oooh spooky

So it has been "one of those nights"... in probably a worse way than I thought it would be.

I left Lauren's shower 5 minutes behind my self-imposed schedule, just as she was opening presents. GRR. I finally had a bunch of people in the same room that I liked AND there were lots of cute kids AND Lauren had a cute shirt on I wanted to get a picture of AND she was just getting down to business... when I had to leave. Natch.

Since the shower was at Steve & Leah's (and in utero baby S), I drove through d-town on my way into the "dubc". And there is traffice. Lots of it. And kids. Everywhere. Apparently there was either a parade or trick or treating or something... but the families were out in droves. I called work to let them know I would be 5 minutes late.

I pulled into the parking lot at 3:02, perfect timing to get into the lab at 3:05, except there were no parking spaces. I had to park in a space that may or may not result in my car getting towed. I do not *think* it will get towed... but with how everything has proceeded, it would not be a total shock if it did.

When I got in, the first shift person told me that she had a crazy day and that with everything she did it felt like 1 step forward, 2 steps back. (We come together cuz opposites attract an' you know!) So that was not the thing I wanted to hear, feeling rushed as I was. She left me some coags, two slides, and a poop to look at.

As I got settled in, I grabbed the baby monitor to take on the first shift of answering the pneumatic tube. Quite literally, it rang off the hook. It was suddenly 5. Then, nothing happened for almost an hour. I sat on my butt and read. I decided to go get dinner around 5:45.

As I walked out of the lab, I looked at the fire alarm and thought to myself, that will go off. And then I thought about how many exits there were to the lab and that the likelihood of a fire being actually under the lab was pretty slim... most of the hospital activity at night is in other wings. I kept walking.

I got my dinner, came back, sat on my butt again... and then things started getting busy. And then one of my co-workers, Anne, walked halfway in my room, blurted, "My dad died!" and ran away. I dropped what I was doing and followed her down the hallway where she proceeded to sit on the floor while talking on the phone with her mom.

Anne's dad has been battling incurable lymphoma for about 2 years now. At age 76, he decided to try chemo, even though it was somewhat of a losing battle. It was extremely rough and he has been quite depressed over the state of his health. His wife found him collapsed in the back yard today, where he was doing some yard work. Anne felt it was better to go this way than to go of cancer, but she just kept saying, "I cannot believe he is gone, my dad is gone." My heart goes out to her.

We called our lab supervisor and she came in. While waiting for her, another tech and I cleaned up things in microbiology, even though technically I am not supposed to be working in there. We found a ride for her to get home, and she left. Her parents live near Harrisburg, so she will be driving out there tonight with her boyfriend and staying the week. Since she left, things have been crazy.

First, I got another poop. Then I got a spinal fluid. I got a bunch of regular specimens (way more than usual for this shift) and then some mislabeled things. The pneumatic tube is ringing and ringing and beeping and ringing and we are rushing back and forth to get more and more specimens...

And then the fire alarm goes off!

No, really, it does. I guess it was a good thing I was mentally prepared?! All we do in the lab is basically shut the door and keep working, which I did. But it makes me wonder, how did I know? And if I could know that, then why not know things like, someone is going to die?

It is now 8:00 and things are steady.... not terrible, just steady.

But I would have to say that my occurance of "predictions" has risen quite a bit in the past 2 weeks, so I have to wonder if it is psychosomatic or someone is trying to show me something.

Example 1: fire alarm

Example 2: Jon and I were talking to someone about my crazy dreams maybe a week ago and I remarked that I was overdue for a waking up sobbing in the middle of the night dream. Which I had last night.

Example 3: On our way to teach Sunday School last weekend, I said to Jon, "You know, if people want us to continue teaching, I sort of want them to tell us what a good job we are doing and ask us to keep doing it." And that day, one parent stopped in before class to tell us how much she appreciated us. Then like 3 more adults stopped us on our way out to tell us what a good job they were doing. Then a few days later, we got an email from another parent telling us that her daughter was actually excited to go to Sunday School and she was not having as hard a time waking her up in the morning. Okay, God, I get the hint!



It does seem that I get sort of these premonition type things a bit more frequently than most people... but I might just have a strong sense of intuition. Though thinking the fire alarm would go off and then having it go off is a little strange... I think in my 7 years here I have only heard it go off once? Odd.

It makes me think though about instincts and how much we really trust them. I know I have blogged before about thin-slicing and the book Blink. It argues that our millisecond "snap judgement" is often just as valid as a well-thought, debated, and reasoned conclusion. I wish there were a way to know just how much we can actually trust them, since those instincts are still based largely on sum total of our history, including our biases and prejudices. For example, when a cop racially profiles, is it fair to say that he or she is really doing that? Are they biased because of their past history, or are they just trusting an instinct? If 9 out of 10 times they are right... or even 5 out of 10... is that enough to say it is not prejudice? Very tough to truly know.

I know I have also mentioned Oprah and how she had on some rape specialist (uh, not really good at rape, really good at preventing it!) and he was saying to trust your gut and do what feels natural and to fight fight fight! When you watch a movie and you know the killer is in the room, but the bimbo with the big boobs and a white shirt who just happens to walk through the rain coming through the gaping hole in ceiling decides she MUST go see what that noise is... she is obviously a class a idiot and ignoring all of her instincts. Even YOU feel like running away in those moments, and you are just sitting on your couch watching a movie. Everyone has heard those stories as well of people who feel like they should not get on a plane or ride the bus that day and, lo and behold, it crashes and everyone dies. How do you know what to trust? How do you know what is total paranoia??

My mom slept over on Thursday night because I HATE when Jon is away for work and I sleep really poorly when I am alone in the house. Just having someone there eased my fear. But why am I afraid? Do I really think I could not talk or maim myself out of a invader situation? No. Am I scared of being shot or raped or hurt? No. Do I really think someone is going to come get me? Not really. Do I worry about dying? Strangely, not at all. But I am still scared. Why? Why do I wake up at every sound in the house? Paranoia or instinct? Me being a psycho or my mind preserving itself? Hard to tell, but I am leaning towards a wee bit of psycho.

Anyway, my mom was saying to me that she did not want me to read any books about babies. While we are not pregnant yet, she said that the best thing I can do is to a) trust my instincts and b) ask women that I know and trust and have seen raise great kids for advice. And in fact, most of the women I know who have kids seem to do this pretty well. They are reasonably laid back and their kids all are pretty awesome so far. I guess there is merit to it... though seriously someone is going to have to remind me how to change I diaper. I have avoided that task since babysitting when I was 13. It's sort of like driving stick shift... I know how to do it, and I could do it if I had to, but I am really not all that interested.

Anyway, I apologize for what has turned out to be a stream of consciousness type of post. Whatever, it makes sense to me. And if you are the praying sort, send a couple up for Anne and her family.