Kicked in the shins. Big Bad Collars.

I have a lot of thoughts running through my head right now.  If I sound discombobulated, I am.  I will attempt to combobulate the discombobulated.

You see, I feel like life keeps kicking me in the shins. And I am getting pretty bruised.

I want to kick back, but there is nothing to kick.  No opportunity to block, no chance to sidestep.

 Frustrating.


So what do you do?

I think that is what defines us. 

So what am I going to do about it?  Most importantly I am going to stand up again tomorrow, and do it all over again tomorrow.  That is the only way I can even have a chance to kick back.  Simply, you have to be on your feet in order to run with the opportunity when it does come to you.

Vayden up there was kicked pretty hard by fate.

You see, Vayden belongs to a friend of the family.  A friend of a friend had this neighbor who had gotten a new puppy.  And it kept getting out.  And out.  And out.  Every time this friend of a friend had rescued the puppy from the street, alley... her porch where it had learned to come knowing it was a safe place...she faithfully returned it to her neighbor.  Then this neighbor made a comment that opened a world of opportunity for her.  He made it clear that although his daughter would miss it, the puppy didn't really need to come back home...ever.  The next day the puppy was gone,  again.

This time the puppy was lost.  

Somehow the puppy couldn't find its way out of this friend of a friend's living room.  

Phone calls were made.  Eventually Vayden met my friend Sheila.  He was skittish, dirty, hungry, beaten down... and slowly being choked to death by a nylon puppy collar that had never been adjusted as he grew.  And he was oh so sweet.

Opportunities are there to change the direction of our fates, the direction of our lives.  The opportunities are sometimes presented by the most unlikely sources.  Sometimes we have to take the opportunity, sometimes we have to make it ourselves, sometimes we have to do a combination of both.  No matter how, we must be on our feet in order to get the opportunity...and go!

I intend to be standing tall.  Today, tomorrow, the next day.  No matter how hard life keeps kicking me in the shins.  And when the opportunity comes, I just hope I roll with a John Wayne saunter as I go.


correction:  I apologize to Sheila.  I confused Vayden with Raisin  :-).  (Please don't tell Raisin!)  Raisin and Vayden are both members of Sheila's pack of rescues.  Vayden has a similar story in the way that Sheila was contacted again by yet a different friend and told of a dog in need of a good house full of love.  Vayden's story is different in the way that his life was much worse than Raisin's and he needed a lot more help to adjust to the family.  And Sheila came through, again.  What is clearly the same in both stories is that Sheila is a caring, loving woman with a pushover heart!  (Thankfully for Raisin and Vayden!).