Well Being

For most gardeners, a playful landscape accent might entail a ceramic mushroom staked in a geranium bed. For the intrepid artist-gardener, only a 7-foot naked chanteuse will do. "I designed her as an early, skewed Matisse with a bit of Gaudí and cubism thrown in," says Larry Nichols of his sculpture-bench clothed in nothing but fractured pottery. "Fifi" reigns over a trio of functional statuary in Nichols' garden fronting the 1913 Echo Park craftsman that he has shared with partner Rob Kibler for 32 years.

On a cold, drizzly night, the baseball diamond at Jackie Robinson Stadium in Pasadena needs repairs if a game between Pasadena Maranatha and Brentwood is going to be played, and the person showing the best form handling a rake is one of the scheduled starting pitchers, Dylan Covey. In a couple of months, Covey, 18, figures to have enough money to buy his own landscaping company, but the fact that he isn't hiding in the warm, cozy Maranatha clubhouse in the middle of a steady rain validates what people have been saying about his impeccable character.

— Across California, state and local leaders are moving to confront the cost of public employee retirement packages — an escalating financial burden that threatens to choke off funding for other government services. Legislation now being debated in Sacramento would curtail pension benefits to future state employees. Elsewhere, city and county governments are looking at a variety of measures, including raising property taxes to cover shortfalls and reducing payments to retirement funds.

With both the environmental and economic tides turning against clear-cutting in the Tongass National Forest, two members of Congress have nonetheless written legislation to give up to 85,000 acres of prime forest land to an Alaska corporation, all but about 20,000 acres of it for clear-cutting. The bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans from Alaska, is as cynical as it is ill-timed. The company that would receive the land, Sealaska Corp., is owned by Alaska Natives; the giveaway would be part of a long-standing settlement that was never finalized because of environmental concerns.

Ninety speakers and more than 200 exhibitors will take part in the Health Freedom Expo . The mission of the expo is to educate people on their health and well-being choices, including displays of the newest technological innovations in healthcare. Long Beach Convention Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Thurs.-Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. $15 for one-day pass, $35 for three-day pass. (888) 658-3976. www.health freedomexpo.com .

Leave it to science to take all the fun out of something as cosmically pure as love. Theories about love's purpose range from the biologically practical to the biologically complicated. Anthropologists have said it helps ensure reproduction of the species; attachment theorists maintain it's a byproduct of our relationship with our childhood caregivers. And now researchers are exploring what happens physiologically as a romantic relationship progresses. The more we understand it, they say, the better our chances of making love last and of harnessing its potential to improve our emotional and physical well-being.

Some call it aquamarine, robin's egg or Tiffany blue. The Pantone Color Institute calls it turquoise, and it's the company's official color of 2010. For the Home section, the announcement is something of a confirmation. Back in July, writer Barbara Thornburg declared turquoise a hot hue, alerting readers that they might see the shade on more plates, carpets, pillows and other accents for the home. Now, Pantone, the company that sets color standards for design industries, has chosen turquoise as the singular hue exemplifying consumer attitudes and preferences this year.

The NHL announced surprisingly good attendance figures last week, saying teams had played to 91.3% of capacity through November. That's despite sub-10,000 crowds in Phoenix and numbers in the low teens in Nashville, Atlanta, Colorado, Long Island and Carolina. The local teams brought the number down, though the Kings' average of 16,274 through their first 14 home games -- 89.9% of capacity at Staples Center -- was up about 1,200 from the same point last season. The Ducks have averaged 14,889 fans through a league-high 18 home games.

A short workweek and the prospect of early retirement. Job-protection laws that make it almost impossible to get fired. Seven weeks of holidays and vacation time a year. Oh, and paid lunches. A harried American worker might ask: What's not to like? And a dissatisfied French worker might respond: Plenty. A wave of suicides at the country's largest telecommunications firm has unnerved France, long viewed by many outside the country as a cushy haven for employees. Experts say the incidents are the most visible examples of the growing phenomenon of stress-induced illness in the country.