

This is what I looked like as I sat at a table in a wonderful restaurant with EL, bb (and B the lurker, naturally). Lurkers.are.always.with.us.

I only took a break from smiling and laughing so as to eat, that goes without saying though, doesn't it?

Here I am again, smiling and laughing. At one point, bb&EL&B took part in what can only be described as a Funny Competition in which each competed "in the round" with each other, coming up with one-liners in at attempt to outdo each other. Soon, EL had folded (I know. Stamina. She had it not) and oh my but how well did B do against the hysterically funny bb!!! I cannot even begin to imagine what the other diners thought of us. Some very good wine may have been consumed as well, so, you know, it was a very very good night.

Sitting with bb, the wonderfully petite blogging legend who introduced me to EL, and of course to each and every one of you, was indeed a true highlight of my trip.

Ah yes, the miracle of blogging. If blogging was a religion, I'd convert, because it has brought me so much happiness.

I'm now off to the airport to return home.

See you back home.

E xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When I win the lottery I will fly each and every one of you to Tuvalu and:

I will rent out this place every evening. Cocktails and mini-burgers and some wonderful tunes playing on the piano. Then more cocktails, fries dipped in mayonnaise and gushing over the murals. Repeat.

On the very first morning we will convene here, we will take full advantage of the free Wifi and the Reading Room. Although I have no doubt that EL and Coffeelady would end up here.

We'd have breakfast here every single morning. We'd also eat a great deal of the time here, here and here.

We would often find ourselves exhausted - sore throats from talking so much, sore facial muscles from laughing so much etc. So we would have to take a break and relax in these grounds. We would also walk up and down here, especially at sunset.

Free banana pudding every single day...and night....from here, and we'd only eat cupcakes from here. That's a RULE, by the way, because a HUGE amount of research went into this. HUGE.

To be continued......

My Grand Manhattan Adventure

Long time no post, huh?!!

So... this post will officially start the catch-up. I will tell you where I've travelled, what I've done and who I met in the past three weeks.

But first let me share this photograph with you, this photo which is my all-time favourite out of the many photos taken during my Grand Manhattan Adventure.


No photoshopping was used on this photo, Eurolush truly is that drop-dead gorgeous, cute and lovable. She's everything she is in her blog, but even more witty, clever, funny and AWESOME. If you can imagine! Which I don't have to any more, because I MET her!!!!

Seeing as Eurolush is just so damn fine, she never ever travels without her trusty entourage of lurkers, and indeed she was accompanied this week by her most experienced and professional lurker - the infamous B. True to form, B never left our side...we could always see her out of the corner of our eyes, but then we'd turn around and....poof....nobody there....just some anonymous passerby staring into the window of yet another Cupcake Shop. You know that commentbox you just received on your blog signed by Anonymous? That was B. You know that "follower" who won't let you know who she is? B. You know that reader you imagine...the one who follows the details of your life but never shares anything in return?

B

She is always in disguise.

Spot the lurker:

Spot the lurker:

Spot the lurker:

And now I must come to the reason for my Grand Manhattan Adventure (aka Tuvalu Travels). Do not for one moment think that I was sent here for pleasure. God forbid. Ladies, it was all business, risky business, challenging, and at times, I must admit, exhausting.

There are not many people who can head up the International Cupcake Commission, and it was an absolute honour to have been chosen to be Co-President of said Commission - alongside Eurolush. Our personal assistant B was an ideal choice, she's there....but completely unobtrusive...as all good lurkers are.

Hmmm....not sure...5 points for atmosphere and comfort, 5 for the superlative icing, but the cake itself...hmm.....not...quite...sure....

A second round may be needed for a true and exact judgement call.



Presenting the Cupcake Van, 4 points for cuteness, but lack of freshness and overwhelming diesel fumes left our Co-President unimpressed. And yet still fresh as a daisy and cute as a button:




The judges are ecstatic. The icing is as thick as the cake itself. A grand effort indeed.



Presentation outstanding, the judges are immediately at ease. All is well with the world.

Random photo of me kissing Eurolush.

Just because.

To be continued......the next episode may well include a tiny blackbird, a Chinese restaurant, and several glasses of Sancerre.

Then we shall probably return to the cupcakes, and an Italian restaurant in which we may or may not have waited for an hour and a half at the bar until our table was ready.