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.
....