Wednesday, December 20, 2006

You light up my life

Speaking of which, that cheeseball song was MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE when I was about 4 years old. That and the Kenny Rogers tape my parents had. And I still love Kenny.

Thanks be to PSE - we got our power back today. Or maybe late last night. So now I'm tucked into my bed, with its cozy down comforter and flannel "happy trees" cover, with two snoozing dogs on the floor beside me. (Even in times of emergency, dogs are not allowed in our bed, according to TJ.) I've got a wicked sinus cold so I'm self medicating with Dayquil/Nyquil, hot tea and OJ.

I'm so happy to be back home again. We were settling in quite nicely at Aunt Susie's house, but it felt like we were invading someone else's space. Though it was a nice comfy space since Aunt Susie has more cable channels than we do, a great couch for sleeping on, and more interesting dog toys.

More people died from carbon monoxide poisoning, including a whole family who was running their gas generator in their closed garage. So sad. (I actually didn't know you shouldn't do that either.) And the hyperbaric chamber at Virginia Mason has been quite busy, with over 100 people doing 2 hour shifts in there around the clock - that's the treatment for CO poisoning.

One thing I remember from my $100,000 college education: a carbon monoxide molecule binds much tighter than oxygen to your hemoglobin, so when you build up enough CO in your body, it displaces all of the O2 molecules and you pretty much suffocate for lack of oxygen. For some reason this fact fascinates me. Maybe it's just the simplicity of it.

At any rate, my public service announcement of the day: Carbon Monoxide Kills! Don't use your gas grill, propane heater, or gas generator indoors. Even using it just outside of your house can cause CO levels to build up in your house and kill you. You will feel nauseous, disoriented, sleepy, and then dead. Just don't do it. Better yet, also get yourself a carbon monoxide detector thingy, one that's battery powered.

Now I'm going to get some sleep. Toodle-oo!

1 comment:

  1. Hey -- I've been the walking dead this week with the cold or flu bug that's going around, so I didn't even know you guys had no power for so long. Argh!! Actually, my dad called and mentioned that Kirkland had gotten hit pretty badly and asked if I still knew people there.
    (By the way, nyquil doesn't work as well for me anymore...have you tried theraflu?)

    Glad your power's back on though. Jorge and his roommate crashed in my place for a few days in Ann Arbor whenever ice storms hit there. Their complex always lost pwoer. It's rough being without conveniences in cold weather. But you have to try to get TJ's policy on dogs-in-beds-in-emergencies changed. Poor things!

    Our house is entirely gas heated, and it's not the newest construction. Luckily, our landlord put in a CO detector in the bedroom. It goes off whenever the power goes off and emits this horrible shrieking beep (that scares the bejeezus out of Lola), but better that than comatose or dead. Ah...fun with gas....

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