Sign Special — AUREL · May 3 – May 23

Thank you, Benedetto.

Oral, then.

May third through May third, twenty-one days of the year, and the sign of amber, an ancient golden stone that began as sunlight and tree sap and simply refused to cool, whose mood is warm cheerfulness, which is a polite way of saying this dog has never once entered a room quietly or gloomily in its life.

Oral is the encourager of the pack, and it runs on the play instinct, which means a game is not a pastime to an Oral.

A game is a public service, and everyone present is expected to feel better by the end of it.

Its gift is optimism.

The Oral dog is cheerful, encouraging, and holds one unshakable article of faith: that every day deserves at least one good story.

And if the day has failed to provide one, the Oral will manufacture one personally from available materials before lunch.

While the rest of the pack is still reading the weather, the Oral has greeted the morning like an old friend, complimented the mail carrier's route, and begun the great work of its life, lifting the spirits of this household as though morale were a garden that only grows if somebody sings to it, because to an Oral, it is one.

Now, the other side of the page, because this paper tells the whole truth.

This is a dog that believes encouragement is a branch of engineering.

It has talked a stalled car up a hill in complete sincerity, applauded a stuck door until the hinges felt supported, and assured a dead battery that it believed in it personally.

At length, the sign's great temptation is optimism itself, and its standing warning is a serious one, delivered kindly.

Beware of ignoring warning signs, of waving at the red flag as though it were a parade banner pasted up in your honor.

Under stress, the cheer thins into pure naivety, and its one true companion fear is failure.

Not its own embarrassment, but the terrible day the good story does not come, and the room stays heavy, and the encourager has nothing left in the bag.

Its vice is denial.

Its virtue is hope.

The same sunshine with or without a look at the sky.

Its official motto is the whole biography in five words: How bad could it be? And its favorite human excuse is the identical sentence which tells you everything.

To an Oral, the motto and the excuse are the same words, worn proudly in both directions.

Its natural habitat is the backyard gathering, anywhere there is grass, a crowd, a grill, and a dog circulating like a host with a tray nobody asked it to carry.

Its lucky object is the sun charm, its lucky place the picnic field, its lucky color sun yellow, and its lucky food is a lemon tart, which is, of course, an encourager's dish, bright, brazen, and sweet enough to make the whole table sit up straighter.

Its best match is Solvar, the sunstone sign, whose magnetic energy gives all that sunshine a stage to stand on and an audience worthy of it.

Its rival is Fenrik, the obsidian sign, who reads every warning label twice, tests the floor before the party, and considers how bad could it be to be a question the universe accepts as a personal challenge while the Oral has already answered it cheerfully in the negative and gone to fetch the lemonade.