A sad anniversary today. Sad, and still hard to believe.
I considered feeding everyone braunschweiger for lunch, which would have been appropriately character-building, but instead I went for a really fun day with my kids. Because it goes too fast.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
beary good
In my thirteen (!) years in Colorado, I had seen a real-live bear only twice. Once from afar in a car (me, not the bear), and once last year, when one practically joined us around the campfire - it walked into our campsite as we watched awestruck, ripped the top off of the beer cooler, and then left. But really, twice in thirteen years - it's a rare event.
Until this year. The drought, the recession, blah blah, and there have been bears, at least three, hanging out in our neighborhood all summer. We have pictures of the bears in our neighbors' driveways, moseying down Eagle St, chillin' in yards. One enterprising one smashed down our chain-link fence and dragged the trash dumpster all around our yard. Every so often some municipal folks run one up a tree, shoot it with darts, tag its ear, and haul it off. (Side note - now whenever anything at our house breaks, Isaac tells me it was the bear)
The other day our neighbor alerted us that there was a bear sleeping up the tree of the people across the alley, so walked over to see it. My mom is reading this and taking a deep breath about now. I get that it wasn't the smartest choice of evening recreation, but really, there's a bear snoozing in your neighbor's tree - what are you going to do? Especially if you have Blaser genes in there anywhere, you are going to go see the bear, and you are going to take your kids so they don't miss out (Afterward, you might spin donuts in your pickup on a frozen pond, but that's a post for another day).
It was a little bear, and it was huddled about as far up the tree as it could get, curled around the trunk, trying to look like it wasn't there. We were all very quiet, and we kept our distance, and we got a look at the bear, and we went home to dinner. But I'm still thinking about this bear. It was maybe a year old. It had been tagged twice already, which meant the next time it got picked up would be the last time. Obviously I know that bears can't be hanging around neighborhoods. My kids live here, and plenty of other people's kids, and that is that. But part of me is still hoping, even though I know it doesn't work this way, that maybe the bear has a chance, that maybe there is room in the world for my kids and the bears too.
Until this year. The drought, the recession, blah blah, and there have been bears, at least three, hanging out in our neighborhood all summer. We have pictures of the bears in our neighbors' driveways, moseying down Eagle St, chillin' in yards. One enterprising one smashed down our chain-link fence and dragged the trash dumpster all around our yard. Every so often some municipal folks run one up a tree, shoot it with darts, tag its ear, and haul it off. (Side note - now whenever anything at our house breaks, Isaac tells me it was the bear)
The other day our neighbor alerted us that there was a bear sleeping up the tree of the people across the alley, so walked over to see it. My mom is reading this and taking a deep breath about now. I get that it wasn't the smartest choice of evening recreation, but really, there's a bear snoozing in your neighbor's tree - what are you going to do? Especially if you have Blaser genes in there anywhere, you are going to go see the bear, and you are going to take your kids so they don't miss out (Afterward, you might spin donuts in your pickup on a frozen pond, but that's a post for another day).
It was a little bear, and it was huddled about as far up the tree as it could get, curled around the trunk, trying to look like it wasn't there. We were all very quiet, and we kept our distance, and we got a look at the bear, and we went home to dinner. But I'm still thinking about this bear. It was maybe a year old. It had been tagged twice already, which meant the next time it got picked up would be the last time. Obviously I know that bears can't be hanging around neighborhoods. My kids live here, and plenty of other people's kids, and that is that. But part of me is still hoping, even though I know it doesn't work this way, that maybe the bear has a chance, that maybe there is room in the world for my kids and the bears too.
sporadic
Man, an entire month went by somewhere in there. Somewhere between the dog's spinal blood clot and the cat's hysterectomy and a mouse taking up residence in our pantry (in my lunch cooler, to be precise), and the almost-daily dismembered songbird stashed behind the TV (pretty sure it's the cat and not Isaac...) and my second grad-school mailing, after which my mentor, incredibly, has not yet decided I suck, and Halloween, and Alec having strep, and Owen barfing for 24 hours, and Ryan making lunch for Bill Gates, and then continuing to hunt elk, and getting ready to present at the national GT conference (a lot of geeks are about to converge on Denver), and a couple of minor car breakdowns and some missed bills, sometimes forgetting to send Alec to school with a morning snack, feeding the kids too much candy and trying to make sense of Faulkner, I have failed to post anything at all.
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