Thursday, January 27, 2011

Today's fortune: January 27, 2011

Today's fortune: The rainbow's treasures will soon belong to you.

I think this is going to be a running theme on this blog: the idea of whether I should pursue the fortunes or let the fortunes come to me.

This morning, I decided to take an an active approach. My friend Katie, whom I encouraged yesterday to go to the gym, returned the favor today by recommending I visit an Irish pub. That makes sense, because what is a rainbow's treasure? Traditionally, it's a pot o' gold. There's no more Irish image than that.

I didn't really feel like going to a bar without Jamie, who's in class tonight. I wouldn't be very festive without her, and besides, when I'm by myself, I just get hit on so much... So I passed on the pub idea.

Katie also said I should buy lottery tickets; perhaps they would lead me to a more literal fortune. Of course, I already buy a PowerBall ticket every day for this project, but I don't buy scratch-offs. I purchased a couple at a gas station. One is extremely colorful like a rainbow, but I'm not smart enough to play it, so I'll let Jamie do it when she gets home. The other is a pull tab with a picture of a piggy bank on the front (the closest thing I could find to a pot of gold). On the pull tab, I won exactly bupkis.

The active approach wasn't working out so well.

But passively, some interesting things were happening.

First: a few weeks ago, during my training class at work, we each took a really long, complicated personality test. Apparently, whichever of the four categories we fall into will help determine how we make our widgets, and hour our customers feel about the widget-making process. Today, for four hours, we took part in a seminar that broke down the assessment.

Here's the crazy part. The assessment is called True Colors, and the four behavioral categories are Blue, Orange, Gold and Green.

Damn near the colors of a rainbow, you might say.

Second: after I returned to my desk from the True Colors session, I received a call from my wife. She was walking through our neighborhood, knocking on doors, asking if anyone knew the identity of a little lost dog she had found.

Jamie is an animal lover. In fact, she likes animals more than she likes most people. She's a vegetarian and a card-carrying member of PETA. One of the many, many, many reasons I love my wife is that she's never once tried to convince me to become a vegetarian, and she even cooks meat dishes for me. But she has also taught me to love cats, and now our house is alive with them.

However, Jamie can never resist helping a stray. Once, this created quite a bit of havoc on our home. She brought home a little skinny cat with a big fat belly once, and (surprise!) it birthed a litter of kittens in our garage. So instead of one stray cat, we instantly had five to take care of. The cat also brought with it a litany of fleas, and those quickly were transmitted to our housecats. Fortunately, we were able to adopt out the kittens and the mommy and get rid of the fleas. But my garage has never been the same.

I've often expressed my strong desire that Jamie never bring home another stray animal.

But tonight, when I came home, that dog was in our garage, snuggled up on one of our nice bath towels and a lovely but now-ruined blanket.

The little pooch was collarless and dirty and skinny and shivering when Jamie found it. But now it seems content and relaxed, with a belly full of food and a warm place to sleep.

I looked at the dog and tried to pinpoint the breed. It's some kind of Yorkie, or maybe a Shih Tzu. Or it could be a Cairn Terrier.

You know what other dog is a Cairn Terrier?


On a day when my fortune tells my I'll be receiving a rainbow's treasures, the fortune cookie gods send me a dog resembling the one that lives somewhere over the freaking RAINBOW.

We're gonna do what we can to find the little pooch's rightful owner, if there is one. And I haven't told Jamie this yet... but if we can't find an owner, I wouldn't mind keeping it for our own.

Maybe we can name it Cookie.

12 comments:

  1. "Cookie" works!
    I'm not sure if I'm hoping you find the "rightful" owner for Cookie, or if I'm hoping Cookie gets to stay with you ... I'm leaning heavily towards Cookie staying with you. Skinny, dirty, and collarless doesn't sound like something desirable to be returned to, but then perhaps I'm being unfairly judgmental. In any case, challenge not the treasure of rainbows. Cookie will be a loving addition to your house for however long Cookie gets to stay. Go Jamie!

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  2. I love how you can find these connections! It sure makes life more interesting and fun! I love observing life like this too.

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