Happy when you're not…
I love the moments in movies when one little thing explains a character. Being, perhaps, the last person to see Juno –alone, in my room on Friday night - I didn't have much of a chance to discuss it with anyone. At this point I feared the disappointment that comes with a big build-up. But it was charming. And full of those tiny defining things.

Give Clinique's Happy high points for brand recognition. I recognized the bottle instantly, before it was mentioned in passing. That perfume with the lilting citrus top note was the perfect dressing table necessity for a woman who was so clearly not happy. Would the same fragrance by any other name have been used? I think not.

A whiff of Happy has been known to help, though. I remember the year when Bridget was plagued with migraines (I think this was in the wake of Rick's pheo, but I'm not exactly sure. Funny how events of a cataclysmic nature can become fuzzy with the passage of time. The thought evokes emotion but some details escape. A few numbers survive. 250 over 110. 9 units of blood. 10th of November. "6 kids – You don't want more, do you?")

Bridget liked Happy. And there I was in the weeks before Christmas stopping at the Clinique counter of every possible store to scam up a free sample tube. A mendicant mom intent on providing some Happy. Marshall Field's, Lord and Taylor, Neiman-Marcus, Carsons, another Marshall Field's. Too broke to buy any Happy, though anteing up $10 to get the limited edition Clinique Happy CD. And voicing no objections when a friend approached a Clinique counter and asked for samples for "a friend's daughter who has bad brain problems." She scored three! samples. I felt that we were pushing some bad karma buttons there, but it wasn't really a lie. And some twelve or so years later, Clinique has a solid customer in Bridget. Guess what she gave me for Christmas this past December?