I woke up nervous and antsy, after having dreamed of a Romney/Ryan win and a subsequent dystopian future. I usually recall between 2 and 3 dreams each night, and every dream I remember having has been in full colour, this one was the first in black, white and shades in between. Obviously I support Obama. This shouldn’t surprise anyone; I’m Canadian, Canadians right across the board support Obama.

I peeked in at the pseudo news throughout the day, useless, and finally just kept reruns of the Golden Girls going in the background. The Princess of course turned the bobblehead chatter on as soon as he came home, he brought pizza with him, I was too nervous to cook! The numbers started coming in, too early to be meaningful so I wandered away – too much anxiety for little ol’ me.

I texted with my sister and friends in Canadian, all of us on edge. Americans don’t realise the impact of their elections on their neighbours and the world at large. Canadian’s in particular feel the results and future implications almost as keenly as Americans.

It started to look good, but would Romney concede? Would there be recounts? Would it end in a timely manner? Could I actually breathe again? And then he did, and there wouldn’t, and it did, and I did! And wow! We won!!!

And isn’t that the funny thing? Texts and emails started arriving, not just from Americans, but from my Canadian cohorts, from a friend in Paris, and others speckled across the globe: “We won!”

Water is the bane of this house’s existence. A few years ago the laundry machine started overflowing, flooding the laundry-room and the basement. That happened twice. We replaced the machine and all seemed well. Then a weird thing happened with the car and something to do with leaves somehow getting clogged somewhere and the car flooded. We had a new HVAC installed and a tube was installed incorrectly, totally flooding the basement after the first heat wave. A water filtration pump didn’t flow properly, totally flooding the basement again. And now? I run a load of laundry, we start to hear a weird sound, the basement is flooded – but the machine isn’t overflowing. I search and see that the water is coming from off to the side, either behind the wall or under the floor – whatever the laundry machine drains into has burst. FUCK! What the fuck?! Who has this many water issues? I’m blaming The Princess, I think it’s some sort of freak passive aggressive telekinetic terribleness, which happens when he’s been upset/over stressed for too long.

Last year The Princess and I were in Paris during hurricane Irene. By the time we returned a few days had already passed, the refrigerator had already gone rotten, the items in the freezer were already unfrozen though ice cold, and the downed trees in our driveway had already been moved. The power had been out for days and it took a few more days before it returned. The first night was probably the worst because we had been on an airplane for 7 hours, then in a car for 2 and were eagerly awaiting a long shower and a good poop. Instead I spent an hour emptying out the refrigerator and BBQing steaks. Still, not the worst thing to return to. The house had only minor damage, our neighbours moved our outdoor breakables, and one of our friends had hurried over before the storm, presciently moving the cars from their usual parking spot – the trees that came down would have crushed them both had they not been moved. The first dark nights were fun and romantic – candles, banding together, and just when we were getting annoyed with the whole situation the power was back.

Hurricane Sandy was different. We were here to tune in to the ongoing warnings, the Franenstorm! chatter, the panic. We were around to pick up the phone when the city robocalled with an evacuation notice – we’re near but not in the mandatory evacuation area. We were here to consider our distance from the water and be reassured that we weren’t at risk from it, then wander around the house and determine which trees might fall and what part of the house would be endangered. All seemed well, so we filled up the bathtubs (we have well water which requires an electric pump), charged our phones and laptops and back up batteries, brought everything we could indoors and battened down the rest.

Around noon on Monday we went for a walk down the street from us, down being the operative word.

Beautiful stream?

Or flooded road?

Remember, these were taken before the storm officially even touched down.

Sometimes shitty things happen that are totally a surprise. You start the day thinking everything’s going to go great and then BAM! you get groped on the subway, causing you to spill your coffee on your brand new suede boots, and then you’re yelled at by a passenger for splashing them. And you’re stunned all the while because you thought it was going to be a perfectly normal day.

Sometimes shitty things happen and they’re not a surprise at all, even though nothing suggested that anything should have gone awry. You get groped on the subway, spill your coffee, ruin your boots, and get yelled at by a passenger – and you’re not surprised at all because you knew you shouldn’t have got on the subway that day. You knew it, you did it anyway, and now you’ve been groped and your day sucks.

I hate that. I hate the knowing and the subsequent ignoring and the resulting shitty day that maybe could have been avoided if I just didn’t do the thing I didn’t think I should be doing.

So today, instead of going into the city with The Princess, I stayed home because it felt like a really really bad idea for me to go.

Crazy, right? Which is the reason I would normally just plow ahead, and do whatever it is anyway. Except, if I keep having instances where after shit happens I’m left thinking to myself ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done that/gone there/etc.,’ and I don’t do anything differently – well that’s crazy too.

You know how that one time, for funsies, you thought it would be a good idea to write your list? Sorry, your List. You know, the list of everyone in your current or past on whom you wish unbearable physical harm/humiliation/financial ruin etc? And then for whatever reason, instead of throwing it away, you put it somewhere for safe keeping, maybe because you thought it was kind of funny, or maybe because it was on paper and you felt Go-Green guilt for putting it in the garbage – and even if you tore it up it would still be too intact to go in the recycling – because people can be unethical snoops and you never did get around to investing in a shredder. And then out of the blue, one of the people on your list actually dies. And then part of you has a really terrible urge to dig up that old list and cross the name out, or put a check mark beside it – because that’s the sort of thing you do when maintaining a list. Except that would be crazy so you can’t. And if it was ever found it would be weird enough to explain on its own, and even weirder to explain with one of the names crossed out and dated.

So what I’m saying is: Goodbye Aunt Jane, your popcorn always smelled like pantyhose and the possible explanations for that still frighten me.

Joking joking – Aunt Jane and her pantyhose popcorn died years ago!