Strawberry Cookies and Annie Hall

I like the process of thinking about happiness.  It's not always my nature!  Like brushing my teeth, exercise and eating veggies, it's a practice that I decided to make part of my life.

Learning:  Khan Academy.   I've recently upgraded my math skills, looking for the gaps in understanding and finding ways to teach myself.  I've borrowed books from the library, read math blogs and now am working with Khan Academy, a free website for learning.  They have a daily practice that I find helpful and through sheer repetition I can gain a deeper understanding of concepts.  When I get stuck, I can ask SE for clarification!

Reading:  Raymond Carver.  I borrowed Where I'm Calling From, a compilation of some of this Oregon writer's short stories and last night I read the first three stories.  I really want to read "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and usually I would skip ahead to the story I want, but I've decided to treat the compilation as a work in itself and read from beginning to end.  The stories so far are raw, gritty,  definitely not "happy" stories, although it makes me happy to find out about this writer and has works.  Happiness comes in varied shapes.

Food:  Strawberries and Cream cookies.  The delight here comes from the scent and appearance of these cookies more than the taste.  They are the first of the baking for the pink-themed wedding shower of my niece.  It was comforting to have SE to help bake, to have two people involved and tidy up as we went along.

Movie:  Annie Hall (1977).  I caught the end of this movie the other night on the TCM channel, and borrowed the DVD from the library to watch as we baked the cookies.  What I love about this movie is the way Woody is the actor, director, character all at once, how he steps in and out of the story, how he makes us empathize with his loveable but unlikeable character, how in the last frames he creates nostalgia for his relationship with Annie.  Imagine creating that kind of emotion in people you will never meet!  As I was feeling wistful about people I've never met, I included relationships in my own life that I've outgrown, along with the universal feeling of the glorious messiness of all love and friendship.

Song:  Be Not Afraid.  I sang it with T at her mother-in-law's funeral yesterday morning.  Familiar songs are a comfort at sad times.  Afterwards, outside the church, a crow screeched loudly which I hope wasn't a review of our singing!