Pre-Ramble:  It’s official — I am the happiest person in the world.  I have just returned from my happy place — Starbucks — with a piping hot cup of dark roast.  Why the delirity (made up word for “state of delirious-ness”)?

The Harvard School of Public Health has studied 50,000+ women in the United States and have found that “drinking two or more cups of coffee a day is associated with a reduced risk of depression in women.”

Excellent news!! As a daily coffee drinker, (and a woman in the United States …) I am thrilled to know that the research is on my side. The new study is yet another to suggest that the consumption of coffee, like its sweet brown caffeinated buddy, chocolate, may have compelling health benefits.

Actually, more precisely, the study reported that … “women who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day were 15 percent less likely to develop depression over a 10-year period, compared to those who drank one cup of coffee or less per week.”  One of the researchers notes that:

“ … These results [can] reassure coffee drinkers that there seem to exist no glaringly deleterious health consequences to coffee consumption … “

Not exactly a resounding endorsement … but, in the spirit of implied happiness, and as one who likes to avoid “glaringly deleterious health consequences,” I prefer to think positively here.  According to the experts, “Caffeine can make people feel more energized, focused and put them in a better mood in general.”

Cheers, then to some factoids about coffee consumption brewed up by The National Coffee Association and The Specialty Coffee Association of America:

• Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day making the United States the leading consumer of coffee in the world
• Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day — representing over 150 million daily drinkers
• 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, and frozen/iced coffee beverages
• Among coffee drinkers, the average consumption in the United States is 3.2 cups of coffee per day
• The average coffee cup size is 9 ounces
• 65% of all coffee is consumed during breakfast hours, 30% between meals, and the remaining 5% with other meals
• 35% of coffee drinkers prefer black coffee; 65% prefer to add sugar and/or cream
• There are an estimated 50,000 coffee shops in the United States, with Seattle, Washington and Manhattan, New York having the most coffee shops per capita

The Take-Away:  Carpe coffee!  … Help yourself to an extra cup of sunshine tomorrow morning and just watch the “energy, focus and better mood in general” zing into your day!

Pre-Ramble:  In case you missed it, last night was the Emmy Awards – the show where a bunch of actors and actresses get lacy golden statuettes for outstanding performances on the small screen.

It’s kind of a runner-up to The Peoples’ Choice Awards, which is a runner up to the Golden Globe Awards, which is a runner up to the Academy Awards, which is the runner up to getting into heaven … you get the idea.

Lots of fancy dresses, film clips, quippy repartee and sticky envelopes … That’s not me at right, it’s happy Gwyneth Paltrow at the Emmys.  (I was her one halloween … in her pink dress from the 1999 Academy Awards … she won best actress for “Shakespere in Love” …. )

Never mind.

Drama!  And, there’s always some backstage scuttlebutt. This year it was the potential smack-down between Charlie Sheen and Ashton Kutcher. Turns out Sheen is too exhausted to riff on anything and Ashton just has too much class to stoop anywhere near there.

So, somewhere around the 3,000th commercial break, I got to wondering what it would be like to be an actor/tress and win an Emmy Award and act all surprised and walk up all those stairs in my super tight dress and super high heels.

Then I got to thinking that there must be some kind of award for outstanding bloggers … Musn’t there??  … Although, clearly I have never won it, or I would totally know that it existed.

And, The Bloggy goes to … If there is an award for outstanding bloggers, it’s probably called “The Bloggy” … or maybe more appropriately, “The Sloggy” … Which would stand for:

• Sublime
• Litany
• Of
• Giddy
• Gibberish …
• … Yay!

There really isn’t a good “starts-with-a-Y” word choice … (However, in the spirit of good fun and crowd-sourcing, please feel free to submit your own acronym.)

The Take-Away:  I look at it this way – everybody is award-worthy at SOMETHING.  While there might not be a big ol’ glittering telecast, you can sit back and recognize your personal stellar achievements at any point of any day …

So, Yay!   (And, think how much $$$ you save on botox and back-up dancers.)

Post Note:  Apparently some guy named Kevin Marshall has actually created/received a Blog Award (that’s it shown below). His schtick goes something like this:

“So, in honor of the hard work that may have been missed by readers – as well as my own unrelenting ego – I present to you the 2010 Kevin Marshall Blog Awards. (Note – yes, J. Eric Smith did something similar already. And guess what? I don’t care, because I’m self-centered and deluded. So there.)”

Something to aspire to!

Pre-Ramble:  Since it’s Fashion Week, I thought this was a fitting little snippet …

German costume designer, Heather MacCrimmon, noticed some children’s drawings on a friend’s refrigerator of “princesses in fantastical dresses.”

She thought it would be fun to actually MAKE the dresses exactly as they were drawn … to “bring to life the clothes in children’s artwork, designs by children too young to be influenced by commercial fashion.”

An example of her work is shown at right (the drawing below) – A red linen dress with appliqued white geometric designs imagined, drawn and modeled by 7-year-old Anne Marie Perelwitz (photo by Heike Isenmann).

The Take-Away:  How awesome is that!?  I love it when people have an interesting, fun idea like this and follow through on it.  And, if only there really was a way to get the perfect clothes that you can imagine in your mind’s eye — and never find on the rack!

Pre-Ramble:  Great. It’s Fashion Week.   Didn’t we just do this?  I assure you, I didn’t wear “dressy shorts” with patterned tights and stacked wedges last season, and I won’t wear them this season either — even if they come in that fancy new ”vivid sorbet yellow.”

Yes, this is a time to celebrate the Beautiful People, … in their Beautiful Clothes, with their Beautiful Sunglasses, tucked into their Beautiful Handbags, hanging on their Beautiful Shoulders, as they strut around on their freakishly long Beautiful Legs. It’s the long legs that really tick me off.

People with long legs look fabulous in everything.  And the rest of us look like trolls.  (That’s us, shown above.) People with long legs look good in vivid sorbet yellow dressy shorts. … Even if a short-legged person is wearing vivid sorbet dressy shorts with super-tall shoes, she really still looks like a troll, … on stilts.

Beautiful people are everywhere. Heck, even the the National Football League is getting into the act. Yesterday’s WSJ sports section ran a piece on the ranking of NFL teams according to cumulative scores around their “facial symmetry.”  (I LOVE the Wall Street Journal.) Apparently, research findings show that the degree to which the features on both sides of an individual’s face are symmetrical is a reliable indicator of human attraction. The “Pretty in Pigskin” rankings answer the question on everyone’s mind – ”Which NFL team is the handsomest?”

Turns out the most attractive group of players, with an average symmetry rating of 99.47 is the Buffalo Bills.  Clearly, beauty does not correlate with games won — the Bills had one of the worst records in the league (4-12 last season).  The least attractive team was the Kansas City Chiefs, who came in last with a symmetry rating of 94.6 (but won its division title and made it to the play-offs).  My hometown team, the Detroit Lions, came in at a respectable 98.1 (we won’t talk about their record … ), while the Minnesota Vikings ranked 30th out of 32 teams rated with a pitiful 96.4.

The Take-Away:  In all fairness, very few of us can carry off that shade of purple and nobody looks good in those stupid horn/braid hats.

Post-Note:  Speaking of beautiful people, is it just me, or did the GOP debates look like a homecoming court?  The only thing missing were boutonnieres and a tiara.

Pre-Ramble:  For the past several months I’ve been consumed by an online spelling game called Words With Friends (WWF).  Before you write me off as a complete geek (I’ve been written off as worse), the game – a smartphone version of the ever-popular vintage board game, SCRABBLE – is played by over 1.6 million people a day who log in an average of over an hour of play per day.

As in the original SCRABBLE game, Words With Friends players try to score as many points as possible by making words out of the letters they are randomly given in the context of the gameboard and the words that have already been played there (sample board shown at right).

I won’t bore you with the strategies and wacky rules (like there are some “words” that have no actual meaning, but are still valid words to play in this game … don’t ask me how that works, just know that you shun that phenomenon to your peril), … but I will say that the game is definitely fun, challenging and addictive!!

“You’ve got a word!” … One of the main fun things about WWF is that, since it is played on your phone, you are basically carrying it around with you, which means that you may receive a play made by your wily opponent at any time, in any place.  A little jingle tone happens when a new play has been made by your opponent and is waiting in your inbox.  This Pavlovian design is a key part of the game’s self-rewarding dynamic.

I am currently playing with a couple of folks who are very skilled at WWF, and I now brace myself when I hear the jingle, because I know that their “in-your-face,” high point play could easily be lying in wait for my response.  I will physically wince when I see a stellar word that has been played against me … often artfully wedged between two or three existing words and commanding a few premium spots … (a word covering the gold space, for example, is worth three times the face value of the tiles).

The Take-Away:  Like many games, WWF is actually a great metaphor for life.  In addition to being interrupted all the time, the human struggle to discover individual talents and gifts, find the prefect companion, or uncover the true meaning of life, is a lot like trying to find just the right combination of letters that fit into the perfect available spaces on life’s “big gameboard.” Every move is spontaneous and the board is filled with surprises.  And, even when your tile tray has nothing but suboptimal letters (like all “i”s and “u”s … ), you work through it, confident in the fact that there will always be a new batch of options on your next turn.

Carpe SCRABBLE!

Pre-Ramble:  Well, our good buddies at Red Bull (the high-energy folks who brought us the Flugtag event in back in July 2010) have pulled off another big innovation fest — the Red Bull Creation USA 2011 competition.

The annual event, a “build-a-thon” held in a scrapyard in Brooklyn, NY, challenges the resourcefulness of inventors and screwballs of all types to demonstrate their skills in a themed, time-limited contest.

This year the theme was “Energy in motion” and the timeframe was a quick 72 hours.  The challenge was to “create a device that could carry the weight of a human being without using fossil fuels.” Sponsors provided tools and equipment (saws, nuts, bolts, blow-torches, etc.) and teams could bring no more than 200 pounds of additional parts and supplies. Participants were encouraged to push the edges of their inventive capabilities as entries were judged on “technicality, functionality, demonstration and awesomeness.”

Twin Cities team, Dillon Hodapp, David Heisserer, Nathan Knutson, and Cory Huseby, calling themselves  ”1.21 Jigawatts,” were selected to compete against 15 other teams to create something that would “wow a crowd of spectators and a panel of judges at the Creation event.”

The team did just that, presenting the “Human-Powered Hamster Wheel with a Text Message Spray Paint Printer,” a curious 8-foot-tall contraption (shown above) made out of plywood, paint cans and a cell phone.  The device was propelled forward under human power and “spit out a text message as it roll[ed] by.”

“The giant wheel was connected to a wireless network using an open source-based microcomputer; a cellular module; and a phone SIM card, which assigned the system its own phone number. Audience members were asked to send text messages to the system, which pulled a small trailer holding a “printer” with a row of seven paint cans. The text messages sent a signal to the printer, which in turn fired the proper paint cans to spell out the words from the text message … [long strips of brown paper were] wrapped around the hamster wheel so that the printed messages could be torn off and taken home by audience members as souvenirs.”

And the winner is …  you guessed it, 1.21 Jigawatts took the $5,000 grand prize for their awesome and “technically impressive” solution (the only thing missing was cedar chips).  Crediting their strategy to play on individual group member strengths, the team knew it would have to “go big” …

“We knew we were going to have to show this in a big venue … We had the inspiration to make it big … make it beautiful, … make it a spectacle!”

The Take-Away:  For those of you who are keeping score at home, this victory comes on the heels of another spectacular coup — the world-record-breaking performance in the 2010 Flugtag event, also set by a Twin Cities-based team.  Venture capitalists take note – Minneapolis/Saint Paul is a hot bed for innovation (and lunacy) … !

Pre-Ramble:  Maybe this case only applies to ice-cream-ophiles, but every now and then, something comes along that is so delightful that it resonates on a different frequency …

Hurry, before they melt!  The latest window decorations at Tiffany & Co.‘s Fifth Avenue flagship store are all done up in America’s favorite summer treat — ice cream cones!

What makes these noteworthy is the fact that, instead of sporting mere nuts and a cherry, these quasi-creamy confections are topped with rubies and emeralds and all sorts of other candy-colored, semi-precious jewels — Yum!!!

The fanciful Tiffany windows came to my attention by way of my precious, ice-cream-aficionado daughter, Kristen (the scoop doesn’t fall far from the cone … ) who is interning in New York City this summer. She has an uncanny radar for all things sweet, and is sure that the universe was involved in timing the Tiffany ice cream windows to her visit — I believe “magical” was the exact word she used.

When I dropped Kristen off in NYC at the beginning of June, (ok, … she probably didn’t need a mommy escort, but somebody had to make sure the fridge was stocked and there was an adequate supply of coasters), the first place she wanted to track down was Dylan’s Candy Bar.  Dylan’s is a sweet-tooth’s paradise where sucrose in all of its forms is served up in a Disney-fied atmosphere of giant lollipops and peppermint barstools … (for the older kids among us). ….. We had a little scoop of heaven while we were there … Mine was chocolate with ribbons of fudge and chunks of more chocolate and then rolled in chocolate cookie crumbs (shown below with Kristen).  It was called “Dirt Ball.”  It was indisputably good.

The Take-Away:  Well, so, I’d like a triple scoop of that Tiffany “Rocky Road,” … as long as the “rocks” are big and sparkly and the “road” is paved with diamonds — !

Post-Note:  Since the end of July, shares of Tiffany & Co. stock have gone down 18% (along with other luxury retailers), most likely due to the recent turmoil on Wall Street.

Maybe TiffCo should consider actually selling ice cream – I may not be able to splurge on a big, blingy bauble, but there’s always enough in the budget for a scoop of Dirt Ball.

Pre-Ramble: As a gal who has been accused of thinking on the sunny side of life, I was recently drawn into a discussion about the value of the positive spin and whether it is disingenuous and even a case of denial to try to see things – good things and less good things – in a positive light.  (Does my shameless overuse of the happy-face icon have any bearing on this?)

I’m not the only one - author Gretchen Rubin has made a thriving career out of the pursuit of happiness, penning best-seller “The Happiness Project,” (2009) a look into ”the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture” to learn about the dynamics of happiness.

“Filled with practical advice, sharp insight, charm, and humor, The Happiness Project manages to be illuminating yet entertaining, profound yet compulsively readable. Gretchen’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project.”

“This book made me happy in the first five pages. And the more I read it, the happier I got. It’s filled with great insights that have changed every part of my life, from love to money, from work to play, from writing to Diet Coke.”

Soon to be translated into 31 languages, Gretchen’s work covers every ilk of happiness … as it applies to work, play, relationships, parenthood, spirituality, marriage, money and even clutter (… apparently, outer order is the key to inner serenity).

I don’t know about you, but any time I’m up against a new or confounding psychological issue, I like to look for answers in a quick multiple choice magazine quiz.  Colleen Oakley for the nationally syndicated Parade Magazine to the rescue with … “Sunny Side Up: Do you know how to be happy?“  Ten quippy questions test your knowledge around happiness … sort of.  Let’s happily skip to number ten:

Which piece of advice from a Disney movie is actually backed by scientific evidence?

• a) “Look for the bare necessities.” – The Jungle Book
• b) “Hakuna Matata (no worries)!” - The Lion King
• c) “What do you do when things go wrong? … Oh! You sing a song.” - Snow White
• d) “Think happy thoughts.” – Peter Pan

Answer: d) … Just imagining yourself laughing can reduce sadness, claims Bowling Green State University researcher Nakia Gordon. Nakia’s team scanned subjects’ brains and found that “the areas that indicate happiness lit up whether the subjects were actually laughing or just thinking about it.” (I’m pretty impressed that these subjects could register any semblance of laughter while having their brain scanned!)

The Take-Away: Great news - turns out that happiness is as happiness does. So, … turn that frown upside-down … fake it ’til you make it … just whistle a happy tune … happiness is a warm puppy … (better quit before someone punches me in the happy face).

Have a great day!!

Pre-Ramble: “So, what time are you going to get back from the poetry reading?” my daughter asks …

Up until last Thursday, I could confidently have told you that I had never been asked, nor had I ever answered, this particular question in my entire unpoetic lifetime. In fact, it would be safe to say that I have pretty much avoided poetry in a passive, oblivious kind of way.

Luckily/thankfully, I have some good friends who are way out ahead of interesting, edgy stuff like this who invited me to an evening of poetry that they had won in a silent auction. Twice cool here – my friends were actually in attendance at an event that would be auctioning off this kind of thing, AND, they actually bid on it!

This impromptu, cultured event was hosted on the cool, hip veranda at a cool, hip Minneapolis design firm, 45 Degrees Minneapolis.  The evening began with a wine and brie meet-and-greet, followed by a brief introduction of the guest speaker/poet/bard (love that word), Gregory Hewett.

Hewett is an Associate Professor of English at Carlton College and has been a Fulbright Fellow, Fulbright Professor, and a Fellow at the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France. He currently teaches American Literature and creative writing, and his fourth book of poems, darkacre, was published in 2010.

“Greg Hewett’s poems create fresh dimensions where language and human experience become one … from estate properties to artistic legacies … Hewett is a master architect of the poetic suite, and his house contains many mansions … a penetrating, richly metaphoric survey of the human landscape.”

Beyond academic accolades, Professor Hewett proved to be an extremely accessible teacher and very likeable guy. He was quickly able to assess the highly variable levels of poetic awareness in the room (Dr. Seuss counts on some level, right? … ), and tailor his approach to the readings accordingly.  He gave us a smattering of things … writings by Whitman, Dickenson, Elizabeth Bishop, Carolyn Forche, Frank O’Hara, C.D. Wright … I rattle off these names as though I have any sense of the depth and context from which they assume their meaning.

As I ponder this neat new realm and “dwell in possibility” (to quote Dickinson – ha!) … it occurs to me that, until you’re aware of it, poetry, in all of its richness and complexity, is swirling all around you every day like a sound you can’t hear … a whole spectrum of colors you can’t see … like a firefly waiting in the woods until dusk. Beyond rhyme and meter - really, beyond the boundaries of reason - until you’re truly aware of it, poetry has properties at some quantum level that don’t even register, let alone resonate.

The Take-Away: I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Hewett, and my beloved friends, for the poetry primer, a quick flash into this fascinating corner of the word world. Thanks to you, I am inspired to take some more steps along this fork in a road that, until now, has been way less traveled.

Pre-Ramble: … What’s hot?? … If you live in the Midwest, I don’t need to tell you what’s hot — this blasted heat wave is hot.  The air is hot, the sidewalk is hot, the dashboard is hot, even the grass is hot.  There is a lot of hot going on around here right now.

Well, so, according to the hot spotters at college-fashion-dot-net, the hottest summer accessory for 2011 is … hats!  Apparently, a trendy topper is this summer’s must-have.  Any type of hat under the sun … floppy hats, cowboy hats, straw hats, baseball hats, … hats, hats, hats.  Hats are hot, which means that hats are cool.

Cool hats are hot, and hot hats are cool …

Cleary this stretch of extreme summer heat has gone to my head.

All this talk about hats, hats, hats reminds me of one of my favorite children’s books … The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, written by Dr. Seuss in 1938.  According to the experts at wikipedia, Geisel, who was a collector of hats, got the idea for the story on a commuter train from New York to New England while sitting behind a businessman wearing a hat …

Set in feudal times, the story begins in the Kingdom of Didd, when King Derwin is riding through a street past Bartholomew Cubbins, a poor boy in the market. Bartholomew removes his hat, according to the laws, but another hat mysteriously appears; when he attempts to remove this one too, another one appears again, and this continues, even as he removes more and more hats, each growing in extravagance and beauty from the 451st hat onwards.

Eventually, as Bartholomew is being threatened with death, the 500th hat, studded with massive gems and gilding, comes off and Bartholomew’s head is bare again. Stunned by the beauty of the hat, King Derwin grants him reprieve and trades him 500 gold coins for the 500th hat.

That must have been one very hot hat — !

For today … when it’s 98 degrees with a dew point of 82 (Yes, 82 – a new record for Minnesota), … it is too hot for a hot hat.  In fact, it is also too hot for a cool hat.

The Take-Away: No hats.

Post-Note: Actually, a really hot hat look totally depends on the hotness of the person wearing it. A really hot girl wearing a fun floppy hat, for example, is a way different thing than say, Larry the Cable Guy wearing it.  Same goes for guys … Ashton Kutcher looks hot in a hat ( he also looks hot not in a hat, btw), whereas, again, Larry the Cable Guy, not so much.

I think I might have to check out hottie AK in his new role in Two-and-a-Half Men … I never watched while CS was in it, but Ashton is two-and-a-half times the man Charlie will ever be.