Monthly Archive for October, 2009

Birthday Pawty!

Published on October 29, 2009 in Lily. 56 Comments Tags: Dog, He-Weasel, Igor, Lily, Love, Music, Westie.

I am one of those people that if you didn’t know me you might think I was a bit wackadoo in the degree to which I indulge my dog-aughter. No I do not paint her toenails, she does not have pierced ears and I do not push her in a stroller—but I do spoil her. And if you have been reading my blog for very long you know you why ( and if you don’t then this might explain). It’s just that Lily is more than a dog to me, Lily is my daughter. I am fully aware that I am sublimating my desire to be a parent with my furry child and that is why Lily has a life that is a little on the spoiled side—and it is a life that I wish many children had.

Lily only eats organic dog food and her diet is supplemented with organic fruits and vegetables. She looks forward to her nightly salad( she is a bit low brow in this department as she only likes iceberg lettuce) followed by a tablespoon of Ciao Bella’s Sicilian Blood Orange Sorbet as a palate cleanser before her dinner. Lily only drinks water from the crystal blue waters of Fiji. There is no way I am giving my baby the nasty stuff from the tap. Her groomer is a groomer to the stars and she has an impressive wardrobe. I love Lily so much that I walk her for two miles before I have had my first cup of coffee( and that is more of a declaration of my love than anything else).

No matter what I am doing I take puppy play breaks in the day so I can have meaningful bonding moments with my baby girl. Speaking of her toys, she has a lot of them. And when I discover a toy is a favorite I immediately go back to the store and buy lots of back ups. I learned my lesson from the Mr. Bear fiasco. When Lily decapitated Mr. Bear and then looked at me filled with confusion and a crest fallen gaze that his head did not immediately grow back so she could do it again, I went to five different Petcos trying to find a Mr. Bear with a head on it. I could not. I felt so guilty that I even mentioned the Mr. Bear incident to Igor and he quickly turned it into something about my mother and her expectation of me filling her every loss. I reminded him that sometimes a Mr. Bear is just a Mr. Bear.

Lily even has her own Hungarian down comforter to which she has an unnatural and highly erotic affection for. I am working on not being shocked by my dog-aughter’s emerging sexuality. I don’t want to shame her for her natural feelings. Hey, I have seen the Vagina Monologues and when Lily is old enough I might even take her to see it if they ever had a mother/dog-aughter performance.

I am not one of those over indulging parents who says yes to whatever their child wants. I know the importance of limits and boundaries. Part of being a good puppy parent is to train them and I feel like I have done an exceptionally good job at training. If you ever meet Lily and me I will coerce you into asking to see all of Lily’s tricks. You may at first be unimpressed by the idea but when you can see what she can do even the most disinterested person will be impressed by Lily’s ability to sit, stay, lay down, shake paws, circle and dance. I may have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating, Lily is a genius.

This coming Sunday my Lily is turning one, yes she is a Scorpio (and that might explain her sexual proclivities with the down blanket. Scorpios are known for being highly sexual) and she will no longer be a puppy. It is traditional among human parents to have a party for their human children’s birthday. I thought I would do the same for my dog-aughter, no reason to withhold a party for her just because she is not a featherless bi-ped(Plato’s somewhat amusing definition of man). So we are holding a birthday pawty for our girl. I wish you could come!

We are having guests. I have ordered a birthday cake for her from Three Dog Bakery. I am getting her a steak from Bristol Farms for her special birthday meal. And He-weasel and I are making cupcakes decorated like Westhighland terriers for the human guests.

I am making a CD of Lily related music as a gift for the guests who are attending Lily’s Pawty .
The play list includes:
Lilly by Pink Martini
Happy Birthday by Altered Images
God Only Knows by the Beach Boys( a song I sing to Lily a lot. She loves it. She also loves it when I sing “I can’t smile without you” by Barry Mannilow to her).
Seasons of Love by Rent
How Much is that Doggy in the Window by Patty Page
Lilywhite by Cat Stevens
Puppy Love by Donny Osmand

Now I just have to decide what to get her for her birthday present. What do you get the dog who helped you heal the wound of infertility? What do you get for a Westie who gave you a reason to get out of bed in the morning during some really dark days? What do you get for a little white ball of unconditional love that healed your broken heart?

Picture of the cupcakes that I am going to attempt to make come from Simply Inspired. I hope mine turn out that good. I’ll let you know.

Melange Monday

Published on October 24, 2009 in Lily and Quotidien. 55 Comments Tags: Architecture, Blog, Food, Lily, Makeup, Skincare.

1. One word, Boston. Please people, send good thoughts. Cross fingers, light candles, and invoke incantations. I am not just thinking of myself, it is all about Lily. She wants to go to Harvard. She is considering a dual major of International Relations and Bioethics and she also has a keen interest in the Classics.

2. Peter Thomas Roth Unwrinkle Peel Pads. LOVE-LOVE-LOVE these. Thank you, Stephanie, for telling me about them. I used them for the first time last night and my skin looks less ready for Halloween( i.e., less scary).

3. We got a new mattress this weekend to make room for a new dog, when the time is right. Unfortunately the time is not right. The in home date was a fiasco. Lily was, to say the least, not ready to commit. She liked Loki enough to date him. However she did not like him enough to share her toys, her house and most especially her Daddy. My gentle white angel turned into a ferocious bitch when Loki came to visit. After a while she calmed down and was less She-wolf warrior princess and managed begrudgingly some hospitality. She even let Loki have a bone as long as he promised to stay far away from her Daddy. But once Loki left she made it clear that she was not happy by leaving protest poops around the house. Lily’s message was clear, “I am just not that into him.”

I so wanted Loki to be the one. Only he wasn’t. I knew it as soon as he walked in the door. Yet I tried to push past my intuition and follow my heart. However I am old enough to have learned the painful lesson of ignoring intuition. So I didn’t. Happily Loki has a good home even though it is not ours. Lily is back to playing the field. She is being pursued by a Brussels Griffon named Thor who she is totally indifferent to.

4. A lip gloss that lasts. Maybelline Superstay Gloss that I found out about from A Femme d’Certain Age. I know! I am usually more of a Chanel Glossimer girl but I am tired of glosses that come off two seconds after you apply them. This colour stays put for seven hours ( Maybelline claims 12 but I think that might be a little of an overstatement). I got Wine Shine and now that I know that it actually works I am going to pick up Radiant Ruby.

5. Today is the day when I start studying for test two of the BBS’s Marriage and Family Therapist Clinical Vignette exam. I am making a chart( I am highly externally motivated) for which I get a star for each hour of study. At the end of each row I am giving myself a treat of some kind. Must decide on a motivating reward other than the joy of passing the second test. Suggestions?

6. Pumpkin pie flavored yogurt with Kashi Honey Flax Crunch. Who knew breakfast could be so autumnally delicious?

7. He-weasel and I are watching the Jonathan Creek mysteries and this is making me want to live in a windmill. He-weasel tells me I wouldn’t actually enjoy living in a windmill. He says they are noisy. I don’t care about reality, I am enjoying the fantasy. The actual fantasy is to be able to hire a fancy shmancy architect to make me a post-modern windmill to live in. I wonder if Frank Gehry,the Don Quixote of design, does pro bono work or is this just an impossible dream?

8. 45 minutes until the studying begins. That is dread that I feel. I was reading a message board on studying for the exam and someone suggested making studying fun. I am open to the idea only I can’t come up with a way to make that happen. I am open to suggestions.

9. As I make my study plan I am realizing that part of the non-fun of studying is that during my six weeks of studying I am only going to be able to blog two days a week. I think I am going to, until I am done with this test, only blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays. When I am done with the test I am going back to the old schedule. Seriously, you bloggers with a job and kids, I don’t know how you manage to keep up your blog; truly you amaze me! And I under amaze me with how little I can manage to juggle. I have no juggling skills. I throw one ball in the air and I am sure the next ball is going to hit me in the head and then everything comes crashing down and then I want to put all the balls down and take a nap.

10. Lucky me!!!! I got to spend yesterday with Enc. We lunched and did a little shopping. I saw a gorgeous sweater at JCrew that was a beautiful beige. I wished out loud that I could wear a colour like that. Enc told me I could. “Really? “Of course you can,” Enc answered. I tried it on and as much as I loved the sweater I was so used to my self-imposed rule that I cannot pull off beige that when I tried it on it created a cognitive dissonance, “but I thought I couldn’t”. Turns out I was wrong. I wonder what other self imposed rules I am wrong about.

How I spent my four days away from the blogosphere

Published on October 23, 2009 in Quotidien. 66 Comments Tags: He-Weasel, Lily, Psychoanalysis, Psychology.

I didn’t mean for it to happen. I suppose one never does. It just snuck up on me and before I knew it there was nothing to do but surrender to it. It was exhaustion, the exhaustion that comes from studying for the California State Boards for the Marriage and Family Therapist licence. For the last three months when I wasn’t blogging or working on the book I was studying for the boards. He-weasel and I have communicated only through flash cards for the last couple of months, “According to Gestalt therapist what is the most important therapeutic goal?” was how we said good morning. “If you have a client who is threatening suicide?” was our code for pass the salt. And the last thing we said before we feel asleep was him asking me to differentiate Structural and Strategic family therapy. Even Lily got involved in my test prep, or rather she protested how my constant studying affected her play time and she has eaten a few flash cards and a pre-test or two.

Last week was my final week of study and as I am prone to pretty severe test anxiety I compensated by over-studying, over-preparing and going through the 800 flash cards close to what felt like 800 times. When Wednesday came around and it was time for me to blog again I just couldn’t do it. I was exhausted, the kind of exhausted in which when I was asked a possible test question my initial answer was “I don’t f*ck*ng care”. Friday I was even more exhausted and growing ever more nervous. Monday blogging was out of the question. Monday at 8:30 a.m. I had to be at the test center to take part one of the board exam. In four hours I had to answer 200 questions and I had to get at least 153 of them right to pass or I would have to take the test again( and I wouldn’t be eligible to take it for three more months).

The pass rate of the test is not great. Only 69% of MFT candidates who take the exam pass it the first time round. When I went into sit for the test I was very confident but as I saw the test questions my confidence dropped to well below 69%. Halfway in I was SURE I had failed. I told myself that even if I didn’t pass it would be okay and I would be okay and I could take it again. I prepared myself for sharing the bad news with my friends and family. I anticipated their warm condolences and assurances that I was brilliant and the test was stupid. I told myself to keep breathing and just keep answering the questions and soon it would be all over and I could go home and grieve my failure.

The 2 1/2 hours it took me to take the test were the longest I have ever known. Eventually I had answered all 200 questions and it was time to submit my test for scoring. I had to enter “E” three times and then type in “yes” to confirm that I was done with the test. As soon as I typed the “s” in “yes” I began to shake. Soon, I was sure, I would see the words “fail” on the screen. Instead of “fail” I saw a 15 question survey about the test center that I had to answer before the computer would score my test. To be honest at that moment I wasn’t interested in giving constructive criticism about the test site, its cleanliness, or the directions I was given to the test center. I saw that #5 was an option on all the survey questions and I continued to enter number five until the survey was done and then I waited. I waited all of thirty seconds but it felt like 2 1/2 hours. Then I saw the words “PASS” on the screen. The computer told me to quietly leave the test center and to see the proctor. I still did not believe I passed. I asked the proctor if I had. She congratulated me. I had really passed. She gave me a document that told me I did. I have proof. Passing this test make me eligible to take the next test. One more test, if I pass it, and I will be a Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California.

When I got home on Monday I was more exhausted than I had been when I had Mononucleosis. Yes, I let He-weasel take me out to dinner and fete me with champagne but after that I surrendered to my fatigue and I slept and I compensated and I slept some more. My rest is over and I am back to blogging and back to studying. “How would a object relations therapist treat depression in the mid-stage of therapy?” Oooh, I know that one. I think.

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Thanks to all of you who wrote to see if I was okay. Your thoughtfulness and kind concern means more to me than I can say. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!

26-33 of 365

Published on October 12, 2009 in 365 things that don't suck about L.A.. 58 Comments Tags: 365 things that don't suck about L.A., Architecture, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Movies, Restaurant, TV.

(365 Things that don’t suck about L.A.)

26. It isn’t Death Valley, California

27. Japanese strawberry cake
Truth be told I am not a big fan of cake, I prefer frosting. But if I am going to eat cake it is going to be the light, fluffy, delicious, cream and fruit filled Japanese strawberry cake from Sweetie’s bakery in Gardena. Japanese strawberry cake is made of sponge cake, strawberries and whipped cream and you can get it with or without nuts. My preference is with nuts.

I have heard in Japan that this delicacy is considered a Christmas Cake called the Kurisumasu keeki. Really, we should take on this cake as a Yuletide tradition and dump the nasty, dry and inedible fruit cake and take a cue from our friends in the East.

It is not a beautiful cake and is nothing fancy, I admit. And I feel sure that Martha Stewart and the Ace of Cakes guy would be horrified by its lack of fondant and its very low brow presentation. I don’t care. No matter how amazing a cake looks I can usually only get myself to eat the frosting. With this cake I could eat my piece and yours if you found it too frightening looking or if you were on a low carb diet or if you had left the table and were taking too long to get back. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.

28. The Disney Concert Hall
I love this building so much that when I lived in Chicago, the city known for its architecture, I would dream of this Los Angeles landmark. I have made special trips downtown just to see it. Without question it is my favorite building in Los Angeles. I think it is the building that has changed the energy of downtown L.A. To me the Disney Concert Hall is a kind of ship, and each time I see it I am transported to a place I have never been before. And for a building that stands still to be able to transport you—that is quite a special building.

If you come to visit me in L.A. I promise this is one of the places I will take you to, not necessarily to go to see a concert as I am not as interested in that as I am the brilliant building. If Frank Gehry didn’t have this fantastic building in L.A. I would be much more miserable here. I love you Frank.

If you love Frank too I highly recommend the Sidney Pollock’s documentary,”Sketches of Gehry“. Here is a clip of the film in which Gehry talks about this magnificent building.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht6lqFfhk1M]

29. The Botox is cheaper
In Chicago I was paying $650. In L.A. I am paying only $250.

30. The coleslaw at the Original Pantry
As soon as you get seated at a table at the Pantry one of the waiters brings you a plate of coleslaw and a loaf of sourdough bread. I am VERY picky about coleslaw and the Pantry’s slaw is not too sweet and too vinegary—it is just right. As much as I enjoy some good coleslaw I would never make a trip downtown just to go to the Original Pantry but if I am there already to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art or the Disney Concert Hall( these are the two reasons I go down town) then going to the Pantry is an obvious choice. The Original Pantry is an L.A. institution and is old timey and old school. The waiters are older men who are grumpy and will not abide special orders. It’s cash only. There are very long lines. And those are just a few of the good parts of the Pantry experience. I don’t really go there for the food, other than the coleslaw, it is just okay. It is more for the experience of being in a place in L.A. that has history. The Original Pantry opened in 1942 and in L.A. years that is ancient history. I also like the mix of people you see at the Pantry, it is one of the few places in L.A. where you will see business men in suits, Mexican families, Hollywood types, USC students, tourists and the very few that actually live in downtown L.A.

31. The parking lot attendant guy at Igor’s
Did you ever see the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun“? You know the guy that brings flowers to a vase on the wall by Frances’ villa? Everyday Frances tries to say hello to the man and everyday he ignores her and after a year or so she finally gets a hello from him. Well, I have my own “Under the Tuscan Sun” guy. He is the parking attendant at the two hour free park in Beverly Hills. Every time I saw him I was friendly. I said hello. I asked him how he was. I wished him a nice weekend. Each time he would ignore my overtures at friendliness. Last month I finally broke through and now I get a smile, a “hello” and when he is feeling very chipper he will wish me a nice day.

32. The light
Paris obviously( obvious to me) has the best light in the world. And there is something incredible about the light of a sunny yet freezing cold day in Chicago. As much as I hate to admit it L.A.’s light can be beautiful. On a clear day( not often), when the Santa Ana’s ( which He-weasel tried unsuccessfully to convince me that Santa Ana means “Hot winds from the north”) blow away the smog, there is a certain quality to the light that makes one understand what initially drew people to this place when it was nothing but a big traffic free orange grove.

33. The Real Postmodern Philosophers of the O.C.
Jacques Derrida and Jean-Francois Lyotard these two gods of postmodern philosophy could have stayed at the Sorbonne. They could have got teaching gigs at Harvard or Oxford or anywhere. They chose instead to come to the University of California at Irvine. Irvine? Have you been there? To my mind Irvine is the Valencia of Orange County. There are MPCs (master planned communities) everywhere with names like m> Portola Springs®,The Gated Oak Creek Community, and Crystal Park® and there are plenty of potential cast members for the Real Housewives of Orange County roaming the streets in their SUVs. That said, I am sure that there was plenty of post modern irony in Irvine to keep Jacques and Jean rolling in material. I wonder if Jacques and Jean ever ran into Vicki and Jeana at happy hour. That would make for some ironic post-modern fun. Bravo, are you listening? Pair two French academics in an Orange County beach house with two real housewives from the O.C. and let the fun, philosophical debate and irony begin. I feel sure there would be an episode where Vicki would take J&J; to South Coast Plaza and try to talk them into some Ed Hardy clothing and some man-scaping at the Red Door Spa. If only I had come up with this idea for a reality show before Jacques and Jean died. I could have been rich!!!!!!!!

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Good news on the Kindle front, as of October 19th there will be a Kindle for those outside of the U.S. The international Kindle will be available for $279. Why do I tell you these glad tidings? Just in case you wanted to get a Kindle so you could subscribe to La Belette Rouge on it and thought you couldn’t because you live in glamorous locals outside of the USA.

Lily’s love

Published on October 9, 2009 in Belette in Psychotherapy and Lily. 59 Comments Tags: Belette in Psychotherapy, He-Weasel, Home, Igor, Lily, Los Angeles.

I have mentioned in the past that my darling dog-aughter has a boyfriend ( and no, I am not talking about her unnatural and somewhat disturbing affection for the green blanket that always puts her into the mood for love). Lily’s love at first sight romance is with a Yorkie-Schnauzer mix named Loki. The minute Lily and Loki set eyes on each other the ran towards each other as if in they were in a movie and the setting for their love story—time slowed down as they ran towards each other. We immediately fell for Loki too and were very happy about the match.

Their dates have always been chaperoned and limited to quick nuzzles and excited hugs. Over time the love between Lily and Loki grew and our love for Loki grew too. He-weasel and I would often say after a meet and great with Loki and his mother, that if anything ever happened that Loki’s mother had to give up her beloved pup we would take him. We were aware at the time that was a strange thing to say as Loki’s mother obviously loved him madly.

Wednesday night Lily, He-weasel and I were out walking when we saw Loki, who was strangely not with his mother but instead with the neighborhood dog walker. Well, a long story short, Loki’s mom is not able to keep him and the dog walker is trying to find a good home for Lily’s love. Reflexively He-weasel, Lily and I all said, “We’d be interested.” Lily did not actually say it with words, rather she jumped up and down on her hind legs and made her happy bark.

Tonight at 6p.m. Loki is coming over for a house visit. We want to see how Lily reacts to having another puppy in her home. Our first commitment is to Lily and if for any reason she seems less than excited by the prospect of having Loki move in then we would of course respect her wishes. If tonight goes well we are going to see if Loki can come and stay with us for a few days before we make a life time commitment to the darling dog.

Our other concern is that we are in a very small condo, 750 sq. feet. We are concerned that two dogs and two humans in such a small place would be a very bad thing. So listen to this, I who has been anti-house commitment is so excited by this idea that I am calling a realtor to find us a house to rent( I am still far too commitment phobic to buy) and this time I think I am really serious. Besides needing a bigger house, we need a bigger bed as there is barely room in our bed for me, He-weasel and Lily.

I told Igor about all this. He seemed genuinely excited and he seems to think that Lily and Loki could turn out to be the parent’s I always longed for. I found his assertion a little confusing. I thought I was the parent to Lily. He seems to think she is parenting me. He also was excited about the fact that L+L might get me to do what he couldn’t, get me into a house. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Happy bloggy birthday to me

Published on October 7, 2009 in Quotidien. 116 Comments Tags: Blogaversary, Friends, Gratitude, Lily.

Statistics show that most blogs only make it two months before tossing in the towel. 1.09 million blogs have only one post and were abandoned after just one day. 1.63 million made it for 126 days. 132,000 blogs were abandoned after just one year.

I have had moments in which I thought I would be part of the grim blogger burn out statistics but I have beaten the odds. Today my blog is two years old or in statistical language La Belette Rouge is 720 days old. Yet in someways I feel like I have been blogging forever. So much has happened in the last two years that I feel like I have been blogging for years. For a 720 day old blog I think my blog is pretty mature and is not at all tantrumy or showing any behavior that indicates it has entered the terrible twos( if it does I promise to give it a time out and come back after it has learned to play nice with others).

I remember the very moment I began to blog as if it was just two weeks ago. I remember sitting on the sofa in our home in Lake Bluff and writing the very first post. The blog was going to be my place to talk about things that were important to me but that I had no place in my life to talk about, such as my love of France, skincare and shoes. My blog was going to be about daring to say the truth about what I liked and disliked—but it most certainly wasn’t going to be about me. Well, that plan didn’t work out. Two months in and I was spilling my guts and telling you everything I thought I would never say. When the last IVF failed I lost my mind and started writing about me in spite of myself. What gave me the courage to be so bold? I suppose having a nom de plume and being hopped on inhuman levels of progesterone helped.

The summer before I started blogging I decided that since I wasn’t writing because of a complete lack of discipline I would give up the identity of “writer”. If I wasn’t writing and/or publishing how could I continue to claim that identity? I was a writer no more. I hadn’t published anything for years and I needed to just be honest with myself about it. There was no ceremony in which I was defrocked or had my Mont Blanc pen taken away but there was a stripping of the identifier of writer from my self concept that was equally humiliating.

So when I started blogging I swear to you that I never had any hopes of really “writing”again. I had no secret hopes of becoming the next Petite Anglaise. The thought never entered my mind until I started writing everyday and strangely I started liking to write again. I somehow magically, via blogging, developed the discipline around writing I never had before. Blogging gave me what countless writing classes and books on writing couldn’t give me. The daily practice of blogging gave me the discipline to write everyday even if I didn’t feel like it and even if I seemingly had nothing to say. The development of discipline may not sound like a big deal but to me it was akin to a magical and miraculous miracle.

I never imagined when I started blogging all that it would give me—the lovely friends I have made, the community I feel a part of, lovely Lily, and so much more. http://www.labeletterouge.com has been a home to me when I felt homeless and you all gave me a sense of continuity in times when I felt utterly destabilized. No matter if I was sitting on the white Ikea couch we had in Lake Bluff or the brown leather sofa in Austin, Texas or the microfiber Crate and Barrel couch in Valencia— Leah, WendyB, Randal, Shallow Coffee and so many other were there with me through it all. I am grateful to you all for sticking around—no matter when you got here.

Every time I have had a bout of blogger burn out I think about how much I would miss you all if I quit. I am reminded of how much you add to my life and how much blogging has changed my life for the better and I am ready to blog again. Over the two years my blog, topic, location, pet ( went from adored cat to adored dog), and other things have changed—and I have changed as a result of blogging. I look forward to another year of blogging and to see what happens in year three. From what I read it is likely I will be more “cooperative and capable”. I will exude confidence and feel more at ease. I “may have setbacks, but for the most part, 3-year-olds are friendly, talkative and downright helpful. Oh, and yes, they want to see and do everything.” Does that mean I will travel more this year? That would be nice. My “speech should be clear enough to be understood by strangers” and I “should have a speaking repertoire of at least 300 words” and using my “burgeoning vocabulary to speak in sentences of up to six words long.” Watch out Proust, here I come.

Please, even if you are a lurker and NEVER-EVER comment, please leave a comment today to help me celebrate my blog birthday and let me know you are there. Actually seeing you say hello in the comments is one of the best parts of blogging. Thanks again for everything! I make bye-bye now( that is me being two).

Having a baby changes everything

Published on October 5, 2009 in Childless Not By Choice. 70 Comments Tags: Baby, Childless Not By Choice, He-Weasel, Hedonia, Infertility.

Last week happiness and women seemed to be a very hot topic. I wrote about my newfound happy and Sallymandy wrote a very thoughtful post, “Why women are unhappy” in which she quotes two of my favorite saucy redhead writers, who I feel sure are both pretty happy women, write about happiness and how women are generally not as happy as they used to be. Saucy redhead # 1, Arianna Huffington, wrote, The Sad, Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling and Maureen Dowd, saucy redhead #2 wrote “Blue is the New Black” . Both articles are fascinating and worth reading even though I am feeling uncharacteristically happy and was slightly worry that Huffington and Dowd might impinge on my hedonia. They didn’t. Rather in reading why women are feeling so unhappy I was left feeling very happy to have a He-weasel husband who shares the housework and that I, unlike the women that Huffington and Dowd write about, feel like I have lots of choices, freedom and time to pursue what I want.

As one who has had a long term case of the baby blues, I was especially struck by this quote in “Blue is the new black”: “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton College who co-wrote a paper called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.”

Really? Can it be true? Sure, I have heard this research before but I was always unhappy when I heard it and dismissed it as statistics can be manipulated and I try to be cautious about who was producing the studies and what their motives were. I was much more influenced by the irrefutable hard science of Johnson and Johnson’s ad campaign that “having a baby changes everything” and/or Faith Hill’s lyrics.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZRfPAvNClI]
Dowd’s article, and Stevenson’s quote in particular, got me to Googling to find more on the impact of those who talk goo-goo-ga-ga on glee and I found an article in Newsweek,by Lorraine Ali, “Does having children make you happy?“. Ali writes about the childless couple on her childhood street:

“When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we’ll call the Sloans, were the only couple on the block without kids. It wasn’t that they couldn’t have children; according to Mr. Sloan, they just chose not to. All the other parents, including mine, thought it was odd—even tragic. So any bad luck that befell the Sloans—the egging of their house one Halloween; the landslide that sent their pool careering to the street below—was somehow attributed to that fateful decision they’d made so many years before. “Well,” the other adults would say, “you know they never did have kids.”

All through infertility treatment, each time we would fail to become pregnant, I would think of that couple. No, not the Sloans. I had my own version of the Sloans. Lynne and Lenny; Mirjam and Paul; He-weasel’s Aunt and Uncle. They were all that sad couple, that sad childless couple with no children that I pitied. They were the couple I didn’t want us to be. I wanted to be the couple with the house filled with kids, bikes on the lawn, and a tree house in the yard. We would not be the couple who spends holidays at others homes—we would have a family, or so I thought.

Lorraine Ali continues: “Each time I visited the Sloans, I’d search for signs of insanity, misery or even regret in their superclean home, yet I never seemed to find any. From what I could tell, the Sloans were happy, maybe even happier than my parents, despite the fact that they were (whisper) childless.” It is this and the research that makes Ali conclude that having children does not lead to happiness; the statisticians agree with her:

Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard professor of psychology and the author of “Stumbling on Happiness,” claims that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child. The happiness rate, according to Gilbert, increases only when the last child has left home.

Gilbert claims that studies show that parents are happier when eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television than when they are spending time with their children. Arthur C. Brooks, the author of “Gross National Happiness” reports that parents of children are nearly seven percentage points less likely to be happy than their childless counterparts.

Robin Simon, a sociology professor at Florida State University, finds that “Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers.”

The National Survey of Families and Households done in 2005 looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans, concluded, according to Simon, “No group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It’s such a counter-intuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not.”

According to the National Marriage Project’s 2006 “State of Our Unions”, parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than non parents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations.

I share all these statistics not to make the argument that my new found happiness is caused by my childlessness, especially as for so long I have been very unhappy just because we couldn’t have kids. Truly, if I could, I would give happiness in order to have the “unhappiness” that comes from having children. Lorraine Ali concludes her article by saying that even if having children doesn’t make you happy, “Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who’ve never had kids.” Purpose and meaning, at least for me, are a better and more noble pursuit than happiness. Don’t get me wrong, happiness doesn’t suck. I am grateful for the happiness I have and all the freedom, choice and sleep I have. I really am. And even though I am happy, I do ache knowing I will never know how having a baby changes everything.

La Belette Rouge blog on Amazon.com

Published on October 2, 2009 in Quotidien. 35 Comments Tags: Belette in Psychotherapy, Blog, Book, Dreams.

For years I dreamed of having my writing for sale on Amazon.com. My dream has come true. I am on Amazon.com. No, it’s not my book, “Thursdays with Igor”( not yet), it is my blog. For 99 cents a month you can get La Belette Rouge Blog delivered right to your Kindle.

Why would someone want to read their blogs on Kindle? According to Amazon.com “Kindle blogs are fully downloaded onto your Kindle so you can read them even when you’re not wirelessly connected. And unlike RSS readers which often only provide headlines, blogs on Kindle give you full text content and images, and are updated wirelessly throughout the day.” Pretty cool, huh?

If you have Kindle I would obviously love-love-love it if you would subscribe. Or, maybe you want to join Lily and me in the happy dance ? That would be great and I assure you that our dance routines require no talent. We are very low on choreography and high on freedom of expression. Something like this ….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G8XH4WDxP4]

Happy weekend!!!

Give a hoot and tell me, does this make me a Hooters girl?

Published on October 1, 2009 in Objects. 53 Comments Tags: Blogs, Kate Spade, Shopping.

Not sure how it happened, but I, a weasel, have fallen hard for owls. I have a feeling that in the natural world owls and weasels might not be the best of friends. But as I am a metaphoric weasel and not a literal one, I feel sure that wearing an owl does not infer any self-destructive impulses.

I however have some concerns about following my heart and not my head on my present state of hootophilia.
First, I have a hard and fast rule about never wearing sweaters with appliqués as it is a slippery slope from appliqué sweaters to Christmas sweaters. That said, when I was perusing Kate Spade’s new clothing collection and I saw this Beacon Hill Graphic Cashmere Sweater. My eyes got big. My head went in circles. I hooted wildly and I started to have a craving for field mice.

Owl’s are wise and, I am sure, infer the wearer of any owl item with their above average I.Q. I feel sure if I get this sweater my I.Q. will go way up. I will understand economics, the meaning of life, higher math and finally understand what it is that people love about the Sound of Music.

Yet, I worry this sweater might be indirectly giving a hoot to Hooters. I wouldn’t want to send a subliminal message of any kind to indicate that I have ever even been in a Hooters.

The brilliant, lovely, and wiser than even the brightest barn owl, Enc, shares my love of Kate Spade’s owls. She introduced me to the Sherwood coin purse. This coin purse might make more sense than the sweater if I am afraid of wearing my owl love on my chest. Besides being stealthy and not in anyway making one wonder if I have secret ambitions of wearing orange shorts and working happy hour, Sherwood the owl makes saving pennies fun.

That said, I am still wanting the sweater. Hoot once for yes and twice for no.

Just FYI: Owls do more than wise things and/or sell hot wings at sports bars. One of my favorite old school owls is Woodsy. I even had a stuffed animal owl back in the 70′s who I named for the environmentally friendly bird. “In the city or in the woods, help keep Belette from looking like she works at a sports bar.” I think that is how the song goes. Click play on the video and hear for yourself.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zpz1k5Mv4o]