Boxing Day

Boxing Day Rules:

1st RULE: You do not talk about Boxing Day sales before you get the item.

2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about Boxing Day sales before you get the item.

3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, the fight is over and the item is yours.

4th RULE: Only two shoppers to a fight.

5th RULE: One fight at a time.

6th RULE: No sharp nails, no stilettos.

7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.

8th RULE: If this is your first Boxing Day sale, you HAVE to fight.

I should have shared the Rules earlier. I've heard that Boxing Day (and Black Friday) sales can be pretty rough. If you participated, I hope you won.


PS - I have had ideas for posts, but when I try writing them out they seem even worse than the above. Sorry, I got nothing!!! Oh, and you probably noticed the Boxing Day rules are oddly similar to the Fight Club rules. ;P

The Gift of the Magi

I like the story. The wife loves her hubby so much, she sells her beautiful hair to get a chain for his treasured watch (which belonged to his grandpa). He loves her so much, he sells his watch to get special combs for her hair. Very sweet.

But the wife's hair will grow back, the hubby isn't getting that watch back. He does have the chain, a symbol of his wife's love...but somehow it never seemed like an even exchange. I'm actually kind of a romantic and I wouldn't mind being in that hubby's shoes, but from the outside looking in, it never seemed right.

Do you know of any real-life examples that mirror the story? I have a vague memory of my parents saying something similar happened to an aunt and uncle. but I don't remember it clearly.

Angels or a Nightmare???

This post is about an experience I had, but I'm not sure I had. Hopefully it will make sense.

I've mentioned I have a 20 inch neck. It's great for holding up my big head. It also came with a free gift--sleep apnea. That causes people to stop breathing for short periods while they sleep. But so what? I was fine (and too dumb to look up the consequences). I started waking up a lot during the night and then waking up with headaches in the morning. Not every morning, but often. And then more often. And then mornings became a real struggle. I was tired all the time. But I work long hours, so of course I was tired. I didn't connect being tired to the apnea.

There was one positive. One day a very vain woman in my office stopped by to ask a question. My mind was alert, but I could feel my eyes closing. It was hysterical. Why? Because of the look on the woman's face. Thanks to her vanity, she was horribly offended that I could drift off while talking to HER. As I said, my mind was alert, so I was able to enjoy the moment.

That convinced me to see a doctor. I spent one night in the hospital for a "sleep study"--I was hooked up to monitors that measured how often I stopped breathing and also tracked my blood oxygen levels. At 5:00am the technician monitoring my activity woke me up. She couldn't take it anymore--she said I scared her more than any other patient in her 25 year career. On average, I stopped breathing 113 times an hour. At one point, my blood oxygen level went down to 59% (that's why I got headaches--carbon dioxide in my blood instead of oxygen). My poor brain!!!

I was put on the fast track to get a machine to keep me breathing at night, until I decided whether to have a minor throat procedure. Two weeks later I still didn't have the machine. And then it happened.

I went to bed, fell asleep, and later I felt hands pulling me away. I could see my room, then my house. I kept rising higher up (backing away) and the view was just what you would expect, until eventually I was looking down through clouds. But I didn't feel peaceful. I felt panicked. Imagine you see your puppy run out in front of a car. You can save it, but people are holding you back. You can't get free, but you have to. That's how I felt. Finally I shouted, "No, I can't go! My family needs me!". The hands let me go.

And then I woke up. I was awake, but I couldn't move. My heart was pounding so hard and fast I couldn't tell one beat from another and I was gasping for air. I must have stopped breathing for quite a while. I don't know how long it took for me to catch my breath and for my heart rate to drop back to normal--it felt like an hour, but it was at probably only ten minutes. Needless to say I was exhausted.

So what do you think happened that night? Was I on my way to the next life? Or just having a nightmare?


PS - I had the throat procedure. One experience like that was one too many.

Close Calls; Stalking; Normal???

Former reader Elaine teased me last year about some of my posts ("you always seem to have these near-death experiences!"). It was cute. But it made me wonder if maybe I get carried away and exaggerate. I have a fact checker on the payroll, but she may be biased. Have I had many near-death experiences? More than a "normal" person? Let's see:

--When a co-worker burned Freon gas, creating Phosgene gas (a World War I weapon). Yes!

--When a store manager mixed bleach and amonia in a confined space? No, but she passed out before we opened the windows. Don't ever mix those two.

--Getting robbed at gunpoint (with the tip of the gun barrel pressed against my cheek)? Yes! It happened the night before the 1st day of my high school senior year.

--Going on SWAT manuevers with my dad (protecting my gandma's store)? I'm going to say no, but...

--Being stalked from my school bus stop by a fellow my dad and I kicked off my grandma's property the night before. Hmmm, no. It was scary, but he was probably harmless. Probably.

--Encounters with electricity? Yes! (future post)

--Getting dizzy while standing in a tree to saw off its top? Hmmm, no. If my dad had slower reflexes and I'd actually thrown up ON him, then maybe. =)

--Run-ins with a black bloc wannabe and gang wannabees? No.

--The Halloween encounter witht he gun and the girl? Yes (to both).

--My car spinning counter-clockwise while going 50 MPH straight down the highway. Maybe, but it was FUN.

--Hitching rides on coal trains? Again, maybe, but fun.

--Being stalked and pulled over by fake cops? No, I was the one with the baseball bat.

--Getting stalked in a hardware store (my most popular post ever)? No.

--Getting stalked @ midnight on my walk home from work? No. (Future post)

--Being stalked into a subway station's small car parking lot by a crazy trucker? Yes, he was as big as a mountain. I could have easily driven away--and should have


Geez, what's with all the stalking??? Is THAT normal? Have you been stalked? It's not just me, right???


PS - There was also the night I asked the angels not to take me--I hope they were angels!!! That will be the subject of my next post.

Awkward Moment

For my current boss, not me. She looked embarrassed.

I've mentioned often that I've been working like a dog for months now (even more so than usual). My organization needed me and I stepped up. It's what I do. Being responsible is an old habit. I do it for me, but it usually leads to good things. This time it will not. I'm acting in place of my old boss who resigned in September (so I'm reporting to her boss now). The plan was to make the "acting" permanent. I received a temporary promotion and the official recruitment was going to be a formality. Our HR department confirmed I qualified for the job and my name was on the list of candiates to be considered. Then it all fell apart.

The Smithsonian has multiple sources of funding. Until recently I was paid from private funds. I changed jobs in May (a promotion) and became a "federal" employee (paid from from US government funds). It turns out that since I have not been in my current job for one year, I cannot be promoted again (even though I qualify for the job). If I had stayed a private employee, there would have been no problem. But once you become a fed, the rules are different. Our HR department screwed up--I'm not even eligible for the temporary promotion. So that was cancelled (I'm still doing the work). There's also an issue with "veteran's preference", but that's too complicated to get into.

Anyway, management could wait until May and promote me into the position then. But they've decided it would make them look bad. The awkward part?

As the acting head of our finance department, I attend a teleconference with our people in Panama every other Friday at 2:00pm. My boss thought she was going to use the room at 2:30, but of course I had it booked. She looked at me through the glass wall, wanting to ask me to move the meeting. She couldn't bring herself to do it.

Why did she need the room? To interview a candidate for "my job"--but I was in her way. LOL! The universe DOES have a sense of humor.