Unexpected Pleasures: Heart-marked Dog & Candyland World (photos)

On the day we had to put our six-year-old poodle to sleep, on that same day (my summer birthday), a 2-year-old rat terrier dog - Macy -  was dropped off at the Humane Society because she "chewed on cats." On that grievous day, something wonderful was moving towards our lives and we had no clue.

With our poodle gone at the start of 4-H dog training, we went to the Humane Society to see if we could "foster" a needy dog and give her or him some basic training. Macy was not doing well there, so they matched us up to socialize her before putting her up to adopt.

And here is what we got:

A girl with a heart!

And she, of course, captured our hearts, and began to fill them with a new joy. We could not take her back to the Humane Society, so here she is. And sometimes, life is like that: a huge painful thing, while all the while a new joy is running towards you, but you just don't know it yet.

 

An unexpected gift can also emerge from an interrupted photo moment. I lost my balance and snapped this picture of the local high school Homecoming float with a Candyland theme. I got the beauty of another world in the botched shot. The light and patterns look like another place, perhaps made of candy or perhaps made of beautiful energy. Once again, a mistake or loss of the expected or desired result brought an unexpected pleasure.