Bearly

I own and adore every Berenstain Bear book; the classic square ones, the miniature square ones, the oversized Almanac and Science Fair ones, the chapter books. They were they only books I cared about in book orders and the only books I spent my allowance on as a kid. (Not like Cristall. She had all the Garfield books. Not like Suz. She had all the Nancy Drews with the yellow spines.) It's possible that half of my fanciful childhood daydreams were spent in drama-free Bear Country; the land of sunny dirt roads, quaint tree houses, bird nests, blooming tulips, and smiling bears.

My obsession with the Berenstain Bears permeated my psyche enough that when Duchess Kate walked out of the hospital to show off the royal heir in that blue polka-dot dress I instantly thought, "Why is she wearing Mama Bear's day dress?"

One night last week we opted to do our yard work as soon as Greg got home instead of eating dinner like normal people do. For some strange reason we edged and mowed and weeded the garden and trimmed the watermelon vines. We stunted the chokecherry and pear shoots and gave the weeping cherry a haircut. We sprinkled sulfur under the blue spruce and blew off the driveway. Only perfection remained.

Greg started grilling pizzas, RE began handstanding in the grass, and I sat on my kneeling pad ogling my round, red tomatoes. I froze the blissfully idyllic scene in my mind and, obviously, thought of the Berenstain Bears. (It's the tomatoes. Every page that features the Bears' tree house acreage shows a perfectly manicured yard complete with a multi-row, weed-free, ripe-tomato garden. Check the books. I know of what I speak.) I surveyed my domain once again...Papa Bear grilling, Sister Bear walking on her hands, tomatoes getting fatter by the minute, even a white puppy looking at me through the glass door...and just appreciated the awesomeness of my Bear Country life.

Then the propane ran out mid-pizza and Greg's lunch-skipping blood sugar instantly dropped 50 points. I went inside to steam some green beans while he got a new propane tank. Unfortunately I had let the green beans grow too big, so they were super fibrous and hollow. I sautéed them in bacon grease but they still tasted like weeds. Reluctantly I cut the beans in thirds and stuffed them down the disposal. Greg returned with new propane and I went out to help him. While I was outside Lucy had an accident by the back door because no one was around to let her out. RE was nowhere to be found because she had sauntered off to a friend's house without telling us. Greg came in to rinse his hands and when he was done there was standing water in the sink. Odd. I ran the disposal. It sounded like it was grinding up chunks of metal and it was having a seizure big enough to register an eight on the Richter scale. Greg asked what on earth I put down the drain. Only green beans, dear.

We ate our pizzas in silence after dark, me with furrowed brows trying to figure out how on earth I broke the disposal with thirds of homegrown green beans. After dinner Greg lay on his back and used the hand crank to manually move all the green bean fibers through the disposal while I picked out what I could with my hands. (I'm always a little afraid to stick my hand down the disposal.) Two hours later it was free of green waste and we had wasted our night. Bear Country indeed.

I thought about those deceitful Berenstain Bears as I was falling asleep that night. Maybe I'm a bit jaded but on this page where Mama Bear is trimming a bird's nest and Sister Bear is skipping rope after a butterfly...

...I have to wonder if Mama has a PMS migraine and just drank a dirty Diet Coke, if she also called in some Cafe Rio salads because there is no chance she is cooking dinner, if Sister Bear is jumping rope because she is in permanent time out for not checking in with her parents and forbidden to step paw in the tree house ever again, if the garden is full of appliance-destroying crops too bitter to touch any smiling bear's mouth, and if Papa Bear is out of the picture because he is stuck in Bear Country traffic and will miss his hot dinner to go straight to a church meeting.

Keep calm and dress like Kate Middleton Mama Bear?

Top image is my yard. See the precious tomatoes? See the lack of weeds? Bear Country.

Bottom image by Stan & Jan Berenstain, still my heroes even if I broke the disposal.