After a long day of getting screamed at, yelled at, and cursed at, my one simple joy is that sometimes when I open the front door, my youngest son will run over to me, hug me, and tell me he missed me.
Its my moment of joy between getting out of traffic & pulling dinner out from under aluminum foil to eat alone. My older son used to hug me too… but time moves on and those days are over.
Sometimes its nice if my wife scratches my back.
Wow, I am so glad I’m not the only one! 
I constantly sing to my dog. “You Are My Sunshine” is a favorite, but I often do the altered-on-the-spot lyrics thing with whatever song is stuck in my head at the moment. One common change is that I’ll substitute “Bailey” (my dog’s name) for “baby”: it’s not uncommon to hear me sing “Bailey dog, my Bailey dog…” to the tune of “Baby Love.” Sometimes, if I’m singing to her while she’s lying on the bed, I’ll even grab a paw and have her “dance” with me. I’m not sure what she thinks of my singing, but she’s definitely not a fan of the dancing. grin
When I had a cat I used to sing to her all the time, too, but usually just “What’s New, Pussycat?” For some reason I’m more creative when it comes to singing to the dog…maybe because the dog hangs around me a lot more than the cat did.
My parachute opening.
Another pet singer here–I make up all kinds of silly songs for my cats. My Russian Blue, Grace (aka Boo) gets, to the tune of “Jackie Blue”:
“Oooh–ooh ooh, Gracie Boo
You’re my sweet little Russian Blue…”
I can’t believe I admitted that in a public forum, but there you go. She seems to like it. Sometimes I follow up with more silly lyrics, but they’re never the same–just whatever pops into my head at the time that rhymes with “Boo.”
Heh. I do this with the cats. I rewrite the words to songs and make them about kitties. I rewrote Livin’ on a Prayer and changed the title to Sleepin’ on the Bed. It is a truly awesome cat song!
*Kitties like to sleep on the bed
Under the blankie, pillow 'neath their heads
Its tough…so tough!
Mom sells insurance all day
Working for the man, she brings home the pay
For stuff…cat stuff!
We gotta hold on to our nap spot
It doesn’t make a difference if we’re sleeping or not
We’ve got a pillow and that’s a lot of stuff
We’ll stay in our spot!
Whoa, please pet our heads
Whoa-oa, sleeping on the bed
Try to take our toys and we’ll bite you instead
Sleeeeeping on the beeee-eed
air guitar*
okay - now I feel weird. I sing like that to my boyfriend. He may be furry in places, but he’s no animal . . .lol.
All of the pet-singing talk has prompted me to start a “'Fess Up: Do You Sing to Your Pet(s)?” IMHO thread. 
One of our cats, Amira by name, is scared of everything, but just in the last week or two has realized that it’s actually pretty safe to be a lap cat. I’ll sit down to read, and she jumps up to sniff around and finally settle in for some love and attention. She’s still wary of Zyada (I think it’s the “Squee!” and scooping her up), but is slowly coming around.
(And I don’t sing to her - my singing scares even me!)
Oh, yeah. Nothin’ like motoring along, stars overhead, good-lookin’ gal in the passenger seat.
It would be a bummer to be the fall guy.
I sometimes have a little ‘conversation’ with one of my cats. He’s the type that has an unusually large repertoire of different meows, so each successive meow is like a different sentence in the conversation.
Cat: “mroow”
Me: “mew”
Cat: “mroowrew”
Me: “Mow?”
Cat: “prrrmow”
Me: “prrmowmew”
…
you get the idea.
a soft opening is good as well as an on heading opening… neither of which is much joy unless it does, in fact, OPEN! 
When a Stephen Wright comedy bit comes up on Shuffle on my iPod.
When my youngest son jumps into my lap for a hug.
Finding just what I need at the drug store.
Getting an email from a friend I haven’t seen in awhile.
Checking the Dope and seeing a response to something I posted earlier.
Praise from someone I didn’t expect.
For some reason I like watching phoebes. Over the years, I’ve gotten to “know” several, they always hang out in the same spots. It’s just very cool to me to watch them flit from perch to perch and do that little tail wag every time.
I don’t know if you are say that as a pitcher it makes you happy, but I can say as a catcher, it is just as awesome of a feeling when the ball snaps into your glove right where you wanted it. For that one little moment, time stands still in perfection
You have excellent taste, Mr. Heir.
I love it when White Cat throws one of her toys into the air and then twists her body in strange contortions during her attack.
I love the first time Brown Cat crawls under the covers to snuggle next to my belly. I don’t particularly love it when she crawls in and out twenty times in one night.
I love buying eggs at the farmer’s market, especially when they’re brown and speckled.
I love that bread dough actually rises EVERY TIME. I’m new to baking with yeast and it’s still so satisfying to see that I’m doing things right.
Kitty snores
Butt-to-butt heat transfer. Our bedroom is cold in the winter, but we both run too warm for spooning to be a viable warming-up option. So when we turn out the light in the winter, we usually turn to face away from each other, with just our bottoms touching. It’s exactly the right amount of heat.
Mice. I’ve only had about three incidents of mice in the house, but I think they’re fun and cute and adorable. I have a photograph of my cat just sitting watching one, and being watched back. I’m sorry that they have to be dealt with the way they do.
My little Australian Cattle dog. She is as good and sweet a dog as any I’ve ever seen, and totally devoted to me. If I let her out, she will do her business and wait patiently on the front porch for me.
The other day I found her flat on her back, showing her belly to god and the world, on top of a big pile of my dirty cloths - and she was about as content a being as I’ve ever seen. She makes me smile all the time.
One of mine is much like yours, and we do this with him, too. I think we use bad grammar or something, or perhaps inadvertantly insult his mother, since he usually keeps it up for a while then abruptly turns his back on whoever is talking with him.
Actually … what it REALLY is, is he’s most talkative when he’s hungry, so eventually, us talking and not getting up to feed him frustrates him, since he’s unable to get his point across. (Dude: I get what you’re trying to say. But, it’s 3:15 p.m. I’m not feeding your dinner yet.)