Thursday, November 28, 2013

Life is unfair. The Captain is thankful for that.

The Captain's not the sharpest bulb on the tree and often has a difficult time wrapping his average brain around certain concepts. This is where dictionaries come in handy. For him they take big words and break them down into smaller words that make more sense. So today he decided to look up "Thankful"...being that it's Thanksgiving and all. This is what he got:


Being thankful can be pretty tough sometimes. We recently had to put down The Speckster who was a member of the family. The Speckster joined us the summer we bought our first house and was with us for 15 1/2 years. Yeah, yeah, we're that crazy couple with no kids a dog.

But she wasn't "a dog." She was The Speckster. She ate lunch with The Captain every day for years....thousands of times. She gave us a reason to walk around the neighborhood every day which forced us to do the important things in life; chase squirrels and look at fallen leaves. She slept in our bed at night and even had her own blog where she communicated with us when we were out of town.


She was a member of the family. Now she's gone.

Like most people, The Captain has a pretty good idea of how he thinks life should be going for him and when that doesn't happen he begins to think life isn't "fair." Smarter people than him will remind him that indeed life isn't "fair" and he better be thankful for that. Is it "fair" that he has a job that allowed him to eat lunch with The Speckster every day? Not to most people. Is it "fair" that he had a house and bed where she could sleep at night? Not to lots of people. Is it "fair" that he was physically able to walk around the neighborhood every day with her? Not to some people.

Let's get back to that definition...

The Captain is "glad that something happened." We got to spend 15 1/2 years with Speck. Thankful. The Captain is "glad that something didn't happen." She didn't suffer at the end of her life. Thankful. The Captain is "glad that someone exists." Family and friends and his wife made this process easier by sharing their experiences and letting him know that everything would be o.k. Thankful.

We always knew we would get another dog when Speck was no longer with us, but were worried that it would be difficult. Speck was one of a kind. We started browsing rescue sites online just to get the process started when we ran across a picture of a dog named Charlie that had that same spark in his eye that Speck always had. He was up to no good, and we liked that. We filled out our application. We were approved pending a home visit and before we knew we had a new member of the family. Say hi to Charlie.

In just 5 days Charlie has settled in nicely to our home. He's really is a "good boy." He also has a bit of an underbite and was quickly dubbed The Chiranha. We also found out that there were 2 applications for Charlie. His foster mom informed us that he literally ate the other application. We were right. He was up to no good. The kind of "no good" that is good. The best kind.

The Chiranha has already made it over to Captain Leisure Tees HQ a couple times and loves to look out the window at the bird feeder. He and The Captain have already made a trip to the bank together where he made fast friends with the teller who was low on treats and apologetically informed us that she only had broken pieces left. Pretty darn unfair for a first trip to the bank. We weren't getting what we though we deserved... as the broken pieces fit his little underbite just perfectly we drove off together thankful that life was unfair.