Oh, the Oddities

So there was full moon this week and I think that must explain the strange things going on as of late. Ok, so some of this stuff happened prior to the full moon but I'll blame the moon none the less.

Ok, so I haven't slept much since moving into the new house. As some of you know, I'm not a great sleeper anyway and being in a new place doesn't help. So I'm averaging about 4 hours a night these days. I'm hoping as I get more comfortable at the house, the hours will increase. Anyway, I was actually asleep one night around 3am when I heard something. I wasn't sure what it was but I knew I wasn't imagining it because Barley was awake, ears perked and growling. Before I could get out of bed there was pounding on my front door. I damn near jumped out of my skin and Barley went crazy and took off for the front door. The pounding on the door stopped immediately as I heard a mans voice yell, "What the fuck?" Barley continued to bark and claw at the front door and I let him as I tried to decide if I needed to call 911. Of course I couldn't find my phone so I stood there thinking I was going to be killed. I crept into the the guestroom which has a window off the front porch and could hear the guy talking on his phone. And it went a little something like this: "Fuck dude, I don't know. I took a cab home and tried to get in my house but I can't. And there's a big ass dog in there and I don't have a dog. I don't think this is my house. (Insert a few moments of silence as he sorts it all out.) Dude, I'm not even on my own fucking street! I don't know where I am and the fucking cab left. Fuck man, come get me....I just told you I don't know where I am! When will you be here?!" And then he stumbled off my porch. Barley was still going nuts and since he was off the porch I decided it was safe to sneak a peak out the window. I catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a 20-something guy stumbling down the street, completely lost and trying to dial his phone. I never heard anything more from him...and I never fell back asleep. Jackass.

And then last weekend I was having dinner at Le Central with my gay boyfriend when a girl at a table behind us fell out of her chair onto the floor. The girl she was sitting with understandably freaked out and tried to help her friend. There was a table of four men, probably in their 40's, sitting next to the girl and her friend. The men, seeing the commotion made no effort to help at all. In fact, the girl hit the floor right next to one guy's chair and he simply looked at her down on the floor and scootched (is that a real word?) his chair over a few inches and kept talking to the other guys. The girl's friend then yelled that she wasn't breathing so I jumped up and went over to her. I'm CPR certified and though I've never had to do it in real life I thought maybe I could help. Gay boyfriend, also certified came over as well and as we rolled her over onto her back, she opened her eyes and came to. Turns out, she had passed out and was relatively ok, minus the huge bump on her forehead where she hit the floor. We had her lay there for a minute and as she did I looked around and realized no one else was helping or doing anything at all. One girl did manage set down her wine and call 911 but that was it. I was kinda stunned. Having dealt with my own Passing Out at a Restaurant situation where there were almost too many people helping, I couldn't believe that no one did anything. We were in a lovely french restaurant with lots of people paying good money for a meal. I passed out in a cheap Chinese restaurant where damn near everyone in there tried to help pull my face out of my wonton soup. The lesson here: if you're going to had a medical crisis at a restaurant, make it a cheap one; people at fancy restaurants are a-holes who wouldn't put down their forks to help.

And then the other night I was at home getting ready for bed when another situation arose. I had made some tea (Sleeptime tea, in an effort to help me sleep) and was walking of the kitchen when I smelled gas. At first I thought it was just because I'd used the stove but a few minutes later I could still smell it. I had smelled it faintly once or twice before but having never had a gas stove before, I figured it was nothing. After talking to a friend, she assured me it was not normal and told me I needed to called the gas company to have them check it out. It was 10:30pm but I called anyway and they said they would send someone out immediately. Apparently, the word "immediately" as defined by Exel energy is somewhere in the ballpark of 2 hours. Anyway, the guy showed up and pulled out this detector thingamajig and stuck it near the stove. The thing went bat-shit crazy and the guy looked up at me and said, "Oh yeah, you got a gas leak." He pulled the stove away from the wall, took one look at the line and said, "Well here's your problem." And then he went on to explain something about a hose and an attachment that wasn't there and how it really needed to be there and who did I have install this thing because they did a piss-poor job. So after the lecture was finished he fixed what needed to be fixed and left around 1am. He also told me that if I ever smelled gas again, no matter how faint, I should call immediately. "We'd rather come out and find out it was nothing than have your house blown to the other side of town." Such comforting words. So the next morning after letting Barley out the back door I thought I smelled gas again. So I called again. And they sent someone out again. Thankfully, they didn't detect anything but I'm pretty sure I'm paranoid now because I'm always thinking I can smell gas. But hey, at least my house hasn't blown to the other side of town.