Panglossian

Gina has her own theme song around here.  Life of Brian - final song (I'll admit...it's the only part of the movie I know or have seen and that's just because Jon sings it ALL THE TIME).

Always look on the bright side of life.  Dodo...dodobedobedo. That's actually supposed to be a whistle - but how do you type a whistling sound?

We sing the song whenever Gina finds the silver lining to some extra ugly grey cloud.  She has a gift for that - for finding the positive in almost every situation - for rising above pettiness and grumpiness and those little irritating things that people do.  Like when people are too lazy to shovel their own parking space out right so that they have to park their giant SUV in half of OUR spot so that we have to do even more shoveling (of the now packed down ice-snow) to squeeze in.

It just doesn't sway her positive attitude.

She finds the positive in bad weather, sickness, traffic, broken computers, bad meals...the list just goes on.  Which is why it's so funny that she has a death wish for Chihuahuas.  I guess they are like her kryptonite.  But anyway.

It's extremely admirable - something I notice (the positivity - not the Chihuahua thing).  She can look at the exact same situation I am grumbling about and see it from a completely different angle.  It's almost like she picks it up and turns it over and around in her hand until she gets a better perspective on it.  

In the past, being that cynicism and sarcasm tend to skip around together holding hands, I've tended to only check out the yucky underbelly of problems and comment on the parts with no redeeming value.  But all of that is changing. 

Here's a thanks to all the optimists out there.  All those people who help the rest of us see beyond the immediate complaint to the point of thankfulness.  You are making a difference...

...but you probably already knew that.