March | 2014 | Red Boots

He can barely see. One eye is completely covered by a cataract, and the other looks pretty blank to me. Those big ears of his do not hear much anymore. He definitely can’t hear me calling him. His bladder has shrunk. Or disappeared altogether. His bones are old and his hair is almost white. So for a 14-year-old he’s in pretty good shape!

Of course, that’s 98 in dog years. Or is it 98 in people years and 14 in dog years? I get confused. All I know is that there’s a multiple of seven involved. And today is his fourteenth birthday. I’m feeling strangely sentimental and emotional about my aging dachshund, whose bark drives me crazy and who is causing way too much unnecessary stress between me and Ryan – it’s that shrinking bladder, the midnight and 3am excursions outside, the high-pitched bark at nothing and everything because the poor creature can’t see much… an aging dachshund is eerily similar to a newborn baby. Been there, done that!

Pretzel was our first.

It was a beautiful spring day much like today when we drove up to Santa Rosa to get him. He was teeny. He fit in my two cupped palms. His mom’s name was Ruby and his dad was Spike – they were all small standard, red, short-haired dachshunds. Just adorable. I don’t remember how we chose Pretzel. But we did. And on the way home he curled up on my lap, tucked his then-short nose and feet in toward each other, all twisty and pretzely. By the time we got back to San Francisco, his name was Pretzel. Perfect.

(Weeks later I discovered there was a children’s book about an extra-long, heroic dachshund named Pretzel, written and illustrated by Margaret and H.A. Rey. Serendipity. We have several copies of that book. It’s one of our favorites. Along with The Halloweiner. And Schnitzel von Krumm.)

Now I’m not a crazy dog-lover. I like dogs. I do love some dogs. I always had a dog growing up, and I think a pet is wonderful to have in a household. They love you unconditionally. To love and take care of them is incredibly fulfilling and heartwarming. They bring life and warmth and fun and gentleness and craziness, and hair, and extra work, and mess and happy licks and wagging tails and lots of walks and special moments of quiet and peace. And before I had kids, and when I was working from home, Pretzel was my life and I may have become a crazy dog-lover – which is easy to do in a crazy, dog-loving city like San Francisco!

I took him to the beach and when his short, little legs couldn’t carry him anymore I scooped him up and bundled him into my fleece. We spent hours in Dolores Park each day, and made friends with every dachshund and chihuahua in the City. He slept in our bed from night one, curled up right next to me or at my feet – and I have not met a dachshund parent anywhere in the US, London, Sydney or South Africa whose dachshund does NOT sleep in their bed. They are bred to burrow, and since they are not running down rabbit holes or hunting badgers in these urban environs, they burrow into sheets and blankets – warmest bed-partners ever. Even Ryan agrees.

Babies in strollers were no competition for jaunty Pretzel on those San Francisco hills. That proud little dachshund could barely strut three feet down Union Street without being stopped and petted and questioned and tickled. My new-mommy friends were not impressed as their bonny, bouncy six-month olds – cute as they were – were blatantly ignored. Want attention? Get a dachshund!

We had fun times, Pretzie and I. He was friendly, and social, high-energy and obedient. He barked a lot when the doorbell rang, and he would pee if he got too excited (doesn’t everybody?) but he quickly became part of the Gilberts, like all pets integrate into their families. On his first Rosh Hashana with us, I hosted a large buffet-style dinner. “Can I give him my leftovers?” asked my sister, one of Pretzel’s biggest fans. “Absolutely not!” I replied. I would make him his own plate of brisket and kugel! By the end of the evening that little belly of his, already mere inches from the ground, was dragging.

My proud Pretzel does not have my undivided attention anymore. During the last twelve years he’s slipped lower and lower on my list of Beating Hearts That Need my Love and Patience. His loud, incessant barking whenever the doorbell rang caused immediate spasms in my jaw as I shushed him because a baby was sleeping. He would steal the kids’ food. He’s been skunked twice – admittedly that’s more my fault than his, but man, what a pain (tomato juice does not help)! His nails need clipping, his teeth need cleaning, he has a weak-ish heart. He is no longer my first. He’s my very, very last.

Of course I still love him. And care for him. He still sleeps in my bed – although he can’t jump up anymore, I have to lift him. I pick him up under his arms just like he’s one of my kids. And I carry him down the stairs – those long spines don’t manage the descent so well over time. He doesn’t bark when the doorbell rings because he can’t hear it – not that it would matter, nobody is taking a nap no more! And he has more people than ever to love him – most notably the youngest. I often find the two of them twisted around each other on the couch, one stroking the other’s ears.

Pretzel cannot see the food that drops on the floor right near his long nose, and he can’t jump up onto my bed – but this morning I came home to discover that nose had found its way high up onto the dining room table and into the gift bags full of hamantashen (cookies I’d baked for the Jewish holiday of Purim). He had helped himself to a few. Now that is chutzpah!

He is 14/98 years old today – and it is clear he is not going anywhere, this doggedly determined dachshund. Till 120 they say in Hebrew, when someone has a birthday. Pretzel, may you live till at least 120: a full, fun life, surrounded by so many who love you.

I was always the youngest. Not at home, at home I was the oldest. But everywhere else I was usually the youngest. The youngest in my grade. The youngest in my ballet or drama class. Because I have the southern hemisphere equivalent of a fall birthday – mid-May.

And half a world and many decades away, where the seasons are turned upside down, and where my birthday is now in the spring, I am still the youngest.

My 40^th birthday is two months away. Thanks to a severe drought and global warming, spring has already sprung in Northern California. So it’ll be early summer by then. The fragrant jasmine will have wilted on their stems, leaving little more than the faintest heady whiff in the breeze.

For a while I was “never turning 40.” As friend after friend – some with two to four kids of their own, and companies to run, with aging parents and mortgages and expiring car leases – made it ‘over the hill’, turned 41 or 43 or 47, I was still in my thirties. In the same pick-up line as they were, rushing kids to ERs just like they were, signing tax returns and home loans and sometimes feeling older than even my older friends whose kids were a few years younger than mine, or who didn’t want to get married just yet.

Almost 40. With responsibilities and people, both big and little, and deadlines and obligations and appointments and a full life of color behind me, and a big blue something ahead… but I’m not excited. I’m scared. Confused. So unsure. So not confident. I wish I was 24. When I knew myself better.

Of course, hindsight is always crisply clear – the view of myself as the self-confident, sure-of-herself young woman starting her life on the foggy hills of San Francisco as Mrs Gilbert is vivid and bright, while the vision of ageing, graying me finally moving to Israel once all my kids are grown is hazy and almost impossible to see. Not just because it’s the future, and who knows what the future holds, but because… is that what I really want to do? Do I want to leave all my kids behind and move to another country without them? Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. If I stop being a stay-at-home mom now, will I regret it in ten years when they’ve all left (actually it’s 13 years, but who’s counting)? Do I want to write, or act, or teach, or own a boutique or work in a bookstore or WHAT?

I am 60-something days away from the fabulous-not-so-fabulous four oh. Confused. Confuzzled (my mother’s word). Just mixed up.

On a rare rainy day in Sonoma last week, after I declared to my best girlfriends that I knew myself better when I was in my twenties than I do now, I realized that’s not quite true. Or rather, they helped me realize it’s not true. That what I was in my seemingly cool, calm and collected twenties was blissfully oblivious… to me. And I started thinking about the things I do know:

I know that I don’t know. I know that I am confuzzled. I may be less self-assured, less self-confident than ever before – but I have heaps of self-awareness. And then some. Enough to drive me even crazier than I am now, before I make it to 50. Or even 45. Gulp.

I know that it’s more than okay to say “no”. Not to alcohol. Or to cupcakes. But to commitments. To volunteering. To having someone else’s kid over. To attending an event. To anything that is something I do not want to do. Or that will take me away from doing something I really do want to do. People understand. In fact, I think they wish they had said no too.

That sometimes my “greatest accomplishment of the day is making my bed.” This is something my close friend L always says – she is five years calmer, wiser and older than me. She reminds me that I don’t have to do it all – actually, I don’t have to do any. That the all or the nothing is overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be that way. And damn, she’s right about the bed: it does feel all kinds of good to yank those sheets straight, and tuck the loose ends under.

I know that I love meat. And marrow bones.

To cry is to feel. And that is wonderful. I used to keep my tears in, because I didn’t want to face the emotional hot mess they left in their wake. But I’ve discovered how awesome tears are – the relief and release to not have to keep it all together. To feel whenever I want. Even wherever I want. Like in my workout class. Or in the car. Sadness and joy and love and fear and songs and memories.

I don’t get hangovers. Obviously I’m not drinking enough. Goal for my forties: wake up with a hangover.

There’s never an excuse for bad manners. Say hello. Say goodbye. Say please and thank you. Always. Whether you’re four, or 14 or 57. Do not get out my car and slam the door without saying, “Thanks for the ride.” Wish the barmitzvah boy and his parents mazal tov, and if you want something from me, please say please! Manners make people nice people, manners maketh the mensch.

Accept apologies – they are heartfelt, even if they don’t sound like they are.

Skinny jeans can ruin my day as I lie on the floor or wriggle my hips trying to zip them up – they did fit last week. But my sister, and sometimes my brother, saves the day (and this is true for much in my life):

Finally, no matter what artistic brilliance, technologically advanced special effects, incredible animation, outstanding acting, writing or directing we have enjoyed over the last three decades the very best movies are, and always will be, Eighties Movies: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Moonstruck, Indiana Jones, Say Anything. Don’t you order what she’s having? Do you ever put Baby in a corner? Who doesn’t love to cut loose with Kevin and Kenny? Best. Movies. Ever.

I am the last of my friends to turn 40. I’m the youngest. And I feel more confused now than at any other time in my life. Blissfully oblivious, like I was in my twenties, sounds kinda appealing, I admit. But oblivious is really just oblivious – I’m not sure it’s blissful at all.

I’ll take marrow bones, Maverick and no hangover for now.