Home Alone Havoc When Dogs Decks and Dispatch Collide
A heatwave, a dog emergency, a deck in crisis, and a toddler who runs the kitchen. The House reports from a very chaotic week.
If the House Could Talk: Dog Emergencies & Deck Drama
A How to Vilhelm dispatch from the week Damian went to Chicago
If I could talk — and let's be clear, I'm a house, I have opinions, I just don't have a mouth, which is honestly for the best given some of the things I've overheard — this is the week I'd tell you about.
Damian left for Chicago on business. Kat stayed behind holding down the fort: one toddler, two French Bulldogs, a deck currently in pieces, and a townhouse in Etobicoke that still needs to fall in love with a stranger. A quiet week, in other words. Reader, it was not quiet.
Mercredi. Canada Day. 37 degrees.
I don't have air conditioning feelings, but if I did, I'd have had them Wednesday. Canada Day, 37°C — the kind of heat where the flag itself looked tired. The kind of heat that makes even the dogs reconsider their commitment to going outside, and Boujee reconsider her commitment to walking at all past the front step. Kat took Alyce and Boujee and Dapper out at 7am, sensibly, before the sun had fully committed to ruining everyone's day. By 8am they were back, thoroughly drenched, having learned that "early morning walk" in a heatwave is a technicality, not a strategy.
Smart move after that: nobody left the couch, not even to be patriotic about it. We watched the storms roll in together in the early evening — the good kind of storm-watching, from inside, with air conditioning and zero commitment to going anywhere near the outdoors again that day. A perfectly lazy, sweaty, very Canadian Canada Day, sponsored by the couch.
Then, at night, Boujee had other plans.
The kind of smell that wakes an entire household up, sits down, and refuses to leave the room. Normally this is a "clean it, mutter something in French, go back to bed" situation, filed under Routine Dog Business. This time it wasn't. It looked like a pancreatitis flare — the kind of "extra love required" that doesn't check the calendar for business trips.
One phone call later, Damian was booking the first flight home, presumably somewhere between "how bad is it" and "book now, ask questions later."
Meanwhile, I've had my own drama.
The deck (both levels, 37.7 square metres of ambition) is currently in its demolition-then-existential-crisis phase — Damian tore out all the broken wood like a man on a mission, and has now stalled at the altar of composite vs. real wood, doing the math on price versus effort like it's a small parliamentary debate with no quorum in sight. They went to scout prices at Home Depot and RONA together, and Kat nearly had a heart attack when the RONA lady handed over the quote — the kind of number that makes you consider selling a kidney, maybe both, throw in the heart too, and possibly the deck idea altogether. Down the road in Etobicoke, my cousin-townhouse is deep in her own dating show, and it is a stressful one. She's not looking for just anyone — she wants someone long-term, someone who'll actually love her back: mow the lawn, notice the little things, treat her the way Damian treats his tenants, which, frankly, sets the bar uncomfortably high for the rest of us. It's less "first applicant who can pay" and more "does this feel right," which, if you've ever tried to find a good tenant on a deadline, you'll know is its own particular kind of anxiety, best managed with snacks and a spreadsheet.
Six months, and she'll eat anything.
Six months ago now, Alyce went G-tube free. It doesn't need fanfare here, just a quiet note: normal, chaotic, heatwave-and-dog-emergency life is exactly the kind of life we were hoping for.
And "normal" now looks like a toddler who loves food — properly loves it, any food, most of it enthusiastically, negotiations optional. She has a system, though. She'll do a quick, entirely unsubtle audit of who has more of whatever she likes — ice cream, a favourite dish — and if Mom's plate looks better stocked, Mom's plate quietly becomes hers, no vote required. Her own food, on the other hand, is not up for negotiation, discussion, or even eye contact. Sharing, it turns out, is a one-way street when you're two and a half, and she built the street herself.
And Boujee?
She's already back to her post — curled up by Alyce's crib every night, waiting until she's sure the small human is properly asleep before padding back to the living room, mission accomplished, gastrointestinal drama fully behind her. Some things a pancreatitis scare doesn't change. Boujee has priorities, and they are not up for discussion either — must run in the family.
One more thing, while we're here.
The World Cup is on, and in Hamilton, you'd genuinely never know it. No flags, no decorations, no cafés with a TV wheeled out front and a crowd forming around it. Kat keeps thinking back to Brussels, where the World Cup used to take over everything — bars and restaurants dressed up for it, strangers cheering together on terraces, kids trading sticker books in the schoolyard trying to complete their team pages. It was a whole atmosphere, not just a tournament. Maybe it's just Hamilton and Toronto would feel different. Or maybe it really has lost some of that collective, in-the-streets magic here. Could also just be nostalgia talking — the kind that convinces you everything was more festive when you were smaller and everyone around you cared.
Damian's home. The deck is still deciding what it wants to be, in no apparent rush. And somewhere out there, hopefully, a good tenant is already looking at photos, falling in love, and not asking too many questions about the plumbing.
Until next time, The House
