America has spoken...

Today here in Beautiful British Columbia, I woke up to a broken water main which has shut down the water supply to six buildings of 200 apartments each, and means we now have to go down to the first basement, to the swimming pool, to carry water for flushing the well-known facilities. 

And when I went to the local Motor Vehicles License Office to renew my driver's license, and took a number, they skipped right past mine, and I had to wait while it got recycled back into the system, and meanwhile, the meter's ticking on my parking spot outside, and I just barely made it out of there in time, with my new temporary permit, good until the fancy new 5-year renewal of the photo I.D. one arrives by snail mail. 

But I feel positively lucky and extremely fortunate to be living here in Canada, about 35 miles north of your northern border of the U.S. of A., especially with news reports like this one hitting me in the kisser when I turn on the computer.
My problems will all be fixed in a day or so, but that isn't likely to happen any time soon south of the border, down U.S.A. way. Too bad - it was a nice place while it lasted. But I now have a much better understanding of what caused the Roman Empire to collapse... it almost feels like I'm watching an instant replay.