King's Delights, Day 1

I think a lot of my delights, especially early ones, will revolve around food. I have found even when I'm struggling with anhedonia, even when I don't have the energy or the caring to fix myself something to eat, I can still appreciate the taste of food that I might manage to make despite the lethargy, or food that is acquired with little effort (like from a drive-through or a sit-down restaurant). Food is probably my easiest gateway to delight. For this one, my wife offered to share one of her newly-acquired Girl Scout cookies. She didn't think they tasted all that lemony, but I ate it slowly (key to delight) and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I bought two slices from the grocery store deli last week. I ate one of them and forgot about the other. Imagine my delight at discovering the second slice in the refrigerator a little while ago!

For these purposes, it doesn't matter if you are religious or not. You may be able to relate to my delight when in church this morning we recited together the Apostles' Creed. I didn't grow up with that, and so it is a conscious matter to me, not just empty ritual. Today it seemed to carry extra meaning.

Murphy's Law played havoc with my morning routine. I have a favored route to church, but without warning the highway department decided to close a major bridge. It required major rerouting. I usually arrive 45 minutes before church because reasons, but this rerouting delayed me by a full half hour. Sure, I still got there 15 minutes before the start time, but that didn't leave me enough time to get ready. The delight aspect came from the return trip. Because I knew about the traffic fiasco, I took back roads home. With no particular time to have to get home, I enjoyed the leisurely drive.

We have an old cat. We're really bad with time, so we're not completely sure how old. But if we have properly associated his joining our household with other events of known timeframe, he could be as old as 19 or 20. He can be a real pain the butt, since he has the usual cat sense of caring exactly zero for what else we might need to do than take care of his wants. The president and the pope could be in the living room sipping tea while being broadcast to a national TV audience, and the cat would be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, president and pope, whatever. Feed me. Today when I got home, he demanded feeding (as usual), and then hopped up on the chair beside me and gently patted my leg with a paw. It was probably just, Hey, stop working and pet me. But it could also have been him petting me. Not sure, but I still took delight in his desire to be as close to me as possible. While I work, he lays right beside me with his head up again my leg, seemingly content just to be in my presence—at least until he gets hungry again.