An Auspicious Visitation

We were sitting out in the garage the other evening watching and listening to the rain. The sun had just set. There was still a little bit of light lingering in the sky, just enough that in the garage you could still make out the shapes of most things, but the color had been drained from everything, leaving only shades of gray. Sand was there, of course, as was Howie curled up contentedly by her chair.

Howie sat up suddenly, ears pricked, and he rose to slowly move toward my chair, his sniffing nose leading the way. When I looked down to see what he was up to, sitting next to me was the toad you see in the picture above. He was about the size of a baseball, and seemed perfectly content to be sitting at my side.Who knows how long he had been there, and what he may have heard of our conversation.

I doubt the rain would have bothered him, but the cold might have driven him to look for someplace warmer. Aside from a curiosity, Howie wasn't bothered by Toad's presence. I didn't want Toad to get trapped when we closed the garage door for the night, so I had Sand pick him up and take him out by the pond in the front yard where we also took photos of him for the archives.

I believe this to be a visitation by the Toad of Happiness. Economic realities being what they are, we can no longer afford the more expensive Bluebird of Happiness. There are some of the feathery harbingers of good tidings in and around our neighborhood, however these are mostly in the upscale areas to our south, or to the occasional home in our neighborhood owned by an elderly couple who had paid off their mortgage before the housing slump. Most of us, however, are now being visited by the amphibious  messenger.

It's cool though. The Toads require less maintenance, and frankly they are better listeners. And happiness, after all, does not depend on how much money you spend on it. Who can put a price on sitting in the garage listening to the rain with your wife, dog and your very own Toad of Happiness? In California, no less.

Life doesn't get much better. I'm just saying.