Two Men on the Street (43)

It takes her two minutes to reorient herself. Without hesitation, she steers the car downhill as if she has already figured out the town’s layout. The streets we pass are narrow; some are paved with cobblestones and others are covered with cracked blacktops that make them look run down but still quaint. The town’s general feel is decidedly not modern despite the few unattractive apartment buildings that look completely out of place and in need of a paint job. 

“Where do you think the hotel is?” Vera asks Rita, more out of habit than curiosity.

“Somewhere around here,” Rita shrugs. 

Where else can it be if not around here, somewhere?

“You can look on your phone,” Vera suggests even though Rita doesn’t seem worried. This woman took us from Lisbon to Porto and all the way here and made only one U-turn when she entered a dead-end street in Peniche when we were looking for a bathroom. I don’t know how she does it. If it were me, we would still be looking for the airport exit. But for her, the hotel is just another place she has to find. Her ability to find her way without losing her cool is admirable.

She ignores Vera’s advice and slows down. Two middle-aged men are standing on the sidewalk, one wearing a black yarmulke and the other smoking a cigarette. Rita rolls down the window and stops the car next to them.  

“Excuse me,” she calls out the window in English, punctuated by a heavy Hebrew accent. “You know where Hotel Sinai?” She pronounces the hotel’s name See-Nai, the way Hebrew speakers do, and omits miscellaneous grammar words like ‘is’ and 'do' because Hebrew does not behave like English. 

The men stop talking and the guy with the yarmulka approaches our car. “Shalom, at medaberet ivrit?” he asks in Hebrew. He recognizes immediately that she is Israeli. Her strong accent is a clear giveaway.

“Of course I speak Hebrew,” she responds in Hebrew. 

The man reminds me of the Israeli types I used to see working in electronics stores in New York City in the early 80s. His belly hangs over his pants, and his light blue shirt looks frumpy. I am sure he’s not a local who learned Hebrew in Sunday school—if that even exists in Portugal. He’s probably here buying real estate and selling it to the Israelis who have been flocking to Portugal in the last decade. It’s not his fault I have a bad impression of him, but I have a knee-jerk reaction to men who sound Israeli and wear black yarmulkes. I might feel differently if he wore a colorful yarmulke and an oversized cotton shirt with intricate embroidery. But, Rita is unperturbed by black yarmulkes. She is happy to meet someone who speaks Hebrew and who might know the area. 

“Are you from Israel?” the man asks in Hebrew. He’s so excited that he forgets she asked for directions.

“Yes,” Rita says. In other circumstances, she would fall into a chirpy conversation, telling him she lives in America and what she does there. But right now, bonding with him is not a priority. She’s been driving all day and wants to get things done. Besides, Vera is next to her, ready to remind her to find a place to spend the night. “We are looking for Hotel See-Nai” she repeats. “Do you know where it is?”

“Yes. Continue down this street,” he gestures in the direction we came from. “You will pass a park, then turn left. The hotel is right there, on the right side of the street.” 

I don’t mind asking people for directions when I am lost, but as soon as they say, “Go straight and then turn left or right at the stop sign and then…,” I go blank. My brain can remember only one detail. After that, I have to ask someone else about the next turn. I’m hopeless when it comes to retaining this type of information. But if the information does not include “turn right then left,” there is a small chance I will remember it. 

The best directions I’ve ever gotten were from my brother, who has interesting ideas about giving directions. I was driving with a friend to meet him in northern Italy and asked him for the address of his hotel. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t know the hotel’s name or even the street it was on, so the directions he gave me sounded like this: “When you approach the city, look for a large IKEA billboard and take the exit immediately after you see it. Then, get on the street and make sure the sun is at your back.” As outrageous as it sounded, we found him leaning on a street pole waiting for us in front of the nameless hotel. All I had to remember was IKEA and the sun in my back. That was easy.

But Rita has to remember a few more details.

“Is this your first time in Belmonte?” the man asks Rita, trying to prolong the conversation. I can't tell if he’s doing it because he is friendly, polite, nosy, or excited to meet another Israeli. I only hope he doesn’t try to sell us anything.

“Yes, someone recommended it to us,” Rita says.

“All the Israelis who come to Belmonte stay at Hotel See-Nai,” he says. 

“Many Israelis come here?” Rita asks. 

“Yes. Belmonte is very popular. Lots to see,” he promises.

“Yofi, toda. Shabbat Shalom,” Rita concludes as if she were talking to him on the street in Israel.

“Shabbat Shalom to you, too,” the man returns the greeting. His companion who has a large gold Star of David pendant on a chain around his neck offers us a Shabbat Shalom as if exchanging Shabbat greetings in some random Portuguese town is the most natural thing in the world.

And off we go down the street to look for a park and then turn right or left—I already forgot.

A Phone Call from Belmonte (42)

“Where are we staying tonight?” Vera brings me back from my reverie when the road starts climbing toward a small town that does not look too promising from a distance.

“Belmonte,” Rita says.

It’s about time she decided where we’re staying. Too bad she waited until the last minute to announce it.

“Maybe you can call your friend and ask if we can stay at his Airbnb,” Rita says as if she can read my mind and looks at me in the rear-view mirror. 

Her last-minute decision makes little sense for someone who claims to be a tourist guide. Why wait until the last minute when you know we will end the day here? Especially on a Friday?

I was really hoping to catch up with Umberto. I was dying to ask him about his meeting with Lula, the former Brazilian president, back when Lula was still in prison. He did it as a private citizen, but I heard from our mutual friends that many people were mad at him because they thought he was posing as someone who represented the Jewish community, which I’m sure he wasn’t. But now, it’s too late. If he’s in Israel, he is having a Shabbat dinner with his family and might not answer the phone, and if he is in Belmonte, he's preparing for Shabbat dinner and might be too busy to talk. 

“I can try,” I say. I don’t say I doubt he will answer. 

The car passes a gas station and some modern-looking apartment buildings, which are not typical of the small towns we have passed today. It pushes toward the top of a rocky hill until it stops beside a medieval fortress overlooking the town’s red roofs and surrounding valleys. A Portuguese flag is fluttering on top of the fortress. In the distance, I see snow patches on the mountain ridges. It’s going to be cold tonight.

Rita parks the car near the entrance to the fortress, facing a low stone wall. Only one other vehicle is parked by the wall. The fortress does not look like a tourist hot spot; it is just another remnant from bygone days that attracts the few curiosity seekers who stop here on the way to more famous places. There is a big plaque by the entrance to the fortress, probably explaining its history and listing the different spots that a tourist who is not me should visit once inside. The problem is that I couldn't care less when it was built, burned, and rebuilt, and by whom or when it was abandoned. My main concern is what to say to Umberto in case he answers the phone.

“Anyone want to go inside?” Rita asks the obligatory question, forgetting that only a minute ago, she wanted me to call Umberto. I don’t understand why she asks if we want to go in. There is no way she’s interested in seeing the insides of this thing or paying to do it. She also knows that neither Vera nor I would say yes. We’ve seen enough for one day, and this shell of a fortress looks like nothing worth getting out of the car. 

“We should find a place to stay first,” Vera reminds her of the obvious, as she always does.

“Can you call your friend now?” Rita turns to me.

“I need to use your phone,” I say.

She knows I can’t make international calls on my phone, but she loves hearing me say it. It shows who’s in charge. I feel stupid for putting myself in this situation and not buying a plan that would have let me make phone calls without wi-fi. I should have been more responsible.

“What’s his number?” she asks, reaching for her phone. 

She taps in the numbers I read to her on her phone, repeating them out loud. There is a ring, and I hear a man’s voice. She hands me the phone. I say my name and ask to speak to Umberto. He does not sound surprised when he confirms it is him. I am not sure why he is not surprised. Perhaps because I occasionally comment on his Facebook posts and send him personal messages, he doesn’t feel like I showed up out of nowhere. Or maybe he is used to receiving phone calls at unusual hours from random people. 

“Ma koreh?” he asks, as if I am one of his buddies. Which I am in a way, but not completely. I’m more an acquaintance than a friend by now.

The last time I spoke to him in person was in the mid-eighties, when I bumped into him in Tel Aviv before he got married, had children, and became a super-progressive rabbi, but nothing in his voice gives the impression that so much time has passed since. 

“I’m in Belmonte with a couple of friends,” I start.

“For how long?”

“One night. We just got here. I thought maybe we could stay at one of your places.” I get to the point quickly. I would have loved to ask him about his last trip to Brazil and our mutual friends, but Rita and Vera are listening and waiting. I have to make this conversation a lot shorter than I would like.

“Sure, I have several places. Go to Sinai Hotel and ask for the key at the front desk. My partner should be there now. Tell him you talked to me.” 

“Will do, thanks. How are you?” I don’t want the conversation to be solely about business. 

“Great. I’m in my car, driving home. My son had a baby a few hours ago,” he says. He sounds happy.

“Mazal tov. How are the baby and the mother?” I can hardly believe he answered the phone on such a momentous night and is so friendly, sharing this amazing news as if we’ve been in touch all these years. 

“Everyone’s great. Now I have three grandkids,” he laughs. “Listen, I’m getting into an area where there’s no reception, so I’m going to lose connection in a minute, but go to the hotel and talk to whoever is at the front desk. They’ll take care of you. Call me if you have any problems.”

“Thank you so much. I was hoping we could meet while I’m here,” I admit, keeping my tone light despite my disappointment. “It’s been so long since I've seen you.”

He pauses. He probably didn’t expect to hear me say that. “Yeah, that would be nice. You won’t recognize me, I’m all gray now,” he laughs.

I know I have to wrap up the conversation because Rita is getting restless, but I am not going to cut him off. “Yeah, I saw the pictures you posted from Belmonte. You don’t look much different than you did during our days in Rio when we lived on Rua Gago Coutinho.”

“Wow, you remember the name of the street, I can’t believe it,” he sounds impressed. “You missed me by a few months. I was in Belmonte over the summer. Call me when you’re back in Israel. We can try to meet.”

“Too bad I missed you. I’d love to meet your grandkids,” I say, meaning every word. I have never met his family, having left Israel before he got married.  “I’ll text you in any case, even if…” The call drops before I finish, saying, “Even if we don’t have any problem getting the key.”

And that is it. The most pathetic anticlimactic conclusion of my hope of meeting Umberto in Belmonte and catching up. Just like everything else on this trip, things don’t work out the way I imagine. Hopefully, I will meet him before another 35 years pass.

I hand the phone back to Rita, who entertains herself by looking at the mirror and rearranging her hair. 

Dog Love 12

You may already know that many things dogs do annoy me. But nothing annoys me more than barking. Now, I live on a dog-free street, only a short walk from a pier where the only barks I hear come from harbor seals. So how can I describe this incredible annoyance?

I go visit a friend who has not one, but two young rat terriers. 

Had I known what a rat terrier was, I would not have made the three-hour drive to spend a weekend with her. Regardless of how much I like her, there is a limit to how much I can tolerate noisy dogs.

Now, rat terriers are the small kind of annoying dogs. Larger than a chihuahua and smaller than a Jack Russell, according to online searches. They are supposed to be loving, affectionate, friendly, good with small children, and loyal. But what about noise? This is the part that is mentioned only in the small print buried at the very bottom of the page.

The moment I entered my friend’s townhouse, the barking started: high pitched, breathless, loud, ear-piercing squeals that went on and on and on. 

Those two balls of energy loved to bark at stuff. I couldn't hear or see what it was, but every now and then they would break into hysterics for no apparent reason, and then stop, again with no apparent reason. At one point I decided to leave the house and go for a walk to sustain my sanity, but to no avail. I could hear those high-pitched barks from far away. The neighborhood was quiet, no cars driving around, no loud music blasting through windows, only barking and crickets. 

When I returned from my temporary exile, they again broke out into a symphony of screaming barks so loud that I had to cover my ears. While they were standing in front of me barking furiously, my friend explained that they were barking because they didn’t know me yet. But shortly afterward, when her neighbor came by bearing homemade vegan cookies, they started barking again, this time because they knew her.

The barking hysterics sounded to me more like, “Hey, let’s play,” and not “Watch out, I'm a dog and I can tear you to pieces.” But that didn’t make them less annoying. Those two did not sleep most of the night. At two in the morning, one of them snuck into my room, wagging its tail, expecting me to engage with him. Only because he belonged to my friend did I not tell him, “I’m a person and I can hurt you badly.” Instead, I showed him to the door and closed it as fast as I could.

The next morning, I asked my friend in the most non-passive-aggressive voice I could muster, “Why do they bark so much?”

“They don't bark,” was her answer, obviously forgetting the last 17 hours.

“What kind of selective hearing do you possess that I don’t?” I wanted to ask her. “How is it possible that the barking is not driving you crazy? Is it because the dogs are yours?”

I used to think that when babies cry it was mostly okay for their parents, and only for them, but this idea was quickly refuted when I had my own baby. Especially when I was on a twelve-hour flight and my baby kept the entire cabin awake with her crying. It was not okay, not for me, not for the people who sat around me and my baby and wished us all kinds of horrendous endings.

So I want to know what it is with dog owners who don’t hear their dogs barking? 

I have another friend whose dog barks every time a squirrel passes outside the house or a bird lands on the roof. When the mail delivery person drops the mail through the door slot, all hell breaks loose. So you can imagine how much barking goes on during the day. 

Her neighbors left a note on her door, she complained to me once, asking her to control the barking. She didn’t understand what they were talking about. Her dog hardly ever barks, she said. This woman, who claims she can hear Wi-Fi signals going through her house, cannot hear her dog’s incessant barking. She thinks her neighbors were making it up. 

“No, they’re not,” I dared to contradict her. “Your dog barks a lot.”

That was probably the meanest thing I ever said to her. 

It’s true that her dog doesn’t bark at me when I enter her house like those idiot rat terriers who barked their heads off when I came in. But her wolf dog mix barks at everything else. Every time I am on the phone with her, I can hear that dog barking in the background. Every single time! Sometimes during the call I ask her why her dog barks. She always has an explanation. But then, she forgets that I ever asked about it.

I recently found out that there is a plethora of bark control devices available online. So I am definitely not the only human who finds barking annoying. 

Dog Love 11

It looks like I missed the memo about dogs at parties. Apparently, dogs are welcome to participate in grownups’ backyard parties even if they are not mentioned in the invitations, because . . . Well, because you’re going to a party, so you’re gonna meet a bunch of dogs. Period! And you no-dog people? Tough luck. Just get on with it because dogs are people too. 

The reason for this missive is a birthday party I attended recently. Now, the birthday girl has a fluffy, white dog that I have seen several times over the years. I even went for a walk with her and the dog once or twice when she was recovering from knee surgery. So I knew there might be a dog at the party. My friend adores her dog. She posts closeups of him next to her face on Facebook praising his good nature and company. The dog was young when I first met him, but now, he is old. I don’t know how old he is, but she mentioned that he was deaf and a little bit blind, so he’s definitely old. 

I helped my friend bring some foodstuff outside. The party was going to take place in her fenced-in yard around a large metal table situated under a beach umbrella. Her dog, I’ll call him Bronco, was nowhere to be seen. He moves slowly, she said, and went inside to check on something she left on the stove.

Shortly afterward, a woman I didn’t know arrived. At first, I didn’t notice that she had a dog with her, maybe because it was small, or maybe because I was in the kitchen helping my friend. When I came back outside, I saw a little brown dachshund-looking dog running circles around the table, wagging its tail excitedly. This was when I noticed that Bronco, my friend’s aging dog, was sitting under that same table chewing something. I have to admit that the dachshund type who was trying to befriend Bronco and perhaps get him to join in the fun of running around, was super cute. Maybe that was why I didn’t give a second thought to the fact that there was another dog at the party who appeared to feel completely at home, even though this back yard was definitely not his turf.

I didn’t say anything to the woman except a friendly hi, and I certainly did not ask about her dog. I am not one to gush over cute little dogs. I don’t ask to pet them. I don’t ask their names. In short, I don’t make conversation about dogs. Just like I don’t make conversation about babies whose parents I don’t know.

The dog person seemed like a nice woman. I found out she had just graduated from nursing school and was a new acquaintance of my friend’s. Her dog looked to me like a high maintenance type and for a split second a thought flashed through my head: When did she have time to care for him? Nursing school is so time consuming and demanding. But I let it go.

I had barely finished wondering about the nurse and her dog when another woman entered the yard with two little dogs on one leash. Unlike the cute dachshund type, her dogs looked a bit out of place—nervous, hyper, and suspicious of their surroundings. My friend, the busy birthday girl, who was standing by the outdoor grill with a bucket of marinated shrimp, greeted the woman, hugged her, and showed her to the cooler. “I didn’t buy a lot of alcohol this time,” she apologized. “I can’t afford it anymore. But there’s beer and white wine if you want.”

The woman, whose name I didn’t catch, probably because she was not formally introduced to me, never made it to the cooler. One of her little unidentified breeds was triggered by something and started barking hysterically. The woman tried to calm him down, but he wouldn’t stop. 

This is annoying, I thought without a shred of sympathy for the woman, who planted herself and the dogs on an upholstered bench, away from the table where most of the action and the food were located.

I took a seat under the beach umbrella and focused on the soft drink my friend had handed me before the commotion began. Two women I didn’t know joined me at the table. They came to the party with more traditional offerings. One of them placed a festive gift bag at the center of the table, the other was holding a bouquet of fresh cut flowers. It was comforting to see that they didn’t bring more dogs, but I felt a tinge of discomfort because I did not bring a gift or flowers. But at least I didn’t bring a dog. Only food to share.

My friend, who was now in full host mode, brought out a vase for the flowers and returned to the grill to check on the shrimp. At that moment another woman entered the yard, with a tall brown purebred poodle. That woman was somebody I actually knew, but I didn’t know she had a poodle.   

Very quickly the poodle became the center of attention. Bronco barely got a nod from the participants. The little dachshund type disappeared, maybe onto the lap of someone sitting across from me. The badly behaved barking bundle of nerves was having a time out on the bench away from us with his woman person. But the poodle, he was the star.  

Everybody wanted to know something about him or touch him. Except for me, of course. I felt worse than pathetic. Here I was braving the world, meeting some people I don’t know, ready to socialize, and the bulk of the conversation featured oohs and aahs, giggles, and clicking sounds instead of words and sentences. In previous parties in my friend’s back yard I used to meet some mutual friends and have the opportunity to catch up, talk about stuff we were interested in, share some thoughts and harmless gossip. But this birthday party was a dog-sharing convention, not a people’s party. The women did not intend to be burdened by having to carry a conversation. The dogs gave them enough material to talk about.

People who find out that I am single tell me I need to get a dog. A dog, they say, can fill up my days (as if I have nothing else to do). Get a dog, it will make you so happy, they say, assuming I’m unhappy. They take it for granted that I need a dog because I live by myself. Instead of telling them I don’t need their advice, I say, “Maybe, someday,” even though I don’t mean it at all. But these women, they succumbed to the pressure and couldn’t attend a birthday party without dragging along their emotional crutches. I was almost sad watching it and not knowing how to relate.

Luckily, I had to leave early so I never found out if any more dogs came to the party. But I wanted to know if that was the new normal. I called my daughter and asked her if bringing dogs to backyard parties was something people actually do. 

“Yup,” she said, and proceeded to tell me that she has a friend who regularly takes her dog to parties. The dog is so old, she said, her friend is worried he is going to die soon and wants to spend every minute with him, so she takes him everywhere. Everywhere? I am sure she doesn’t take him to the hospital lab where she works. 

I didn’t want to question my daughter and make her think I am a mean angry woman who doesn’t get on with the times, so I said nothing. But I did go online to check what people say about bringing dogs to parties.

And I found out that yes, it is completely acceptable to impose your dog on everyone. Just don’t forget the doggy treats, the doggy bed, the water bowl, a towel, and some doggy toys to keep them busy and well-behaved. 

I guess next time I find myself invited to a backyard party I will have to ask about the dogs. Or not. 

Mad as Hell

I am mad. I am fucking mad. Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad. I am 65 years old, I have maybe 6 more good years before I’m too beat up by life to do anything. All I have to look forward to is arthritis, a weak bladder, less hair, failing eyesight. I have a friend who tells me that we are 10 years away from diapers. I am fucking mad. I have barely done anything and it’s almost over. For the last 10 years I’ve been watching my friends bury their parents, dealing with dementia, strokes, diabetes, dialysis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and all I can think of is that this is me in a few years. This is fucking scary. I have made it to 65 and found nothing. Nothing. Except that at 20 I was pretty naïve about this thing we call life. More accurately, pretty and naïve. Now, at 65, I have to learn how to live without hope because my present is the future because there is no future at 65. There’s only diapers and disease. And Medicare if I’m lucky and Congress, controlled by a bunch of lunatics, doesn’t cut it. Unless I am Rupert Murdoch, of course. The man who defies nature. I just heard he is planning to remarry at 92 and spend the second part of his life, as he puts it, with a religious QAnon freak he fell for. He launched Faux News when he was my age for crying out loud. * 

I can’t even hope to get a great job, let alone start a business that makes billions by promoting lies, rage, and victimhood. I can’t hope to find a beautiful, new love because all I have to offer is federal health insurance, a modest pension, and saggy boobs. No yachts, mansions, private jets, and millions to throw on jewelry and lunches with famous people. I can’t even hope to go to parties with friends because most of them have moved away, found someone more interesting than me to hang out with, or simply become too annoying to keep in touch with. Some have even died already. And trying to make new friends at 65 is fucking pathetic. I have to walk an incredibly fine line not to appear too needy, too enthusiastic, too . . . friendly!

I write gratitude lists for whatever good I see around me. For surviving this ephemeral planetary tour without losing a limb or my mind. Fucking lucky me. My washing machine still works after 20 years. My toilet is not clogged. And my car starts in the morning. Yeahheee. 

I bought a house when I was 62. I will be paying my mortgage from beyond the grave. Thirty-year fixed. Genius me. Retirement experts say that people should finish paying off their mortgage by their 50s. Baby boomers like me. I don’t know people in their 50s who have paid off their mortgage. The 50-year-olds that I know live in rentals and share spaces with friends so they can have a roof over their heads. Show me someone who doesn’t have a law degree or wasn’t born to the right parents who has paid off their mortgage by 50!

And what about work? At 65 I am pretty much being forced to retire whether I am ready to or not. Biden can announce a second run for the presidency at fucking 80, but I have to retire because I am taking up a spot that can go to a younger person with one-tenth the experience for half the pay. And how old is that turtle man who wanted to be Senate majority leader and ended up falling on his head instead? Will he retire, just because he fell on his head at the tender age of 81?

After completing 20 years working for the federal government, I have learned to endure daily humiliations and tolerate idiot supervisors from countries most Americans can’t find on the map. These male supervisors have never heard about the various advances women have made around here since the 1960s. One of them told a colleague that she was too emotional when she asked for time off to attend the funeral of a relative. He addressed me as Mrs. without asking. Under what rock has he been hiding? I have to swallow what little pride I have accumulated during these years for becoming an expert in something, because expertise at 65 is not appreciated or required. I have to shut my mouth and thank my luck that my ass is allowed to remain in the chair it has been sitting in for the past few years. No matter how many degrees I have, how much knowledge I have, how many years of active participation I still have in me, it’s over at 65. 

And what about family and love? At my age it happens only in the movies. There is no more hope. I have lived in the single woman ghetto for 20 years, already marked as too independent, too opinionated, too whatever. No one gets out of the ghetto after 20 years. At this stage of life, the only way to get out is in the back of an ambulance. People my age retire and prepare to die or go to Arizona or Florida to spend their last years doing whatever old people do before they die. But I don’t know how to do these things. I don’t hang out with golf-cart-riding old people. I don’t have grandchildren to look after. I don’t belong to a book club—yet—and I don’t plan to volunteer at a hospital delivering food to sick people. It’s depressing. 

This whole life journey was a fucking waste of time. It takes forever to learn how to live—what’s important, what isn’t—and then it’s over for eternity. And in this country, if you are not considered a success story, whatever that means, you are nothing. You have no happy endings, no shortcuts to brag about, no divine providence to thank; only struggle and more struggle and worries and survival. I am so fucking sick of it. 

Those who are pushing me into oblivion don’t realize that they too are going to get there sooner than they imagine, they just don’t want to think about it. It’s an awful thought we all push to the back of our heads hoping it will never bother us, but it does. My time is running out and what am I supposed to do? Move to Mexico? To Costa Rica?  

I have already started over so many times. I have changed continents, countries, cities, jobs, life partners, hobbies, apartments, even the languages that I speak. So many new beginnings that dissolve into nothingness. These days I am volunteering for my small city’s planning commission as some kind of a community activist, which I am not. I only do it because I want to convince the city council to build a green cemetery so I can be buried in a shroud under a tree without polluting the environment. This is the only thing I see in my future.

* Murdock ended up calling off the engagement, but it doesn’t make me feel better at all. 

Dog Love 10

They say that dogs are man’s best friend, but I am not so sure. First, dogs are bred to like humans and be dependent on them. It is not really their choice. The friendship part has been programmed into dogs’ DNA over centuries of careful genetic engineering. Second, I think dogs are smart enough to notice that it is worth putting up with humans because they get quite a lot out of the “friendship.” I mean, if there were someone in this universe who would feed me daily, take me on walks, talk to me without expecting a real answer, clean up after me, take me to the doctor when I am not feeling well, ensure that I get a haircut and a manicure once in a while, leave me to my own devices most of the day, buy me toys and clothes to keep me warm, and let me sleep in his bed without expecting sex, I would be his best friend too. I’d even bark and wag my tail occasionally to express my gratitude. 

But, even when people do not provide everything to their dogs, the dogs remain their best friends. So the question is, why? Is it for the attention? The prestige? The knowledge that they have a place to stay? I doubt it. Dogs stay with their human (friends? owners? parents?) even when they are abused and neglected or tied up with a chain all day, no matter what kind of pain their humans inflict on them. So dogs are not really man’s best friend, they are more like man’s non-biological children. People even say that their dogs are as important to them as any other family member. 

Which brings me to my next question: if dogs are man’s non-biological children (after all they never really grow up, but only grow old), how can we explain certain behaviors that dog lovers engage in when they care for their dogs/non-biological children?

Case in point, dogs in cars.

Nothing is more unnerving for me than seeing a dog sticking his large head out of the passenger-side window when a car passes me on the freeway. Who in their right mind lets a dog do that?

My dog lover friend tells me that dogs love riding in cars, and more than anything they love sticking their heads out the window and feeling the wind on their faces. She takes her dog everywhere in her car and her dog loves it.

“Isn’t it dangerous to let a dog stick his head out the window?” I ask. “So many times I drive along other cars and see dogs’ heads poking out the passenger side and worry that something awful might happen to them.” 

“There’s no danger,” she says. “Nothing can happen to them.”

“But when I was a kid, I was always told never to stick my arm out the car window,” I tell her. I even heard scary stories about children who ignored the warnings and were terribly hurt when a car passed too close to them, and . . . well, you get the picture.

“Nothing can happen to them,” she insists. “There’s a lot of space between the cars. Nobody drives that close to another car.”

She is a friend and a dog lover, and I don’t want to argue, because there is no chance convincing her otherwise. But I am still skeptical. When my daughter was young and rode in my car next to me or behind me in a car seat, she knew to never stick any body part out the window, no matter how wonderful it felt. Whether a car passed too close for comfort or not was irrelevant. It’s dangerous to put body parts out of a car and it would be reckless to allow my daughter, or any other underage human, to do this, right? Then why let dogs do it?

Apparently, the answer is, “Because they like it, and stop making a big deal out of nothing.”

But this is not the only thing that bothers me about dogs riding in cars. When I visit my friend—who lives too far away to drive, so I fly to see her—I find myself riding in her car, with her dog, of course. Now, before the dog even joins us, I have to clean the passenger seat because it is covered with dog hair, and I don’t want that hair to stick to my clothes. My friend generously hands me a large beach towel to spread on the seat. But the towel does not look too promising. It’s colorful enough to camouflage the hair that has stuck to it during one of the trips she took with her dog before I arrived. I don’t want to make a big fuss, so I pretend not to notice the hair. But my troubles are not over yet. I may be “spared” the dog hair, but I am not spared the dog paws, because as soon as the dog jumps into the back seat, a certain commotion ensues, and to my displeasure, I discover that I have to share the front seat with the dog. Because this is really his territory, not mine.

Now this dog is not one of those tiny squealing purse dogs with which some women like to accessorize their outfits. It is a 60-pound German shepherd mix, and its paws dig into my jeans or my leggings with all the weight it carries around. And that’s not all. These paws that are planted on my laps are attached to two hairy front legs and a hairier body that pushes toward the passenger window, in front of my face, because dogs love to feel the wind on their face when they travel. And who am I to complain that the dog is heavy, that he is blocking the view, that his nails are digging holes into my legs, and that dog drool is inevitably making its way from the edge of his pink tongue that hangs in front of me down to my crotch.  

It's so lovely to travel with a dog, my dog lover friend thinks, I am sure. But she cannot be too bothered. Her car practically belongs to the dog just like the rest of her life. She tells the dog to stay in the back, but the dog knows that she is not too serious about it and there are no consequences for bad behavior.

Last week she told me about a trip she took somewhere with her neighbors in their car, and had to share the backseat with their cute little dog. It was not connected to our conversation about dogs in car. It was really a story about the trip with the nice neighbors. 

“They have such a cute dog,” she gushed. “She sat on my lap the entire trip, and she put her head on my shoulder and slept. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen.”

It's a wonder that we are still friends. I learned to hide my feelings. We all make sacrifices to maintain old friendships.

Apart from the scary sight of dogs sticking their heads out of car windows, I also sometimes see large dogs riding unrestrained in the beds of pickup trucks, looking at cars passing by and wagging their tails with excitement, and I want to ask the driver if he would leave his five-year-old child by herself in the back of the truck, to run from side to side while he drives to work at 70 mph. Forget the dust and debris that might fly by and hit the dog, what makes him so sure that the dog won’t jump out of the truck bed to chase something he spots by the side of the road? What makes him believe that the dog won’t be tossed out of the truck bed in case of a sudden stop or a sharp turn? I mean, did he have a real conversation with his dog, explaining to him all the dangers that come with riding in the bed of the truck? Did the dog promise he would be careful and stay put?

Over 100,000 dogs die each year in the U.S. from riding in truck beds, but I am considered a dog-unfriendly human for daring to say something, not the jerk who loves his dog so much that he lets him ride in the back of his pickup truck because it makes him look so cool. Not once in my life has a dog died under my care, but in this dog-loving country, dog lovers are considered more compassionate and considerate humans than people like me who shudder at the sight of dogs in cars (or on their roofs, re Mitt Romney 2008, 2012)

And what about those dog lovers who leave their dogs in their car for hours on end?

There’s a law against it, I hear. My friend says she leaves her dog for only a few minutes when she does her shopping. It might feel like a few minutes, I want to tell her, but I don’t. According to my experience, shopping can take up to half an hour, at least, especially when you live in a big city. 

When my daughter was a baby, I wouldn’t leave her in the car for even a minute. Sometimes I wouldn’t put gas in my car if I had to pay cash because that entailed leaving her in the car for two minutes in order to run to the booth and pay the attendant. I guess dog lovers think that most people will not snatch a dog left alone in a car. But babies, they are a little more vulnerable. Tempting. 

I know a person, and I will not give any clues as to who it is, who leaves their dog in the car for hours. And that person loves their dog. That person has never lived without a dog. The moment one dog dies, a new dog takes its place. And that person says that they love dogs more than they love humans. This person loves their dog so much, enough to leave him in a car alone, for hours, to wait for them until the end of the day. 

I see this dog sit in the car patiently, waiting for his person, never barking or whining. Like the good dog that he is. The weather is always nice where this dog lives, and his person parks the car under a tree or near big bushes, where it is always cool and breezy. The window is partly opened, so there’s enough air to breathe, nothing to worry about. And the dog is well-trained. He knows that at the end of the day his person will take him on a long walk. Rain or shine, there will be a fun walk, so it is worth it for him to behave himself during the hours he is stuck in that small four-door hatchback. 

So I want to know: How much do you really love a dog—who is really your non-biological child—if you let him sit in your car for hours waiting for you to come and take him for a walk?

Bathroom Stop (41)

Now that it’s only the three of us, the dynamics might change, and not necessarily for the better. Until today I was the fourth wheel in this misaligned human assembly, which meant it was easier to make myself disappear into the background during unforeseen eruptions. But now I am one of three wheels, two of which are of the same brand, so my ability to disappear is limited. I don’t remember ever being in this situation before and I am not sure I know what I’m supposed to do. In short, I am venturing into the unknown. But I shouldn’t be too pessimistic. Maybe it will turn out to be just fine. I might even get to sit in the front seat for a few hours, not that I care about it anymore. I think I gave up any desire I might have entertained, even unconsciously, when I decided to avoid the drama of giving up my ticket and fly to Portugal as planned.

At least the energy in the car is growing lighter. Rita is back in her element, sitting behind the steering wheel and doing what she loves the most: watching the world fly by, with nothing to stop her but an empty gas tank. Driving makes her feel that she is doing something important, that she is in control of the situation, and that life is happening even if the only thing that happens is the change in scenery. Vera, thankfully, does not try to make an empty conversation, leaving me free to stare out the window and enjoy the view. 

I think we are heading to Belmonte. I don’t remember Rita saying we were going there, but she didn’t say we were going anywhere else either, so I assume we will end up there sometime before nightfall. I’m almost sure she did not book a place for tonight so it might be my responsibility to call my old Brazilian friend Umberto and find out if we can rent a couple of rooms from him. I’ll just have to wait and see.

The road we’re on winds up and down narrow valleys covered in evergreen forests. Sometimes it runs along a lake or crosses a bridge built over a nameless creek. Once in a while we get stuck behind a car or two, but soon they turn onto other roads and disappear, making me feel that we are the only people in the world who are traveling in these parts of the country. In the distance, I can see the vineyards that put Portugal on the world’s wine map absorbing the little sunlight that manages to get through the gray clouds. We pass a cluster of old stone houses with not a soul in sight, apart from a couple of dogs that don’t bother to look at our car or bark. The houses look like people have lived in them for centuries, braving the hot summers, the damp winters, and the occasional invaders. 

A sign advertising a roadside café attracts Rita’s attention and she pulls into a small parking lot in front of it. A bustling stream flows far below. Large boulders strewn on both sides of the stream nearly choke it in some spots and force the water to rise above them to continue their journey downhill. On the other side of the stream, there is a massive building whose backside looks like an armory or a fort. The gray bricks and narrow windows exude eerie vibes, verging on the ominous. On second thought, since I know so little about Portugal, this building could well be a candy factory or a storage place for animal feed, though I’ll never find out.

The café is empty except for a guy with purple hair arranging water bottles and soft drinks in an upright refrigerator. There are three unoccupied tables inside; pink flowerpots at the center of each table give the place a homey feel. Outside, on a stone terrace, stand several round tables under umbrellas that advertise European beer, a testament to busier and warmer days. Rita waddles toward the counter in her flat leather boots to check the offerings. Vera and I are in tow as usual, waiting for her to decide what to order. 

“What do you feel like?” she asks Vera.

“Order for me whatever you order for yourself,” Vera says.

That’s strange. She can’t know what Rita is going to order unless she still has that mother’s intuition that lets her know what her child wants before she knows it herself. I had it too with my daughter. Only Rita has not been a child for years. At least officially. 

“You want coffee?” Rita asks. 

“Yes,” Vera says, in that special voice that gives me the impression that she doesn’t care one way or the other.

“You sure?” Rita persists.

“Yeah,” she says again, in that same voice. “With milk.”

God, give me strength, I think to myself, even though I don’t believe in God. 

“You want one of these pastries?” Rita asks her again.

“No. I want to find the bathroom,” she answers.

Now I get it. We’re on the bathroom discovery mission. Again.

Without missing a beat, Rita turns to the guy with the purple hair and asks him in her heavily accented English if there’s a bathroom around, catching him completely off guard because until now she and Vera were speaking in Hebrew. I don’t know if he feels the same as I do, but to my ears Rita sounds pushy rather than like the super friendly person she aspires to be around people who are not her immediate family. 

“The bathroom?” he repeats.

“Yes, bathroom, toilet, restroom,” she says in English. She turns to me and says in Hebrew, “How do you say bathroom?”

“Bathroom, I understand, outside, down the stairs,” he says pointing to the back door and depriving me of a rare opportunity to speak Portuguese, maybe even start a conversation about something other than what to order and how much something costs. 

“You have a key?” Rita asks him, mimicking the motion of unlocking a door with her hand. 

“Key? No,” he says, looking confused. He has probably never visited a Starbucks or a busy café in a touristy town. I wonder how he would feel once he saw a bathroom key attached with a rope to a large wooden spoon or a cheese grater.

“You don’t want to go with me?” Vera asks.

“I can wait,” Rita says, ignoring Vera’s coded language. 

“OK,” Vera shrugs and leaves us to search for the bathroom all by herself.

Suddenly I am alone with Rita and I’m not even in a bedroom. I wait for her to order coffee and pastries and I order a soft drink for myself. Then I join her at one of the round tables. I am not trying to make conversation. I have nothing to say. I feel as if I don’t know Rita anymore. Since we left San Francisco, I have seen a side of her that is so foreign to me, I am not sure how to behave around her. 

Years ago when I first met her, she used to make me laugh with her incredible stories. They were borderline insane in a funny way, often involving someone famous that she impressed with her sense of humor and her indifference to their celebrity. I never got tired of listening to them, even when they required that I suspend disbelief and take her at her word. One story involved the Dalai Lama, whom she met during her travels in India and had a one-on-one conversation with about something I can’t be bothered to remember, probably about life and spirituality; another story involved one of Israel’s prime ministers, whom she met when she was caring for goats in Northern Galilee and had a conversation with about starting an alternative farm in the Negev Desert. When she returned from visiting her family in Israel there were stories about running into a top fashion model on a nature hike with her nieces or about sitting in a restaurant next to one of Israel’s biggest movie stars who headlined a Hollywood blockbuster and was nice enough to accept her friendship request on Facebook. I’ve never met anyone who happened to run into so many famous people and make such a lasting impression on them. It was fascinating listening to her stories and believing every twist and turn in the plots she made up so effortlessly, without worrying that I’d be taken for a fool.

Then there was her language. The Hebrew she spoke was nothing like the Hebrew I heard before I left Israel. She talked the way I assume men talk when they are not near women. I picture car mechanics on cigarette breaks, men who sell vegetables in the open-air market in Tel Aviv, and bored reservists stuck in a dusty army base between combat training drills. I’ve never heard a woman her age use so much slang. I thought she was doing it to make me laugh until I realized that this was the way she talked. It was not an act.

In return I was the serious one she could count on when she needed help with filling out and printing official documents—she could not figure out how to use a printer even though she claimed that she could take apart a laptop and put it back together—or who could provide support when she fought for custody of her son and felt humiliated by her ex-husband’s depiction of her terrible parenting style. I performed the boring parts of the friendship; she was the entertainment.

But no more.

In spite of all the comfort and sense of security that Fred’s money has given her since she started living with him, she has become a bundle of nerves. Everything puts her on edge. She complains about Fred and his laziness; about her son’s attachment to his father; and about her ex-husband’s contempt for her. She complains that people expect something from her and then don’t appreciate what she does for them. Then she says that all she wants is to be happy and not worry about anything. Because life is short, and we can’t take anything to our grave. It’s exhausting.

Luckily, at the moment she is more interested in checking her phone than talking to me. She raises her eyes only when Vera joins us and absolves me from having to talk. I can recede into the background and come out for air when we get to wherever she decides to spend the night.

I assume it will be in Belmonte.