You don’t frighten me, 40. You don’t give me the shivers. Don’t make me quake in my boots. Lament the years gone by, or the things I haven’t done. When I hear your name, I don’t think about how quickly time is passing, or those little stripes of gray in my hair that I used to blame on sloppy painting. No, 40, you don’t scare me. But 39? Yeah, for some reason, I fear you. You shiver me right out of my boots. Make me want to go look up the word “lament” and see what it means. (Is it like something that needs ointment? Or a liver ailment from overeating cheese?) When I hear your name — thir-ty-nine! Pum-pum-pum-PUM! — I want to bear hug the time that is quickly slipping by. And the gray hair? No, man, that’s just paint streaks.

It was magical, wasn’t it? A fingertip grab. A quarterback buried deep in his own territory. An almost futile lob down the field to the sideline. The game getting late. The score against them. Some kind of tiny miracle required. No, a huge miracle. Something fitting of a Super Bowl. That’s what Eli Manning and the Giants needed. That’s what they got when he connected with Mario Cunningham on the most incredible, perfect, I-just-wet-my-pants catch. Even if you don’t care a lick about football, you had to be impressed. If you were like me — there for the commercials about dogs and aliens driving sports cars — you still marveled at it. Dreamed about it. Wondered why in the heck you couldn’t snag a ball like that. Couldn’t come close. Because even in my dreams I would drop that ball. Even … in … my … DREAMS!

“Big Pink” is now “Sparkle,” or “Diamond,” or “Mango Freddy.” Something like that. It’s a metamorphosis of sorts. A big change. The training wheels have come off the little pink Huffy bicycle. It has a white basket on front that is loaded down with seashells. My daughter held a wake when it became clear the trainers weren’t going back on. Right there in the shed, amongst the gasoline smells and the remnants of a squirrel’s frat party.

Un-level, defying three principles of physics? Check. Chickens in the backyard … and sometimes inside? Check. Old broken appliances displayed on shelves like art? Check Rocking chairs on front porch, possibly with old man or critter sleeping in them? Check. Wood floors that have surface termite damage forming a silhouette of Elvis, possibly Abe Lincoln? Check

It’s only been about half a year we’ve lived without a dog. A half year out of pretty much my whole life. Yet in that half a year it seems I have forgotten about every … let’s just call it “eccentricity” … that makes a dog a dog. I wrote something down the other day: “the difference between eccentric and crazy is measured in millimeters.” And it certainly applies here. How have I forgotten all of these things? That dogs are unique, strange, complicated and totally quirky animals.

I learned a few things over the Christmas holidays — things like this: • That teaching a kid how to ride a bike without training wheels is harder than … well … having a kid in the first place. My wife might dispute that — I was on the much easier end of that one, I have been told. But she also wasn’t there the fateful day when I unscrewed the training wheels, took my daughter out and tried to set her loose. “Why are you doing this to me?” she screamed as she careened out of control, barely in my grasp. It was the kind of scream you make when you’ve been tethered to a castrated bull. “Give me back my training wheels!”