There was a shooting on my street a few nights ago. Or rather, mornings. It happened around 07:30 on Monday, apparently, literally less than half a block from where we live in Ottawa's Centretown.

I slept right through it, and so did Raven, but she took a picture of the police cars protecting the block that had been roped off and I found that on my phone when I woke up a couple of hours later.

The cops were still there when I went to work (see photo, above) and were still there when I returned from work at around 02:00 the next morning. In fact, they were there when I went to work on Wednesday afternoon, though Raven reported that they had finally gone when she got home from work later on.

We since learned that the shots were fired at a house, and that one person was wounded. No one was killed.

In fact, it was a bad couple of days for gun violence here in Ottawa, with three separate shootings happening over a couple of days. But I am not here to write a treatise on why I am unsurprised that violent crime seems to be on an upswing 20 years after Mike Harris' government slashed welfare rates by 20% and generally led the charge of austerity in Ontario.

I am immediately interested in my reaction to such violence happening so close to home — literally close to home — and in my reaction to it, and Raven's reaction to it.

In short I didn't react. I was mildly curious, and vaguely hopeful that no one had been hurt or killed, but that was pretty much it. I wasn't frightened, nor was I suddenly worried that our neighbourhood was in any fundamental way changed for the worse.

Shit happens, as they say, and for once it had happened just up the street from me. From us.

Then, when I came in last night (early Wednesday morning), I saw that Raven had left out for my edification, a Crime Stoppers pamphlet, a small piece of blue paper with contact information for a social service agency offering crisis counselling and a double-sided, legal-size information sheet titled Neighbourhood Trauma: What to do when a violent or traumatic incident happens, offering advice and reassurance that it is okay to be upset. (See photo below.)

Which made me briefly wonder (and not for the first time), Is there something wrong with me? Should I be upset that someone was shot only a few doors away from where I live and while I slept?

As usual, I pretty quickly dismissed that worry. Like car accidents, violence does happen sometimes, and there is no logical reason to be more upset that it happened to occur in close physical proximity to me, than when it happens in the Byward Market or somewhere in Hintenburgh.

But then, I realized that, due to our schedules (Raven works 9-5, I work 14:00 to one or two in the morning, Monday through Thursday), we hadn't actually talked about what had happened.

Could it be that Raven was upset? Might she be dreaming of looking for counselling even as I warmed up the delicious home-made soup she'd left out for me? (The main meal — the last of our harvested Chinese vegetable Raven doesn't know the English name of, braised lotus root and a few slices of fried beef on a bed of rice (yes, she treats me well!) I would leave for breakfast. But I digress.)

So, when I had a few minutes to spare at work on Wednesday evening, I sent her a text asking if she had some time to talk.

She did, and I got quickly to the point. And as I'd expected (after almost nine years together I think I know her pretty well), she was no more upset or "traumatised" than I was. She almost laughed when I asked her, though she wished the CBC would do a better job of finding out the details of what happened, and why.

She did laugh, when I mentioned the word traumatised (which I see now isn't included in that info sheet; rather, it refers to a "traumatic event", but never mind that).

Point is: are we weird? In that sense? (We're definitely both kind of weird in other, not necessarily shared, senses.)

How have you reacted when a "traumatic event" has happened near you? Did you shrug your shoulders and ponder statistics as I did, or did you have a more visceral reaction?

Whether you did, or didn't, you should have a cookie for having read so far. The ones in the photo below contain chopped green onions in place of chocolate chips. And yet, they were delicious!

Yesterday's football was a soggy, ridiculous mess and some 30 or so kilometres (yes, 30!) outside of town. Well, technically within Ottawa's bloated city limits, but there were cows on the other side of the field's fence, and quite a few more along the way from town to the field.

Anyway, it was pissing drizzle when we got there and continued on doing so until about five minutes after the game ended. A game which, incidentally, put paid to Team Seven's fantasies of becoming a league powerhouse. After winning one game and drawing another last week, we were quite trounced this week, 7 or 8 to 2.

Ah well, it was fun nonetheless.

And in case you were wondering, no, I did not cycle 30 kilometres through the rain in order to play soccer. I managed to snag a ride with one of my team-mates.

( Cut for shameless ego-boo. )

In other news, it looks like Raven and I have found an apartment for August 1st. Nothing's been signed yet, but presuming we pass (what I hope will be) the fairly informal background check, we won't be checking into Vanier but will instead find ourself located ... right. Down. Town.

The apartment is a (very) small two bedroom, in an old two-story brick building, but one very much too my liking. We're on the top floor (of two), with a private entrance in front and a shared fire-escape to the back alley(!). Raven works about 3 blocks away and I will have only an extra three or four k added to my commute. And, on the days when weather forbids, the airport bus runs by about two blocks away.

I hope to hell I'm not jinxing things by writing about it before the papers are signed ...

General Winter is back!
And only Young Geoffrey can stop him!

During the spring and summer of 1977 I saw Star Wars (yes, just "Star Wars") something like 16 times. By the time the movie finally left town, I would put myself to sleep by running over the entire film — including every line of dialogue and each one of R2D2's beeps — in my head, sometimes doing it twice if I was having trouble transitioning to the Land of Nod.

Over time, memories of Star Wars evolved into a more personal (though admitedly, an entirely derivative) space-war fantasy of epic proportions, one in which I was the nearly immortal hero, time and again called up to save (ahem — it was mental comfort food, not meant to be a gourmet feast!) "The United Planets" from brutal, worse-than-the-Nazis, alien invaders.

And somehow, somewhere along the line, those alien invaders became iconified by winter, by snow.

The "invasion" would begin in late October or early December. I would be called upon to save the United Planets from certain anhilation shortly after Christmas and the war would rage for the next several months until, miraculously (and yet, to the detriment of the drama, also inevitably), the enemy was destroyed and all was once again Well With the Universe.

Until the next winter.

As you can probably imagine, the fantasy grew more perfunctory with time, an endless sequence of sequels, repetitive (and so conducive to sleep), but boring and so ever-more difficult to get enthusiastic about.

Young Geoffrey compared to snow-blower

I think it's a doubly-good thing I stopped smoking because, since General Winter launched his latest campaign, I have enjoyed more exercise than I probably have over the previous six months.

As you can see from the accompanying photos, Ottawa is a genuine winter city and our house includes a significant piece of driveway.

Last week saw our first significant snow-fall and the enthusiastic words I spouted upon my autumnal arrival at the begining of October — such as, "I can't wait for winter!" and "No, really, I'm looking forward to shovelling snow!" — now required that I put up or eat those words with an enormous helping of Corvidae.

Our first dump saw me shovelling out, from and back, not once, but twice. First in the early evening and then again first thing in the morning.

I've had to do it three more times in the last week or so, including spending 45 minutes at it this morning, when I was accosted by one of the women in the semi-detached house across the wall from ours, as she came out to find her car ready to roll out of a well-cleaned drive.

She waved at me as I hurled snow high atop the growing pile on the street and thanked me, saying she had been extremely busy lately, but that she would be joining me in the efforts soon.

She glanced at the shovel in my hand. "Have you done it all with that?" I said that I had. "Wow," she said, "it looks as if someone had used a snow-blower!"

I did this!

I laughed, all forelock (if I had a forelock) tugging and aw-shucks toe-scuffing false modesty.

"Anyway," she said, "thank you very much. I'll be joining you out here soon, but things have been crazy lately and you've been getting to it so fast ..."

"Don't worry," I said, "My dad tells me you kept him dug out the past two winters so I kind of figure we owe you anyway. And I can use the exercise."

She laughed. "All right, but once I come back from the East coast after Christmas I'll be helping you anyway.

And with that, she got in her car and I went around to the front to take care of her and our front walks.

So far, I really am enjoying it and my muscles appreciate getting used for more than typing and walking up and down a short flight of stairs a few times a day. Whether or not I'll feel the same come mid-March remains to be scene, but I'm optimistic that Young Geoffrey will still be shovelling the white stuff with smile on his face and a whistle from his lips.

And ... exeunt.