"Happiness is--pizza with sausage..."

Back in the 7th grade, I had the privilege of playing the part of Snoopy in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. My whole family thought it was a privilege, too, and constantly were begging me to practice the song “Suppertime” over and over and over…(yea, yea…what you have suffered in order for me to shine…:). There is a swell song from that glorious show called Happiness (“Happiness is finding a pencil, pizza with sausage, telling the tiiiiiiiiime. Happiness is learning to whistle, sharing a sandwich, climbing a treeeeeeeeee. Happiness is getting along every now and thennnnnn. And happiness is coming home again.”) Anyhoo, as I’m sort of approaching the first high of the “culture shock and adaptation curve,” the tune of this song cycles in and out of my mind. Although I wouldn’t equate positive experiences and nice smells and the like with happiness per se, they not detracting from my current state of glee. For instance:

• When Mr. Grumpy Meat Man, after a total failure of conveying what I wanted, finally let out a raspy giggle of sorts at my charade-like body clues at what kind of meat i wanted.
• When I beat a 14-year-old at arm wrestling (L arm only) after consistently getting the jeebers kicked out of me
• When the sentence, “I hope you will come tonight to the meeting at 7.00 at Bujana restaurant” came out of my mouth without smoke coming out my ears.
• When, after a chunk of time with lousy water pressure, we have amazing water pressure!
• When I found a spinach-seller…twice (i hear it’s hard to find here this time of year).
• When I took my first public transportation on a mini-bus. I loved it:)
• When it rains and I can open the door and smell the amazing fragrance of wet Gjilan.
• When 2 gals in the church and I clutched hands in the backseat of a car and prayed excitedly for an outreach event we were headed to
• When I quasi-understood my first joke! And when an Albanian found something I said funny rather than how I said it:)
  

Not everything is hitting my happy-bone, but I’m trying to get better at enjoying mini-highs instead of anticipating the downward slope. And I think it's working out well so far...