yee-haw

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Thanks to Tony Redman at the Vintage Ads group for this amazing link to an 8-1/2 minute Dodge industrial film starring Tom (The Singing Cowboy) Lehrer. Cautionary note to those of the present enlightened day: back then, America's ethnic minorities talked and acted weird for no apparent reason. I guess they've seen the light since then, because I never have actually heard one talk like... well, never mind.

Watch on YouTube

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bad blood! no cookie!

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The Red Cross entreated me to come in and give blood, so I made an appointment for today, based on when they said I could come in and give. It was a comedy of errors, except for the humor part. First I signed up on the "platelets" clipboard instead of the apharesis one. No problem. Then I wandered over to the break area for munchies, as I hadn't had lunch and bleeding is hungry work. I checked all four baskets, and found no Lorna Doones, or even Oreos. I went to the fridge for juice and at first thought they had only cranberry, but I found apple after all. I checked the table again. They had fudge sticks, and pretzels (always goddamn pretzels everywhere) and Cheez-its (nature's perfect cheese cracker), and Keebler's second-rate animal crackers, which occupy a niche between Barnum's Animals and those bulbous generic monstrosities that are like the animal version of Ziggy. Alas, Keebler is giving them freebies. It's nice of them, I'm sure, but when I give my precious bodily fluids to help strangers, I like to munch on Lorna Doones.

One of the attendants took my pulse and pressure and a drop of O-neg to analyze, and asked if I was there to give whole blood. I said no, double red. She said I couldn't give double red until the 28th, so somebody goofed up again by having me come in today. I shrugged and said I'd give today. It's like a break from the normal routine — the sensation when they pump the cooled liquid back into me always makes me feel vaguely ill, and I could live without it. Also, even when I give double red, they only count it as a pint donation, which never seemed fair to me.

Then I answered the questionnaire, and for the first time since we've been out of Virginia, I answered Yes to the question about having been abroad recently (China: see the trip report I still haven't finished writing). The attendant asked where I went in China, and I started reeling off places while she checked a list on her laptop. Beijing? Okay. Hefei? Okay. Nanjing? Okay. Guilin? Which one? It turns out they have three of them, two of which were malaria risks, while one wasn't. It turns out we went to the safe one. Shanghai? No problem. I thought it was about time to bleed in a bag, but there was one more question. Did I go on the Great Wall?

Yes, I said. In 97-degree heat. I've told enough people that that I expect it's the only thing a lot of folks know about me. It turns out that from May to December, the Great Wall is a malaria risk, so I went home with a Band-aid on my finger and no iodine inside my elbow. Here I was all set to give Pint #16 (counting from our time in Massachusetts), and instead I'm banned from giving blood until next July, a year from the day we came home.

I asked her to let the people at the home office know, so they won't be calling me every couple of weeks, and she said she'd do that. I feel strangely unfulfilled.
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perchance to dream

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Theater seems to have been on my subconscious mind last night. I dreamed I was at a familiar venue, trying out for (apparently) Peter Pan, and the audition didn't go so well. I was unusually frank about it. "What's the problem?" I said, in a clearly irate fashion. "I can sing as well as him, I act better, and I can fly, for crying out loud. Doesn't that count for ANYTHING?"
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