I didn’t have a clue about such scenarios, until I was standing in the sun a couple weeks ago, on one of those first warm days that finally appeared in Western Oregon. The honey bees seemed as happy as I, and we were all drawn to the color and scent bushing over the white brick walkway (last summer Tim bought larger bricks for a good deal somewhere and improved the walk). The afternoon purred along, until I was shaken from my reverie by a change of movement in the lavender.

Three bees had morphed their cadence from the usual land here, stick face in, zip over here, check next flower. Now they were at arrowy attention, in close proximity, pulsing a message with their bodies. From three angles they strove toward something, as if pointing.

The thing was a bee, but not. It was stuck on a stalk where all had gone wrong. I jumped back as the well-known alarm in my middle went off. Spiderish movements! Black and hairy! Eww! I was quieter than the bees, since they kept buzzing, but my anxiety matched theirs. The bee was captive; the spider (likely a jumping variety) jittered and jagged, securing his grip.

The free bees must have smelled the captive’s pheromones. Their language contains “Help me!” better and more eerie in silence than any Vincent Price creepshow. But the scent-call must have ended quickly. Sure as the spider knew his business, the struggling bee quieted, and its hivemates returned to more fluid toil at the lavender blossoms.

Since then, in my mind, I keep returning to this gruesome vignette. Of course the truth of its morality is a matter of perspective. For the spider it was all in a day’s hunt. And spiders, though my phobia screams differently, have the right to dine, even to prefer honey.

The workings of nature and my nature buzz around me. I am human. To me, that fact shouts responsibility. I’d have saved the poor bee if I could’ve. That’s me, today in my backyard, where life has plunked me.

Also, though, sad as it is, if I had been someone educated toward inventing things to help make the world run more efficiently (or whatever scenarios have driven the people who’ve changed our food), I could have invented some of the biochemical stuff Monsanto employs — the stuff that extinguishes millions of bees because the hybrid blossoms it produces don’t look right to the critters and they miss their chance to dine. I would have acted in terms of my perspective.

Yet there’s always the hopeful chance I’d have happened upon the afternoon when, sunshine-starved, I’d have wandered out to my lavender bush. There, perhaps wrestling with deeper morality, I’d have noticed three bees when they pointed.

Now we’re coming up on 2012, a date people worry about as the end of things (I might see the movie this week at our discount theater). It’s becoming a joke, as Y2K did, and rightly so. We never see the big things coming. There are always signs, but not often an accurate announcement.

I read a heartbreaking essay, by a woman who taught high school English in Los Angeles. She longed to encourage, even protect a boy who could write well. There was no way to do either, where the system is in complete chaos.

The author admirably includes herself with the whole culture that has failed. Her students refuse to list what they think they will be doing in 10 years. They’re sure the world will end by then. Their poverty is not one of abject starvation and want, because they receive aid from the proper agencies. Their lack comes from an impersonal society where no one really cares and there is nothing left to hope in.

Am I fostering a world in which kids don’t have hope, when I keep the wheels turning that allow them a bare respite from physical suffering? What I mean is, I hate to think there isn’t enough hardship in the world to fight against, to give us hope.

Staring at my fire I sometimes forget to turn on lights as the day grows dark, and then I realize I don’t want to. I bring out matches and light our oil lamps and candles. In their glow I become less tense as anxieties lift.

If there were no electric fixtures, my existence would be harder. But would I, dwelling closer to reality, hope for more? Perhaps I would give more of myself to others in this life. (Probably, I would need to receive a lot more from others in terms of help to survive – maybe not a bad thing.)

I’m not saying electricity’s the problem, or the only one, or that we should or can go back to “simpler” times. Maybe, though, what those kids from L.A. wish for is a bolt from heaven that would take out the rush for funds in bureaucrat-heavy schools and snatch away prevailing adult distractions from their sundered families, so they could come together, even in darkness. If only they could live unafraid to write down good stories and recite them of an evening by a candle’s flickering light.

It seems now, however, my cell phone has gone rogue. One day the 60 or so units I had available on it disappeared. I’d left the phone on overnight in “keys locked” mode (finally learned how to do that), and the next time I grabbed it the numbers read zero. So I spent the requisite 45 minutes talking with a nice man from India who confirmed I’d lost my units but believed me innocent (good customer and all, I guess) and replaced them. Today I turned the phone on and found 100 new units I hadn’t paid for. Sorry, Tracfone! I honestly tried on their web page to rectify the situation, to no avail. Perhaps tomorrow those units will have flitted off somewhere.

Though I don’t use my cell much (obviously), I’d be okay with giving up and purchasing a new phone. I’m not against the latest techno thingies, much. But as someone who drives a ’91 Dodge and uses a 2002 model computer, I’ve grown used to roughing it. In fact, the newer stuff does send a shudder up my backbone when I imagine the future.

We’re all on board about recycling and reusing, right? I’m really good at it, given I live where to do so is easy as gluten-free toast in the morning. But, and though I risk more forays into politics, I’m concerned regarding these cash for clunkers programs. Not that the intention is wrong – getting rid of pollution and over-energy usage would be shiny. What happens, however, when the things going rogue have no longer been made by those who remember eight-track tapes, vacuum tubes, and carburetors? What I mean is, in a world where obsolescence becomes government required rather than planned by greedy industry, we might get stuck inside the machine.

My 1998 van was cool; it took care of me. Then one day the right rear vent wouldn’t open. Come to think of it, you never could open the middle windows, and the front ones were electric. Everything so expensive to fix. We didn’t even pay off the car before I sold it and went back to debt-free driving. I liked the being cared for by technology bit, I really did. But it can begin to give funny feelings…I decided at last I would spend my days and money buying other folks’ cast-offs and using them as long as possible. Affordable living, though not as cushy. Keeping gadgets out of landfills and the junk yard that sprawls just up the road – a good philosophy, no? But one I don’t think we’re priming ourselves for.

Maybe I’ve watched way too many Matrix-type movies. But while everybody texts and ipods and twitters and lets their cars drive them around, I’m just that least bit creeped out, still.

“Chuck” came over today. For the first time I nearly lost it with him, and that would not have been a great scene.

I wrote about this friend of my son’s here, after Chuck was roughed up last fall, and then I posted here when things were better.

Thing is, now he’s grown to more than six feet, and Chuck is becoming pushy. Much less rational. Appearing to want to use us.

I don’t blame him if bitterness has been growing in his up-till-recently innocent heart. He’s had other scuffles with the darker side of human nature. Plus he’s nearly 21, and his life is less structured. Chuck has always loved structure.

Things have reached a point where seeing him on our front step brings out my mother bear instincts. I won’t go into detail, but I’m recognizing we can’t let Chuck inside for a while at least. Especially any of us alone oughtn’t try to deal with him. This breaks the heart and makes the socks slouch down the ankles. I mean, what if I have to take actions that bring authorities and cause restraint against this one-time little kid from my neighborhood?

Maybe I’m caught off guard here; maybe I’ve always known this day might come.