viewI thought my neighbour's house was flooding. It's a holiday weekend where I am, and their sump pump had been pumping out several gallons of water every few minutes for hours and hours. They're not home as far as I can tell.
I didn't know how to contact them because I don't have their number. I don't really know anyone in this area. I've lived here almost since 1991 (I was in Toronto for eighteen months). When I moved back in 2012, everyone I knew moved away, and it's hard to make friends as a single man with a disability when everyone wants an insulated life. It's the suburbs, after all. Insulation is a right out here.
(I'm as guilty as the rest. Just waiting for the day I can be insulated somewhere with more trees.)
I eventually figured out a guy down the street knows them. He never says hi to me when I walk by his house, but I figured he'd want to let my neighbour know their house somehow found hundreds of gallons of water somewhere.
He went to go check on it last night after I told him. The sump pump is still pumping this morning.
viewThere's only one small window in my bedroom— it's a basement, after all. I have frosted sheets over the panes for privacy, so I'm never quite sure if it's a sunny or cloudy morning.
But with technology, I'm able to look at my security camera through my phone. It takes the guesswork out of sunny predictions. Today it's as sunny as a morning could be.
Truthfully, it's been too sunny lately. The grass has retreated, and I see no point in watering it; sometimes life is a little dry, and grass is no different.
The rain will come soon enough.
viewIt's 8:02 a.m. on a Monday.
Mornings are tough on my body. I have arthritis in my spine, and mornings reveal too much pain sometimes. I would say the disease is manageable now, but that wasn't always the case.
My favourite part of my morning routine, after hauling my body out of bed, is seeing my cat. When it's just us in the house, she sometimes sleeps at the top of the basement stairs so I can't avoid saying hello.
Not that I'd ever avoid saying hello to her.
viewI spend a lot of time alone. When my mom and her partner are around, I rotate through a cast of locations, but mostly my bedroom. When the pandemic hit, I moved my bed from upstairs to the basement so I could have more room.
I lived down here from 2014-2016, so it's not new. Before my pandemic migration, I was growing oyster mushrooms in a hydroponic grow tent here. (I say here because that's where I'm writing this.)
If I had to choose, I prefer the basement as it is now. It's peaceful.
viewI'm in bed. It's 11:02 p.m. It's Sunday.
Even though I rarely leave my house these days, I still keep track of the days of the week and put myself in either a weekday or weekend state of mind.
Even if it's just me and my cat watching the world go by.