With my pinched nerve in my back, my benign, positional vertigo (a fancy way of saying “dizziness”) and the death of Mary Ellen’s Aunt Marge, I’ve been in a bit of depression as of late, which is pretty uncommon for me. For me, there is no better remedy for depression than thinking about the good things that I have in this life. The other night, as Mary Ellen and I were sitting our hot tub under a crystal clear sky that featured a bright, Full Beaver Moon, I started listing out loud all of the things in the world that I love. Here are a fraction of the items that are on that list.

First and foremost: I love Mary Ellen, without whom none of the other items would be worth a damn.

I love my children and my grandchildren.

I love the memory of my grandparents.

I love Fritz and Dixie and Smoky and Simba, the “house”animals.

I love the horses: Hoo, Shasta, Maria, and the pony Angel.

I love my friends, and I am SO LUCKY to have so many good ones!

I love the theater.

I love being an actor.

I love acting younger than I am.

I love having the ability to make people laugh and cry with my stage performances and my writing.

I love playing the role of Lenny in Neil Simon’s RUMORS, (which I’ve been able to do for two theater companies.)

I love writing.

I love that my play is being published.

I love that my play is being produced.

I love exercising. (Really! Weird, huh?)

I love being able to exercise.

I love, in spite of my constant complaining and worrying, that I am in good shape and good health. (The two are not always the same.)

I love trees.

I love birds, especially chickadees, titmice, (Is that the plural of “titmouse”?), woodpeckers, nuthatches, sparrows, gold finches, cardinals, cow birds, hummingbirds and the myriad of other birds that visit my feeding stations that make my backyard into a natural aviary.

 I love the hawks and eagles (Bald Eagles!) that circle above my pastures on a daily basis as they ride the thermals in their perennial search for food.

I love living in the country.

I love country folk.  (Not necessarily the folks who move to the country from the city, and then try to change country living to city living.)

I love my hot tub.

I love my new barn.

I love my big screen television.

I love, LOVE, LOVE high definition!

I love NCIS (Particularly Abby).

I love Blue Bloods.

I love Boardwalk Empire.

I love Jack Nicholson movies.

I love Robert Duval movies.

I love Clint Eastwood movies.

I love Morgan Freeman movies.

I love the older Woody Allen movies.

I love Gregory Peck movies.

I love blogging.

I love my blogging friends.

I love women.

I love some men (In the PLATONIC sense… sorry, Martin!)

I love my house in Florida, which is right on the shores of Tampa Bay!

I love the sun. (As “bad” as it is for me, I am truly a sun worshipper.)

I love fair-trade peppermint leaf that I buy in bulk to make fresh-brewed tea.

I love The Main Street Café in Willimantic, CT. ( Where, everybody, knows my name, including the owner, the brew master, the bartenders, the wait staff and the patrons.)

I love micro-brews.

I love owls and deer and turkeys and coyotes that live in the woods by my house.

I love fresh vegetables.

I love fruit, particularly grapes.

I love having a doctor who truly cares about me as a patient and as a friend.

I love the old fashion barber shop that I patronize, that is not unlike Floyd’s Barber Shop on the old Andy Griffith Show.

I love the snow, as long as I don’t have to drive in it.

I love keeping my house warm by burning wood that I’ve cut and split buy hand. (10 cord a year, with a 30-year-old Husqvarna chainsaw and a 12-pound maul.)

I love The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, The Dixie Chicks, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, The Who, Mike and The Mechanics, David Allen Coe, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Orbison, Canned Heat, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, Roger Miller and The Kingston Trio.

I love being 57years old, being financially secure, and not having to prove anything to anybody any more, including myself.

I love being self confident.

I love not having a mortgage.

I love blue jeans and sneakers.

I love skiing.

I love sailing.

I love scuba diving.

I love Bonaire and the British Virgin Islands.

I love cheeseburgers and fries and fried chicken and hot sauce and bacon-and-egg sandwiches (ESPECIALLY those prepared for me by Brenda at The Marlboro Bakery every Friday morning.)

I love that people seem genuinely happy to see me.

I love Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain novels.

I love To Kill A Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Never Cry Wolf, A Sand County Almanac, The Monkeywrench Gang, A Day No Pigs Would Die, Where The Red Fern Grows and the Truman Capote’s short story, A Christmas Memory.

I love baseball.

I LOVE The Boston Red Sox.

 I LOVE Fenway Park and how it makes me remember going there with my Dad.

I love college basketball.

I love UConn Huskies Men’s Basketball

I really love UConn Huskies Women’s Basketball.

I love . . .But this could go on forever.

Care to share the things in this life that really float your boat?