 Who wouldn't adopt this cute little guy? Photo: Reuters There’s a famous urban legend about a woman vacationing in Tijuana who adopts a stray chihuahua puppy. She takes it home and discovers — surprise! — it’s actually a sewer rat. (Why she doesn’t notice this until she gets home is never quite explained. Maybe she’d forgotten to pack her eyeglasses.) National Geographic reported an even stranger puppy adoption story from China. Su Yun had always wanted one of those big, fluffy Tibetan mastiffs, and while she was on vacation she met a guy selling a purebred puppy by the side of the road — for a really good price. (Because that’s not suspicious at all.) She took her puppy home and soon noticed he had an enormous appetite, wolfing down a carton of fruit and two buckets of noodles a day. He grew incredibly fast; within two years he weighed a hefty 250 pounds. When he started walking around on his hind legs, Su could no longer ignore the truth: her pet dog was actually an Asian Black Bear.  Can you guess which one is the Asian Black Bear and which is the Tibetan Mastiff? Admitting she was “a little scared of bears,” Su turned him over to a wildlife rescue center. Good call, Su. As countless lurid online videos attest, sewer rats, bears, and other wild animals rarely make safe or comfortable companions. And yet, we humans can’t seem to resist trying to befriend all manner of furred, feathered, and scaled critters. We have a deep-seated need for pets that remind us we’re part of the vast web of life on this planet. Scientists call it biophilia, the profound love of every living thing. It reassures us that we’re not alone.  On days when human society seems to be running particularly amok, I find it soothing to take a little vacation in the animal kingdom. This week I did it via a visit to WildCare, a nearby rescue center, so I could hang out with some of the residents. It's a busy place; life in the great outdoors is hazardous, especially now with climate change upping natural disasters and disrupting habitats. About 30 staff and 200+ volunteers care for ill, injured, and orphaned creatures from 200 species. Every year 3500 clients arrive, and some, unable to survive on their own, make WildCare their forever home. A kindly human volunteer, Dianne, introduced me to this 74-year-old tortoise named Mohave — Mo for short. Mo was found wandering around Mendicino’s wine country, far from his native desert habitat. I like to think he’d just enjoyed a weekend of the kind of riotous excess we saw in movies like Sideways and Hangover, but chances are he was an abandoned pet. He couldn’t be released into the wild because captive tortoises can carry harmful diseases and pathogens into the wild population, which are an endangered species. Mo looks like something from the age of dinosaurs, with enormous foreclaws designed for digging desert burrows. Because cool, dark burrows are prime real estate in the Mojave desert, uninvited roommates are always sneaking in. Tortoises like Mo often find themselves sleeping with rattlesnakes (yikes) as well as woodrats, burrowing owls, and other desert dwellers. To retain moisture in the harsh, hot, arid climate, the Mojave tortoise has a body that’s 40% bladder, with a complicated fluid recycling system; Mo could go a year without peeing. Imagine the convenience!  Huh? I found this on Etsy, with the description: "Give your tortoise a fresh and fruity upgrade with this adorable Crocheted Watermelon Tortoise Cozy!" I feel the poor creature is cringing with embarrassment. As Dianne introduced me to a dozen other creatures, I soon learned that every one of them had a weird and colorful backstory. Take the Virginia opossum, the only marsupial native to North America. They're born the size of a honey bee and immediately climb into their mother’s pouch, where each one latches on to one of 13 teats and stays fixed there for 2 ½ months. They then crawl onto their mother’s back, where they ride around for much of the next month or so before falling off and heading out on their own. These moms should be nominated for sainthood!  A mother Virginia opossum carrying her litter. How does she do it? Almost as soon as she'd gained her independence, the opossum Didi got mauled by a cat. While treating her wounds, vets discovered the young opossum has hip dysplasia, poorly fitted joints that would slow her down fatally in the wild. Like Mo, she’s now a permanent resident of WildCare.  Didi is nocturnal, so she was happiest napping during our encounter. Didi, Mo, and all the other residents owe their lives to the kindness of strangers who found them and brought them in for treatment. However it’s not always easy to tell if a baby animal truly needs to be rescued. I once accidentally kidnapped a puppy I found wandering through our Ohio neighborhood. After I took him home with me and phoned the number on the collar, I learned it had just been adopted by my neighbor three doors down, and I’d “rescued” the puppy from its own front yard! Oops. Every spring, well-meaning people “kidnap” healthy young fawns, jackrabbits, baby birds and others, taking them to rescue centers. WildCare’s 5 Cs checklist offers guidelines for determining if help is required. 1. Is he Crying? 2. Is he Cold? 3. Is he Coming toward you (approaching people)? 4. Is he Covered in fluff (for baby birds) or Crawling with blood or insects? 5. Has he been Caught by a cat or a dog? Reptiles, especially snakes, are harder to evaluate; when in doubt, leave them alone. But I don’t need to tell you that; humans are hardwired to avoid serpents. Rich once bought an inflatable snake that was supposed to be the humane way to frighten vermin away from our garden. I alerted various visitors and workmen in advance, but for the next two days everyone arrived at my door white-faced and trembling with fright. We soon deflated that snake and banished it to a back shelf in the garage. Humans have always struggled to figure out how to live in harmony with nature. Right now, with the US government poised to rescind nearly all environmental protections, it’s clear the responsibility for that effort is falling upon the citizens. Luckily, compassion cannot be eliminated with the stroke of a legislator’s pen. There will always be Good Samaritans who stop by the roadside to assist a lost tortoise, a wounded opossum, or something that might be a puppy, a bear, or even a rat. Fortunately, too, there are volunteers and professionals around the country, ready to treat the critters’ illnesses, bandage their wounds, and find them a safe haven where they can heal.  WildCare med staff give this orphaned grey fox cub dextrose syrup to perk him up. He spent time in care and when he was old enough, he was successfully released back into the wild. Photo: Alison Hermance We all need that kind of healing at times, and according to the Japanese, one of the best remedies is forest bathing (shinrin-yoku). After soaking up the atmosphere of the natural world, we find ourselves shaking off our headline worries and tech-boom burnout, restored in body and soul, our eyes once again open to the beauty around us. Or as this ancient Hebrew wisdom puts it: “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Kind of like this: Got a story about encounters with the wild kingdom? Please share it in the comments below. Please note I am now going to publish my posts on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays. FINDING HOPE This story is part of a series of blog posts exploring ways people help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Let me know in the comments below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase the paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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A teenager taking a selfie with a squirrel in the woods. What could possibly go wrong? "I approached it making a clicking noise with my tongue, phone drawn," Brian Genest, 17, told Buzzfeed. "When I got close enough, the squirrel actually tried grabbing my phone. I shook it off, then snapped this photo."  The squirrel was not amused. Photo: Brian Genest It was the flash that drove the beast completely bonkers. "Next thing I knew, the squirrel was on my shoulder, then under my shirt, and then hanging off my back," Brian recalled. "This photo is courtesy of my mom, who collapsed laughing shortly after."  "I think he got a little lesson," said Brian's mom, Paula Wright. It's pretty clear who emerged the victor in that encounter! Being bested by a squirrel is just one of the many indignities involved in being a teenager. Others include your parents turning into embarrassingly clueless numbskulls, teachers becoming sadistic fiends, and the refrigerator never holding anything worth eating, even after your mom comes home with bags and bags of groceries. It’s a tough life. The high school years are challenging for everyone, and few of us get through them unscathed. No, I’m not sharing stories of my misspent youth right now; even the highlight reel would take way too much time. Suffice to say that against all odds I managed to survive coming of age in the sixties, and I figure the current crop of teens will likely prove equally foolish and equally resilient now that it’s their turn.  I don't have many photos of myself from the sixties; "leave no evidence" was my motto. Here photographer Nacio Brown captured the attitude, hair, and glasses we all adopted at the time. “Adolescents are not monsters,” insists “the Mother of Family Therapy,” Virginia Satir. “They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.” Lots of teens make it a point of pride to avoid conversing with adults, while wily parents dream up ever more elaborate strategies for getting them to interact with the human race. Here’s how one mom succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. “On a lovely June day in 2006,” Cathryn Couch recalls, ”my cell phone rang. Sue Curry, my riding instructor, wondered if I could give her daughter a job over the summer and perhaps teach her to cook at the same time.” Impossible! Cathryn couldn’t babysit a teenager at her job as a chef at a Sonoma County retreat center. “But Sue was persistent and I have always been more inclined to say ‘yes’ than ‘no’ when the universe comes calling.”  Cathryn Couch. Photo: CNN Then Cathryn heard about friends of friends who were too ill to cook for themselves. “Sue offered to pay for the food, I donated my time, and Megan and I began meeting one afternoon a week to prepare meals for two single people and a family of four.” When the father of that family stopped by to collect the food on his way home from work, the relief on his face made it clear this was a bright spot in a very dark time. “I witnessed Megan’s pride in the contribution she was making in their life, “ Cathryn recalled. “And his deep gratitude for the simple gift of the meals. Something about that moment took hold in me.” The idea kept growing until it became the Ceres Community Project, which now operates two kitchens and two organic gardens in Sonoma and Marin Counties, just north of San Francisco. Each year, 300 teenage volunteers create organic, medically tailored meals for those who are ill and need extra help putting nutritious food on the table. Yes, of course there’s adult supervision. Nobody is going to just hand kids knives and turn them loose in a kitchen!  Meal plans and custom recipes are created by professional chefs and dietitians. At the start of each shift, the cook labels plastic containers with the type and volume of produce, how it needs to be prepped, and where it’s heading next. The volunteers are responsible for following precise instructions and soon learn the difference between chopping, dicing, slicing, and mincing. “The kids are learning good food habits,” explained my friend Rayne, a longtime adult volunteer at Ceres. “They learn about nutrition, they learn about responsibility, they learn about commitment.”  Rayne stands beside prepped veggies at Ceres' Novato kitchen. The kids also learn the joy of doing something useful that earns the sincere gratitude of strangers. “A couple of times a year we bring in clients to talk with the teens,” says Deborah Ramelli, Director of Development and Community Affairs. “The client will look at the teens and say, ‘You've saved my life. I couldn't do this without you.’” That sort of comment is thrilling for anyone to hear, and doubly so for teens, who tend to view all conversations with adults as the human equivalent of this classic Gary Larson cartoon.  “My hours in the community kitchen,” commented teen volunteer Alexis Weiss, “have taught me to make healthy homegrown meals, package them with care, and send them off with love… Volunteering at Ceres helped me realize how important community is and that we all need to be cared for sometimes.” Ceres has helped affiliates launch in cities across America and in Denmark; next month the staff is training a group from New Zealand. Funding comes from donors, corporate partners, government grants, and contracts for studies measuring the impact of wholesome food on medical outcomes. “We’ve built a body of evidence that shows healthcare outcomes improve, healthcare spending goes down, quality of life goes up,” says Deborah.  Owen Moynihan (left) and Ezra Thaler package meals in a Ceres kitchen. Quality of life goes up for the teen volunteers, too. They develop skills that will prove considerably more useful than taking selfies with squirrels. While learning to cook, they discover the value of community and resilience and interdependence — qualities essential for any era, and more vital than ever in light of the uncertain and deeply worrying future unfolding before our eyes. Most of all, these youngsters are learning that life is all about taking care of one another. As American guru Ram Das put it: Whether this is the first day of the Apocalypse, or the first day of the Golden Age, the work remains the same: to love each other and ease as much suffering as possible  “We're all just walking each other home.” — Ram Dass Got a story about teens you know — or your own teenage years? Please share it in the comments below. FINDING HOPE This story is part of a series of blog posts exploring ways people help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Let me know in the comments below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase the paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? 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