I had the most cliche moment on the bus the other day.

I was sitting there thinking about all the annoying things that had gone on that week, I’m tired and my bank’s being a pain about sending me a new atm card and my water heater’s carked it and I have to book a follow-up MRI in a medical beaurocracy I don’t understand at all and and and… And — I know this is on made-for-TV movie level — I looked out the window and it was the clearest sunniest afternoon I’ve ever seen in Torino, the sky was cloudless and the mountains looked like they were just down the street and I realized, I really do have it pretty good. Imagine me looking out the window, and suddenly breaking into a grin, maybe add some inspiring background music.

Anyway, the story breaks from the cliche because I didn’t exactly become a positive-thinking person that instant. Actually, later that afternoon, I tried swearing at my busted water heater in Italian in case it didn’t understand when I yelled at it in English about how I would like some hot water now (poor English skills is a known problem with water heaters). But being a grump isn’t so much fun, so here are some recent things I have to be thankful for, for future reference:

• The weather the past few days has been 20C and sunny, with blue skies.
  

  I am a bad blogger and haven’t taken any photos of the recent amazing weather, so here is one from almost 3 years (!) ago.

• Today I had 2 granitas: almond with whipped cream, then a combo of pistacchio and almond, again with whipped cream. Very much worth the brain freeze.
• I have friends who are always up for a second granita.
• I’ve been playing boardgames semi-regularly with some friends since the beginning of the year, and this week we finally beat Pandemic. With 6 epidemic cards in the deck, also known as stupid-hard-why-are-we-doing-this-to-ourselves level. Is there a way to work this into my cv?
• My Dad was here last weekend, on his way from Australia to the US. Pretty sure that counts as a detour but have you tried arguing with a dad about geography? I gave him dinner that was defrosted leftovers from when Mum was here, he washed up for me. Easiest guest ever!
• I was taught a sneaky trick for Italian health bureaucracy: pharmacies have access to the computer system to book procedures, so you don’t have to go and line up at a hospital.
• I got a haircut yesterday! Which I am unreasonably excited about because I’d meant to do it a month ago, never got around to it, and I was getting annoyed about having way too much hair.
• Also, I had a normal lazy saturday yesterday, that is, for the first time in a month I was at home and didn’t spend most of the day in bed. Whoo!
• The flowers I was given while in hospital are still alive, this is some kind of green thumbed record for me. My apartment looks like the sort of place an adult who can handle house plants lives in.
• Fortunately, the carabinieri only wanted a statement from me. (Which apparently, they couldn’t get by asking the police I’d already spoken to for a copy of my previous statement… but this is supposed to be a list of happy things, not How I Would Fix Italian Policing.)