Adventures in Cori-Land.

On the scale of good day/bad day, I’m gonna call yesterday a draw.  It was interesting, though.

I woke up yesterday morning to the sounds of a little dog retching–and me yelling “Get of the bed!” which, of course, she never does.  Yes, this has happened before.  Count this as one of the things no one told me about owning an inside dog.  And that whole thing about dogs eating their vomit–yeah, that doesn’t happen at my house.  Fortunately for Lulu, she threw up on the cheap comforter that I use as an extra blanket, not on the beautiful quilt my mom made.

So, I started a load of laundry, then off to the library.  I love libraries in general–just not the Orem City Library.  Don’t get me wrong, it has a fantastic collection of books, but the layout is quite literally disjointed. It consists of three stories in two different buildings, connected by a sky-walk on the main floor, and a grassy park-like area in the basement.  It took me a long time to figure out what was where–and I still haven’t entirely figured out the alphabetizing system in the fiction wing.

I was quite proud of myself for walking through the non-fiction section, past my beloved popular science books, and the biographies–I’ve been trying to read more fiction, with the hope of inspiring my writing.  I was even proud of myself for picking up an interesting looking fantasy book, then putting it down.  Again, I wanted something to help inspire my writing.

I found myself looking at books whose authors names started with “Mil”, and I remembered a certain author.  I’ve read everything he’s published so far, and had enjoyed all of his books.  I remembered that the last I heard of him, he had a new novel scheduled for 2010, and I wondered if it was out yet, and if the library carried it.  The problem was, I couldn’t remember his name.  I knew his first name was David, and the last two letters of his last name were the same, but I had no idea where to look for his books.  I went to the library catalogue computer, with the intent of looking up the title of one of his books, whose name I could remember, but unfortunately, the catalogue was down.   Oh well, no harm, no foul.  I ended up checking out four novels.

On the way home, I stopped at the Wal-Mart to get my oil changed.  For future reference–10 am is a good time to get your oil changed at Wal-Mart, they weren’t busy, they were able to get me right in, and they were done with my car in less than 20 minutes.  Monday is not such a good day to do it though–weekly shipments of goods usually come on Tuesdays, so they didn’t have an air filter for my car, or a few other things that they claimed I needed.  The whole time, I was trying to remember the name of the author.

So, back home to two very excited dogs.  I was in the middle of making lunch, and suddenly shouted “MITCHELL” at the top of my lungs.  I just remembered the name of my author–David Mitchell.  And no, his new book isn’t out yet.  It’s a good thing my next door and downstairs neighbors work, and aren’t home in the middle of the day…

I spent most of the day reading, then, when 4:00 rolled around, I headed down to the church where they were doing a blood drive.

Now, if you haven’t picked this up from my blog thus far, I am a crazy person.  And, as a crazy person, I’m scared of all sorts of things.  One of the things I’m scared of is needles and blood.  Especially when the blood in question is my own. (I count that as one thing, because what I’m scared of is a foreign object entering my body, and losing blood as a result of it. The most experience I’ve had with this type of thing is needles.) I’m also not a big fan of seeing blood that belongs to other people or animals.

Now, despite this fear, I’ve donated blood in the past.  The first time, I passed out.  The second time, I threw up.  The third time was without incident, as was the fourth and fifth, so I figured I was past any sort of medical drama involved with taking blood.  My body disagreed.  I got as far as the part where they prick your finger to check blood type and haematocrit levels before I started to feel light headed.  I complained about it, and put my head against the wall to try to steady myself.

I guess I must have then passed out, because I remember the phlebotomist asking if I was going to.  I mumbled that I might, then it was like I was hearing things through a tunnel, with all the noises far away.   The next thing I knew, someone was talking about throwing up, and telling me that it was okay if I needed to.  I’ve decided that “phlebotomist” doesn’t mean “someone who draws blood” as much as it means, “crazy health profession wizard”, because I didn’t need to throw up until it was suggested to me.  I came to with my head in a garbage can full of vomit, and an ice pack on my neck, and no knowledge of how either got there.  Needless to say, they didn’t let me donate blood.

They were, however, kind enough to force me to let me lie down, on the bus, next to the people who were able to successfully donate blood, until I was steady on my feet.  I swear they were reading my mind–they could tell when I was starting to feel like I could sit up, and suggest it to me just as the thought was entering my mind.  They handed me water when I was thirsty–even though I didn’t ask for it, and they could even tell when I was ready to get up and leave, without me suggesting it.  They also suggested that I take an ice pack with me–which has since disappeared.  It’ll be a fun little surprise for me when it shows up again in about four months.

On the plus side of this adventure, I met a guy who’s lung collapsed 6 years ago, and he’s had the hiccups ever since. “I don’t mind,” he said.  “I got use to it after the first year.”  The rest of us, not so much.  His hiccups were the kind that sounded like small screams.  He claimed they were worse after eating, drinking, or when he was stressed.  Well, this was also his first time donating blood–so guess who was stressed?

I spent the rest of the day resting and recovering, and having my sister calling me a wimp on Facebook.  I’m embarrassed about the whole thing, but I’m not going to give up donating blood–even if my body is begging me to.  My family has had too much of a need in the past.

While I was laying in bed last night, trying to go to sleep, I realized that I didn’t turn the TV on at all yesterday.   With everything that happened, I guess I didn’t need to.  My goal, now, for the rest of the week, is not to watch any television.

Hulu so totally doesn’t count.  I watch it on my computer, not my TV screen.  That’s totally different.

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