Bending, a Christmas tale

Winter on the fields

As far as Christmas is concerned, the snowfall came too soon. The snow that covered the trees, bushes, fields and roofs is mostly melted here, although it still lies fairly thick once you pass Poissy and head into the Forêt de Marly toward Paris, where drivers, stuck in the heavy traffic, lowered their car and truck windows, pointed their iPhones toward the snow-covered tree trunks and branches and clicked.

"Ils n'ont que ça a faire," said my husband as his window slid down and he pointed his iPhone toward the white-frosted trees.

It was true. Sitting there in stop and go traffic on our way to the shopping mall in Versailles, there was nothing else to do but appreciate the winter forest landscape and take pictures. I hit the button again, and his window slid back up. The car in front of us moved forward a meter. The driver seated high up above me smiled over our way. I nodded slightly and smiled back. 'Tis the season.

There, the snow looked as though it had just fallen, where here, we only had the tiniest of flurries, hardly more significant than a delicate dusting of frost accumulating on the leaves that have not fallen and the crusty bits of melted snow that had hung on. Those minuscule flurries made me hope this morning, when I went down to the wood pile and peeled back the tarp to fill my rubber bucket, but now, there is no reason to hope for the white Christmas that seemed almost certain. Bright sunshine is forecast for Christmas day tomorrow, although temperatures will dip further below zero.

I also noticed that the frightfully overgrown yew down in the lower garden is still bent over to make an arched tunnel over the opening in the privet hedge, however, bringing it to within reach of my long-handled pruning shears. I ought to go down and prune it while I can, but at nearly 4 pm, it will be dark soon.

(I really ought to go clean up all the mounds of decaying dog pooh left apparent by the snow's withdrawal before it is too dark to see them. Not that anyone is at risk to step in it, over by the France Telecom utility building. No one but me and my dogs goes there, except whatever other dog on the poor diet it is who contributes his poohs without a similar contribution in clean-up by his master.)

When the snow was at its thickest on the branches and the tops of the clipped shrubberies, the boughs, as well as entire shrubs, bent their heads nearly to their feet, the falling snow mixing with the weight of the snow on them to fasten them tightly to the ground. My stepdaughter was alarmed.

"Papa, ils sont cassés," she reported, leaving the panes of glass in the French window.

"Qu'est-ce qui est cassé?" he asked.

"Les plantes. Elles sont cassées sous le poids de la neige."

I had seen them already. I knew they were bent. It's another miracle of nature that she can design boughs to withstand the force of wind, snow and ice, bending but not breaking, at least not until the forces are extreme. I know this, and I felt superior in my knowledge.

You paid attention in school and in life, the voice I know as my meaner self said to me. I didn't like the sound of that. I tried not to let it out.

"Les plantes ne sont pas cassées," I said, deliberately checking the impatience in my voice, and wondering if I had hit the right measure between checking too much and not checking at all, the terrible one that would leave her wondering if I had been unkind, or not. "Les branches sont souples, capables de se plier en réponse aux forces importantes de la neige, de la glace et du vent."

You could have added that you know they are nearly to their breaking point. In some cases out there, anyway, the voice I know as my meaner self, frustrated by my having attempted to check it, said in a counter effort to let me know I hadn't done such a good job in the event that I had failed to notice the edge in my spoken words. It hadn't escaped me. Like I said, I knew what I was doing, but I hoped it wasn't too noticeable, neither to my meaner self nor to her. I grabbed my gloves, slipped my boots on and crossed the terrace to the Nandina domestica.

The "heavenly" bamboo.

The slender branches that normally reach toward the sky and bend only towards their tips under the weight of the bouquets of thin leaves and airy bunches of green fruits that turn orange in the autumn and bright red in the winter, arched to the ground, where their heads rested on the crusted snow. Two short branches already lay nearby, broken clean off. I picked them up and considered my attitude one more time; it kind of looked like some plants were "cassées".

I took a branch and gave it a shake. Hard bits of snow flew in all directions, stinging my cheeks and making slightly metallic noises as they rained to the hardening snow, like bits of plastic confetti on a glass tabletop, or frozen rain on frozen snow, actually. It nearly broke off in my hand. I took more care with the next ones, shaking as much frozen snow from them as I could so they could stand almost as straight as they usually do.

Over the course of the afternoon, I watched the snow begin to melt and fall from the bowed branches of the yews at the top of the garden stairs, my sentinel yews, making faint, dull thuds. Each thud gave me the faint, dull pleasure of vindication.

See? Nature is hardy enough to survive what she throws at herself. It was my meaner self again, but I did not give her the pleasure of a hearing.

But, are our relationships? Those most fragile of human relationships, the "steps"? Can they take what we throw at them? The jealousies and the barbs of alterity and territoriality?

"You women think you have a maternal sense," my husband once said to me, "but you are essentially animals because it is only for your own. We care for all children, yours as well ours."

"That's not true," I had charged right back, my hackles up as though he had attacked my child, not merely my sense of maternity and sorority.

Maybe it is true, said the voice of the self I recognize as my better one. It sounds like it might be, you know. Look at you and how you feel about his children.

"Not all of them," I said, my defense at the ready, arguments all lined up and ready to go. "And that's not how I felt when once before I nearly had two stepdaughters. I missed them so much later that I cried, and it wasn't just because I hadn't had my own child yet, like he likes to say it is; it was because their mother didn't hate me for her own failings and try to ruin things. She let her daughters love me."

This was true. My better self had nothing to say, and since his daughter has come to live with us, my husband's will has bent under the weight of the consciousness that I am doing at least as much for her as I did for the heavenly bamboo, or that I am trying to anyway, and that counts between us nearly as much or more (but in a different way) than my succeeding. If we fail, we will have failed together now.

Two people can stand straight-backed in their mutual opposition, each defending his own position and giving the best of arguments for refusing to bend toward the other, but the truth, the very difficult truth is that it is only in accepting that there is also truth in the other's point of view and in his needs can one's own truth have any force of effect. In the absence of that acceptance, there is only sadness and loss. Truth falls to power, and with it goes down love.

So why is it so hard, then? Why is it so hard to answer the need in the other and give up insisting on one's own, when time and time again it is shown that in doing that, so much that one says one truly wants finally becomes possible? Is it more satisfying to continue to claim one's wants than to give in order to see them satisfied an hundred times over? Is that why Men continue to wage wars?

In the car, on the way to do our Christmas shopping for the older children, grown to make couples and careers now, I turned to him and asked, "Est-ce qu'on peut se mettre d'accord qu'on ne se fait pas de cadeaux cette année?"

I asked this question even though I had reason to believe that he had already gotten me a present. I hoped to avoid spending money we need for his daughter's riding lessons and that we will need for her competitions, soon. He hesitated a second before replying, just long enough to show me that I had been right. "Tu m'as déjà fait un cadeau alors?"

"Oui, mais ça n'a pas marché."

"Alors, on peut dire qu'on ne se fait pas de cadeaux de Noël cette année?" He nodded.

"Tu veux savoir ce que ça a été?"

Did I want to know what my failed Christmas present was, he wanted to know. I saw him smile a little sadly. I nodded. He paused, and then he said, "Un D300."

A D300? My brain turned over once, twice, and I understood.

"Un appareil de photo? Tu m'as acheté un Nikon D300? Mais -- j'en ai déjà un --"

"Je sais. Sam me l'a dit."

He knew I had one already, but that knowledge came too late. Sam had told him. But, why? How could he not have known? I use it every day.

He explained that thrilled with his purchase for me, he had told Sam that now we would have three lenses for our cameras. Sam had looked at him, not understanding what he meant by three lenses for our two cameras.

"J'ai acheté un D300 pour ta maman pour Noël," he told Sam, probably beaming.

"Mais, elle en a un déjà," Sam told him, most likely as confused as I was.

"Ce n'est pas le tien alors?" he asked, disappointment certainly creeping in along with the dawning light of realization that something had gone very wrong.

"Non. J'ai un Canon."

"Mais, Maman avait ton appareil, non? Tu l'avais laissé pour elle à utiliser."

"Oui, mais elle s'en est acheté un, alors j'ai repris le mien, le Canon, pour l'avoir avec moi à Paris. Les objectifs sont les siens. Elles les a eu avant."

Somehow, my husband had entirely forgotten whole conversations, but this is not amazing nor new. It is somewhat disconcerting, but less so since he has nearly always done that. I don't think Alzheimers starts at 30, and if it does, it generally gets much worse than it is now after a quarter century more has passed. And, were that the case, he should have been lost in the winter snow naked, only several fields over, long ago. He is otherwise thriving, albeit occasionally doubtful and disappointed about the various things he has to accept that he has indeed been told, and completely forgotten.

The very day I received my camera, I was exclaiming about the fact that I could take a picture of him from across the room, in the dim of the evening without a flash, and still see the herringbone pattern on the wool sweater I shrunk shortly thereafter.

"Avec l'appareil de photo de Sam?" he had asked.

"Non, avec le mien. J'ai acheté un Nikon D300 d'occas sur eBay, et Sam est allé le chercher pour moi à Paris aujourd'hui."

Another time, he asked if the camera I was using was Sam's. No, I explained again, trying to pronounce my words with extra clarity so he would be sure to hear them; Sam had taken his camera to Paris since I had gotten one of my own. I added that I had realized using his just how big a difference there was between my previously wonderful Fuji digital SLR-type camera after the little Russian Aptek I had used for my first "Garden Updates", emailed to friends and family, and his Canon Rebel XTi, and since I couldn't keep his camera forever and wanted to be able to photograph the dogs, my garden, travels and everything and everyone I love (or for whom I at least care, for one reason or another), I had searched for an used Nikon digital SLR for myself.

Now, he will not forget again.

Later, in between the freezing cold sheets, I put my even colder hand in his still colder one and said, "Merci de mon cadeau. N'importe quel des deux que je garde, l'appareil de photo sera toujours mon cadeau de Noël."

"Merci, mais c'est bête. Je suis quand même déçu."

"Il n'y a aucune raison d'être déçu," I said to him. "C'est vraiment un cas quand c'est l'intention qui compte. Tu as voulu faire le plus beau des cadeaux pour moi et c'était très généreux. Je ne m'attendais pas à autant."

In my mind, it really was the perfect case of the intention being as important as the gift. He had wanted to offer an exceptionally generous and considerate present to me, and it hadn't failed at all. The camera, whichever I will keep, will be from him because he wanted to give me that.

"C'était parce que je t'aime, et j'ai voulu te le montrer comme je peux," he said. Very quietly.

"Je sais," I said.

I know. I do know. I also know that it is because I bent and accepted the weight of his daughter, and it is amazing how far you can bend without breaking and become stronger for it.

Our hands felt a little warmer in the dark.

Joyeux Noël to all, or the joy and the peace of the spirit of Christmas to each of you.

....

Doors

The miscanthus in morning sun

The sun has modestly left the sky, leaving place for wintry clouds. I am glad; I have a chest cold, and sun is unwelcome from here in my nest on the sofa, in front of the Super-G in Val Gardena and the wood stove. My chest cold, on the other hand, is welcome. It affords me the opportunity to nurture my psyche, preparing myself for the still unsettling fact of anticipating my stepdaughter coming through the door each evening of the week, coming home from school.

Home. Coming home.

I would rather it stayed dark with the lights on the Christmas tree and the fire in the hearth, my own little womb where I ply needle and thread, examining my conscience, looking for holes and rips, weak spots, and darning my soul.

It's private work, but I share it with you. I admire most of all those who do not need to share anything, who can sew in the privacy of their home and go on with their labors without asking anyone to notice. That is a confession. I think of the farmer in Babe. I tell myself, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." I try to find the same quietness of principle and conviction, but I am more like his wife. I am both. Secretly, I am in love with Arthur Hoggett. James Cromwell would be fine, though.

I think my husband has something of him. Sometimes.

If the skies are really kind, they will send down more snowflakes. They did last night, but not enough, thankfully, to provide an excuse for the teachers not to show up at school, disappointing the children. I trod down the sidewalk this morning, past the dark windows of the house where one girl lives, to confirm that the other's were brightly lit, as I expected them to be. Behind them are parents who share our commitment to our children belonging in school and getting them there. Lit, it meant that if the bus did not appear, she or I would be driving at least our two children to school. The darkness of the other set of windows I took as a message. Not today. If my phone hadn't rung, it meant she had information to say the bus would come.

I walked back into the house with the dogs, Fia driving me nuts, twisting on her leash and tugging back to goad the lagging Rapide, who wanted one thing only: for Fia to leave her in peace at her own pace. My stepdaughter refused breakfast as usual and wished me a nice day, heading out for the bus.

"Ah! Il a neigé!" she exclaimed, stepping out the door into the morning darkness. Don't forget, we live very far north.

I waited for the protest. It didn't come. I did not need to say, "Oui, il a neigé, et toi, tu vas aller à l'école. Dépêche-toi," but I don't yet call that progress, as tempted as I am after our homework session of the evening before last. I don't dare yet. That would be premature. It will require several more homework sessions like that one, and the grades that confirm their significance. On the other hand, perhaps the cooperation and good humor are more important than the grades.

I rather suspect they are, at least from a parent's point of view. You see, I might be an idealist (I have been so accused), but I do not believe that conflict needs to define the teenage experience. It's more nuanced than that. They will be secretive, insolent, difficult and unpleasant, and possibly rude, and loudly so, at least once a day (so will I, I promise), but it does not have to define the entire experience of being a teenager and growing up.

I do believe that we ought to expect this from them as a sign that they are doing their job and pay the least attention necessary, choosing instead to get "caught" by the kind words, the

thoughtful gesture, the moment of enthusiasm, when they cannot prevent themselves from sharing with you and give that lavish attention. Do any of us want to be remembered for our worst moments and have them shape everyone else's expectations of us?

I didn't think so.

I find in the middle of all this, from my place in the center of my warm nest, that I might like it. Or, if "like" isn't the word, it could be that I feel attracted to the work for some reason that remains a mystery. I also believe that anything that appeals to us and is difficult to understand is worth doing. I believe that it is the next hill for us to climb (or up which to roll that stone) so that we can see from its top, a new perspective on the same landscape of our lives, or a new one altogether, or the very same one, changed by eyes that see differently for having done it again. It comes as close to a job as anything I have undertaken in my life. I wrote a contract not only to keep ma belle fille in line, but to give a form to my own responsibilities and objectives in doing it at all so that I can see not only if I am failing, but if I might possibly be succeeding in my work, and possibilities of success somehow seem to breed more.

At least I have always found it to work that way.

Maddeningly, maybe, since I pronounced the words "Let's take her", two more possibilities for which I have wished might be presenting themselves. They involve work, paid and charitable, that could lead to more doors.

It is so strange how when you walk through one door, any door, corridors of them appear, and suddenly you find yourself contemplating just how many you can possibly manage and afford to open, rather than "Where are the doors?"

The snow is falling.

....

Taking the long view from up close

Frost on the fields

I find that the views I take here tend both to the distance and to the very close-up. It's the garden and the view. If they teach things other than how to kill and maybe manage not to kill a plant (they are hard, usually, to kill, especially when you don't want them, but even when you actually do) and how to get lost in thought, they teach you to look and to notice both the large picture of the world that surrounds you and the tiny details of that world.

This is very useful in times of difficulty, when you usually hear Keep your eyes on the big picture every time something goes wrong and your stamina threatens to quit. This is when it is time to notice the very small things and forget all about the big picture for 5 minutes. It's often the smallest things that will get you through and maybe even see your way to whatever goal you are presently cursing yourself for fixing yourself.

Goals are not what they are cracked up to be. You have to be very careful with them or you can get yourself in a lot of trouble, like when someone close to you says, "You take in dogs and cats, why not a child? Don't over rationalize it."

No, do. Do over rationalize it. I implore you.

But, you think You know, you're right. How noble. It's the right thing, really. Just do it. Swelling with all the nobility your breast can contain, suddenly you hear your very own voice saying to that child's other parent, the noncustodial one, "Let's take her."

Rather like that same parent did when our first Labrador Retriever breeder asked back in 2006 if we would take Baccarat's mother, Rapide, too. That time it was he who said, "We'll take her," and he regretted it ever since he pronounced the words into the low September noon sun.

Fateful words, those. Everything changes. You say them, and there is no going back, at least not until you have gone.

I prepared a contract while she prepared her things and he went to get her after work the next day. It was a statement of our parenting intention and how our household works, and a promise to fulfill our obligations to her in return for her promise to uphold our minimum expectations of her.

Her room having been a cross between a war zone and public dump since I have known her, a period nearing one decade, I decided to begin with a spotless room, emptied of all but essentials: books, school supplies, bed, beside lamp, desk, chair, desk lamp, laundry hamper, closet and drawers prepared and waiting. Everything dusted and vacuumed. It was to stay that way. No clothes strewn all over the floor, no tiny scraps of paper adorning every dusty surface, no bowls of Nestle Quick with a spoon burrowed into the back of the desk drawer, barrettes, beads, pen caps, markers, cards, bits of games, pouches, and worn orphan socks and inside-out underpants clogging the underside of the bed, the edge of the woven straw floor covering, collecting dust bunnies larger than her dwarf hamster. In exchange, she would do no heavy cleaning, no unfair share of household chores.

That's my job. That's why I got my degree in architecture.

She would also spend time in the living room and participate in family life, read with us in the evening, do her homework with her father and myself and accept our direction and help, learning to use her brain for reflection and deduction, refrain from using such winning phrases as "Je m'en fiche" (I don't care), "J'en ai marre" (I'm sick of ________), "J'ai pas" (I don't know in slang), "Ba --" (uh or well, as in "well" at the beginning of a feeble explanation), all pronounced in a tone of voice more suited to someone raised in a crack house and not the households of a midwife and a doctor and a cleaning lady with an architect's resume.

In return, she would have more free time in her room for her Nintendo DS and text messaging all her multitude of correspondents, more time at the stables, and the possibility of inviting friends over, as long as the grades are on an upward curve, right along with the attitude.

The first evening went beautifully. We sailed over obstacles that seemed on a level with the sand. By a few days later, as we embarked on a new week, the obstacles looked more like the high jump from our seat on the wide back of a Shetland pony without stirrups. We ran into more than a few, but here's the thing: with children, you are not allowed to give up. You must go on, and they are not anywhere near as cooperative, desirous of pleasing and devoted as your dogs, nor as capable as your cats. There is nothing whatsoever in common between opening your heart to animals and to children.

Nothing.

Dogs may fart and not excuse themselves for making the air temporarily unbreathable (where does the stink go when it goes away?), but they rarely poison the environment with supreme "je m'en foutisme".

Cats may let you know that you are superfluous to them until they decide you are not, but they will rarely let you know you would be welcome to die and go to hell until they need you to prepare another meal.

And yet, their parents love them, and their responsible non-parent steps actually care about them, at least because of their great caring for their spouse, if nothing else, which is not always the case. Sometimes it is because you notice something in the child, something that once you catch a glimpse of it, no matter that it might be fleeting, you cannot forget when they deride your hopes for them, and even those they have for themselves, with their most majestic and taunting insolence.

I dare you to believe in me. I will not. I will show you that you are wrong, and nothing will give me greater pleasure or satisfaction.

Even there, when you look very closely into their eyes, you can see the fear. A question. Panic.

These they wish they could hide, and if you tell them you can see them, if you let them know that you will not give them the conflict they are demanding, that you will not permit them not to back out of the hole they are digging for themselves and correct their behavior, they will tell you Tu n'es pas dans ma tête, and perhaps laugh with deep discomfort because you have visited inside their head and seen the broken furnishings, the scribblings on the wall, the disorder. It does not comfort them to know that you can see and that you will not run. If it does, you will not know this. They will not let you.

It would be best if you simply know and act accordingly.

It takes every ounce of self-mastery to remain calm, repeating the same messages, expressing the same confidence, guiding and commanding without appearing to order, avoiding -- at all cost to oneself -- that drug of dearly beloved conflict, for if anger is but sadness and fear in its most primitive expression, conflict is sadness and fear become active, and finally habit. It's all you can offer and all you can ask.

I suspected when I said "Alright, let's take her" that the peace I had known with her would be replaced with a struggle to the death to create conflict where there had been little to recreate the relationship she had with her mother. It made me soften a bit towards her mother, but not that much. That's another story. It's a novel, or a piece for the theater, for if things had gotten to this, it was not because of a faulty wire in the daughter's head that can be fixed by a psychologist or even better parenting. It is a whole system of poor wiring, created by genes on the one hand and chemicals from responses to the stimuli of a difficult family environment on the other, and it is going to take a team to awaken the unused sensory and intellectual paths to success.

So much easier to stay the paths of non-responsibility, conflict and pain learned by the committed je m'en foutiste, with that maddening angry glare and hysterical grin. But, you have seen something. The moments when it slips because genuine excitement and pleasure have momentarily left no place for anger and self-defense.

This is what you cling to. This is how the details get you to the big picture.

"Regards," I pointed to the kitchen table. My husband's eyes followed my arm and my extended finger to where the SIM card lay on the Nintendo DS. He nodded.

"Elle tient le contrat alors," he said to me, with a slight suggestion that I had accused her of breaking the contract merely by yelling at me that none of her other friends had to have one to live with their fathers.

"Si je te la monte c'est parce que je le sais," I replied.

If I brought his attention to her SIM card lying there in that spot after she had gone up to bed, I told him, it was because I know she is honoring the contract at heart, as best as she can, while fuming about it at the same time. I knew it was a gesture of cooperation, the most important thing we had asked of her other than trust and respect.

I took a bright pink Post-it note from the drawer and a black marker, and I traced the shape of the SIM card on it, placing an arrow pointing to the image of the card below and a smiley face inside. Then, I stuck it to its place on the DS where she had left it and lay the SIM card back down in its little home.

When she came down to find it on the way to school in the morning, she would find recognition and thanks, too. I hoped I would find more strength for another day, clinging to the smallest details.

The struggle itself is enough to make a woman happy.

She hopes and prays.
....

Melting

Droplets

Vapor rose like faint smoke from the concrete handrail of the garden stairs and heavy drops of semi-liquid ice fell from the leaves of the bows overhead, a steady patter of tree rain. There was vapor rising from the unsplit logs of firewood, and once I had placed the tarp back over the fire wood, lifted my rubber pail of split logs and turned to head back up through the wintry rain forest of what is left of the cedar row -- the twin sentinels at the bottom of the stairs -- and the arching wisteria, I saw vapor rising from the pool cover, too. Everything was warming in the December morning sun, turning ice and snow back to water, and then to air. Fallen wisteria leaves caught under unmelted ice on the stairs and the snow that remained, frozen on the brilliant winter grass, crunched under my boot soles.

For some reason, grass is almost brighter in the cold.

The last snow had melted from the tongues of euphorbia leaves and given hope of another day to live to the oleander. I made a mental note to bring it inside later, when my husband would be home to help lift and carry it to shelter. Perhaps the pots of surfinia that has not given up the ghost yet to the frigid nights. Last night one almost one of those. When I opened the door to take Fia out for the last time and go to bed, I discovered a deep black sky with brilliant constellations set into it, like a gift of diamonds in a vast stretch of black velvet to represent this moment of that night's sky for a Lady, made deeper black by the wisps of gray cloud and the branches etched into it in white snow and clear, twinkling ice.

Winter matches my mood these days of long nights with its solitariness, quiet thoughtfulness. It is tempting during these evenings to light candles like stars against the dark of the house lit by the glow of the fire, a night sun in the open hearth, and let the thoughts roam where they might, asking nothing of the mind to organize them or to make them useful. It is a time merely to be, between the periods of activity marked by the end of autumn and the beginning of spring. I could easily imagine traveling far north to Norway or to Sweden to make them longer yet. Why do we resist it? Perhaps this season is not lost, but has its lessons to teach, too.

In the midst of this, Christmas approaches, demanding that we get in the car and drive to stores to buy a tree, to become overwhelmed trying to decide what to give to people who themselves probably could scarcely care less what is inside the wrapping paper we have carefully chosen, folded and taped into place, securing ribbon tie or a bow in place.

Maybe this will be the year I will dare to make gift-giving as bare as the branches and as simple, I suggest to myself.

"They might not understand. It might seem only like you didn't care enough."

But, what if I could offer points of light in the dark like the stars in the clear black sky, the candles in the darkened house, the strings of lights on the tree, peace?

"They might not see. You need to spend money to make a present seem like a present."

Then, I will offer books and sweaters, shirts and DVDs, games and silk scarves, jewelry and reviews, and wish that I had offered peace and quiet.

"You will do better that way."

And I will offer myself light in the dark and peace.

"That will be good."
....

Snow

Snow-laden miscanthus

Delicate, tiny flakes have fallen without stop all day, the night before, and the afternoon before that. They fall now.

I hope they keep on falling, and falling, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that.

It is quiet. Motorcycles are out of the question now, anyway, fewer cars travel the street, and those that do move slowly, carefully. So, do I.

Walking the dog this evening, my right foot slid out in front of me, threatening to cast me on my coccyx in the middle of the Grande Rue. This is why it helps to have abdominal muscles, to catch yourself. Even Rapide skidded out on her 4 paws and refused to take another risky step on more than one occasion. I don't know if she uses her abdominal muscles to catch herself, or if having two more feet on the ground makes the difference.

She can't say.
....

Frost

Frost-sugared rose

I cannot imagine how the fish comprehend winter. It is a miracle of the minor order to see them below the thin layer of ice that gradually thickens if the weather comes from the east and is not slowly warmed again by the Gulfstream's most northeastern tip, the North Atlantic Drift, as they swim about, very, very slowly. They have no warm coats.

We are, right now, feeling the ebb of the Drift and the grip of the polar temperatures, freezing everything from Finland to Moosesucks, which is a hopeful sign, since I just confirmed the reservation for the hotel in Argentière for January and spent an hour or two yesterday researching collapsible, lightweight and relatively inexpensive travel containers for dogs. Baccarat was 2 months older when she made her first hotel stay at l'Hôtel de la Couronne, and the armchair legs felt her teeth despite her Kongs; the hotel instituted a per diem charge for dogs the next year, although they were still more than welcome. We paid, despite her behaving better than most other visitors and restricting her misbehavior to sleeping on Sam's bed while we were on the slopes. Fia will be just 5 months old, and I will be a wreck if I don't find a way to insure that she cannot inflict damage while we are out, which quite ruins the point of the trip and makes the expense of tolls, gas, hotel and lift tickets an additional gall.

It had occurred to me to make her a bed in the bath or the toilet, but in the case of the bath, she'd very possibly set herself to scratching the door and crying or barking to get out and join Rapide. Besides, housekeeping will want to clean the bath, and they'd have to get her back in again. Not difficult, but I'd have to talk with them, and, besides, why should they have to deal with that? The toilet is out. I read somewhere that small, high-ceiling places make dogs crazy. And, how nice is it to spend your morning and afternoon curled up around the porcelain God?

So, I Googled "crate training" and lazily perused various posts. I also wanted to see if everyone agreed that you really have to shut them up for as long as 4 hours at this age. I miss her.

In one, there was a photograph of just such a travel kennel. Encouraged by my new knowledge that such a thing exists, and not wanting a huge, unwieldy wire cage or plastic Vari Kennel I have no idea where I will store once home, I clicked on the ZooPlus.fr icon on my toolbar and went looking. Et voilà, there they were, at the bottom of the page, under all the dog houses, two collapsible, not terribly expensive travel kennels. I got the tape measure to determine the length of a sleeping, full-grown Lab (Thank you, Rapide), and found that I would need the size L of the more expensive one, the size L of the less expensive one being inadequate. Not that she will actually need it full-grown, but what's the use of buying something I will only ever use a very few times when I travel with the very few puppies I will ever have at my age (Fia will likely pass after my 60th birthday. Isn't that a happy thought?)? Now, I just need to find the courage to order it, and the AC adapter from Dell for my laptop to replace the one Fia bit through a few weeks back.

I am sure she did not do it on purpose.

Dogs are not an inexpensive pleasure for the responsible mistress. Either they fly with you (poor dog), get kenneled (poor, poor dog), or you reduce your luggage to make room for them in the car, having the appropriate vehicle for their size and number, and get everything necessary to insure their comfort and your peace of mind (poorer owner). We like them to have the chance to run and play in the snow, too. Labrador Retrievers might be famous for being water dogs, but snow is another passion. They come, after all, from Newfoundland, and unlike the fish, they do have warm coats to protect them from the cold in the water and the snow. They are, after all, not cold-blooded.

Such a concept. Nature is truly worthy of our amazement.

Happily, I do have warm coats so that I can do the work in the garden I ought to have done when the ground was still in the mud state, and not the frozen state. The real problem is the fingers, which freeze stiff when grasping the scissors to finish the pruning of the lavender, and the pruning sheers for all the shaggy bushes to which I still have not gotten. Ski socks in Wellies are quite effective for warding off frost-bitten toes. Log-splitting may be done in minimal clothing year-round, as it warms you up in a jiffy.

You can see how motivated I am to get the drawings done so that we can get on with our various renovation and construction projects, when I'd rather dress like Charlie Brown and get out in the garden in order to feel I have been of some use, and those projects -- at least one, anyway, have become urgent, if not for my sense of self, then to keep the water out of the "petite maison", which the roof, despite the presence of the construction sheeting, is no longer able to do in the least.

Not to mention the water that has been seeping into a corner of the Summer Room (nice name for a sorry room) and soaking the new sisal floor covering and plaster, ruining both. I discovered that the elbow at the end of the downspout had fallen off, directing the water from the gutter directly at this corner of the building. I had been telling my husband for years that the thing ought to be torn to the ground and rebuilt for all it is weatherproof and solid, but as long as he sees four walls and a roof containing space that presently serves a purpose, he cannot abide demolishing the (inadequate) structure and replacing it with (correct) new construction. This is beyond depressing for an architect or builder who knows anything about building.

Here, imagine this. The original part of the structure in question was a small garage, whose walls are made of a single row of brick.

"Mais la brique c'est un matériel de construction. Il y a plein de bâtiments faits de brique," he complains, when I suggest that it is depressing to think of tearing the roof off the petite maison and bearing a new roof structure on walls that aren't even sturdy enough to carry it.

"Oui," I allow, "mais jamais un seul rang de brique pour soutenir non seulement son propre poids mais aussi celui de la toiture et le poids qu'il doit pouvoir supporter."

In other words, walls may be made of brick as a structural material (in the old days; we'd never do it now), but they were composed of more than one row of bricks, and the bricks were laid in both directions, interlocking, to provide strength and stability. Our wall enclosing the garage is composed of a single row of bricks, laid lengthwise along the direction of the wall. The inside is covered with some sort of cement mix, used like plaster, causing the hopeful to not actually see the truth.

He looks at me doubtfully. I know I have not won. I do not know how to carry the argument, except to tear the whole thing down with my own hands one day, while he is at work -- or on duty at the hospital so that I get the benefit of two --, and suffer the consequences later.

There is also the question, though, of the slab. You can be sure that it is not haunched, and building appropriate walls and a roof structure directly on it, as is presently the case, would be unwise.

And, then there is the garage we must have. This morning, my motorcycle failed to start, and then so did his, when he tried it afterwards, and he ended up driving a car to work, leaving late and knowing he'd suffer the snaking traffic all the way to the hospital because the battery on my bike can't stand the cold and the damp. I'd kissed him goodbye and started the coffee machine when he reappeared, putting one set of keys on the wainscoting ledge and taking another.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" I knew.

"Ta moto ne démarre pas," he said from inside his helmet. I knew he hadn't left the lights on again; I saw the bike when I returned from walking Rapide just minutes after he had gotten home. "Je vais essayer la mienne."

So, you ask, why didn't he take his in the first place, and why had he taken mine the day before? Because that's another horrendous expense in waiting. His clutch is going and needs replacing. Besides, my bike at half the weight and cylinder is better than his in freezing conditions, where you can take the black ice like Casey Stoner entering a curve. He'd be on his side on the ground with his.

Neither of us seriously thought his would start, either, after several days at rest in the bottom garden in sub-freezing temperatures, but he headed off with the keys, only to return and start the bouilloire for some hot water.

"C'est pour quoi ça?" I asked. I knew this already, too.

"Le neiman ne tourne pas."

The starter. It was frozen. I gave him a kid's plastic cup he could leave down below in the event the hot water worked. Neither of us believed it would. I took my cup of coffee and followed him out into the garden to watch from the edge of the top terrace. He poured the hot water on the starter, got on the bike, turned the key and hit the starter. It cleared its throat. He waited, one-two-three, and I heard it strain again. Silence. I counted, one-two-three, and I heard it go once more, and then nothing. He reached for the shredded scooter cover he uses to protect the seats and controls, and I watched his silver helmet bob across the bottom garden and rise up the steps, praying I had remembered to clean up any dog poop Rapide might have left down there. At least, I thought, it would be frozen, which helps.

"On a vraiment besoin d'un garage," he put me on notice.

"Je sais, mais on ne peut pas faire un garage clos et chauffé," I defended, to which he made a sound of deprecation somewhere in this throat. "My ass," he'd have said, had he spoken in English. As it were, I heard that, even though he said something quite different, like "Attends voir," or You just wait and see.

"Au moins ça protégera les motos de l'humidité," he grumbled, seeming now to accept that really, we couldn't build a proper garage with the possibility of even minimal heat. Do they make electric blankets for motorcycles? "On va revendre la tienne," he added.

This did not upset me. I have been saying it for more than a year. It is the world's most undependable motorcycle. The battery fails more often than it functions, and you usually need to hit the electric starter two or three times to get it to turn over, going a long way each time to drain the battery, which then doesn't have adequate time to recharge if you are only going so far as to the hospital for the day. Add freezing weather and damp, and you are screwed.

"T'as pensé à la coupe circuit?" I asked. I never think of the button that shuts the motor off when I am in a temper, either. Especially given the track record of this motorcycle and batteries.

"Ah, je n'y ai pas pensé." He headed back out toward my bike, where he had left it the night before, up by the telephone booth (how quaint) next to our gate, turning his head to see what was behind him as he stepped onto the slab where the new entry pavement is supposed to be installed, and still hasn't been because the new entry has not been built (are you surprised?). He hadn't expected me to follow. I thought he could use the encouragement.

"Quel est le button encore?" I pointed to the red one by the accelerator. "Oh." He hit it, turned the key -- not a light lit up. Dead. I followed him back into the house, where he reached for a set of car keys.

"Tu as besoin de rouler aujourd'hui?" he asked. No, I didn't need to drive any longer distances today. The Fiat would be fine. Besides, I thought, it has a better radio to sooth the savage beast in the traffic he was about to hit.

"Prendre la BM," I said, and closed the door behind his silver, unhelmeted head, watching it cross the lawn again to the gate.

"J'ai du être à l'hôpital il y a 25 minutes déjà," he muttered, not grumpily at all and not turning his head. Merely stating the fact that a garage would be the best way to insure that no one had to wait for the doctor, or that he'd be forced to start the day in the worst possible of ways: behind schedule.

I knew this already, too.

It's time to pick a project, any project.


....

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind

The Apollo fountain as the morning fog lifts

When I work I relax; doing nothing or entertaining visitors makes me tired. ~Pablo Picasso

I vacuumed and -- I -- did something else. What was it? I have forgotten already. That's normal, though. It was yesterday, and it wasn't very important. It was useful, however, and it made me feel rather important (but mostly righteous) for about 5 minutes. I had done something.

Some force had come upon and pressed itself over my weak psyche of late, or for awhile if you ask some, such as my husband about things like the progress on the house and other ambitious projects I claim to be competent to undertake. It might be depression.

O! Do not worry, Sisyphe is not in need of electroshock therapy or pharmaceuticals. Non. She is in need of reigning her mind in and keeping a close watch on it. But, this does not surprise Madame Sisyphe; she has noticed this in the past.

She also suspects that her namesake was given his unending task as a way of showing humankind that even the most unbearable of repetitive and unsatisfying labor is more likely to make it happy than sitting around thinking -- about anything at all. In fact, if this journal is eponymous, it is obviously (at least Sisyphe hopes you have understood this by now) intentional, right down to Camu's quote at the very bottom of the page, The struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Let this be my epitaph, should my son decide to bury me. When I am dead, of course.

The moment I became Sisyphe was during the time I sat on the top terrace and sifted the parched and sandy, worm-free soil, preparing it for seeding after the workers had completed the trenching for the sewer connection, and filled those wounds with the chunks of chalk and what passed for dirt that they had dug up and piled into a mountain and a ridge along the fountain. When I first arrived, I saw brambles, suckers and a patch of dandelions in the place of what had been intended as a lawn. I asked my husband to show me the store where one acquires gardening tools, and I discovered that the French do not know what a dandelion digger is.

This left me perplexed. I was faced with the option of which most people would think instantly: chemical lawn treatments for dandelions and other unsightly weeds. I don't even know why I thought a dandelion fork would be most appropriate. Only habit of thought could make that possible.

An image of my smallest childhood was of my father in his camouflage-green trousers, his dandelion fork sticking out of his rear pocket, at the ready for the appearance of the offending dandelion. It hadn't occurred to me that my father had not attacked every dandelion with this specially designed fork. No, bien sur he had not. Rather, he sprayed early in the season, and then he removed any dandelion our more negligent neighbors' lawns' dandelions sent seed wafting into our property.

I sat on that dirt and sifted it because I believed (rightly, it turned out) that such poor, stone and chalk filled soil was the reason that dandelions and other weeds, and, later, moss thrived. I became a person obsessed. The piles of stone and chalk I removed grew around me. I moved them to the second terrace, and my husband pitched in, carrying pails of them to the trailer to take to a place where we could, then, dump them, down by the closed branch off the Seine. I came to dread his glance as he came to dread my continuously refilling piles and his pails.

It was about then that someone reminded me of what Mao had said about manual labor, which, it happens, is not exactly what I had been reminded he had said. In fact, I am not sure that Mao ever said that people require manual labor for their happiness and sense of balance.

No. It wasn't that of which I was reminded. It was merely that Mao said it was generally good for people, and to break down the classic channels of power and control and get the intellectuals in line, while he was at it:

Chairman Mao also launched "The Socialist Education Movement" in the early sixties, whose primary purpose was to restore ideological purity. This movement was designed to stir up excitement and ardent support for the revolution, while at the same time intensifying the class struggles which were already prevalent. The drafting of intellectuals for manual labor was part of the party's plan to inspire professionals and intellectuals to develop a higher regard for the party's objectives. Anti-Maoists were especially annoyed with Mao's relentless efforts to promote his propaganda, which not only served to reinforce the party's ideologies, but to slander the priority system and beliefs of the intellectuals.

Here was I, a highly educated former member of the professional class, sitting in the dirt, tirelessly sifting it for rocks and chalk in my mason's sieve until my gloves wore out at their tips, making piles of stone for my highly educated actual member of the professional class to cart to the dumping grounds for stone, dirt and pruned branches, down by the Seine.

He was especially annoyed with this accidental Maoist's relentless efforts to create the perfect lawn and stave off, unbeknownst to herself, thoughts of her change in status and possible dissatisfaction with certain choices she had made and how they had, actually, turned out. If she had no power any longer over many areas of her life, having moved far from her previous life to this one, she had power over the dirt and the stone, she could cause her husband to submit and to haul it away.

And here she was an even truer Maoist student than ever she had suspected, never having fallen to the temptations offered by the student socialist groups on campus at Columbia. She was acting out her Barnard feminism in a truly perverse and Maoist way. Take chapter 31, entitled "Women", from Mao's Little Red Book:

A man in China is usually subjected to the domination of three systems of authority (political authority, clan authority and religious authority). As for women, in addition to being dominated by these three systems of authority, they are also dominated by the men (the authority of the husband). These four authorities -- political, clan, religious and masculine -- are the embodiment of the whole feudal-patriarchal ideology and system, and are the four thick ropes binding the Chinese people, particularly the peasants. The political authority of the landlords is the backbone of all other systems of authority. With that overturned, the clan authority, the religious authority and the authority of the husband all begin to totter. As to the authority of the husband, this has always been weaker among the poor peasants because, out of necessity, their womenfolk have to do more manual labor than the women of the richer classes and therefore have more say and greater power of decision in family matters. With the increasing bankruptcy of the rural economy in recent years the basis of men's domination over women has been undermined. With the rise of the peasant movement, the women in may parts have now begun to organize rural women's associations; the opportunity has come for them to lift their heads, and the authority of the husband is getting shakier every day. In a word, the whole feudal-patriarchal ideology and system is tottering with the growth of the peasant power.
http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Mao/Mao-31-Women.html

I think Mao did not have enough respect for the OpEd columnist's sense of paragraphing to make his ideas stand out. Let us do it for him and bring attention specifically to my central point:

As to the authority of the husband, this has always been weaker among the poor peasants because, out of necessity, their womenfolk have to do more manual labor than the women of the richer classes and therefore have more say and greater power of decision in family matters. With the increasing bankruptcy of the rural economy in recent years the basis of men's domination over women has been undermined. With the rise of the peasant movement, the women in may parts have now begun to organize rural women's associations; the opportunity has come for them to lift their heads, and the authority of the husband is getting shakier every day.

Mon Dieu! I thought, is this not exactly what I needed, married for the first time in my life to a man who had never realized that he had been asked to question male hegemony? Or, actually, who had never been.

Is this not also exactly what Nicolas Kristoff -- who grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in rural Yamhill, Oregon -- and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn -- who is of Chinese ancestry -- and who together won a Pulitzer for their coverage of Tiananman Square protests (wait, this counters my developing line of argument) --, reported in their Half the Sky, just has Greg Mortensen these past 20 years, building schools for the education of girls in the remotest villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan, that women through their very great necessity in rural communities and the work they do make themselves powerful to get the men in their communities to join in educating and advancing themselves to the betterment of their society?

Mao's wife, by the way, was very beautiful. He would not have appreciated the Benedictine's motto, however, unless you could equate meditating on the ideals of socialism with prayer:

To labor is to pray. ~Motto of the Benedictines

And, Marie-Antoinette, restless and depressed in the relentlessly, oppressively impressive chambers and halls of the palace, grandest proof of the absolute patriarchic power her life was to serve and to promote, did she not create a miniature country hamlet on a far corner of the park, a place where she could at least play at milking cows and making cheese, gardening, and could escape and enjoy her own freedom of will to raise her children in an image of normal life?

She did.

Did not Thomas Jefferson make an appeal for an agrarian America, and would this not have been a fairer one to American women, who as true partners at the sides of their husbands would have raised a society of men and women who worked toward a common purpose, together, rather than seeing Man return from work, clad in suit and trench coat, briefcase in hand, to kiss Woman and ask, "Did you have a nice day, dear?"

"Yes, darling. Why don't you have a drink. The children are in bed, waiting for you to come and kiss them goodnight."

"That's nice, dear. Where did you put my paper? And, who finished the scotch?"

And what if she says, "Well, I cleared the ivy off that bottom wall and split a meter square of that firewood you found so difficult, and the lawn is coming in nicely, and I made a transfer to the joint account to pay for a new outfit. Oh, and pour yourself a scotch, too, while you're at it, why don't you, and join the children and me by the fire."

The salary she accords herself and the appreciation received for labor provided.

It is when she sits and broods, worries over her situation and her future, whether her promise has been wasted by her own choice, that she is oppressed with her thoughts, most depressed.

A lot of what passes for depression these days is nothing more than a body saying that it needs work. ~Geoffrey Norman

Well, the conservatives can't be wrong about everything, and a team of Harvard psychologists must concur after their latest study of 2,200 people and a quarter of a million responses to their questions about their activity, mental wandering and happiness throughout the day during the period of the study, according to an article in today's New York Times of a study published in this month's Science magazine, When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays, which D.H. Lawrence knew more than a century before.

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor. ~D.H. Lawrence

I think I'll go read. It might not be as good as having sex or exercising (see the article, sheesh), but I need to work my way up to the big leagues.
....

The end of the costume, or do dogs like to dress up for Halloween?

Angel wings, mm, mm, good

Or paw lickin' good. Something like that.

It only took a second, and I was right there, only facing the wrong way to catch them before it was too late. I had left the angel costume, over which I had labored for hours, on a chair at the bottom of the stairs, near Rapide's back-supporting comfort foam mattress bed, and there it sat for a day, two days, and nearly a third. Then, I hear the noise of paper being rustled energetically and turn to look behind me to see what Rapide has gotten into. In her maw is a clump of wet tissue paper and feathers, more strewn at her paws, the elastic band with the other half of the snap that held them to her back lying in the middle, and Fia's tail end just disappearing under the end table. It takes me about 3 seconds for the carnage to register as Fia's angel wings.

"Non, Rapide!" I shouted, dashing around the other end of the sofa and coming to face Rapide, who dropped her mouthful as my hand flew out to grab it all up and -- do what? Save it? For memories of how hard I worked, only to be so careless? I dropped what I had in my hand and reached for the camera instead, the urge to document always present, always strong.

Fia crouched under the edge of the low table, melting into the shadows, trying to get a bit without my seeing her.

Or, I attribute too much cunning to so small a dog.

The boa was lying on the floor near the door. I thought of Sam's having spotted the halo in Fia's mouth last evening, as she played on the floor between him and Audouin. He had pried it loose.

"Fia! Lâche ça! Fia!," he demanded, and then, "Ugh, Mom! C'est tout humide --". He handed me the twisted, damp bit of pink and black pipe cleaner, wire and ribbon.

"Fia!" said my husband, looking up from the floor at me and bursting out in a delighted laugh, "Elle a un ruban dans la gueule! Mais ça vient d'où?" he asked, before returning to trying to get the ribbon out from between her pointy little baby teeth. "Fia! Fia, donne ça. Fia --"

I pointed to the halo. The ribbon she was trying to hang onto in her mouth was the other one that tied the halo to her lovely sleek neck. He handed me the length of sheer black ribbon, which I lay on top of the soggy pipe cleaner halo, the little silver stars hanging precariously where she had chewed on it.

This, then, is that to which my hard work comes. I consoled myself.

You still have the photographs, you know, and it's not like she was going to wear it ever again. Now you can throw it away instead of trying to find a place to save it.

"I know, but why do I feel so badly?"

Well, maybe you have the answer to your question, do dogs like to wear Halloween costumes. At least, they like to eat them.

"I know. It does feel a little like just desserts."

I had just finished reading an article across which I had come in the New York Times, reading a blog entry in the Well section, All the Good Dogs You've Loved Before by Dana Jennings, diagnosed a year ago with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and there, down in the right column under "Comments of the Moment" was the first one, which read:

"Why would anyone dress up a dog? Everyone knows that dressing up is for cats."

It was signed Jim Frank, and the title of the blog entry on which he was commenting was Do Dogs Like to Dress Up for Halloween? Obviously Mr. Frank and all the others who had commented on the post do not read my blog, or else they might have shared their thoughts on the subject in response to my post of yesterday, L'Halloween, bienvenus les trick or treaters. Happily, I am not a jealous sort, and I don't even really expect anyone to read me. I write on as a form of addiction.

What would I do if I didn't anymore?

I clicked on the post title, and the name Barnard College jumped off the screen at me. Tara Parker-Pope had just read an article in the most recent New Yorker in which Barnard professor of psychology, animal behavior and canid cognition (I swear, they didn't have that when I was there), Alexandra Horowitz tells the reader that dogs probably don't like being dressed up, only her reasoning, it struck me, is as overblown as architectural theory built of deconstructivist philosopher Jacques Derrida's thoughts: elaborate cloud castles of canid cognition. She tells us that alpha dogs show dominance by doing something referred to as "standing over", or as she describes it the dominant dog "literally placing his body on top of and touching the other, as a scolding or a mild putting-in-one’s-place." As such:

"To a dog, a costume, fitting tight around the dog’s midriff and back, might well reproduce that ancestral feeling. So the principal experience of wearing a costume would not be the experience of festivity; rather, the costume produces the discomfiting feeling that someone higher ranking is nearby."

Now, I don't have to point this out because another reader did it for me in the comments section, but this would mean that dogs resent those dog coats you see the breeds without Labrador Retrievers' undercoats to keep them warm when the temperatures hover around and drop below freezing, which they don't. You only have to take a second -- and have a little more respect for the bounds of canid cognition --, to see that there is a world of difference between an alpha dog placing his body on top of you and dominating you and your trusted alpha mistress or master placing an item of clothing on your back and then standing back to offer you a tasty liver treat, clapping with delight, and snapping a terrific photograph before removing the whole thing.

Puh-lease. It would appear that at least Ingrid agrees with me:

“ I think dogs tear costumes off because they feel strange and uncomfortable, not because they think they're being scolded by an invisible wolf.”

Thank you, Ingrid, for that refreshing bit of common sense.

Not that this answers the question whether our dogs like being dressed up for Halloween, but I'll let you read the other comments and decide for yourself. Personally, I tend to agree with those who point out that their dogs show great forbearance of their young mistresses and masters, who dress them up and play with them, taking it as loving attention, and not thoughtless domination and correction. But, anyone who is worth anything as a dog owner can tell when Rex has had enough, is willing to play along, or at least humor a silly master, IMHO.

I can tell you that when we went to visit family after the Trick or Treaters' ringing at the doorbell petered out (and they didn't throw this 12-week-old puppy off one little bit, contrary to what that wet sock, doom and gloom vet had to say in the comments), and I had put her costume back on her for the benefit of my niece and nephews, she trotted right up the sidewalk, into the gate, stopped for a pipi, her wing tips grazing the stone pavers as she squatted delicately along the railroad ties and woody ornamentals, and then trotted right on up the front steps and into the hall to say her hellos, boa, drooping halo, wings akimbo, and all.

Besides, costumes make great chew toys after Halloween. With proper supervision, of course.
....

l'Halloween, bienvenus les trick or treaters

Fia sprouts wings

I have discovered a new polemic. To clothe or not to clothe one's dog, and by "clothe", we may understand "disguise" or "dress up".

The polemic arose on facebook the other day when Fia posted pictures of her in her Halloween costume (Yes, Fia has facebook friends and her own profile. I suppose that might be fodder for another polemic.). Here, as there (Yes, I am one of Fia's friends, as well as the creator of her

costumes), I try to take an irenic position, respecting all comers and their points of view, while asking the question: can a dog retain her Fundamental and God given Doggie Dignity while wearing clothing of any sort, and a pink boa shot with silver, black feather wings and a pink pipe cleaner halo decorated with little silver stars in particular?

Some feel they need go no farther in making their argument that a dog cannot retain her dignity in clothing than pointing to

my own photo of Fia in her costume.

I would be tempted to say "Point taken" except Fia makes her Bette Davis eyes unclothed, as well. I present my evidence:












Case closed.

There are other examples, but she happens to be wearing her halo or her pink boa, so it might be argued that she is, actually, clothed, although I am not really sure she is capable of forming a judgment about a boa as distinguished from a collar, and, to be honest, she scratches at the collar trying to remove it more than she scratches at her boa.

And, now that we are on collars, are there not collars that, it could be argued, attack the dignity of the dog? Or, because dog's just wear collars and that's that, anything goes?

Now, for those who say that a dog should just run and play, I will say -- like Mel C. --, one feminist to another, that sometimes a girl's got to work it! I mean, what girl can't run up and down a soccer field, dribble a defender or tackle a forward, shoot on goal or block a shot for 90 minutes and then shower and put on her Manolos -- like Bev -- and a little lipstick, and head out for a Cosmo and a little gossip, stopping off to see her financial advisor on the way, or chase her squeakie soccer ball, chew up a log from the hearth, devour a bone and still wrap her boa around her sleek black furry neck and pose for another portrait or ten?

I will say that some of the most ardent and committed dog lovers I know win prizes for their dogs' Halloween costumes. They know who they are.

As for Halloween in France, it appears to be une chose établie et en train de rentrer dans les moeurs. The number of trick or treaters was up, and when I polled them at the gate on their level of satisfaction with their trick or treating activity, i.e. the number of houses handing out candy, they grinned and held up bags full of candy, answering, "Oh! Oui! Regardez nos sacs pleins!"

And the costumes? Better and better. You'd nearly expect the little ghouls -- and the very big ones, who looked closer to 22 than to 2 -- to open their mouths and speak English.

Our neighbor installed a strobe light just inside his door. I could see it from where I asked for first names, greeted parents and distributed candy at my own gate.

"Tu devrais aller voir mon mari," said his wife, when she stopped with her two little sons and her neighbor and theirs. "Il s'est déguisé."

I asked my husband to go get my witch hat and hair from the upper shelf in the closet, and taking a break between groups of trick or treaters, I crossed the street, rang the doorbell and crouched down low, ready to let out a blood curdling cackle.

The door opened. I sprang and cackled, my neighbor bent and screamed, and I looked at him and we screamed at each other like idiots. The other neighbor's 3-year-old daughter was already terrified (she said), I glanced her way to see if she wasn't about to start screaming, too. She did not. She just kept looking at us with eyes about like Fia's, one finger crooked in the corner of her mouth, hanging onto her big sister's hand. This is how we know she do so much cinoche.

"Ha!" said my neighbor, jubilant, triumphant (the French say "ha!"), "Je t'ai fait peur!"

He was really enjoying himself now, and he had outdone himself, and even the father a little farther up the street, who had put on a flowing cape and Darth Vader mask to accompany his daughter in a witch costume digne de the witches in Eleanor Estes' The Witch Family, and her little brother, who was, I believe, a ghost, and who complimented my carved Jack O'Lanterns, sitting up on the tops of brick pillars. I stared at his face, pale and cracking, his hair gelled into little studs all over his head. I marveled at his creativity.

"C'est super!" I acknowledged, feeling my time might have been somewhat better spent disguising myself than dressing up my dog, who was napping with her ersatz grandmother in the dog bed, her costume sitting on the dining table. "Ca a l'aire d'un masque de beauté."

"C'est un masque de beauté en argile!" he said, positively delighted with himself and the creative genius he exhibited in transforming a clay beauty mask product into a Halloween make-up. "J'en fais de temps en temps. C'est ça qui m'a donné l'idée."

Would it be copycatting to use a green algae mask next year to obtain a witch's pallor? Halloween costume hints from the French. Hunh.

So much for l'Halloween being a passing thing and another unappreciated invasion of American culture (which, if you don't know it, the French can't get enough of, like le McDo, as long as it doesn't end their own superior one).

L'Halloween c'est installé pour la durée.
....

Dark angel

Maman's dark angel

Doug's right. She does look sweet, but she does also look like she's saying, "Maman, why are you doing this to me?" I don't think she gets her first Halloween any more than Sam did his at 3 weeks old. The difference was that Sam finally got it, while Fia isn't likely to. Besides, she can't have the chocolate. She'll have to give it to us.

I made all his costumes, from the first one, which was a tiger spotted pajama and a mask in gold paper I made before leaving the office that day -- cutting the eye holes precisely the right width apart the first time so that his little eyes gazed out at the world through them, that's how strong an imprint a baby's face makes on his mother's mind --, to the last, which I cannot remember. How can that be? There was the little devil when he was one, Max from Where the Wild Things Are when he was three, the velvet spider when he was four, his first Tuxedo and a gorgeous black wool cape with red satin lining I made him for his Dracula costume his kindergarten year, when he was five.

There was the failed next Halloween, when he dressed up as Darth Vader and refused to trick or treat. We stood with his grandfather in the street in Old Greenwich, while the children flowed past us in the clear October night, light streaming from the Jack O'Lanterns and doors where the grown-ups who stayed at home handed out candy. I thought it was because we had moved that summer from our old neighborhood near where we were trick or treating to our new apartment in the center of Greenwich. Perhaps Sam felt like a six-year-old interloper, but he swore years later that it really was because the Darth Vader mask he had wanted so much blinded and smothered him, even after we punched the film out of the eye-holes. That had ruined his Halloween.

It was because I hadn't made the costume. That's what it was.

Then, there was James Bond. He wanted to wear a tuxedo again.

But there were two other Halloweens, as well as the one when he was two. How can I forget? I remember what Kyle wore that last Halloween in Greenwich to the International School at Dundee Halloween party. He dressed as an old man. I found him sitting at the side of the gym, while the others all played the games the parents had set up.

"Kyle," I said, surprised to see him sitting there alone, his large plaid shirt covered tummy hanging over the belt buckle at his trouser tops, "what are you doing sitting there?" He grinned at me.

"I'm resting."

Ah, I smiled back, "Old men get tired easily." He nodded, a very slight smile where his lips met the corner of his powdered skin. No wonder he's at SCAD, studying film directing. We all knew that was coming when he was Robin Hood at Sam's 5th birthday party and took his bow and arrows so seriously, redistributing the party favors more equitably. No one dared refuse.

I joke. About the party favor redistribution. Everyone was rich except Sam and I, and it was his birthday so he did pretty well. About Kyle, we really did all know what his future would hold.

Still, I cannot remember those last two Halloweens. I must not have made those costumes, but I have no excuse for the second one, when he was two, other than so many years having passed. Fia will be the first pet to have a Halloween costume. I was too nervous with Baccarat, and God only knows you don't dress up a car.

It was hard being a first-time puppy owner, and it was all I could do to survive the recall command training. Baccarat did as she pleased more often than I like to admit, until the last year of her far too brief life, by which time she had decided to take a charitable attitude with me. I am pretty sure she regretted having been such a challenge once she saw how destroyed I was by her being so sick and having to leave us. Or not. It is not a dog's way to regret anything.

This time, however, I am doing exactly what I knew I could once Baccarat had to leave us; I decided to let Baccarat help me and relax and just have fun this time, and, here it is, Halloween time. Fall has touched the leaves and turned them gold, the pumpkins are in the stores and pots of chrysanthemums in deep purple, yellow and maroon are flying out of them, and my favorite holiday is here again. I heard myself clear her throat and speak.

A costume for Fia. Why not make a costume for little Fia Lux de la Pellousery? That would be fun, wouldn't it? You haven't made one for such a long time.

I thought about it, and an idea came to me before she had even come home from the breeder's.

"A devil. I can make a devil costume for the diablotin."

That's not really very fair, is it? asked myself. I mean, she hasn't even had a chance to misbehave or to prove herself difficult, and here you are thinking of her as a little devil.

It was true. I acknowledged it, and her first 2 weeks at home made me feel even worse about it. She actually wasn't a diablotin at all. Maybe for her second Halloween.

It was the devil wings Doug brought up the other day that got me thinking. Or maybe it was because I was already thinking of making the angel costume and needed wings that he thought of telling Fia that devil's have wings, too.

I forget a lot of things these days. Soon I will need to sit and rest along the gym wall and watch the young 'uns have their fun.

But, it started to come together. I would make Fia angel wings and a halo. Fia is a Scottish name that means "arising from a dark peace" or "dark fairy". It would be perfect for her. I would only need to go to Truffaut again -- I had already gotten more red felt for a cape and some nifty red felt hearts in a chain I thought I could attach to her collar, as a gesture, you know, of her being really pretty good -- and get some stuff. I attached Fia's leash to her and tried to be very authoritative to get her to follow me to the damn car. When she got a whiff of where we were headed, she balked -- in the middle of the road.

I don't know why she doesn't like to get in the car. We do such fun things when we go places, and she gets to be with me.

We went first to the bank and deposited some money in the poor bank account and then went to the vet to weigh her for her 12 week birthday. 6 kgs! That's another kilo in the last week. She's still littler than Baccarat was at 8 weeks, but there were twice as many puppies in her littler. She'll catch up. Then, we drove over to Truffaut and Fia got in her place in the cart. I had some pheasant food to return for the pheasant I found limping in the road Sunday night, on my way home from dropping Sam at the train station, who didn't stay for breakfast; as well as things to pick up for her costume.

-- I had managed to get it out from behind an old mattress, propped against a stone wall, behind which it had taken refuge from my terrifying approach -- it was that or let the hunters shoot it in the middle of the Grande Rue the next day -- and take it home, where Audouin made it a dry leaf nest in the big black plastic tub I bought for the frogs back when we had to empty the old fountain of fish, frogs, plants and water to repair it. The next morning, I had gone over to Truffaut for some pheasant food and a water distributor, but when I removed the wood planks from the top of the tub, it found the strength it had lacked the previous night to take off at full wingspan, nearly knocking me over backwards and pooping all over Rapide in the process of taking flight. Audouin's daughter had nearly fallen over backwards from laughter --

We approached the accueil, and the security guy turned around to see who was approaching. A smile crept over his face when he saw the small black dog in the basket, and he glanced up at me, my new used Nikon D300 hanging around my neck. The cashier looked up and smiled, too.

"Je peux avoir cet appareil de photo?" he asked, breaking into a chuckle.

"Ca, non," I told him, "mais je prendrai votre photo," I offered. He laughed. I explained that I needed to make a return before doing my shopping, and he got the cashier's attention, who looked at the bag of pheasant food and the plastic drinking apparatus I was returning, along with a bag of ProPlan puppy food (Orijen this time, for both dogs).

"Quel est le problème avec ces produits?" asked the nice cashier.

"Bon, les produits sont très bien, mais le faisan blessé que j'ai accueilli est parti avant le petit déj, alors il paraîtrait qu'il ne soit si blessé que ça finalement," I replied. She laughed and wrote up the slip for me to take to have signed while the security guy went to see Fia.

"Allez," I said, "Je vous ai dit que je prendrais votre photo, alors!"

I lifted the camera up in front of my face -- the only way I can really see the world and my loved ones --, and he laughed out loud, delighted, while I snapped his picture with Fia, and then he walked me back to the animal supply department for the signature.

"Vous êtes anglaise d'origine?" he asked me as we walked to the back of the store, me pushing Fia in the cart.

"Non, américaine."

"Ah!" he turned and smiled at me. "Moi, je suis marocain d'origine. Vous savez qui était le premier à reconnaître les EtasèUnis?" he asked.

"Le Maroc?"

"Oui!," he said, beaming at me as we turned the corner into the animal needs department. I smiled back. Fia looked around. I hoped she wouldn't ask for a new collar or toy.

We stopped in front of the display of aquarium supplies, including the sea salt I had used to save George the Koi's life.

"Vous êtes photographe?" he asked me.

"Oh! Non! Non, je suis architecte, mais j'adore la photographie, et j'écris."

I sort of made the last part up. It makes me feel better about not doing any architecture, except the house renovation that I ignore and put off as much as possible.

"J'ai fais de la photographie," he told me. He had done weddings, until staying out every weekend night until 6 am cured him of his desire to be a photographer. Of weddings, anyway. I thought of the story another friend had told me, about when he worked for a newspaper and someone had borrowed the Mamiya to photograph a friend's wedding. When he'd opened the camera, he discovered the film hadn't caught and every time he had advanced and shot a photo, he'd been shooting on air.

No wedding pictures.

I'd done that, but never for anything like a wedding.

He got my signature, I ran into the employee who had told me that George the Koi was good for a plastic bag in the freezer and told him I'd been on the look-out for him to tell him the good news -- isolation in a 3% salt solution and the Baytril Nifurpirinol antibiotic tablets another employee had said wouldn't work did work, and then I went off to scout what was on hand in the arts and crafts section to make Fia's costume. We found wire, black tissue paper, silver star confetti (for her halo), black feathers, and a hot glue gun and the glue sticks for it, and then we went off to look for a garland, the only reason I could be happy to see Christmas decorations before all the leaves had turned, for her halo.

I found a pink boa with silver flecks and the security guy, who told me the rest of the Christmas stuff would be available for shopping the next day. I touched the pink and silver boa, the question Who would put this on their Christmas tree? flying through my head right before the joy of having found the perfect accessory for a dark angel.

"Non! C'est très bien, " I said, looking around me, reaching for the pink and silver boa. "Elle doit avoir ça!" I said, wrapping it around and around her small neck. It was perfect! "Elle devrait toujours porter ça au lieu d'un collier!" I added, laughing.

He wanted to know if I sold my cameras. I told him all about eBay and went back to arts and crafts for something to decorate the pipe cleaners I'd decided on the spot I'd make into her halo instead of a garland, and stopping along the way to chat with more dog owners and small children in my joyful delirium. I found silver star confetti. How absolutely perfect! This was such fun!

Fia was looking -- like she was having less fun. We went and got in the car.



Halloween is definitely for kids and parents.
....