So Many Dishes

Ever since Ken and I came out of a particularly contentious meeting with our son’s fourth grade teacher and he turned and said to me, “mama bear made her appearance in there,” I’ve figured that a bear is my spirit animal. And, since I love black bears, I’m happy to compare myself to a black bear mom. Even though our kids are adults, I feel protective of them. If you come for one of them, you’re going to come through me!

Naturally, though, I have a bear story Years ago, we were vacationing in north Georgia, where we’d rented a cabin in one of the state parks. It had been a cool, wet spring, and the berries that the bears depended on for food were late. I looked out the window of our cabin one evening at twilight, and there was mama bear, rummaging through the garbage can. She was big, and I knew she was dangerous, but she was also beautiful, with her gleaming black fur that I so wanted to touch. The next morning, we saw the evidence of her sharp teeth on watermelon rinds that she had scavenged and chewed. It reinforced that looking at her through the window was as close as I wanted to get. My claws were no match for hers!