What was going on when I was born?

''IT'S changed my life,'' said Mary Emmerling, who waited two years for a rental apartment to become available in the same building as her shop, the American Country Store on Lexington Avenue near 70th Street. ''Not only do I save an hour a day in commuting time, but if I need an extra chair for the apartment, I simply run downstairs and borrow one from the store.'' Few New Yorkers can make such claims, and those who can are among the handful of people still carrying on the tradition of living over the store. For them subway strikes, train delays and traffic jams are no excuse for coming in late; after all, the job is only a flight of stairs away. Such arrangements, however, don't happen overnight. They almost always involve patience, planning and usually a surprise or two along the way. But according to three owners who run such diverse businesses as an antiques and gift shop, a restaurant and an art gallery, the rewards of such a setup for them and their families have far outweighed the initial trials.

Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the Finance Committee, threatened today to bottle up revenue legislation this year if the House-Senate conferees on the Congressional budget resolution called for ''huge tax increases'' and ''little or no spending reduction.'' The conferees will hold an initial meeting next week to try to resolve wide differences on spending and revenue-raising in the budget resolutions passed by a Democratic majority in the House and by a bipartisan, predominantly Democratic majority in the Senate. Senator Dole's threat was a further indication that he would work hard, publicly and behind the scenes, to encourage the Senate conferees to resist a resolution that requires more added revenues for 1984-85 than the Senate approved. Small Increases Urged In fact, both resolutions call for far more revenue than Senator Dole wants to legislate this year, aides have said. The Senator said again today that increases for the fiscal years 1984 and 1985 should be small, coming from measures to strengthen taxpayer compliance and to broaden the revenue base by shrinking deductions.

Beneath northern Alberta lies an oilman's dream: three times more oil than the Middle East has - and not a chance of drilling a dry hole. This is Canada's oil sands, and some companies are inching ahead in an attempt to exploit the resource despite the plunging energy prices and inflation that resulted in the cancellation or postponement of many big oil sands projects. At a time when conventional oil reserves are being steadily drained, the potential of Alberta's oil sands - containing more than 1,000 billion 42-gallon barrels of oil - has barely been scratched. ''This is the future of the oil industry,'' said Randall G. Gossen, production manager here at the oil sands pilot project of Imperial Oil Ltd.

Orders to factories for new manufactured goods rose 2.1 percent in April, the fifth increase in the last six months, the Commerce Department reported today. The report also said inventories rose for the first time since February 1982. Both increases were encouraging signs for economic recovery, economists said. ''If business companies are now easing their inventory reductions and are going to resume building of stocks, that means that they are going to continue to step up production -and employment,'' said Robert Ortner, the department's chief economist.

Senator Bob Dole threatened to bottle up revenue legislation this year if budget conferees call for big tax increases and small spending cuts. A House-Senate group will meet for the first time next week in an effort to resolve wide differences between the two houses' budget resolutions. (Page D1.) New factory orders rose 2.1 percent in April, to a seasonally adjusted $166.1 billion, the fifth increase in the past sixth months, the Commerce Department reported. (D1.)

In the 10 weeks since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its basic crude oil price by $5 a barrel, industry officials have become increasingly convinced that the new level will hold for at least a year. To be sure, the industry officials noted in interviews that their convictions would fade if oil supplies were disrupted by political upheaval in the Middle East or if the economic recovery faltered. But so far, the recovery in this country and Europe has stimulated purchases of OPEC oil sufficiently so that the group has been able to maintain its new base price of $29 a barrel, the officials said. ''We've reached a precarious balance in supply and demand,'' said Aivars Krasts, vice president for coordination and planning at Conoco Inc. ''The best guess now is that the OPEC agreement will hold.''

Bolstered by the political solidarity of the Williamsburg meeting, the Reagan Administration signaled its intention today to revise its proposal to the Soviet Union for cuts in strategic nuclear arms. Officials said there was disagreement between the State Department and the Defense Department over the revisions in the United States position at the talks in Geneva on reducing strategic, or long-range, weapons. President Reagan has scheduled a National Security Council meeting for Tuesday to resolve the issue. Mr. Reagan met today for 40 minutes with Edward L. Rowny, the strategic arms negotiator, who later told reporters that the President had wanted ''to get my views on what changes he should make to my instructions.'' Desire for Accord Affirmed Mr. Rowny, affirming Mr. Reagan's desire for an agreement, said ''the President instructed me to examine all Soviet proposals seriously and to be flexible in our responses wherever this would be consistent with our overall objectives.''

IN the realm of ordinary domestic objects, the late 1930's, 1940's and 1950's were decades whose designs are attracting new attention. And in terms of sheer output for those years there was no more prolific and important designer than Russel Wright. In his time, his was truly a household name. The Russel Wright imprimatur was widespread - on china and lamps, fabrics and furniture -and he and his wife, Mary, wrote persuasively on the ''modern'' way of life. The scope and influence of Wright's work are only now being reassessed.

After long and sometimes bizarre negotiations at City Hall, a tentative deal was struck this morning to add between $68 million and $75 million to New York City's budget for the next fiscal year. Those were the ''parameters,'' said City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin as the talks at City Hall broke off at 2 A.M., with everyone agreeing to come back early this afternoon for the finishing touches. The chairman of the City Council Finance Committee, Edward L. Sadowsky, Democrat of Queens, said, ''It's 95 percent of a deal.'' How much money to give to the city's schools and how to spend it remained at issue, he said.

The losses, debts and fiscal irregularities of the Rumasa company in recent years have been even greater than they appeared to be three months ago when the Spanish Government dramatically seized control to save it from collapse, according to stateappointed administrators. The administrators are still poring over books and ledgers, some of them found behind false walls, to decipher the complicated network of acquisitions, dummy corporations, money transfers and overvalued assets of the far-flung Rumasa empire. At the time of its expropriation, it was the largest holding company in Spain, with 18 banks and hundreds of subsidiaries. It had estimated revenues last year equivalent to $2.7 billion.

''We will bring our sons home from Lebanon. Both the Syrians and the terrorists will leave.''

Prime Minister Menachem Begin said today that Israel was not planning to attack Syrian forces and that tension along the cease-fire line in Lebanon had eased in recent days. Mr. Begin was speaking in Parliament in response to criticism by the opposition Labor Party of the Government's handling of the conflict in Lebanon. With the approach of the first anniversary of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, June 6, opponents of the conflict have stepped up their denunciations of the Government's handling of it and are demanding the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops, who are still taking casualties from guerrilla attacks. Pacifists Are Marching Peace Now, the pacifist organization, began a march south from the Lebanese border last Sunday and plans to finish with a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.