on happ[y]ness

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a while, and this summer's actually been pretty good to me so far.

Yesterday, my friend invited us all to her holiday-house in Bolgoda for a day of swimming, games, good food and general merriment. It promised to be a good day all in all.

I didn't end up going.

I found, at 10.30am, that despite having gotten ready to go I had got an attack of the lazies, and didn't particularly want to do anything more strenuous than read and snooze. Much as I love my friends, I decided I would stay home, intermittently read and sleep, and spend the rest of my day showing my family that I do indeed have a face. I suppose part of me was also slightly guilty about the fact that since I now work, my family doesn't get to see as much of me as they would like, although they are relatively good at pretending that it's all right by them.

Having spent most of the morning and afternoon either reading a book of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayer, or curled up on my brother's bed (which is larger than mine, and actually used to to BE my bed until he started resembling a bean-pole) I sauntered downstairs to find my parents having tea on the back verandah. They were all for going out for a family dinner, but I found I didn't want to do that either. The truth is, going out for dinner entails having to drive to a good restaurant (which is not exactly my father's favourite pastime, given his long drive to work every day). It means waiting for seats, and it means unnecessary expense. I wanted my family to have a good time, but I wasn't inclined to let them pay for it. And so I suggested we just go to the supermarket, buy a bunch of things we all like to eat, and rent a movie that we'd all like to watch.

Which is how we ended up spending Saturday night eating corned beef with onions and capsicum, buttered potatoes and bread for dinner, with mangos and peaches for dessert, and watching The Pursuit of Happyness. It was a good day, all in all. Success!

Which reminds me: I was in Chicago over Spring Break on a Breakout trip to learn about community organising, and Chris Gardner actually came to the church we went to on Sunday (St. Sabina's - we wanted to hear one of Fr Michael Pfleger's sermons, given his fame) and gave the church a donation towards its anti-gunviolence effort. I thought that that was one of the more interesting moments of my life. It was nice watching a movie and knowing you'd actually seen the person whose life story was the basis for it.