V-Day

Well, I ended up having a pretty nice Valentine's day. To pick up from earlier, I watched "The Terminal." It was good, but a little eccentric. Some of the subplots were somewhat unbelievable, the ending was a bit anti-climactic, and the antagonist was especially and unneccesarily evil. Then I went and returned the movies and went to donate blood. I figured, one valentine present for me (I joined a gym this morning), one for sweetie (book, decaf coffee and none-of-your-business), and one for the blood center.

I almost got deferred, though. First, my blood droplet barely dropped in their little blue fluid vial in time (it has to drop completely within ten seconds to prove you're not anemic, I think). As the clock neared ten, the nurse lady was glancing nervously at the clock, the vial, the clock, the vial, then "Phew!" Then she took my temperature and it was 99.8! I've had an elevated temperature there once before when I'd been chewing gum, but this time I hadn't been. We had to wait 15 minutes, then take it again. I wasn't feeling ill or anything, but even the second time it was 99.2, but that falls within the acceptable range. Once that was done, I was rollin', because I am a champion bleeder, so I actually filled my entire pint bag in 7 minutes. They gave me a keychain (I was at a gallon last time, and they didn't give it to me then), and while I was eating my crackers and drinking my juice later, someone came over and gave me a t-shirt.

I almost always either have or overhear an interesting conversation at the snack counter, and today was no different. Two gentlemen were discussing the elder's twenty-year recumbent bike hobby. He'd had some sort of surgery that caused his glutes to atrophy, and couldn't ride a regular bike, so he started riding recumbents to build up his strength. That was interesting enough, but then the younger guy asked him about donating plasma, because the older man said he'd just hit is 400 gallon mark. Wow, huh? Anyway, apparently his wife died of cancer some years ago, and needed plasma once or twice a day when she was sick, so he felt he had a big debt to repay. I think that's impressive. A lot of people would have the thought, but not the follow-through, you know?

Then I came home and made dinner, which did not go nearly as well as I planned, nor as badly as I expected about half-way through the cooking. You can read about it on Count Broccula. So all in all, not a bad Valentine's day. I still need to do some planning for tomorrow's school day, but frankly I might just go in early and do it then, because I'm into the book I started, "Honeymoon With My Brother."
G'night.