Shortly after 3:30 p.m. on April 22, 2019, in the middle of a maddeningly, ironically blue, sunny, and warm Easter Monday, my good friend Oliver died.

You might remember him from some of these posts:

Cat Ouija

Sick day

I’ve always wanted a robotic butler

The Danforth tastes pretty good

You need to send me all your money right now.

War on Trash: Day 36

War on Trash: Day 33 (Everywhere!)

Highway pig

I’m sure there are more, but as you can see these posts go all the way to the beginning of Toronto City Life, because he was there. He was there a few years prior to the start of this blog, in fact.

And he was already a year or two old at the point where he wandered up to my back door one dark and blustery afternoon, begging to be let in to a perfect stranger’s home. He’d obviously been very recently abandoned by some asshole(s) who didn’t like his size and / or vociferousness and / or whatever. Either way, assholes.

Not long after, I got divorced, went to live in downtown Toronto. Ollie came with. There he helped me mark an era, spending his next 12-ish years calmly meditating, making friends, and contemplating life. He made friends with Sarah in microseconds while calmly enduring other animals I was house-sitting or playing guest to. And then there was the litany of people who traipsed through our house due to the MS.

He kept his composure even when living conditions were less than ideal and he had to eat food bank cat foot. He was called the “Buddha cat” by more than one keenly observant person.

Since the beginning I was profoundly aware, sometimes to the point of being melancholic, that I’d inherited a fragile creature that wouldn’t always be with me. Every second was borrowed time. Sure, some time down the road we would need to part ways, but not so early, not at that time.

But at least now I know I reminded him of my love as often as I could because I was aware of his mortality; dark, possibly, sad, always, but thinking about other’s deaths can be useful in that way. If they were to die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day with a loved one? It’s a question that needs to be asked regularly because tomorrow comes too fast.

* I’ll wait here while you go hug your pets and other loved ones *

I also knew that Ollie loved his food and genuinely enjoyed indoor athletics of the sort in which he didn’t have to participate. I made the decision early on that I wouldn’t ever deny him the pleasures of life in exchange for a few more years of it. He’d already been snipped (before I met him), and it seemed like infinite cruelty to inflict a life devoid of self-determinism, even if that manifested in hedonism. He may have lived a little longer, but would he have lived as well?

Although we were denying it most of the way, the end came gradually over a one-and-a-half week period.

We did the best with what we had, managed to scrounge together some money while discovering the kindness of strangers, but in the end his host of ailments won out. He went out mercifully quickly, peacefully, and pain free.

But so what?

His loss is utterly devastating. It’s shattering. It hurts in a real primal, painful place and you’re afraid that if you pull away you’ll be neglecting his memory and you can’t do that. Not yet. Not your good friend.

It’s just as devastating now as it was a week ago. I’m not sure at what point my heart will stop breaking. This is really fucking hard.

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Today though, today, I can’t do nothing because it’s driving me up the wall, so I thought that maybe I could honour his memory with something he was publicly a part of: this blog.

You saw the links — Ollie’s an original, a founding partner.

But the blog has been ignored for a while and that seems very wrong. I think I should do better. For Ollie.

For starters, for me every Easter Monday will from now on be St. Ollie’s Day, a day in which we can observe our hirsute saint with libations and general enjoyment of life, as Ollie would undoubtedly want it. Keep in mind, Oliver really only preferred the three or five-year Parmesan, so keep it as classy, expensive, and peaceful as possible. Think “meditating gourmand”.

Beyond that, though, I’m thinking to blow the dust of this blog and see if I can get ‘er started again. I feel like I’ve said all I can about politics and the dangers of government, and don’t feel like banging my head against that wall anymore … Mr. Gorbatrump ain’t taking it down.

So I guess that leaves the original walking-around-and-snapping-pics-interspersed-with-some-writing thing I used to do with maybe a mix of some of the stuff I’m doing for CypherPoker.JS
(it's that link at the top of the right column)

I mean, that project is mostly responsible for causing me to forsake the blog in the first place but it is a product made 100% in Toronto so maybe it could provide some shareable out-takes.

Besides, the more people that read Toronto City Life the more Memories of Ollie will spread.

My little friend deserved no less.

I’ll miss you so much, dobos!

Love, your friend always,
Patrick and Sarah and Bitty

Compare:

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Crack-smoking scumbag Rob Ford’s privacy is breached when staff access his private hospital records. Although there’s no indication that the information ever left the hospital or was used in any way, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner immediately demands prosecutions. Send a message, she says; this is totally unacceptable!

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Around 15,000 people have their privacy breached on numerous occasions by hospital staff with the information being given or sold to third parties, some of whom use the information to solicit patients while others use it for more troubling ideological purposes, with who knows how many other breaches being swept under the rug. The Privacy Commissioner shrugs her shoulders and says, well, guess we gotta change the laws, while downplaying things as best she can: “We have found no evidence to suggest that this information ever left hospital property or was used by the photographer for any other purpose,” said Trell Huether, a spokesperson for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, in an email.

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The result here is that Rob Ford is just another exemplar of how government genuinely isn’t interested in the well-being and protection of its citizens, and certainly not in encouraging ethical behaviour or enforcing the law with any semblance of fairness or justice. It’s main purpose is to prop itself up, protect itself, exclude itself from any accountability, and to utterly destroy you if you don’t go along with their criminal racket. If you’re part of the gang you get a sweet ride otherwise you’re free to go fuck yourself.

I’m not going to go back through the blog to re-hash some of Giorgio Mammoliti’s past, erm, weirdness, but maybe there was something buggy going on with his brain? It was revealed today that he had to have preventive brain surgery to “disconnect” a potentially clotting mesh of blood vessels in his head, so that could certainly be a possibility. Here’s hoping he recovers!

If you don’t live in the city, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of how different you are.

This morning, as I was trying to decide which pair of underwear was less disintegrated and thus suitable for duty, a radio spot came on for Walmart’s “Walk for Miracles” campaign. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been to a Walmart in ages. Hence no underwear.

That’s probably because there aren’t an awful lot of them in Toronto itself, and not within easy strolling distance. Walmarts, that is. You have to admit, their distribution in the Greater Toronto Area is pretty uniform, even in the outlying sub-suburbs like the ‘Shwa.

I’m going to come clean right now and say that I don’t care for Oshawa. Not one bit. Didn’t like driving through it, didn’t like stopping for ice cream. It was the first time I saw a bona fide Springeresque trailer park. If you insist on going through, the main thoroughfare’s okay, just … don’t wander.

Anyway, I don’t want to get off track. The point is that the expectations seem to get a little bit lower wherever a Walmart is present.

Look…

…that’s CIBC, well represented anywhere you look on a map of southern Ontario. Also a very heavy presence here in the city. Gentle running seems like a good middle ground of physical exertion. Especially when you look at the 100% downtown Princess Margaret crew:

That’s a two-day bike ride to Niagara Falls. And as an option you can hop along for an extra ride with Steve Bauer for some real action.

Walmart, serving who they serve, decided on this:

Families with kids aren’t really into running. Neither are the ‘Shwabians.

In the trendy, sea-bound urban centers of Vancouver, they also tried walking, and look at the result:

I know, right? That’s exactly how twisted, wheelchair-bound super villains start. I bet he’s seething with rage.

I guess it’s because city dwellers just don’t get “walking”. They need that hardcore rock climbing biznatch all up in yo mother’s face (that’s how they talk out west). Urbanites want to come home with an arm missing or a cavity where there previously was none. CHA-RI-TAE*! WOOOOOOOOOO**!

Better start getting my pudgy ass in shape. Bikini season’s just around the corner!

* Charity — I know, that west coast accent always messes me up too.
** An overdrawn WOO — Them and their crazy Vancouverese, you gotta love ‘em!