How to count your blessings

Some of us may feel challenged to count blessings these days. In life's difficult moments I take a strange comfort from knowing that things can always be worse. Applying this practice with the slightest imagination makes blessings easy to spot. I'll illustrate:

Not too long ago, and certainly not long enough, I'm walking the dogs in the woods and notice Coonhound Bob has disappeared. This isn't unusual. After all, that's why we're there. Soon he comes trotting up, grinning and obviously pleased with himself. Bob stinks to high heaven and back. From his jowls to his flanks, Bob's coat bears a sickly green slime he has acquired from very ripe deer carcass.

I get queasy. As we head back to the car and I insist that Bob remain downwind. I get my lovely wife on the cell phone and gasp, "Bring the pickup. There's no way Bob is getting in my car."
Once home I begin dousing, scrubbing and cursing Bob in the yard while Lovely Wife starts dumping cans of tomato products into a blender. Though Bob gets fully treated he still stinks. I put two nylon leashes on him, each secured near the juncture of a chain link fence, his naughty nose pointed toward the corner to keep him stable and standing.

From the neighbor's house the tomato goop must look like we are field dressing the dog. Bob is left to contemplate his misbehavior while the tomato goop does its magic. I go in to check email.
Five minutes later Lovely Wife screams like she herself is being slaughtered. In the next room both she and Bob are frozen in time. Bob really hates to be chained, having used super canine strength to rip through both nylon leashes, he has entered the house through the dog doors. He is tip-toeing onto the white living room carpet beside the wood paneled walls where my prized big screen TV and home entertainment components and speakers are enshrined.

You can see the wheels turning in Bob's head. He's conflicted. He so wants to shake stinky tomato goop all over our vulnerable interior. However, he is confronted from across the room by Lovely Wife, silent and motionless as a statue, a cooking utensil in her hand and terror in her eyes. Someone carefully and forcefully commands, "No. Stay."

Here's where the elusive blessings come in. Sure, Bob's stench made me gag. And yes, he interrupted our afternoon in the most unpleasant way possible. On the upside, Lovely Wife and I have cell phones and a pickup, the neighbors did not report us for slaughtering our dog, and Bob's understands "no" and "stay," preventing him from strewing disgusting tomato goop onto countless valuable and difficult-to-clean surfaces.

Sometimes blessings are hard to find, but they are almost always there. If you will have a Thanksgiving dinner, that's a conspicuous start. If loved ones will share it with you, life doesn't get much better than that. In my personal situation, I live in a beautiful corner of a relatively free country, most folks I meet are friendly, kingfishers still find our river fit enough to skim it for dinner, and proper dog training inevitably pays off.

Happy Thanksgiving to us all!