I had a brush with death this morning and I didn't even know it.

At about quarter after five this morning the landlord's sister in law called us. I was sound asleep but ran to get the phone anyway- stumble stumble naked to the phone... She told me in a very hurried voice that there is some flooding in the basement and something went wrong with the gas line and we've had a gas leak at least all night. Which explains why our apartment smelled like a plastic spoon melting over a barbeque yesterday. I was almost completely asleep until it dawned on me that she actually wanted something. She told me the gas guy was here and he was going to come up and check our apartment for carbon monoxide.

So I ran into the bedroom, turned on the light and told sweets he needed to get up and get dressed because the landlord's sister in law was coming up with a guy from the gas company. he was very confused and by the time I'd explained it enough they were knocking on the door and I was almost dressed. We let them in and the gas guy raised this device up over his head and measured the carbon monoxide in the apartment. He said "eh- it's not that bad. you might have a headache from this but nothing worse." um- nothing worse, like dying? Then he said "you might want to open a window or two."

yeah.

So we opened all the windows in the house and went back to bed. This sort of explains why I was sleeping so hard last night the dripping faucet didn't even bother me.

But I am disturbed by the experience. We will have headaches and perhaps flu-like symptoms and there's no real information about whether the leak is gone or what. The apartment still smells pretty strongly, even with all the windows open and fans sucking air out like mad. We've really gone to great lengths to air the place out and it still smells like gas. Does this mean we are still losing all our hemoglobin to CO? Am I going to get a lower score on my nursing boards because I can't get enough oxygen to my brain because that damn CO has bonded to my red blood cells and blocked transport of CO2? damn.

And the whole brush with death thing. That just sucks. We could have died last night and we had no clue- we slept very soundly and are completely cranky today because of all this.

Well- that's a stretch. I'm cranky all the time these days. I feel like I'm being extra cranky with sweets because we're married and he's stuck with me now. I feel like the six year old who is pushing her limits to see just how far she can go. I know this is a phase, just like it was 23 years ago, but I really want to grow out of it ASAP. Sweets I think has had enough of me.

My birthday is in seven days. This is the first day of birthday week. we are having a film festival. We should be celebrating our good fortune but instead it's birthday week and we're celebrating my good fortune.