I just hate creepy crawly nature when it is, err, creepy crawly.

Over here I think we’ve killed all creepy crawlies (besides the politicians, of course) We’ve sanitized this country to a point at which one single bear is currently getting a whole nation to collectively hold its breath (and root for it as it has so far managed to get away every single time when chased by two-legged and four-legged hunters). It even survived a run-in with a car.

I like bears.

I was amazed at how quickly I habituated to all of the monster bugs when I spent a week at my sons’ Scout camp several summers ago. Oh, a giant praying mantis is crawling up my chest as I sleep. Well, I’ll just carefully grab it and throw it out of the tent. Back to sleep.

I’ll bet your Lad does more growing up this summer than he has in the last 18 summers.

eeeuuuwww, I HATE creepy crawly things--I guess I would have a hard time there.  Although the roaches in Hawaii are big enough to put saddles on and I got over that fairly quickly--still don’t like them, but I got to the point where I could actually not screech, just whimpered a lot, when they came out to play.  Some years, depending on the weather of course, they have been worse than others.  AND THEY FLY!!

But spiders and other creepy, crawly things, uhhhhhhhh, I don’t think so.  Yes, Pablo is right, your son will do a tremendous amount of growing this summer.  This is better than Outward Bound!!  I wonder how different my life would have been if I had done something like this........or all of us for that matter.  Interesting!!

Volkher—poor bear. Why are the two and four leggeds trying to catch it? Is it trying to live in people neighborhoods? Are there many or any bears left in the mountains? I like bears, too...but from a vast distance.

I’m pretty okay with most creepy crawlies as long as they aren’t venomous. Fortunately, we have very few of those kinds of creatures. One of the definite advantages to living in the north where winters discourage most of the truly dangerous creatures from migrating.

Pablo, I think he’s done a lot of growing up just in the last week. His horizons have surely been broadened—from the dude who wears pretty dresses every day to the woman who cusses a blue streak in a Cajun dialect (and loves to teach the choice bits of her language) to the two Cajun motorcycle dudes who dropped off a couple of freshly killed boars for a ‘pig roast’ and stuck around to supervise the roasting pit and the roasting—and the feasting. He’s learned how to cook for an army and has learned that hot sauce isn’t a seasoning, it’s a food group. He’s learned that those who have lost everything are more generous in spirit than those who have much. And he has learned to eat while listening to the vols talk about the smell of death. It lingers for a long time. That’s just in one week and I’m *sure* that I haven’t heard the half of it. After this, college may seem tame.

Cyn, if the roaches in Hawaii are anything like the Palmetto bugs in Florida, I can share a hearty eeeuuuwww!! I stuck my hand in a drawer in the dark kitchen one night to grab a spoon and one ran up my arm. It was AWFUL! They are as big as skateboards!

Everyone’s talking about creepy crawlies lately.  I heard someone say we have an abundance of them this year because of the supposedly mild winter we had.

Brown recluse spiders are the only poisoness spiders where I live in northeastern pennsylvania, so they’ve always been a concern my whole life.
However, from what I understood, they mainly live in woodpiles or rotting wood.
I always figured as long as I didn’t go poking my finger into woodpiles, I’d be okay.  haha.

Cyn didn’t give you the local name for those guys: B-52s.  They are an inch long and can have wingspans of two inches or so.  They are guaranteed to startle when you come on them unaware.

Oh man, that fixes a mental image like nothing else. Do they have landing lights? I like the north better and better all the time.

I am sitting here cracking up--yes, B52’s--I had forgotten!!  The first time I went there, I went alone--basically ran away--LOL Long story, not mysterious or anything, just went on my own to stay with my girlfriend.  Second time, I invited himself to join me (invited again), That time he said yes, guess he finally figured out I meant it when I said I am going whether you want to join me or not.  That year there weren’t too many so he had no clue.  The next time, we were sitting out on the lanai our first night there and SMACK!!  One of those suckers came in for a landing right between his eyes.  I was gasping for breath I laughed so hard--as did most everyone else.  It was too funny.  I am just grateful it happened the second time he went, not the first so it has not been an issue getting him there since.  Definitely a little disconcerting!!  I still laugh when I think about it.

Kate, bears disappeared long ago here in Germany. People have been lamenting that fact but now that one single brown bear (is that the name?) did the illegal alien thing and crossed over from Eastern Europe, the population is going batty.

It killed a few sheep near human habitats, has been seen wandering around the mountain ranges in the South and has so far pretty much kept to itself (must be boring, with no other bears around and nothing but bone-headed conservatives in southern Bavaria).

Those people who live far enough away want it to become our friend, others living closer to its stomping grounds want it removed from the map.

So far, the bear has outsmarted everyone and everything thrown its way, and I can’t shake the feeling that it single-handedly raised the average IQ in the area by a substantial amount. ;)

Volkher, that’s pretty sad. Where did all the bears go? Were they hunted out of existence? You have vast mountains. It’s hard to imagine. I hope we never get to that point, but I am not so sure. If the animals aren’t protected, we’ll manage to make them extinct eventually. If they get in the way of commerce or ranchers, they have a hard way to go and, of course, we’re poisoning their (and our) environment at a furious pace. No thanks to the know-nothings in the white house who have turned environmental (and wildlife) protections back at least 30 years.

Today, it got shot by three hunters. Sad. The local governments siad they would have it stuffed and put up in some natural history museum.

We might have vast mountains, but Germany is a relatively densely populated country. The bear just got too close to towns and farms, getting its food from livestock there.

There’s a terrible irony in stuffing the bear to put in a natural history museum, when the poor bear was alive and healthy just prior. That makes me sad. They could have sleep darted him and moved him to the outer reaches of civilization or somewhere. Or maybe not. As a friend who visited here from Europe said, “You just don’t understand how much open space you have here. Everything seems large here. There’s nothing like this left at home.”

Read about it on Germany’s biggest news site (in English). Good text:

http://tinyurl.com/ndh6m

P.S.: He actually came over from Italy, not the East.

Boyohboy, killing Bruno turns out to have been a very unpopular thing to do. At least now that it’s done.

And Italy is furious, too.

Poor Bruno. He wasn’t a very large bear. He didn’t look like a ferocious people killer kind of bear.

Kind of interesting, though, that the author of your linked article likened him to Meursault. The total misfit—except that Bruno *was* in his natural environment. What a story.