Out of the Mouths of Corgis....

I’m sad to admit it, but I have been caught in a complaint rut lately.  I’m becoming that person I never wanted to be:  spending each day waiting for the weekend, groaning and moaning until at least 8:30 in the morning, answering the question “How’s it going?” with more negative responses than positive.  I like to call this the 3^rd Quarter Blues.   My students’ grades typically sag in this quarter, as do their spirits.  The teachers aren’t immune, either.  Spend five seconds in the staff lounge and you’ll hear more growling about politics than you will find cheerful discussions.  Maybe it’s the weather, or the fact that we’re in a holiday slump, or just that we’re wishing for the bliss of summer.  Whatever this rut is, I want out.

The ever-jaunty Mandy-D wearing a festive Hawaiian lei

We took our 13 year old dog, a Welsh Corgi named Mandy, to the vet today to have a tooth extracted.  We discovered that she had a broken molar over two weeks ago, but the vet’s office couldn’t get her scheduled until today.  Despite having to eat watered-down kibble for the past two weeks, Mandy has been playful and cheery.  Each evening she brings me her favorite stuffed toy and tosses it at me to throw for her.   When we go outside she races up the stairs to go on a walk, and last night she barked her fool head off at 10:30 in the evening when she went outside, which probably annoyed the neighbors, but she was clearly guarding her turf, so I have to give her credit for her moxie. 

When I arrived at our vet’s office this afternoon, I asked him if the tooth was painful for her.  He replied that it most likely was, because the tooth was cracked in such a way that it had kind of sheered in half.  “It probably was painful,” he said, “but dogs are much tougher than people.”  I then asked if it was a recent injury (hoping mightily that we hadn’t failed to notice this problem and had inadvertently lengthened her suffering).  “Oh, this was definitely an old fracture,” he said.  My heart sunk.  I can’t believe poor Mandy had been eating kibble and chewing rawhides all while nursing a cracked molar.

And yet, she hadn’t ever complained.

So it looks like my 33 pound Corgi dragged me out of the rut today.  If my dog can endure sheered molars and still find time to play and have fun, then I certainly can.  My resolution for the week is that instead of answering with a knee-jerk negative, I’m going to see if I can reshape my thinking to find the sunshine first.  I’ve always called myself a “Pollyanna,” and this trait may be sometimes annoying, but it’s far better than the alternative.  Remember Pollyanna, of Disney movie fame?  She was bound and determined to win over the town grouch by being eternally kind.  He’s not too fond of her sunshiny disposition, but she finally wins him over by hanging crystal prisms in his window and showing him the multitudes of mini rainbows cast by the light.  Okay, I know:  If you’re the cynical sort, you’re probably gagging right now.  But I’ve decided that I’d rather gag on mushy things than bitter.

I’m going to practice positivity and see if I can’t battle the 3^rd Quarter Blues.  And when I start whining, I’m going to ask myself if it’s as bad as a sheered molar.  If it is, then I will make room for a nice pity party (who doesn’t love a nice pity party, right?  Especially if it’s a well-earned pity party).  But if the whining isn’t at the “sheered molar stage,” then I’ll see if I can be like my Corgi and just shake it off. 

She may be a drama queen, but our dog Mandy is pretty smart.