Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Fears


Fears, I have a few, but then again too few to mention

My apologies to Paul Anka who wrote My Way and Frank, who's theme song it was. I think about this line alot although with the correct word - Regrets - in place of fears. What I'm wondering is if they are too few to mention why is he mentioning them? Makes me think he is an unreliable narrator. I have some problems with those so they might be on my mind too.

This is Bev, my car hippo. She is very reliable.

I have lots of fears - many of them I won't mention but not, you understand, because there are too FEW to mention but because I'm ashamed of them and I don't feel like stroking them and keeping them lively by paying attention to them.

I am scared of bears which my dear sister Pude knows. Because she is too. Probably from the same horrible camping myth we heard as kids which I will not relate as it is tooooooo frightening and has ruined my camping life unless I have a bottle of scotch with me.

So, sometimes when I'm walking the dog in the woods - alright - ALL the time when I'm walking the dog in the woods I'm thinking scary bear thoughts. Like - what will I do if that big overturned tree that I always think is a bear turns out to be one one day? Or is it best to tuck and roll (I know that is an on fire thing but hey) or try and outrun it or back away saying calming things or fluff my hair up and try and look big and growl myself?

Today I found out what I'd do. We'd gone down as far as the creek and were meandering back up the trail. I was singing a form of Hey Big Spender that includes my dog as I like to sing to him - his favourite is 'Oh Hoagy was a hair-ball" based on "Oh Stew-Ball was a race horse" but we'd run that through a few times and were bored so we were trying to figure out what was a word that could be used in place of Spender - we tried Pee-er but it broke down in the chorus because I don't want anyone to pee a little time with me. So we were good and the woods, although mightily wet, were good - we were checking the crop of blueberries which are coming along nicely thank-you - when I heard it. It was a tremendously low and loud growl. Definitely a bear. And this is what I did.


I said - "OK OK, we're leaving right now!"

Now if you were a bear is that what you'd want to hear? Of course to the bear it might have sounded like "I'm a stupid weak girl come and eat me right now but please maul me first and by the way I'm incapable of running up this hill." But this bear didn't hear this because about five minutes into my brisk walk up the hill (told ya I couldn't run it plus I think it is a bad move to run in fear from a faster big girl-eating bear) I realized that the hairs on the neck of the dog weren't up and in fact he seemed to be totally out of the loop regarding scary wild life. Which means there wasn't any. I hear a version of the noise again and realized that it was an echo of some meathead starting up his big noisy motor bike or wood crusher or something anyway that burns fossil fuels for no good reason.

Not a bear.
whew!




At least I now know what I'd do.

This is my Sweet Patootie making sure the chooks are all good before we go out. I really like the way he looks wearing that so handsome grown-up rain coat contrasting with the muddy old chicken yard. Yah! Makes me all mushy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Newsflash!
Bears spotted in Derry Pub - they prefer Harp.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

There was a black bear spotted not far from Charlotte this week! Very unusual...

Love your car hippo. :)

Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder

Liz in PA said...

Well you sure had me with that tale!
...Yikes.....a bear would have probably
brought on heart palpatations.......

I would have been scared $hitless, as they say!

Stay safe....especially when walking alone with just your doggie in the woods!

Natasha said...

I'd be scared to death of bears too after a story like that.

And I love the opening lines about your fears.

Natasha