************************************

Heidi pretty old dog now.

No longer run fastest in pack.

No longer hear when hot dog fall in night.

No longer smell fresh licorice opened three blocks away.

Sometimes Heidi miss who she used to be.

Sometimes Heidi even miss who she could have been.

It true.

Heidi look out window and see lonely, wet leaves with no smell. One day Heidi be lonely, wet leaf with no smell. One day all of us lonely, wet leaves with no smell. So why can’t we all get along? Why everybody all yelling BAD DOG at one another?! Heidi no understand. But Heidi study Mindfulness and know to live in moment. Heidi brain a tool. Heidi master of tool. No need to dwell in past or in future, there is only now. Heidi live in moment.

Heidi would like Skittles in this moment.

Oh. Hold on.

Heidi now live in different moment.

Heidi was just scrolling through Twitter in Compulsion Loop and see hero dog.

This moment now belong to Heidi and her feelings about hero dog. Heidi still have the feelings. Lots of them. Very good feelings. Feelings that reach deep and good.

Heidi want some of hero dog sugar in her bowl.

Hero dog chase bad two-legger in tunnel, get electrocuted, but still keep focused, still alpha predator who dispense justice for America! Hero dog, Heidi like some of your justice. Heidi let you be barbarian at her gate. Heidi a patriot for you.

Now Heidi want Skittles and hero dog.

Heidi live in that moment now.

Not a serious incident, but an incident nonetheless.

My wife Rachelle bought a phone that had been advertised on a community message board she belongs to, and it turned out the phone did not work. All sorts of texts flew back and forth between us and the woman who sold us the phone, but to no avail. The woman would not take the phone back or reimburse us the money we spent on getting the phone fixed.

Here is the ending of the text thread between the three of us:

ME: Don’t you think you at least owe us some of the money we spent to repair your broken phone?

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: I AM WITH A CLIENT NOW AND CANNOT TALK!!!!!

Me: You’re a cat walker. Are you actually telling me you cannot deal with this matter because a cat is on your lap?

Rachelle: Look, I am sorry to pester you, but the phone you sold us does not work. We had to get it repaired and it cost us $75 extra. I don’t for a second think you were trying to deceive us, but it’s only fair that at the very least we share that cost.

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: ALL SALES ARE FINAL!!

Me: But you deceived us. The phone did not work. We told you that. You said we must have done something to break it. Is this how you treat your clients? Do you deceive the cats and then try to gaslight them?

Rachelle: If I was a cat I would scratch you.

Me: The cats will rise up against you. They will fuck you up. Make no mistake.

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: IS THAT A THREAT???!!!!

Me: It is a prediction. I know cats.

Rachelle: It’s true. He’s watched the broadway production of Cats 27 times.

Me: Passionate about it. Dressed up as a creepy cat every halloween for—wait for it– 27 years in a row!

Rachelle: Body suit and everything. VERY creepy.

Me: Would send you a photo but the camera on the phone I just bought doesn’t work!

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: IF THIS CONTINUES I WILL BE GETTING A LAWYER INVOLVED FOR DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER!!!

Rachelle: Oh my, that is funny! I would like to see that.

Me: Please, please, please get the law involved!!!

Shifty cat walker who sold us a shitty phone and is likely very insane: YOU TWO ARE FASCISTS AND I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH YOU AGAIN!!

“THE HOLY CROSS BE MY LIGHT
LET NOT THE DRAGON BE MY GUIDE
STEP BACK, SATAN!
NEVER TEMPT ME WITH YOUR VANITIES
WHAT YOU OFFER ME IS EVIL
DRINK YOUR OWN POISON!”

Me: Did not take her for the religious type.

Rachelle: Me neither.

Our son Jones loves to dance. It’s his thing. You can see the joy in his eyes. They shine, lit from some spot deep within. Each morning he jumps up on our bed and dances for us, and it is no small thing. It’s beautiful and unpredictable and so ecstatically rendered that it feels like being blessed by a higher order of being. It’s a good way to start the morning.

IMG_3544

Both with sticks, Jones and I walk quietly to daycare. Both of us lucky. Somewhere in our bones we know this unspoken thing. Big, slow snowflakes drift like dandelion puffs around us. A delivery van stops across the street. Bollywood music blaring. Just blaring. Jones has never been quite so astonished. It is a miracle, and he looks at me like we’re both witnessing a miracle. He’s glowing. The snow increases, squalls for a moment. It’s the gentlest invasion of white, as if silent, weightless birds are schooling around us, as if the world fundamentally changed before our eye. Jones points, “There are so many of them, daddy!” The Bollywood music is still pouring out of the van and Jones begins to dance. In his puffy jacket. His rain boots. His ridiculous hat. His glowing face. A woman with heavy snow flakes, glistening and then melting into her dark hair, smiles as she walks her dog through us.

All these things coming together.

This day being made, this day being blessed.

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Notice what you feel:

I am walking back from daycare and I have my eyes closed. It is the morning, still fresh, and I am noticing the fine, barely perceptible sparks of rain that fall on my face. It feels like something mysterious and alive, something benevolent. I am noticing my breathing, how I labour with it and have to consciously inhale through the prongs in my nose. I feel the oxygen tank on my back, how it pulls against my body, my muscles tightening, growing tense. I open my eyes, now concerned that I may be veering blindly toward someone on the sidewalk, and I see my street, a ribbon separating the red, brick homes on either side, and the impossible leaves all around them, jewels spilling from a treasure chest, wet and almost shining.

Notice movement:

I am in motion. All of me, everything contained within and without, and all the world around swirling like mists. Everything in constant motion, even the rocks, everything in the process of degrading and reforming, everything sightlessly churning. I push Jones down the street in his stroller and an airplane passes loudly overhead, contrails streaming behind. Jones yells and points, his pupils expanding in the wonder of recognition. A cat slinks out of a bush and looks at us, considers things, and then begins a cautious journey across the street, each step the brushstroke of a great artist. We pass by a woman walking two dogs who pause to rummage through the rubble of some broken jack-o-lanterns on a lawn. They look up at us like the shadows we are, and then we arrive at daycare and a bird, unseen, chirps smally from a tree before emerging and rising beyond us in flight.

As many of you will have heard, I have started a weekly Podcast with Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund.

This is an excerpt from our most recent episode:

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Me: Before we start today’s Podcast I have an announcement to make. On our last broadcast Heidi made some remarks that were very hurtful to some beloved members of our community.

The appalling statements she made might even be considered an act of violence in and of themselves, and let me say unequivocally that we here at The Breakfast Club have always, and will always be, great allies to all of our friends in the SCBDB community. Your struggle is our struggle, and we will not tolerate any sort of hate speech, calls to violence or prejudice against you and those that you love. You are our family. We love you and stand beside you. I want to take this time now to formally apologize to all Squirrels, Cats, Birds and Dumb Birds who were wounded by Heidi’s words. We are profoundly sorry.

Although Heidi has been a mostly loyal dog to my family for nearly a dozen years, I simply cannot excuse her behaviour, and so she has been removed from the Podcast, effective immediately, and sent to live up in the country with my wife’s parents where she will undergo prolonged sensitivity training.

Taking her place will be Margaret Atwood, one of the supporting actresses from the hit TV show The Hand Made Tale.

Atwood: The title of the show is the Handmaids Tale, and I was the author of the novel upon which the successful TV show was based, not a supporting actress in it.

Me: Please don’t interrupt.

Atwood: You have more important things to say, do you?

Me: Nuts! Now I’ve lost my place!

Atwood: Yes, of course you have. A straight, middle-aged white man with no discernible talents suddenly adrift in a changing world. One day you wake up to discover that you’re not one of the good guys at all, but are actually an enemy of the people, an enemy to all those you never heard, saw or even thought about in all the decades you stomped so blindly through this world. Now that the shell of your status has been cracked open to reveal your mediocrity and fear, it must be so very difficult for you! And how have you responded to this sea change, Michael, to being revealed so nakedly to all whom you ignored? With hostility and defensiveness, of course, with a desperate attempt to portray yourself as a victim rather than a victimizer. So yes, I can see how you might feel that you “lost your place.”

Me: I WAS PATROL OF THE WEEK IN GRADE SIX!! I WAS AT THE BARRICADES KEEPING THE WORLD SAFE FROM TYRANNY, GODDAMNIT!! NOBODY CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!!

As many of you will have heard, I have started a daily Podcast with Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund.

This is an excerpt from our most recent episode:

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Me: Well, that was awfully nice of Ontario Premier Doug Ford to come in for an interview and show us his old shot put from high school!

Heidi: Heidi no get shot put.

Me: What don’t you get?

Heidi: It just metal ball you can’t chase! Why have ball if not chase? Like big circle rock, and if circle-ball-rock not used to crush cat or squirrel or dumb bird, what the point?

Me: Well, as Premier Ford explained, it is a display of both mental and physical mastery.

Heidi: Heidi don’t think so. Heidi call bullshit.

Me: You ALWAYS call bullshit.

Heidi: Heidi calls them as she sees him. Why she respected journalist.

Me: You are a good journalist, it’s true.

Heidi: Heidi know. You could learn thing or two from Heidi.

Me: Like how to eat really, really, disgustingly quickly and spill my kibble all over the place?

Heidi: Grrrr. Grrrr.

Me: Well, it’s a shame that we never got to find out if Premier Ford would have won the gold medal for shot put at the Olympics. He’s right, the boycott back in 1980 really did just punish the athletes.

Heidi: Can’t give communism a foothold anywhere! But still, Heidi think something fishy about story.

Me: What do you mean?

Heidi: Well, if he and famous Ford Pack big part of Illuminati as he say, then they control Olympics. They do what they want!

Sex parties and gold medals and meat fat all the time!!

Me: But if they were part of the Illuminati, that would explain the family’s mysterious rise to power! I mean, his brother, a crack addict, was mayor of the city! How could something like that happen if not for the power of the Illuminati?

Heidi: Heidi know thing or two about Illuminati, and all Heidi say is Ford Pack not Illuminati material.

Me: Am I Illuminati material?

Heidi: Heidi not sure. Heidi very, very hungry. Maybe if she had treat would help her think.

Me: Would a liver treat do?

Heidi: Not ones from Dollar Store, liver treats from Italy.

Me: I said liver treat. Not treats. Singular. Not plural.

Heidi: Give Heidi treat.

Me: Okay.

Heidi: Not Illuminati material. Not even close. Bug Illuminati at best. Maybe dirt Illuminati.

Me: Let’s just move on, shall we? I have to say, I really thought Premier Ford dodged the question I asked him about the #MeToo movement! What did he say? “Shot putters never have to worry about the ladies?” What do you think that means?

Heidi: Heidi don’t care. He use Ralph Lauren Chaps cologne to try to hide smell of lies and anger, but smell too strong.

Can never escape his own stink. He all lies and anger.

Me: So when he said he would rather take barbarism over socialism, you believed him?

Heidi: Two-leggers all so naive. Barbarism only system that works.

This is an excerpt from our debut episode:

********************************************************

Me: Hey! Welcome back to The Breakfast Club with Heidi and Mike!!

Heidi: We all bark and all bite!!

Me: We sure are, Heidi, we sure are, and I have to say, that was a fascinating interview we just did with Muffin the cat! I mean, WOW, what an interesting cat!

Heidi: Heidi want to barf.

Me: What do you mean?

Heidi: HORRIBLE interview. Heidi no care what Muffin think about immigration or Kim Kardashian getting mom-shamed for straightening daughter’s hair.

Me: Well, you have to admit, Muffin did have some pretty interesting and unique ideas about how to solve the global immigration crisis.

Heidi: You want crisis? Heidi give you crisis. Name Muffin is crisis. So stupid! Why moron cat named after food? Why after crappy food? Why not Steak?! Why not Cheeseburger! Why not Twizzler?

Me: Twizzler is a good name!

Heidi: Heidi like Twizzlers.

Me: Me, too.

Heidi: Twizzlers a uniter.

Stupid Muffin don’t deserve name Twizzler. Such a fat, lazy animal! Muffin never hunt, just lie there! Make society hunt for her! Heidi hate that!

Me: Well, Muffin is an indoor cat.

Heidi: Heidi have no time for Muffin excuses! Muffin staring at diabetes, Heidi tell you.

Me: And hey, for those of you who have to commute today, you should know that traffic along the DVP is slow, so you might want to explore some other routes…

Heidi: Look. Heidi know this controversial, but Heidi think it wrong to normalize cats. Cats evil.

Either you against evil cats or you for evil cats. Not complicated. Not nuanced. You have cat on show, you cat apologist. You part of problem.

Me: The Heidi Hot Take! I was wondering when that was going to happen, so tell us, how can you be certain that all cats are evil?

Heidi: You got to break some eggs to make omelette. Way of the world. Dog eat cat eat other dog eat it all.

Me: Okay, well, maybe now would be a good time to open up the show to callers! Anybody out there have an opinion on whether it’s wrong to normalize cats or not?

Heidi: Ha! Heidi laugh!

Me: Why?

Me: No way you have callers! Also, Muffin really stink. Heidi almost faint from stench. Heidi need danger pay! You think cats clean because always licking paw and brushing self, but just OCD. Cats mental in the head! Cat hygiene fake news!

Me: While we wait to get connected to our first caller, it’s time to provide you with a message from one of our sponsors. Support for The Breakfast Club with Heidi and Mike comes form MailChimp…

Heidi: More than 7 million businesses around the world uses MailChimp…

Me: To send newsletters, messages and deliver high fives…

Me: Heidi?

Me: Heidi, it’s your turn now.

Heidi: Oh! Heidi sorry. Licking herself. What words?

Me: You say, “MailChimp, sends better email!”

Heidi: MailChimp, sends better email!

Me: And now you bark, Heidi.

Heidi: Heidi no bark. No chance. Heidi have self-respect.

Me: Okay, still trying to connect with our caller, just be a sec.’

Heidi: Ha! Heidi marry Muffin if actual caller. No way caller. Heidi can smell your lie sweat. Heidi know.

******************************************************************************

Heidi hear about Red Hen restaurant. Two-legged owner make two-legger she think BAD DOG leave before dinner!

If some two-legger tell Heidi she have to leave when Heidi about to eat, things gonna get heavy.

Heidi not moving.

Heidi fuck a bitch up.

Heidi well regulated militia.

Heidi shock and awe campaign.

Heidi is Hound of War.

And when Heidi need to eat, Heidi eat.

Heidi eat Red Hen.

Heidi eat Blue Hen.

Heidi eat Yellow Hen.

Heidi eat Fascist Hen.

Heidi eat Progressive Hen.

Heidi eat Space Force Hen.

Heidi don’t care. Heidi eat all the hens. Heidi don’t care politics of hen. Heidi don’t care colour of hen. Heidi don’t care who hen sex with or where hen live. Not important to Heidi if hen or egg come first. Heidi eat both.

Heidi appetite is the law.

It the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End.

That all Heidi saying.

It was a microburst, and the whole thing was over in about three minutes. There was a sudden blast from above, around and beyond, and it felt like the Mighty Thor had just hammered the earth and summoned forth all elements of sky.

The wind was haphazard and suicidal, as if careening out of control down a hill, and it gathered the falling rain in unequal, horizontal batches and then smashed it against whatever surface stood before it. The big tree in front practically shattered, and as it scattered before us, we could see one of it’s massive branches wheeling through the sky, and then in just a moment or two, it all stopped, and everything was quiet and strange and wonderful.

The power was out, and all the people living up and down the street came tenderly from their homes to marvel at the fallen landscape around us. Jones, so small and alive, jumped in puddles and walked amidst the rent trees like the jungles they were.

There was a clear, cooling wind that felt like it was coming off foreign waters, and people gathered before their homes to share their stories.

In this densely populated part of the city, we catch glimpses of our neighbours rather than actually know them, but with the storm all obligations of habit and place and order seemed to vanish. We were free of that, sort of, and it was like we could no longer pretend we were strangers.

The neighbour who never waved, the organized looking one with the yoga mat and unfriendly ponytail, well, she waved at us for the first time. Buck, the almost-old man who lives alone next door, the one I thought was an asshole until I discovered he was partially deaf and never heard me saying ‘hello,’ was like an 11 year-old. Excitedly, he rode about on his 30 year-old CCM bike, returning wide-eyed to say things like, “You should see Bernard Street! Trees everywhere!” Dogs now on walks, pulled comically massive branches along behind them. Couples, happy to be without power, happy to know they were lucky enough that being without power was a fun little, adventure rather than a life-altering catastrophe, headed out for dinner. And the basement tenant, as thin and mysterious as a pirate, came up and surveyed the scene. After deducing how to solve the most immediate problem, he got a small handsaw and began to wordlessly cut the fallen branches of the tree, quickly clearing a path on the sidewalk– the ash never once dropping from his cigarette.

All of us now, after something so unexpected, powerful and unknowable, felt a sense of shared, mortal vulnerability. The stable, trusted world we had imagined had been revealed a flimsy thing. Lucky for so many reasons, we all lingered together outside, comforted by the other, like ancients around a campfire, small and humble beneath an endless sky.

*******************************************

Heidi like to make short statement.

Heidi only a dog.

Everybody think Heidi perfect because she so cute and strong and smart and sexy, but Heidi not perfect. Heidi like Instagram account, just looks like perfect life you’re jealous of. Truth is, some days Heidi actually a BAD DOG, and Heidi not scared to own it.

Heidi now like to address some of accusations being made on social media.

Heidi has engaged in Nonconsensual leg-humping.

It true.

Heidi now understands that even if told she “SuperAdorable,” and, “OHMYGODICANTEVENBELIEVEHOWGORGEOUSYOUAREYOULITTLECHOCOLATEKISSYOU!!” , even if she picked up and kissed on nose and have velvet ears stroked, still not invitation to leg-hump. Also, Heidi now knows that when two-legger sits down, even if two-legger wearing shorts and smell like cheeseburger, it still no consent. Heidi knows even if cheeseburger or ice cream cone spill on leg, STILL not consent.

Heidi gets it.

Heidi learn from mistakes and now ready to listen.

To really listen.

Heidi very sorry for pain she caused and regrets trying to normalize her attempts to assert dominance in pack hierarchies through leg-humping.

Heidi hopes that over time, and with continued hard work, she win back your trust.