A room with a view

We are on the 21st floor of the hotel overlooking the Copley Square section of Boston with the Charles
River in the background. It is a spectacular view which we are only able to enjoy because I pricelined our hotel. That is the Internet hotel service where you can bid your own price on a room and if the hotel has unsold rooms,they will often accept bids of half price or even lower. I always priceline our Boston hotels when we visit because only people who did not grow
up wearing belly packs
can afford them at full price. Also,the spokesman for Priceline is Captain Kirk from Star Trek, a tv show I always loved. I know Captain Kirk would never steer me wrong.

And the lovely view with buildings stretching to the horizon shows clearly that Boston is huge. However not as clearly as our sore feet showed us yesterday after Asherel bookmarked all the posh dog boutiques we were to walk to.
"So we can do anything you want to in this big beautiful city," I told her as we gazed
at the panorama from our 21st floor, "And we have til 6 when we meet Anders. Name our adventure!"
And with all the wonders stretched below her, she wanted to visit as many pet boutiques as we could find.
This was fine with me as Boston is a beautiful city and I love to walk. Normally I can only entice Asherel to walk very far if there are choclate chip cookies strewn along the trail. I noticed gleefully that one pet boutique was clear across the map. It was a lovely day and we set off. The first boutique was not too far, though still further than Asherel would normally ask to walk without threat and coercion. I personally see little need for stores
that sell swim goggles for dogs (doggles) or dog parkas with real fur hoods even at half price. But Asherel was oohing and ahing and seemingly not noticing how many miles we were piling on. And I was loving the walk past gorgeous historic buildings, brownstones with heavy carved doors and massive stone churches with Corinthian columns and elaborate carvings along the roof.

Then we set off for the final boutique - the one that was at least a mile or so away. The day had grown hot. This part of Boston seemed poorer and garbage lined the curb. The buildings were still beautiful but more run down. Asherel didn't complain because this boutique was the most expensive of them all and she was highly motivated to see to what ridiculous extremes ridiculously wealthy people would go to in pet pampering. We got closer slowly, our feet aching and sweat dripping.
"It is the next block," said Asherel, who was guiding us with a map she had downloaded to her iPod and marked with the uber-boutique location.
"There it is!" she clarioned triumphantly and we stumbled to the front door beneathe the long awaited sign.
It was locked, closed , out of business.
Fortunately there was a Dunkin Donuts next door where we revived ourselves with Boson Creme donuts, and ice tea before the long trek back.

Sometimes that's the way journeys in life unfold. Sometimes we start off with great hopes, high expectations, tremulous anticipation of what might be. And sometimes it leads to dead ends, wounded hearts, deflated dreams bursting open to disappointment.

Again God was reminding me to enjoy the journey because it almost never leads where I expect. Dog goggles might be replaced by donuts but if happiness lies only in the goggles, then I am bound to find disappointment. The search is half the fun, and I imagine the goal is not at all what we think it is.

Philippians 3:13-15
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, [14] I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. [15] All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.


Nothing is impossible with God.
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