Yesterday at work, The American Red Cross held a blood drive. I don't have personal experience with blood donation as a life-saving tool, but I remember my mother—weak, tired—with plunging hemoglobin levels, and her receipt of transfusions that gave her more life than I can adequately express. The blood that somebody donated gave her the energy and thrill of life that the chemotherapy had stolen, and I've wanted to do my part ever since.

But, time and time again I've been told that my iron is too low, that my donation would be of absolutely no use. Even so, last July (shortly after I started employment with the company) when the blood drive papers came to me through inter-office mail, I signed up to indicate that I would like to be contacted every time the Red Cross people came to collect. Well, we all know what happened at the end of July, and as my medical issues played leap frog with one another to get the most attention (or was it to cause the most trouble?) it was obvious that my heavily infected blood was not harvestable.

This last time, finally, they okayed my registration as having been JUST far enough away from my last surgery. They pricked my finger. That's usually where this ends. Little did I know that my current form of birth control is doing marvelous things for my iron! My hemoglobin levels were sitting at around 16 gm/dl! Pretty good for someone whose are normally sitting below 10, and just decimal points away from being required to get a transfusion myself.

So, I got further in the blood donation process than I ever have before, and I was absolutely thrilled! I filled out the questionnaire (Do you have HIV? Have you had aspirin in the last 48 hours?) and when it came to the question about whether or not I have lived with anyone in the last 12 months who may have come in contact with diseases of a less than savory crowd, I hesitated. Between the unbridled "fun" of a bachelor party and the licentiousness of that bingo hall, who knows what Nick has brought home with him.

Eventually, I was lead to the room with cots. They weren't happy with either of my arms ("She's all valves!" one volunteer spat with disgust) but eventually set up shop on my left, giving me a stress ball to squeeze every ten seconds to keep the blood pumping. And we're off! I'm counting in my head, One-One-Thousand, Two-One-Thousand, Three-One-Thousand... and the lady managing my blood harps, "REMEMBER TO SQUEEZE!" Immediately my count turns to OneTwoThreeFourFiveSix... because, well, I'm a good girl and don't like being yelled at. But I was counting right the first time. Just so you know.

So I was lying there feeling pretty good about myself and what I was doing, imagining some other emaciated victim of disease receive that surge of energy that makes whatever time they have left just a little more valuable, when the volunteer at my arm starts monkeying around with the needle stuck in my vein. I felt my ring and pinkie fingers go numb in the new position and I haven't been that freaked out since my myelogram last December when, pulling the needle from my spinal cord, my whole body jumped up involuntarily from the table. "I gave you a bruise," she says with self loathing. "Your body has sensed my invasion," she then sighs. "You're done." I had given 3/4^ths of a pint before my vein decided to stop bleeding out (my body was like, trying to keep me alive or something). So my donation didn't count...it wasn't a full pint.

Talk about your downers. Seriously. So, bruise in the crook in my arm that's barely noticeable to the eyes (and so less likely to draw public sympathy, which is totally what I'm all about) and no happy, "I did something to help humankind" afterglow, I still can't stop smiling today.

Wonder why?


I know it isn't a very clear picture, but our dear Sophie still hasn't left the security that frightened kittens seem to find beneath beds...

Well, Mom bought me my first Vellux ("fuzz-less", as Brenda would correct me) blanket. You see, I've always been rather girly when it came to textures touching my skin. As an infant, I am told that my favorite part of the blanket was the satin tape that edged the seams because I liked how it felt against my cheek. Vellux blankets are nothing extravagant, but they feel like velvet and comfort like hot cocoa. I hadn't had my my blanket very long before my cat commandeered the folded bit at the end of my bed and claimed it as having always been hers.

Since realizing that my feline and I shared a certain longing for soft plushiness, I've noticed other such creatures, creatures who live with my aunts and answer to (when it pleases her) "Bandit", stray ever toward the "fuzz-less" blankets, and have flocked the Merlot-hued throws there with downy gray fleece. A picture of the fur baby in question:



Now, I face the prospect of a 3-hour car trip with a crying kitten, and, not yet knowing our new charge, wonder how to give comfort to a baby who is frightened and in the company of strangers. Eagerly, I tore through an assortment of boxes I'd recently re-organized, bits and pieces from my life in North Carolina. It doesn't bother me as much to go through them anymore. It did for a very long time—not that I'm not happier with the way my life is now than the way it was then, but it quite puts one in their place when they're shown exactly how little sway they hold in their own story.

Easily, I found a box of blankets—always one to cuddle under a throw—and breathed in the dank scent of disuse. Odd, isn't it? That the things I've tucked away from my mother still carry her perfume, and I hold the articles close to me, as if to inhale her presence to the room...yet, blankets I washed just before packing them away have lost all trace of that other life.

I petted at the folded seams, standing in my nighttime tank and bare feet on the cold basement floor, and walked languidly to the washer, writing yet another chapter in this prop's life, a small smile about my lips. Perfect.