Being grateful.. and anthropomorphizing

With some recent unexpected car trouble (which was really unexpected as we bought both of our cars new last year), my husband and I have learned to be grateful for the convenience of 2 working cars.  Fortunately, the warranty on the problems we've had on both cars has paid for the problems, but that doesn't make up for the inconveniences involved.

Last week, it was one of our cars that we got set up in advance for an appointment but somehow the dealership messed up and sent the needed part back.  They didn't tell us until after we dropped off the car on a day both my husband and I were available (which is rare).  We would have to try to find a time to bring the car back AGAIN.  I took the news fairly well over the phone and my husband decided the service man at the dealership was lucky I took the call because he wouldn't have been as understanding.  As I went to pick up the car and spoke with the serviceman I told him what my husband had said.  He was very grateful that he got me he said, he said that he felt better that I was understanding and if only I could have heard him yelling at the person's who fault it was.  I told him I'm in the line of work where I get to tell people bad news unfortunately often (and in my case it's not my fault but the fault of age and disease).  I told him I don't shoot the messenger and I know screw-ups happen.  It also didn't hurt I told him that they had been excellent with their service in their past, "You've made a withdrawal, but fortunately there's enough money in the bank to cover it," I analogized.

Then this week there was a different problem with our other car...  That is after we all had the flu over the weekend, someone messed up my work schedule and I found myself leaving the house with two different(un-matching) shoes all in the same day.  Sometimes you just have to laugh at stuff like that.

We found out that public transportation is not as bad as we remembered.  My husband took public transit for two days and found out he actually got home quicker.  I took it today and found out I didn't have to go in tons of traffic with ice on the road.  Sure, there's the downsides to public transit, but rather than sitting in the car with clenched fists for over an hour, I got to be in a warm vehicle reading a book- not too bad!  My husband and I both found a valid option- not for every day use, but for when it works out and it could help the environment too!

I found myself today comparing a difficult behavioral case in a dog to what I was seeing with my sometimes difficult 4 1/2 year old preschooler.  As I was counseling the owners, I was aware that I was using strategies  that I was reading about and using in my own child.  While a dog doesn't have quite the intellect of a preschooler, there can still be portions of psychology that children and animals can have in common.  I admitted to the owners of the dog that I was seeing these similarities, and while I don't typically like anthropomorphizing, sometimes human and animal psychology aren't that different...  When you find yourself saying, "try to take control out of the equation" and "trying not to battle over who controls things, give them some autonomy"  one can see that some things in the animal and human world are not that far apart...