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.
....