As ChuckieT and I were waiting for the train today, feeling cold and tired and hungry and grumpy about having to go to work, I happened to glance at the shore on the other side of the train tracks. My inner six-year-old shouted, "Bunnies!" before I could even think. And there, indeed, were two tiny, brown, cottontailed creatures. Little Me clapped her hands and ran after them, which may have been why they hopped off into the shrubbery next to the river. Fortunately, grown up me stayed safely on the station platform. But suddenly I wasn't feeling the cold so much. I wasn't quite so grumpy. I even woke up a bit. And, since I did actually shout Bunnies! out loud, we got into a conversation with someone else who'd seen them, too.
Unfortunately, my camera was out of battery power. (And they were too far away for it's puny zoom, anyway.) But those were some powerful bunnies. I hope they got back to their rabbit hole safely.
Recently, ChuckieT and I bought a new toy for our pug. One of those plush animals with a micro chip inside them, so that they play a 3 or 4 second loop when squeezed. This one is a monkey that sings a very silly monkey song when pressed. I was thinking about that song when the I saw the bunnies, and it gave me an idea. So I turned to ChuckieT and said that whenever we were having an argument, or feeling sad or stressed out or just plain out of sorts, one of us has to go get the monkey and have it play its song. Probably, we'll have to dance, too. It's hard to stay mad or sad or grumpy when you're dancing to a silly monkey song. If I could make sure the bunnies could appear on cue, I'd use them, too. The thing the bunnies and the monkey reminded me, see, is that there's always another way of looking at things. And your perspective can change just like that. Sometimes you just need to be surprised. Like getting rid of the hiccups by having someone scare you.
Of course, if that fails, there's always chocolate.