Fia, 8 weeks

Fia in B&W

Yup, I went back to see Fia and play with her yesterday afternoon, but I almost never got there, owing to a comedy (note: comedy is rarely funny when you are the subject of it) of errors involving discovering my husband drained the battery on my motorcycle flat as a pancake only after I finally managed to maneuver it past a parked vehicle and the telephone booth in front of the telephone company facility next door and onto the street, just in time to block the one car heading up the street in the last 15 or 20 minutes, and for the next 15 or 20 minutes. Alright, I exaggerate. 5 minutes. Happily, it was a neighbor, who jumped out to help me wheel it back up on the sidewalk, while I stripped off my heavy leather jacket and gloves and sighed heavily. I had been outside a quarter of an hour, and I was already hot, sweaty and tired. The weather had warmed up and turned humid, but I'd be taking a car.

I emptied the topcase, fished my house keys out of my bag and headed back in the house. Rapide lifted her head and looked at me. They say dogs have a poor notion of time, but I think even she realized that I hadn't gotten very far.

I considered changing my clothes, but limited myself to stowing my helmet, gloves and exchanging my 10 lb. leather jacket for my light suede jacket, grabbed the keys to the -- oh, to hell with gas economy! -- the BMW wagon and headed out to the car, nearly swiping the front bumper of the neighbor's minivan with ours.

And, I had just trumpeted my excellent, practically sixth sense of the BMW's orientation in space relative to other cars when I came very close to touching the rear bumper of another car (but didn't) pulling into the parking area from the restaurant of the Hotel Baudy in Giverny the other evening. It was our anniversary (8th for the curious), and the grocery store had closed early, "exceptionally", for their annual wine fair, so I wasn't getting the few things I needed to make the dinner I had planned, dumped my recycling in the bins and drove home to -- pout.

I put backed up, corrected my angle and pulled out, just as another car drove up the street. It was for him to ranger sa caisse, since he was on the "side of the road" -- a bit of an exaggeration, given that our road is one lane, after you account for parked cars -- where the cars were parked, but since I had sort of pulled out in front of him, I pulled back in between two cars just on the other side of the minivan before heading out of town. I was making little progress, fast. The car wasn't far from the reserve tank, though, and I took the route that let me go by the gas station at the grocery store (they're the cheapest ones here). I pulled up to a pump, cut the engine and reached for my wallet -- and, that's when I realized that I had changed jackets, but I had taken my bank card or my driver's license from the pocket of my motorcycle jacket.

This is where I consider myself to be superior in development to my husband. I said nothing. I did not swear. I did not either bang my fist down upon the steering wheel or make one to begin with. I sighed -- heavily, I admit -- and drove back home, avoiding the large potholes in the street that heads back up alongside the grocery store.

Home again, I swung the car into the space next to the old school, converted into three apartments by the village that no one seems interested in renting, retrieved my house keys and let myself in the gate and then the house. This time, Rapide had come to the door.

"Désolée, ma biche. Je repars."

I peeled off my suede jacket, and headed upstairs to change my clothes (it was just too hot, and too humid, and I was too aggravated to deal with hit), late or no.

You know you'll walk right back out the house without them the way you're going, said myself. Take them out before you forget.
I harrumphed by way of acknowledgment. This was likely, and so, halfway up the stairs, I turned and headed back down to get the bank card and driver's license before pirouetting and heading back up. I watched Rapide's head swivel first one way, as I had come back down, follow me from the jacket to the kitchen table, where I put everything in my bag, and then the other as she followed my progress back up the stairs, where I yanked off my boots, jeans and tights and my sweater in favor of bare legs in my jeans and sneakers and a light cotton blouse.

Everything was better in the world right away.

This time, I headed back out, got my gas, and made it all the way to Chartres to run into -- a traffic jam. The mothers in their minivans in front of me were doing U-turns and heading back up the way we'd come. It seemed like a good idea. They turned right, toward the city, and I turned left to thread my way through villages to Thivars and the entry to the A11, direction Le Mans, texting a message as I drove through the fields:

Tout faux aujourd'hui. Je ferai demi-tour afin de vous laisser tranquille mais je vous ai préparé un p'tit quelque chose.

I signed my name.

It's true. I had raced through the recipe for Rachel's Raspberry Financiers before racing through my shower. It's not nice to arrive empty-handed, and her son's birthday was Monday, after my son's and my own.

It was 5 pm by the time I arrived, and she'd been sanding the old worm-eaten wood in the wall from which she'd removed the plaster, opening the dining room up to the living room. We're both renovating, by ourselves, but she's actually still doing something, despite 20-something dogs, her kids and a rotating group of interns to manage. She was emptying the shop vac when I got out of the car.

"Oh! Vous êtes là," she looked startled. I was sure she had given up on me and probably hadn't gotten my message.

"Vous n'avez pas eu mon message alors?" I asked.

"Non, mais ça ne fait rien. Entrez," she said, dumping the wood dust into the gravel by the front step.

"Je suis navrée," I said, fiddling with the latch on the gate, "mais j'ai eu tout faux aujourd'hui."

"Comment?" she asked, watching me pull the gate toward me and seeing it jam. "Dan l'autre sens, poussez-le." Oh, push.

"J'ai tout fait faux aujourd'hui. Je n'ai rien fait comme il fallait."

"Il y a des jours comme ça," she said. "Allez, c'est temps de donner à manger aux petits et puis on prendra un café." I handed her my paper plate of Raspberry Financiers in a big Ziploc freeze bag, and she put them on the table before we headed back out to feed the puppies. I had arrived just in time for dinner, and to help her keep 11 wriggling bodies from escaping through the grille.

Not that it mattered. As soon as they heard the kibbles hit the metal platter, they were scrambling to get back and find a place around it.

I said I'd not stay long, but she didn't seem in a rush to see my back out the drive and across the fields on my way home. We had coffee, interrupted by the need to prevent TVA from slipping out a hole she had contrived in the fence and get the intern to focus on his work, the last seeming to give her a bigger headache than TVA's antics, and we played with Fia and watched her play with anything that would play with her: Tina the Bulldog, a little, half-deflated Paris-St. Germain soccer ball, TVA, and I took rapid-fire photographs with Sam's camera.

It's much better than mine.

It was 7 pm by the time I headed out and went to look for a boulangerie before driving back home, where it was certain my husband would arrive before I did. At the very least, I could have baguette for him for his dinner.

"Alors," he said when I came through the door, "elle va comment, la petite? Tu as pris des photos? Je peux les voir?" Yes, yes, I said. I took lots of photos, but first, dinner, then I will download them, and show you.

"Maintenant on peut voir les photos?" he asked after dinner.

"Oui, mais ça prend du temps à télécharger. Attends un instant."

"Ben," he said, "je vais faire la vaiselle le temps que ça met à télécharger." He returned when he and the camera had finished, and sat down to look at them with me. If bonding has begun when Sam starts taking photos of the puppy, it has also begun when Audouin starts looking at photos of the puppy. I had been a little worried when he told me at dinner at the Hôtel Baudy that he hadn't begun his grieving for Baccarat yet.

"Non?" I asked. "Mais, tu comptes commencer ça quand? Ca fait bientôt deux mois qu'elle est morte, tu sais." He nodded. He knew it had been nearly two months since we lost Baccarat, but he didn't know when he'd start grieving. He was a little surprised that I wasn't anymore.

"Non," I told him, "je fais encore mon deuil de Baccarat, mais je peux aimer encore une autre chienne."

"Mais, tu ne peux pas remplacer Baccarat," he said to me. "Tu risques de la comparer toujours avec elle."

I knew that too. I could never replace Baccarat, and I will always compare every other dog with her, and I will always remember her, just as much in a year or two, or more, as I do now.

"C'est une autre chienne à apprendre à connaître et à aimer, et oui, je la comparerai à Baccarat, mais Baccarat m'aidera, et elle continuera à me manquer, autant dans l'avenir qu'aujourd'hui."

I will always miss Baccarat, even as she helps me get to know and appreciate, to teach and help Fia be a wonderful dog. As Audouin saw, she is playful and full of personality. She is little, still a baby.



"Quand est-ce qu'elle vient à la maison?" he asked. "Et celui-là, il est adorable," he added, pointing to a black male puppy in the middle of the group under their mother behind the gate.

Next Friday she'll come home. She'll be sad not to have her brothers and sisters at first, and I have to fight asking if that little boy isn't, par aucune chance, still available, but there will be Rapide to win over the cats to tame. I think she's up to it.

Sam will take a train from Paris to meet me on the way, and we'll go together to get her. He had suggested that I go get her on a Friday, and he'd come out on Saturday, saying, "That way, she'll know me, too," but I thought this would be even better.
....

L.L.Bean's Sleepy Puppies, the perfect job

Seriously, this is too much.

Oh, thank you, L.L. Bean, for sharing this, and Kathryn for bringing it to my attention. I will watch it over and over.

Lisa's right, this is the perfect job.

I want, I need to go see little Fia, who will be 8 weeks old on Thursday. Just the age at which Baccarat came home. Fia, her brothers and sisters, and these puppies make you want them all, a huge house full of Labs with fields and streams for them to delight in, and a long winter of deep snow.
....

The birthday cake

Checkerboard cake and presents

That's two books, an IKEA gift card and an iPhone 4!

Every year, the day before my son's birthday (most often) I release my inner David Liebovitz and make "the birthday cake". It is a baking extragavanza, a bakathon, an orgy (in the French sense, s'il vous plait) of sugar (several cups of two different types) and butter (4 1/2 sticks, or about 300 grs) and eggs (1 dozen plus 3 yolks) and chocolate (cocoa powder and a tablet and a half of dark chocolate; that's not so bad, now, is it?). I must set the better part of a day aside, because this cake takes hours. It would be faster if I had a second oven, but I don't. My husband would not understand this need.

He might were he to think about his surgical schedule and imagine having only one OR.

I also don't really have the room for it, but maybe I can find the motivation for the kitchen redo if I think about an Aga.

The day before my son's birthday is, you might know, my own -- Wait. I know. I ought not be spending my birthday baking, but listen and let me tell you: I choose to do this. It is my pleasure. Well, at least it is when I start out. The pleasure often starts to fade into the second or third hour of beating and folding and pouring and chopping and melting, when my skin feels permanently coated with a layer of fat, and I start to suspect that calories can be absorbed cutaneously, after all. --, and spending my birthday cooking and preparing for his became a tradition 19 years ago, when I was making my birthday dinner party for 13 and had my first contraction, 4 weeks early, at Balducci's cold cut counter.

I think I was buying mortadella.

From there, my brother accompanied me to Bruno Bakery on Laguardia Place, where I picked up my birthday cake. Seeing the wide smiles and doors held even wider open for me, my brother commented, "Pregnancy is like a platinum American Express card!"

My birthday cake read "Happy Birth-day!" The staff was delighted with themselves.

I was delighted with everyone.

My best friend from college came and took pictures of my big, pregnant belly in my bathroom, and I lost track of her after that evening. I sat Buddha-like on an easy chair in the corner of my studio, while my wonderful friends and family chatted, and I timed my contractions. If the baby weren't coming that night, it certainly wasn't waiting until my due date, even if I lie in bed and didn't move.

I am nearly certain that my cooking and other dinner preparations were not according to my Ob's instructions for rest. I did not take cabs, either.

Leaving later that evening -- Leaving! What! With the baby about to arrive, you're going 45 minutes back to Greenwich? Did I hear right? What if -- my mother assured me that there was little chance she wouldn't have time to make it back in, and drove home.

Oh.

I went to bed, and in the morning, I called in to report that I wouldn't be coming to work, since I was likely to be busy having a baby, but I was going to try to stay prone in bed and see if I couldn't manage to delay a little longer. I never heard people so excited to hear I wasn't coming in, and the day passed. My mother figured that late afternoon was good enough, and around 6 pm, we headed to NYU Medical Center. At 10:24 pm, my Ob asked, "Are you sure we got your due date right?"

Sam was born. Eyes squinched shut against the bright delivery room lights, he looked just like his father, who would not be participating, and a little aggravated, and I burst into tears. Not because he looked like his father, of course, but because he was born. 6 lbs 9 oz and a proportionate length that I have forgotten; he was beautiful, and he was healthy. He was perfect.

In the years since, I have spent my birthday worrying that 24 young children might possibly not have the best time imaginable and find my birthday party planning wanting the next day, baking cupcakes and cakes, and, finally, this cake for the last few years. I will tell the truth; my mother discovered it, and I adopted it, after all, everyone has to have their special birthday cake.

Mine, you ask, what was mine? White cake with lemon filling and White Mountain Frosting (this involves cream of tartar and beating the eggs whites to stiff peaks, too) sprinkled with coconut.

Sam's wife will responsible for finding one for their children, but she will have to let me continue making this one for him.



Oh, alright. If she insists, I can be generous and retire.
....

Nerves

Hi. It's me.

I am a ball of nerves and questions.

Like What if my husband doesn't think she's a "real" Labrador when she's grown up?

He often said he suspected that our old breeder had slipped us "une bâtarde" in our ignorance, since she didn't, in his estimation, have all the prized Labrador Retriever characteristics; her muzzle, he charged, was too long, her tail failed to be a true otter tail, and her stop, well her stop was less pronounced that perhaps it ought to have been. This was somewhat true, but I argued that she took after her Mardas lines more than Donalbain McDuff and her mother. I knew I never succeeded in convincing him and that he was always merely letting the matter drop, but whenever he was looking to think ill of acquiring a puppy, simply thinking ill period, or wishing to get me going, he'd return to this favorite theme: Rapide was beautiful, but Baccarat was not "a real" Lab.

I struck defensively last night when he began. He'd come out to meet me, having just returned home from the hospital and hearing my bike pull up near the front gate, and made small talk about the bike starting up after sitting over a month since I had stopped going to the veterinary hospital in July and a car that cut me off on a blind bend in the road near Gilles, sending me very nearly into the grass shoulder and a ditch. I recovered in the loose dirt just before the grass, despite a little BMW Series 1 from Calvados going way too fast behind me, who apparently thought I had headed into the shoulder for the fun of it and decided to pass me. He only just made it past me as I absolutely had to pull up into the road or go down.

We were vamping. He wanted to know where I'd been, but hesitated to question me, a very grown woman, on my comings and goings. It eventually came out.

"Mais, tu étais allée où cet après-midi?" I smiled disarmingly. I rarely smile; that's what helps keep it disarming.

"Je suis allée voir le chiot." He threw his head back and made that "hah" breath sound. What he said next sounded like "Ah-ha! I knew it!", except that he said it in French.

"Ha! Je le savais."

He knew I knew he knew it already. He was merely confirming what he had believed. He knows I know he knows me. He waited until we had sat down to dinner to interrogate me; how old is she? When will she be ready to come home? What time had I left? How long had I spent with her? Had I called the breeder to tell her I was coming?

Oh, c'mon! You know I wouldn't just show up, now! No fair asking.

I answered, providing lots of interesting details about the routes I had taken, the pretty things I had seen on the way back crossing le Perche from Luigny up to Dreux, and then I headed him off.

"Elle est adorable bébé, mais je ne sais pas ce que je pense de sa mère. Elle n'est pas aussi belle que Rapide. C'est un peu autre chose en Labrador. Tu sais," I added judiciously, and to cover myself in the event of future criticism, "on ne peut jamais savoir pour certain ce qu'on aura comme résultat."

"Je sais," he acquiesced. He knows that in breeding one can never guaranty outcomes, even starting with excellent bloodlines and the two beautiful dogs you are mating, but I pointed it out again, anyway.

"Et puis," I went on, "chaque éleveur a ses préférences, et pas tout le monde est d'accord avec les goûts du moments du club Labrador." I let my argument trail off. This is where I start to get befuddled and frustrated, personally.

There are so many breeders out there, breeding confirmed Labrador Retrievers, and yet the results are varied. When a dog is judged for breed standard to obtain his final pedigree, he can receive from "good" to "excellent", and even "insufficient", meaning your dog does not conform to the breed standard, no matter how much you paid. The problem appears to be -- according to some breeders with whom I have been in contact -- who is judging. The word "fashion" comes up when the French Labrador Retriever Club, which recommends breeders and offers list of litters of registered puppies, is mentioned, but how can that be when there are official breed standards? It didn't take many conversations with a great many breeders to begin to conclude that the terrain est miné and breeders make, possibly, as many enemies as they do friends professionally.

That it can, in short, get quite political, not unlike the process for awarding the Pritzger in architecture. I can still remember the day I realized that architects hire "marketing professionals" to get them placed in those prestigious magazines and journals we all revered, and for which we paid high priced subscription fees. To think I thought it was all based on exceptional merit.

Quelle déception!

This left me -- confused.

I wrote to one breeder, who enjoys quite a bit of renown among Labrador Retriever breeders, to ask if she could help me locate a breeder producing dogs of the exceptional beauty (in my opinion) of her own, and she replied:

I don't feel happy with the idea of talking behind their backs about other breeders... I know they all do it in France but I regret this way of behaving and although I am more than sure that after 33 years of breeding, and wiping so many people's eyes in the ring... lots of people are probably keen to find something to say about me... I'm going to stick with "do unto others as you would be done by".

I will say in passing , since I must reply to your demand, that I do find it more than slightly extraordinary that I can go to a show in England or, as this week-end, take nine dogs up to the Paris region for the Retriever Club show on Saturday, then on to Switzerland for the Swiss Retriever Club show yesterday - which is just that: "a show" whereas to find a companion you hope to have as a member of your family for perhaps 16 years or more... you want to find her almost in your own back yard!

You see?

I was humbled by her words. How could I not be, when they were intended, certainly with the very best of intentions, to humble me? Of course, I scolded myself, she is right. This is a companion for which I am searching, not a dog to win top place in the international shows. I wrote to thank her for pointing to what my own heart told me already, adding, "it's just that one hears so much that it can quite turn one's head."

But I was not satisfied. There is something ever so slightly dishonest, or perhaps merely disingenuous, in that reply. Of course one is looking for everything the breed offers, including beauty, otherwise, as the breeder Martine Nathhorst, who referred me to Fia's breeder writes in her site, why would you be buying a registered dog?

Quite so.

Some years ago, Madame Nathhorst's dogs fell out of favor with the French Labrador Retriever Club, who, as she tells the story, went so far as to suggest that she should abandon nearly two decades of work building her bloodlines. She writes at great length to take issue with the club for the power it wields, while catering to the whims of fashion in what is considered beauty in Labradors.

She is joined by other breeders, who make their arguments public, while still others, like Rapide and Baccarat's, will tell you what they think when you come to see their dogs. One begins to sense that there is an inner and an outer world to the love of a breed. There are the websites dedicated to forums and products for Labrador Retriever owners, where people can exchange about their passion for these dogs, and there is the world of those breeding for all the reasons one can choose to do so: the love of the breed, the pleasure of producing winners in trial and beauty, and income, as well as achieve fame and glory in the shows and the competitions that are some breeders' world.

I am the last to criticize anyone for making a living from breeding, whether it be dog, cats or horses. It is a highly specialized profession, requiring knowledge and experience. No one who does not understand it should indulge in producing puppies for the pleasure of it, not when you consider the genetic and health issues, not to mention over-saturation of the market, that irresponsible breeding can cause. Please forgive me this moment on my soapbox, but while everyone can love a mutt from the pound as much as the most expensive of pedigreed dogs -- and should if they consider themselves a dog lover --, if one is going to produce a particular breed, the only way to ensure the integrity of the breed is to thoroughly understand and respect it, and then to conduct one's activity in healthful and appropriate quarters, providing quality nutrition, veterinary care, and proper socialization for the dogs and their puppies.

This is not a full-time job; it is a 24/7 job, year round, and give the breeder her due.

I have heard of puppy mills, but I have yet to see one. Perhaps I am lucky, or maybe it is just that I trouble myself to research the question, but the breeders with whom I have spoken and dealt are far from wealthy from their businesses. They do, on the other hand, love their work and take pride in their results, even though a number of them positively refuse to show their dogs, having seen enough to believe the whole affair tainted by interest and self-interest. They do not, it is true, necessary appreciate one another, one chalking another's dislike up to "misplaced professional jealousy". Very possibly, although it is certainly true that the other one would have his own explanation.

It also, in my mind, goes without saying that anyone with a negative opinion of the judging system who is willing to call the system out for what they believe it to be will most likely be charged as being "sour grapes" by those the system continues to privilege.

This is an insiders' affair, and not for the outsider, faint of heart and making their occasional purchase of a dog, to judge off-handedly. I try to listen to an argument and judge it for the value of the points it makes, comparing it to what else I hear and read. In this case, my inexpert opinion tells me that there is likely reason to be suspicious of those judging and making lists of recommended breeders, and the trouble for the rest of us is to learn enough to know how to judge for ourselves, and to trust our judgment. The issue being pointed out is that 30 years ago, the breed was largely unknown outside of Great Britain in Europe, therefore the shows and competitions were not yet tainted by the commercial interests that exist today, when Labrador Retrievers are a good business in the United States, Canada and in Europe. That commercial success, according to Martine Nathhorst, has transformed "ces manifestations en foires d'empoigne où fusent les insultes quand on n'en vient pas aux mains...", meaning these shows have been transformed into free-for-alls where insults are thrown, when it doesn't come to fisticuffs.

She further writes:

Aussi, dire "je ne veux pas un chien de concours, juste un chien de compagnie" n'a aucun sens. Si l'on souhaite acquérir un labrador, c'est pour toutes ses qualités, et si c'est un labrador, il doit répondre à ses promesses, inutile dans le cas contraire de se tourner vers un chien de race.

Meaning, that to say "I don't want a competition dog, just a pet quality dog" makes no sense. If, she says, we wish to get a Labrador Retriever, it is for all of its qualities, and if it is a Labrador, it must rise to all of its promises, otherwise there is no reason to choose a pedigreed breed. (see my previous remarks above).

Fia comes from the kennel of her friend, Florence Sivadier, who breeds under the name Labradors de la Pellousery, to whom she gave one of her dogs, Fair doos at Trewinnard, who in turn produced Garry de la Pellousery, a dog that this breeder recovered after it was poorly judged and given up by a someone new to showing. Garry was later given a judgment by a British judge sufficient to let her introduce Garry to her bloodlines when she was reestablishing her breeding activity. He is brother of C'Juliette du Valhalla, Championne de France 1991, vice-Championne du Monde 1992, daughter of Jenrae Stargazer of Fair doos at Trewinnard, the dog she ceded to the breeder of Fia, shown here at one day short of 6 weeks:



I never had Baccarat confirmed, and I sincerely doubt that I will have Fia Lux confirmed either, as much as part of me says that it is always good for a breeder to have their dogs confirmed. I might be overly cynical, but I didn't like the idea of one judge determining whether she was an "sufficient", a "good", a "very good" or an "excellent" dog, with anything less than "excellent" being virtually useless for a breeder, which I am not, and so it had no meaning for Baccarat, and would not for Fia, either -- and one can imagine that it is but a small step to judge a dog poorly in order to demote a breeder for any reason of which one can think -- because I didn't feel convinced that that judge would follow the standard to the letter or with impartiality (they know from which kennels the dogs come), nor did I feel it to be perfectly necessary.

One should know, however, that it is possible to appeal a breed confirmation decision for pedigree, and that the dog will be judged again by a panel of three judges, who might or might not, according to Martine Nathorst of Valhalla and Pierre Karmazyn of Elevage du Friche-Menuet, actually ever have bred Labrador Retrievers, or anything at all.

I will chose to trust that the this convergence of opinion, even between breeders who do not always have the very nicest things to say about each other, is a reliable indication that I am on the right track.

Right being a term I feel squeamish to apply, lacking 30 years experience myself.
....

The garden, home alone

The wisteria hangs ponderously over the shaggy box hedge

The Garden is in need of editing.

Things grow during your absence, things you have pruned. It's a damnable fact. Gardens make cruel task masters. Take the box hedge leading down the stairs. Take the wisteria over head, too, while you're at it.

I had noticed before I left in mid-August that the hedge was in need of a little maintenance trim. There were unruly branches sticking out here and there and a number of wisteria shoots hanging down onto the stairs and pushing up through the box. Wisteria requires a small army wielding pruning shears all on its own, thinning it and doing battle with its prolific shoots almost daily. But, by the time I was back and willing to go have a look -- which is pretty much unavoidable if I am to go to the pool pump shed, which was absolutely unavoidable --, it was nearly as bad as I had found it 9 years ago.

It rained a lot while we were gone, which is nearly as bad as not raining at all while we were gone.

And, so, I went dutifully to the garage for the electric pruning thing, trudged into the house to plug in the outdoor extension cord, and went to deadhead the flowers.

Well, that needed doing too, you know.

And I took lots of pictures of the many new baby fish Sam and I discovered pouring over the population of the fountain my husband turned into a fishpond quite some time ago, long before our arrival, and that we emptied and repaired last year. I had been terrified that we'd ruin it, make all the frogs give up on our hospitality and go away -- forever --, and having lost all but 4 fish in the sudden and absolute freeze that January, it didn't look all that promising, but today, I am proud to say, we are approaching the numbers of fish we had before the freeze, they have more space and wonderful plants in which to hide, feed and reproduce, and that they are doing successfully. I doubted it this year, but it turned out that it was only that the fry had more placed to shelter themselves, although a great many sustained their elders, as usual.

Those plants also served to hide the tadpoles, which were in evidence last year. I can see them now that they are quite large and dart around among the fish occasionally.

Eventually, I picked up the electric hedge trimmer and set to work. You'd think it's the sort of work that would go quickly, after all, the little branches stick right up to present themselves to the blades, the shape of the hedge is still clear, and the thing is electric, but it doesn't. And it makes a big mess.

It was nearly dark when my husband rode up to the lower gate and opened it to park his bike. I darted from whatever I had been doing inside the house to the plastic basin I use to collect the cuttings and transport them to the compost bin provided by the CAMY (Communauté de l'aglommération de Mantes en Yvelines, thank you; we live in an "agglomeration" (2 "g"s and 1 "s", please), but that's what the French in their poetry call an urban area). I had scurried back down behind the box hedge on the other side from the stair, just as he crossed the bottom garden and headed up.

"Ah, mais tu es là," he said with some clear satisfaction. "Je me suis dis que tu ne laisserais jamais tout ça pas ramassé. Attends que je reviens t'aider."

Today, I passed for someone who does things with her time, and we cleaned up the cuttings until we couldn't see in the thickening twilight -- it comes early this time of year, but we forget the summer will not last forever -- and went inside in time for Sam to call, his second time today.

"Mom," he said, "tell Audouin there is boxing on TV." I laughed.

"Here, Sam, tell him yourself." I handed him the phone.

The first call concerned his classes, his search for the perfect part-time job, and his shopping for dinner.

"Mom, this weekend, I need you to show me exactly how to make pasta. I know you put olive oil or butter or something in the water to keep it from sticking, right?"

"That's right, Sam. It's pretty easy, really."

"But, olive oil, that's expensive, isn't it?"

"Oh, you can get a good enough store brand, and it should last you awhile," I reassured him. "We'll do some grocery shopping for kitchen basics this weekend, alright?"

You know, I thought his infant eyes gazing into mine and then his first steps, his pointing to Arcuri's Pizza as we drove home from the train after work, asking for their white pizza with spinach and his first soccer goal were pretty terrific, but this, this move into independence and all the questions, the things to discover and to learn to master for himself, it just might be the best yet.

This weekend, preparing store-bought pasta straight from the bag and eggs.

By the way, this, to the right, is our favorite of the babies born this year that survived to grow up and live with us. We have never had one like this, mostly orange, partly pink and covered with black spots. He has a funny way of swimming, too, which amuses we simple folk.

I'll name him The Lone Ranger, or Bandit.
....

Meet Fia Lux

Fia Lux de la Pellousery
4 weeks old

Born August 5, 2010

Labradors de la Pellousery
La Tonnelière
Charbonnières, France

If anyone still comes around here, I will tell you that things did not exactly work out as I had hoped, but simply as they did, but first, allow me to offer my apologies for a long absence. The longest ever.

I thought that last week, we would be going to pick up "Fun" from the breeder in Normandy and struggling to find a name beginning with F for her (2010 is a F year in France, where all registered dogs born in any given year must have a name beginning with that year's letter), but I learned the week before that what I had rather begun to fear was true. The breeder had decided not to sell us the young dog we had seen and with whom we had fallen in love back in the middle of August, just as we were preparing to leave for our three weeks of vacation. For once, I will not give any details. It was a very big disappointment, and I felt rather bitter and angry, but that was not going to change anything. All the way back from Brittany in the car I thought about it and winced when we passed the exit on the highway that leads to her home and kennel. I hardly spoke on that long ride, but that wasn't unusual; my husband isn't "un communicatif", as he says, to excuse his own silences. I was considering what to do. Should I leave it at that, or should I write and tell her of our disappointment, of my husband's for me, although he found her uniquely attractive, too, and my own?

He could still live very well without another dog, and having shared some of that with her might have been what decided it against us despite all she knew we had done for Baccarat, when we learned she had a tumor in her heart. I continued to think about it once we were at home, and then I wrote an email. I told her how we felt about her withdrawing her offer of sale, and I reiterated what would be our joy at coming to get this dog, should she change her mind. I have no pictures of "Fun", but the few moments we spent with her will be enough never to forget her. I said that there could be no question but that a dog is happiest in the center of the love of a family, and that it would be best to place her there earlier rather than later, particularly as there is a chance that she will not chose to breed her when it will be desirable, in a little more than 2 years. The breeder knew that she is considering retirement, and she will be nearly 80 then.

But, there was no reply to this email, nor to the one I sent to tell her that a contact had told us about a breeder in the not far away Perche, who had a 4-month-old male and female she had saved from a litter, one of which she had decided she should sell. We could have the female, if we chose, or a 4-week-old who would be available in early October. I told our breeder that we would still be happiest to come get "Fun", were there any chance she should yet consider renewing her offer, but there was no reply, and so I left for the Perche, ayant fait une croix sur "Fun".

Sam went with me on a beautiful September afternoon last week, except for when we drove through patches of rain, with big white clouds sailing in a bright, clear blue sky, the recently harvested fields shining, despite their stubble. We drove as we would do to go to my husband's parents' home, but turned onto the A11 in Thivars, just past Chartes on the route to Châteaudun, drove to the exit at Luigny and then along the country roads to the sign 6 kilometers from the church in Luigny. 2.5 kilometers later, we drove into the drive at La Tonnelière. Sam had already spotted the kennels, and the dogs came forward to great us in their little groups, divided by color and fraternity, in their large, clean cages under the trees.

The breeder turned out to be inside with another client, who had come to pick up the 3 10-week-olds in the fenced-in space in front of her home. They would eventually leave with a woman in a compact car for not far from our home.

"I wonder," Sam would remark, "how she is going to make it home with 3 puppies in that car."

I was, in fact, feeling rather proud of myself for having the wagon with a dog gate in the back, unlike 4 years ago, when I drove home with Rapide and tiny Baccarat at 8 weeks of age, held back only by the netting you can roll up and fix in place that comes standard equipment on a BMW wagon. Rapide hardly saw that as more than a minor discouragement to her panicked need to get the hell out of the back end and at least be with me, the closest thing to her old mistress that she could identify in that car.

It had not been an illustrious start.

It turns out these are the 6th, 7th and the 8th dogs this woman has brought home over the years from la Pellousery. Maybe gates aren't necessary, after all.

The breeder came out and we introduced ourselves and shook hands, and then she led us to the three dogs in a cage over to the side I thought might contain the 4-month-old in question. There was one of each color, and they looked to be the right size, and they were, let us say, energetic. She hauled her out of the pen and the little dog jumped and trotted around us, a whole other affair from "Fun". I spoke to her and looked her over. She had a well-formed head with a pronounced stop, huge paws and a promising tail, and when the breeder suggested to the young intern (everyone seems young these days) from the veterinarian technician program not far away that she show us how the puppy walks on leash, it was true that there was some reason to be impressed. She did not pull in the least, but she did cross sides.

That, I thought, is easy enough to correct.

We let her off leash and fell to chatting, while the dog played around us, the other client left, and so do the breeder's sister, and the puppy lay down to rest.

Well, I thought, she can do that, too, at least.

It occurred to me that I was comparing her to "Fun" a little too much, and doing it with a little too much disappointment. I longed to ask Sam for his opinion, and when I had my chance, he told me that he didn't "feel" her. I knew what he meant, and I asked to see the 4-week-old, who was brought out to us goodnaturedly, and she settled into my chest in my hands and hung on.

It was heaven.

I had never been able to hold Baccarat like that. She was already 8 weeks old and too wiggly. They grow fast between 4 and 8 weeks, and it's just not the same creature. This little one was just beginning to see better, her ears to detach, and to walk. She was hardly more than a newborn. She yawned over and over again before settling into a mewling cry, and we talked, and she was happy to lick me with that new pink tongue and puppy breath. She smelled of the litter in which she and her litter mates lay with their mother, like a hamster or a mouse. I offered her to Sam, who looked a little panicked and said that no, I could hold her. The breeder laughed. I leaned up against the car next to him, and we talked on, while I wondered what Sam thought.

An opportunity presented itself to speak speak together quietly, and he said the same thing I was thinking, the older puppy lacked a certain finesse that Baccarat had, that "Fun" had, too, I thought, and we'd have more time with this puppy to watch it grow and see what she would become. The breeder returned, and I handed the puppy to Sam, who looked a little consternated again.

"Prends-la pour que je puisse m'occuper de la plus grande," I said, leaving him no choice. The breeder understood what I was doing.

He hesitated but I put her into his hands and bent down to the bigger puppy. When I looked up, she had settled right into the open front of his zippered sweatshirt, looking right at home, and he was already looking as relaxed as she did. The phone rang, and the breeder went inside, but the intern was still with us, and when she came back, Sam returned the puppy to me, and got out his iPhone to take pictures of her. It seemed like as good a way to announce a decision had been made as any, and I told her that while the older puppy was wonderful, we had decided to start all over again from scratch with a little baby. She smiled, and the older puppy fell asleep at our feet while we went on talking about dog food, the growing number of cancers likely due to the quality of what we feed our dogs, the failure of her refrigerators during the terrible heatwave of 2003 and how she was expecting her last child then, when she had to empty all that rotting meat out of them, rags wrapped around her face to try to keep from smelling the stinking meat. Finally, it was time to feed the dogs, the older puppy returned to her brother and friend, and we went inside to do the reservation paperwork at her dining table.

Sam asked me to put her down on the table to see her walk, and she took a few steps before lying down and putting her head on my open hand and falling sound asleep. The rest of the litter mewled away in the next room, but a good bark from their mother silenced them, and we all laughed. The breeder's eldest son had come home by then, followed not long after by her youngest two and a downpour.

"Mom," said Sam with some urgency, "you left the car open."

"Yes?" I asked, wondering why he was telling me this. Why should I have locked the car at a breeder's in the middle of the Perche, not another soul in sight for at least 2 kilometers.

"Mom, the car. You left the roof open --" I must have still been staring with incomprehension, lost in the puppy in my hand, because he added, "It's raining."

"Oh! Can you close it, please?"

"I need the keys, Mom. The keys." I understood. He needed the keys. The keys, you know, to turn the ignition enough for a contact for the sunroof. Puppies make you as dumb as babies do.

We will return in 3 or 4 weeks, whenever the breeder, Florence Sivadier, feels that the puppy can leave and come home to us, but I might just have to break down and go visit her again between now and then. I know very well what she will be like in 3 weeks when she will be 8 weeks old, and I wouldn't mind having a few more moments of 5 or of 6 weeks.

In the car, Sam said, "It's a good thing we got the little one, Mom. Can you imagine if we had brought the older one home and she had gone crashing into Audouin's legs?"

I knew just what he meant. It would have been a little -- abrupt, shall we say? This should go down a little easier. Like Baccarat, she'll have more time to wiggle into his heart.

But, I still had a name to find. I had been through what seemed like dozens of possibilities and decided that F is tough for a girl, who might not be best suited by Frazier or Fillmore or Franklin. I got out the French dictionary and skimmed the pages and made yet another list, looked at the one I had made from my perusal of the English dictionary and returned to the dog and baby name sites. I asked friends whose taste in dog names I appreciate, and whose appreciation for dogs I appreciate even more. A few possibilities were starting to gain a foothold, and I went and looked again at one I had considered, Fia.

I looked up the meaning again, and I read, "Scottish, meaning 'arising from a dark peace'".

A dark peace. Yes, there has been a sort of dark peace in the weeks since Baccarat died, and we have begun to get used to life without her. Or, perhaps a new little dog to get to know and to love, a little black dog, is a "dark peace". Another meaning, going back to the Gaelic, can be understood as "the black fairy". I had been thinking of naming "Fun" Fay, or Fée, on the way home from Normandy that day we saw her, and Fia, with its pronunciation FAY-ah, went straight back to that first thought, which Sam had vetoed with a simple "No" when I suggested Fay on the way to see this puppy.

I thought about Fia again, and asked a few friends what they thought. Labradors have their origins in Scotland and England, produced in Newfoundland by the Scottish and English fishermen who went there to fish the cold seas and returned home to hunt, and so do I. It might become Feya, a version that tells you how to pronounce it, but we shall see. I like Fia, although someone said it made her think of Fiat.

We have one of those, too.

But, another friend (who really is Scottish) pointed out that it could evoke "'Fiat lux' rather than 'Fiat Panda'- a big bang from the dark rather than misfire from Italy". I have really smart friends.

Which made me think, why not add "Lux" after "Fia", or "Fia Lux" for "light from a dark peace"?


Coincidentally, or not, the older puppy did not share the same bloodlines as the littler one, who shares the same ones with Rapide and My Boy de Saint Urbain, Baccarat's sire.

So, here we go again! At least, I tell myself, I have the time to get some things ready. We will be eating lettuce, with rice and a little meat for my husband, who actually goes to work to provide for us, the rest of the fall to make up for this, Baccarat's costs having nearly done us in. It would never have been remotely possible in the States to consider the surgery we had done in the hope that her tumor was benign, but, even so, it was still more than we could absorb without a serious halt in expenses, and here I am insisting on getting another Lab.

I can't help myself.
....