Wow

I'm sitting here in an Oklahoma City La Quinta hotel room relaxing at 9 a.m. I just finished a nice breakfast - belgian waffle, boiled egg and OJ. I'm going to take a shower in a minute, and then call some friends. I have several friends who are stay at home mom's so they'll probably be up for visits even during the day.

What am I doing here, you ask?

Yesterday started off like any normal day. Go to school, thaw reagents, stress out cells, proceed with experiment. When I got to the proceed part, it required opening the mini fridge under my bench and pulling out more reagents to use in preparation for the next steps of the experiment. I pulled out a solution I needed. It was FROZEN! Mind you this is a fridge - kept at 4 degrees C (or 40 F). Just a normal fridge. Upon further inspection, I realized that ALL of my reagents were frozen, including enzymes. It is very BAD to freeze enzymes. And considering this was a key experiment, I cannot afford to use reagents that might be compromised. They could scew results, and we can't afford to have questionable results. The only thing left to do was order new reagents. Ordering takes time. I figure they might be in on Monday, but more likely it will be Tuesday.

We talked to physical plant, and they said this is a common problem in our building, which opened only a year ago. All the mini fridges are from the same lot, and they have had nearly 60 calls for this same problem. Evidently the thermostatic sensor malfunctions and never tells the compressor to turn off, thus causing a freeze. Now why they haven't replaced these thermostats in the whole building, I do not know. In fact my boss is writing a letter suggesting just that. This is a potential financial crippler. Luckily my freeze only cost us $180 in reagents, but it could have been much worse. There are 14 floors in this building, each with approximately 50-60 fridges. I think you get the jist.

The time of freeze discovery was about noon. I was left to twiddle my thumbs the rest of the day - or read. Now yes, reading is important, but I like to do that during incubations or breaks, not all day. So I ate lunch, read a little, then sent my boss an email entitled "shot in the dark." It said:

"Can I go to Oklahoma since I have to wait on reagents? Scott is there all week (our first whole week apart since getting married), and of course I really miss him, and it would be awesome to see my friends in the day while he is at work. I do not intend to take advantage of your kindness. I do realize that I have had a lot of time off lately (wedding - honeymoon), and if I need to be responsible and stay here, that is fine. Just thought I would ask." (I did not include what is here in parentheses.)

I was nervous to send this, but as we learned in a previous post that it pays to be polite, so we learn here that it pays to ask. The boss replied, "Say hello to Scott for me." And off I went home to pack and get out of dodge. I was in OKC by 8 p.m. I have an awesome boss!!!

I thought about surprising Scott, but then I remembered him saying that he might have to come back up here next week. So I gave in and offered to make his weekend easier. I brought him more clothes so he doesn't have to drive home and back. Awwww.... He still kind of wants to go home for the weekend. Staying up here postpones my unpacking (though I did make progress this week), and he had planned to work on his car. So we'll see. I'm just thankful to be with him for a few days, and to be able to visit friends at the same time.

This time "coming home" has two meanings - to my husband and to Oklahoma. Still, there's nothing like coming home.