Today’s animal is the black bear.

According to the staff here, black bears are pretty regular guests to Esperanza. The day before we arrived they ate all the pears from esperanza’s lone pear tree, broke some branches and pooped right underneath to let us know what happened. It seems like people here see bears more as a nuisance than a threat. The bears are scared off by the dogs, and believe me, this says more about the bears than the dogs. The bears aren’t really interested in us, only our garbage, our pears and our salmon. The only real threat is if they get “too familiar” with humans, whatever that means. Then we have to shoot them. I have been told by my friend Joy that Black bears taste good and grizzlies, not as good. Tim my Boss told me the bears taste better after berry season, which just is ending and before the salmon start spawning, which should happen about a month from now. Does anyone have a good recipe for black bear?

I have taken the verse about new wines in new wineskins as my personal verse from God. And this week I have seen God use it in a literal way.

Annie took me out for lunch today. She is a nanny, working for some rich people. The 5 year old had a birthday, and stacy said he could go wherever he wanted for his birthday. “mcdonald’s” he said. I can just picture his parents rolling their eyes and their child’s ungratefully bad taste.

So Anny asks if I want to go. “There is a playground there, right”

“Yes” annie said

“An afternoon with a bunch of 5 year olds and soccer moms. What could be better?

The best part of being in a setting with lots of little kids and parents is making fun of them all. The other parents never where quite sure which one was mine, so I am sure they were confused when I made fun of multiple kids as if they were my own. The parents weren’t much harder to mock. One of the mothers, picture a former cheerleader, graduated high school in 1991, still a little confused how real life isn’t as easy as high school. She was yelling at her two kids “Axl, get down here. Mr. Jones, bring your coat.” I wonder what the other kids think of Mr. Jones. I know I already have an opinion on his future. 20 years from now I am betting he is less likely to be my defense lawyer than serving me at McDonalds. At least he will have lots of experience.

There is great benefit of the other parents assuming I am biologically related to one of the little gremlins. One of the mothers said to me and annie, how many kids we had here. “Just one” annie said.

“The little girl” She said

“I wish” I said reflexively, but still had the composure to continue smiling and not break eye contact

“oh” she said, with a look of both confusion and fear that I hope I will never forget.

“I agreed with that before you even said it”

Dear Professor Barsness.  Don’t read into it, but I watched this video and thought you would enjoy it.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

I love you dad

There was this man and he had two dogs and their names were Billy 1 and Billy 2. One day they went hunting and they shot at a fox. But all they did was shoot its tail off. So they went home, but when the man was sleeping he heard a voice say “give me back my pony tail”. The next day Billy one was dead. Then the next night, the man heard a voice “give me back my pony tail”. The next night Billy 2 was dad. The man was a little sad. The next night he heard a voice “Give me back my pony tail”. Then the man died.

By Emma

This is in dedication to my favorite mathematician, the late Hungarian Paul Erdos. Most of his life he was homeless and his possessions would fit in a suitcase. He would travel from one scientific conference to another, stopping at a college’s house along the way. He would show up on their doorstep with his suitcase, announcing “my brain is open” and then collaborate with his fellow mathematician for a few days. When he was done, he would ask them which mathematician he should go see next. Then he would travel to the next place, showing up at the doorstep, saying “my brain is open”. May we all be a little weirder and leave our brains open.

Visit the The Brain of Derrick Fudge

The microwave where I work has a label on the panel that says “let’s cook” right above the buttons. I love the enthusiasm. I love how it includes me in the credit for cooking, when all I did is put the bowl in the microwave and push one single button. I always walking away feeling good about myself and empowered to conquer the obstacles of my day. This is a very different experience than I have with my microwave at home, which offers no greeting, has no one-button function, but does shame me for everything from forgetting to get the food out of the microwave to opening the door while it is still beeping. This shaming has ruined the lives of everyone who has ever lived with us. Naomi Wachira still hasn’t recovered from when she lived with us and swears at the microwave every time she walks around the corner of the kitchen and sees it. Mark Neigh moved back to Chicago to run from the shame. My brother Trevor responded to the shame of my microwave by moving out and getting married. Shannon Pressler just moved down the hall, where he only uses a stove to cook his food (and by food I mean the only thing he eats is frozen pizza). But somehow he has internalized the shaming enough to never use oven mitts and burns himself everyday. Shelley Thorpe deals with the shaming by taking long trips to Portland every week.

Months ago my friend KJ came over to my house to pretend to do homework and take a nap. I forgot to worn my pet spider, Sydney. Sydney is a very nice spider, but gets very protective. KJ’s calf took the brunt of Sydney’s wrath, and it swelled up for a week.

I thought the working relationship with Sydney was back to normal. As long as I warn her that we have visitors, and show her a Polaroid of our visitor, she would leave them alone. But I was wrong. It turns out that once Sydney tasted the blood of a woman, there was no going back. Annie was next, and Sydney showed no mercy. 5 days later, the injury was still there. At one week, it was definitely getting worse. Then one night we noticed that both of Annie’s legs were blue. Not just a little blue around the bite, but rather her whole legs were a pale shade of blue. She went immediately to the emergency room. There the emergency nurses took seriously the spider bite, but were very confused about the blue legs. What could have caused it? Finally, one of the nurses tried to clean the wound, and noticed that her cleaning thingy turned blue. The nurse then asked Annie what color her pants were today. Annie had just worn a new pair of blue pants. Her legs were saved! Sydney had tricked us. She had bit Annie exactly one week before Annie would wear her new blue pants, knowing how it would turn out. After the doctor gave her some drugs for the bite, Annie was on the path to recovery. But it wasn’t over between Sydney and I. I ran home to have a sit down with her. She wasn’t there. She had left a note. “I have gone on to find new women to bite. I have memorized the Polaroid’s on your door and have gone searching for these people.” So be careful, my readers. If you have ever been to the fudge house and had your picture taken, you could be in trouble.