SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

I am an optimistic. Well, most of the time. I'm going through a rather dark period right now, but I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

It's just still an extremely long tunnel at the moment.

But I mean, how you live with my name and be a pessimistic? Just doesn't work.

My husband's job for the past 30+ years has been thinking of horrible, terrible events that might occur, and then making the preparations to prevent them from actually occurring. Security, including physical, intelligence, computer and any other means that bad guys can make bad things happen.

So he is minute-to-minute bombarded by all the rotten, evil, and nasty stuff that is or even could be happening all around the world.

This must be one of the few jobs in the world where being clinically depressed and a natural pessimist are a great advantage.

But even when going through some dark times myself, there are so many incredible, wonderful things occurring each and every day, and I wanted to share some that have shown up lately:

- You may not like Obama, but isn't it incredible cool that we have a BLACK president? I mean, I can remember civil-rights protests and segregated schools. Even in the LA suburb where I went to high school, the real estate prices mysteriously suddenly got higher up when a non-white family came house-hunting.

- And in the same vein, I love the fact that no one (at least in my family) mentions anymore if a friend/work acquaintance/etc. is Hispanic/ Asian/ Black/ Samoan /Jewish/ From-New-York (okay, okay, maybe that last one, I'll admit).

- Why is it that some words sound exactly like what they  mean and some sooo don't? Succulent - I mean, I hate that word, but it sounds moist. But flatulence - doesn't that sound like the scrolled wire legs on those garden chairs?

- You know that story about some dude who pulls a thorn out of a lion's paw, and then years later when the guy is thrown to the lions to get eaten, the lion 'remembers' and does not tear him into pieces? I pulled a huge thorn out of my dog's paw tonight... and he still expects me to feed him before I go to bed. Geesh.

- And if by any chance you have actually read this all the way to this last paragraph, bravo! You are one in a million (or probably more!).