Happy Birthday
Jack and I are getting older.
I have been going back to Fremont to walk My Dog Jack a few times a week. Jack and I used to live together in a big brown house. He was a cute little boxer/mix puppy when he came home to live with me. I raised him, trained him, and we went on great adventure walks everyday. That was seven years ago. I haven't lived with Jack for three years now, but it seems longer. I have no idea what he thinks about why I left, but I know he loves it when I come back. I do too.
It's a funny thing when you realize the passing of time in others, even in dogs.
I always said that my birthdays don't make me feel old, but watching kids grown up and have their own babies can make you feel old quickly. "So-and-so's kid just had a baby?" Boom. You are instantly much older than you were 5 minutes ago.
This year I had a strange thing happen to me on my birthday; I gained an extra year. Seems I had gotten it into my head that I was going to be 54, but when I started getting Happy Birthday wishes I was reminded that I was now 55. So I had to force-feed the idea of gaining two years in one day into my thought grinder, and that gave it a dull aching feeling. Dull aching feelings usually come the day after a birthday because on your birthday everyone celebrates you and that feels good, but the day after your birthday it becomes "You are a year older. Now what?" You know how on your birthday people will ask "So, do you feel older today?" Well, I had never had a birthday where I woke up feeling older until this birthday gave me exactly that. It wasn't the best way to start a birthday.
Pants On The Ground
Over the years I have watched my hair line go north, my waistline go east, and everything else go south, but I know there is one special event that is out there waiting for me, and when that event happens it will mark the day when I truly become a senior citizen or, in other words, just plain old. I think I know how it will all transpire:
One evening I will rise up from my man-chair in the living room with my half-glasses on the tip of my nose, and as I brush the crumbs from my belly and shuffle into the kitchen to get another adult beverage I really don't need, thats when the life changing event will happen:
Without warning, provocation, or premeditation, my pants will fall down.
I can only hope this significant event occurs as I have described - in the privacy of my own home - and not, say, at my grand-babies wedding when they laugh and giggle and say things like "Oh no, Grandpa's pants fell down again! Gross!"
(Yes, I said "again" because apparently once this pants-falling-down thing starts there is no way to keep it from happening all the time.)
I had a Great-Uncle who used to flop his false teeth around in his mouth and make goofy smiles at us when he was drunk. As a young boy I thought it was wonderfully funny. His wife yelled at him to stop and acted mad but I don't think she meant it. I am not sure I'll ever get to that point, but you never know. I had a tooth pulled last year and that made me think "Is this is the start of it all? How long before I get drunk and do the floppy teeth trick before someone yells at me to go to bed?"
I think I was overreacting.
Young Old-Men
The other day I looked down at the top of my hands and thought, "My hands look like the wrinkled and spotted hands of an old Chinese gentleman. How did this happen? When did this happen?"
A friend told me on my 40th birthday "we are now young old-men" and I though that was pretty darn clever. Now at 55 I think I would rather consider us 'old young-men' but I am not sure why, and it might just all be silly ways of not admitting we are older than we used to be.
Jack has arthritis now. He's young for that, but these things can happen early in big dogs, so now it's my job to teach him to slow down and not chase the geese off the baseball field. I am the perfect man for the job. I've tried to explain all this to him, about being retired from geese chasing, about acting like a dignified Chinese gentleman while shuffling nobly through the park, to try and look at the geese and think "you used to bother me, but I am older now and I've grown past that."
Its not easy.
When Jack was young our walks were long and fast paced. Now we take slow walks up to the neighborhood park and saunter about like two old Chinese gentlemen with our wrinkled and spotted hands and achey legs, shuffling our feet, sniffing the air, watching the clouds, observing.
there is...
no reason...
to hurry...
on our walks...
anymore.
A New Set of Things
Like Jack and his geese chasing, I have a whole new set of things that I need to get past:
People either go very fast or very slow on the freeways now. There is no in-between. As a result of this, you are either tailgating someone or someone is tailgating you. Its a little more than disturbing to look up and see someone trying to park their car in your back seat while your driving.
Lately the only parking space open at the grocery store is the one where someone has left their shopping cart. I'm not sure who is lazier, the person who left it there or all the people who saw it and cursed at it but didn't get out and move it and drove around looking for another space. That you couldn't take 2 minutes to return the cart you used makes you a lazy asshole. Of this I am fairly certain. Creative cart placement on parking lot tree-islands is something I took pride in when I was making the transition from being an young asshole to a young-old man. Now as an old young-man, I strut with some strange sort of prideful cart-pushing-walk to make sure everyone sees me taking the time to return my cart and not be an asshole. I am probably still an asshole for many other reasons, but the reasons are changing just like the list of things I need to get past. Leaving my cart in the parking lot will no longer be one of the reasons.
I need to get to where I can say of these things, "That used to bother me, but I am older now and I've grown past that." Perhaps Jack can help with that, or maybe the old Chinese gentlemen in the park would have some sage eastern advice to offer me on all this like "its the journey and the sites, not the destination that's important. So chill the hell out and quit chasing geese and yelling at people who tail gate and leave their carts in the parking lot".
Good advice.
Shuffling Your Feet Is Not For Everyone
Chasing geese off of the baseball field when you have arthritis is not a good advice.
I don't know what makes the Chinese gentlemen shuffle their feet while moving slowly in the park, but I don't think it was a life of chasing geese off the baseball field, but you never know. Jack can barely move at night after a walk and geese chasing, but he loves it so much I can't stop him from doing it. Most days we stay on leash and parade proudly like two Chinese gentlemen with wrinkled and spotted hands and achy legs observing the sites, but somedays, well, you just gotta say "fuck it" and try one more time to get those geese.
Jack did catch a squirrel once, but that was back in the days when he was a young old-man. I was stunned, and for a brief moment elated for him that he'd finally caught up with one of those damn squirrels, but then I instantly felt like an accomplice to murder. He snapped the neck on that little guy with such force and precision I'm sure it was instant lights-out. Then Jack wanted to finish our walk with his little trophy-squirrel hanging in his mouth. Took all I could do to get him to leave that squirrel on the trail, which I am sure made no sense to Jack, and by the time we came back that little squirrel was gone, well on his way to wherever squirrels go when the shuffle their feet to slowly.
I wonder if squirrels get arthritis?
No, probably not, and come to think of it, I have only seen one squirrel shuffle his feet in the park like an old Chinese gentleman with wrinkled and spotted hands. And that, as they say, was that.
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