Don't Worry, Be Happy!

       Nice sentiment in this picture, isn't it?  Might be more accurate with the addition of "If" and a comma, so it'd read "If You Are Happy, We Are Happy." Well, it's one step better than the local vernacular, in which it would have been rendered, "You Happy, We Happy."  Nonetheless, it makes me happy every time I see this message on the wall of the convenience store where I pick up my morning paper. Makes sense, since it's a Happy Mart!
       What makes me even happier is the fact that the fellow behind the counter may actually like me now.   We've come a long way together in these three months since I began getting my morning paper from him.  At first he wouldn't meet my eyes or say a word to me except to tell me the price of my paper.  Then he began to mellow out as I appeared almost every day.  He was "there" when I rode my motorbike the first time, wobbling out of the parking lot like a newborn lamb.  He began to smile whenever I came into the store.  I wouldn't say he exactly anticipates my arrival, but he has melted from iceberg to ice cube and recently we're at room temperature, I daresay.

    This got me thinking about whether we are, indeed, happy in this strange, but wonderful new land.  I can say definitively that we are.  It's the small things that add up to overall happiness here, just like elsewhere.  In the morning, the exotic tropical birds greet the dawn so eagerly, you'd swear you were at the aviary of some zoo.  Whistles, hoots, warbles--it's amazing!  The sound of the water treatment in the pool below our window is infinitely relaxing and soothing.
    One silly little thing that makes me smile every morning is our juice glasses.  They're fashioned in such a way that when you pour the liquid into them, it forms a heart shape.  Kinda gets the day off to a good start! 
  
 And how can anyone fail to be happy when they exit a shopping mall car park to this: