  It's freaking freezing in my office today. I think Joey has been messing with my thermometer. So I type this with frozen fingers. Anyway... It's apparently Hawaiian Day at work today. I just got lei'd (har har. ) I think one of the nursing units decided to have a bit of fun today and did the hawaiian theme and it's spread throughout the hospital.
There are always, in every organization, those people who go all out on things like this. The woman who came in with the leis was dressed in full-on Hawaiian mumu, with big floppy hat and sunglasses and she's going around to all the departments in my building handing out the leis. I wish I could be that unselfconscious. I'm more the 'These leis itch' type and mine are now sitting on a corner of my desk. Tonight I'll take them home and give them to my darling daughter who will probably hand them off of a nail stuck in the wall and there they will hang until the end of time. Then a year from now I'll see them and wonder where the hell they came from. Wow two paragraphs out of Hawaiian Day. And I was worried I wouldn't have anything to write about :) God I really wish people would refrain from bursting into my office as if it's just some closet or something.
It scares the bejeezus out of me because I don't see them coming. Here I am, thinking hard about what to write in here (yes I know I should be working, but I'm on my lunch hour), staring at my keyboard, willing it to extract the thoughts from my head when the door flies open with a loud crack and some chirpy person from the Education department breezes in on her way to the *actual* closet attached to my office. I have a private office but one of the bad things about it is that the Education department keeps all of their CPR dummies in the closet here. Whenever they have a class over in my building (usually they're located in the other building) they're in and out of my office constantly all day long. It's a little annoying and disruptive, especially with the noisy door and their tendency to burst in without warning. Then they leave the damn closet door open with the light on (well, it's more of a hall actually) and it's even colder in there than it is in my office.
Grrrrr. So, speaking of feeling scared (nice segueway eh? ), I'll chime in on Fire's post about fears to mention mine. I actually think I've talked about mine before when Anne posted in the BBS once asking 'what scares the hell out of you. ' I love to swim. But I cannot have someone hanging on me while doing so. Not my daughter, or a boyfriend or just a friend playing a friendly game of 'dunk.
' I'm afraid I'll be pushed under and then be unable to surface. So I guess it's a drowning fear. I can't even stand to watch underwater sequences in films or on TV either. I get out of breath and tense. I even know what the fear stems from because it's probably one of the most vivid early memories I have. When I was little, we moved to an apartment complex in Palm Springs, CA which, of course, had a pool. They all did in Palm Springs because the heat there is atrocious. Anyway, I was innocently paddling around in it one day when my friend decided to jump in, land on me, and cling to me. She wouldn't let go either and I kept going under and had absolutely no control, no chances to grab a breath before going back under. All the while she was giggling and thought we were having a great time. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but we couldn't have been more than five I guess. Anyway, I'm positive that's why I can't stand anyone hanging on me in the water. The other thing I fear is the same as Joey, and that's death.
I don't like to think about my own mortality, and I definitely have nightmares about something happening to my daughter. That scares me to pieces. The more I think about it though, I think death saddens me moreso than scares me I guess. The fear is my own death and what would happen to my daughter and my family and friends. The sadness from worrying about losing what little family I have left.
And I know that was never much a concern of mine until my father suddenly died, followed several years later by my mother who also died out of the blue. No one close to me had ever died before that could have prepared me for such devastating losses. Even just writing about it now makes me feel sort of weepy. So I shall stop. I've rambled enough for one post :) 
