There are some things that just make me happy. No matter how foul a mood I’m in.

Ice cream. Especially cookies and cream or peppermint.

Fresh flowers. The more unpretentious the better. Daisies. Poppies. Wildflowers.

And music.

Leaving work, frustrated by politics and what not, I rushed to BART. Porkchop Express never started on time; they were slated to begin at 7; I would arrive at 7:30; they would still be warming up.

Except they weren’t. A block away I heard the familiar strains of “Mother….”

I picked up my pace. Hurry, hurrry, hurrry. I arrived at the bar, still shouldering the day’s stresses. Ugh. How could they have started on time. How dare they?????

I entered the bar. Surprisingly, it wasn’t packed. What was wrong? Did San Francisco not notice what they were missing out on? Apparently not. Silly city.

Starving, I sat down at the first table, closest to the band. I waved, they responded in kind. I couldn’t leave. Even though food was merely a floor below, I couldn’t miss a precious Porkchop song.

Within moments, all the day’s stresses, the technical difficulties, the cancelled trip to Yosemite, had faded away.

Porkchop Express. Good stuff.