totemic animals

today in russian 3 we were taught that the word for bear is a combination of the words for "honey" and "to know" (by intuition, as opposed to acquired or academic knowledge). a bear, then, is one who intuitively knows where the honey is.

speaking of bears, my mom called me tonight to tell me that my own little bear, missy, tried to come upstairs in the middle of the night and slipped (her back legs are weak) so that she was hanging on with her front paws but had lost grip with her back paws and was stuck dangling with only a few steps to go. she cried so loudly that it woke my mom sleeping in her bedroom with the doors shut. my mom came to a midnight missy rescue. on the phone ma said - you've never heard her cry before. it sounds human.