Sunday, June 28, 2009
Persi
Persi eating a treat.
She eats all the yogurt coating off and then ignores the timothy hay pellet.
She eats all the yogurt coating off and then ignores the timothy hay pellet.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Flossie writes back!
Ice Cream and Poetry
Kyler took me out for ice cream at Jeni's tonight. It's a local ice cream shop that is extremely popular due to having a number of unique flavors (as well as old favorites) made with fresh, local ingredients, as well as having some nice venues. I had a trio, three small scoops of ice cream in a bowl, with
* Gravel Road: A traditional French-style caramel, with caramelized sugars, butter and sea salt, and coarsely chopped smoked almonds. This ice cream flavor is called Salty Caramel when it doesn't have nuts in it, and they aren't kidding. It's a salty flavor. Which, if you know me at all, you know is right up my alley.
* Goat Cheese with Roasted Red Cherries: Blue Jacket Dairy goat cheese with roasted Michigan cherries—like a fluffy cherry cheesecake, but even better. I could easily eat a big bowl of this. Like they say, it's like cheesecake--the richest flavor for an ice cream that I can imagine.
* Pear Riesling: not listed on their website, so I don't know what was in it, but it was like eating a delicate, cold pear.
Kyler had a lemon frozen yogurt sundae of some kind, with berries and whipped cream. The tastes I had were very nice--the lemon flavor is the sweetest of the four tasted tonight.
Anyway, this is my official recommendation. Anyone who visits Columbus ought to taste this ice cream. So tasty!
***
Something else I've been meaning to link to here: after a conversation with some friends the other day, I googled myself. I don't remember why at this point, because the surprise I had obliterated any thought of what I was originally up to. I found a link to work of poetry with my name in it!
It's a fun piece, called Identity/Crisis, filled with a list of names of people who have been associated with poetry or poetics on-line, though of course the names are not used with biographical accuracy in mind (I have never worked on a cruise ship, nor am I 32). What's great about it, to me, is that the usual methods a person might use to determine whether or not the website's reference is about him or herself don't really work here, at least not for a sizable number of people, in that the context is confusing: while I have never worked on a cruise ship, I have been listed in an among these names a time or two before, whereas the other Rebecca Stigge, to my knowledge, has not. There's also the brilliance of the name-dropping as a means of enticing an otherwise unlikely but desirable audience.
* Gravel Road: A traditional French-style caramel, with caramelized sugars, butter and sea salt, and coarsely chopped smoked almonds. This ice cream flavor is called Salty Caramel when it doesn't have nuts in it, and they aren't kidding. It's a salty flavor. Which, if you know me at all, you know is right up my alley.
* Goat Cheese with Roasted Red Cherries: Blue Jacket Dairy goat cheese with roasted Michigan cherries—like a fluffy cherry cheesecake, but even better. I could easily eat a big bowl of this. Like they say, it's like cheesecake--the richest flavor for an ice cream that I can imagine.
* Pear Riesling: not listed on their website, so I don't know what was in it, but it was like eating a delicate, cold pear.
Kyler had a lemon frozen yogurt sundae of some kind, with berries and whipped cream. The tastes I had were very nice--the lemon flavor is the sweetest of the four tasted tonight.
Anyway, this is my official recommendation. Anyone who visits Columbus ought to taste this ice cream. So tasty!
***
Something else I've been meaning to link to here: after a conversation with some friends the other day, I googled myself. I don't remember why at this point, because the surprise I had obliterated any thought of what I was originally up to. I found a link to work of poetry with my name in it!
It's a fun piece, called Identity/Crisis, filled with a list of names of people who have been associated with poetry or poetics on-line, though of course the names are not used with biographical accuracy in mind (I have never worked on a cruise ship, nor am I 32). What's great about it, to me, is that the usual methods a person might use to determine whether or not the website's reference is about him or herself don't really work here, at least not for a sizable number of people, in that the context is confusing: while I have never worked on a cruise ship, I have been listed in an among these names a time or two before, whereas the other Rebecca Stigge, to my knowledge, has not. There's also the brilliance of the name-dropping as a means of enticing an otherwise unlikely but desirable audience.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Grand Teton National Park
This post might load slowly because it's nearly all photos.
Here are Dad and me on the west side of Jenny Lake:
A little chipmunk:
Pika!
A hint of the mountains above the low clouds:
A moose
A marmot
The inside of some bark with an interesting design eaten out by insect:
Another marmot, who put his chin down on the rock as if he were sighing
Bald eagle leaving its nest
Western Tanager (photo cropped)
View from Signal Mountain campgrounds... the view from our campsite was more to the north and not right on the water, but not too far from the water, either.
Some elk
A pond along the path to Hermitage Point:
From near Hermitage Point, looking northwest, with a bit of Jackson Lake on the left
Swan Lake, filled with lily pads
The mountains came out of the clouds a bit
Views from the top of Signal Mountain
This one shows perhaps more than the others how high the mountains rise from the valley--about a mile higher:
Leigh Lake, named after an English beaver trapper, Beaver Dick Leigh.
Jackson Lake, with Mount Moran in the background. Mount Moran was named after a painter whose images of the area (including Yellowstone) were instrumental in securing National Park status for Yellowstone and Grant Tetons.
Moored boats on Jackson Lake
A deer in the campground
Sunset over Jackson Lake
Morning light on the mountains, our last day at the park, and the only one to dawn without heavy cloud cover.
a western bluebird
Same bird, sitting on the post that holds a nest full of baby bluebirds
View of the Snake river in the park (yes, the same one that goes through Idaho).
We had more rain than was ideal for this trip, but the weather and it being early in the season kept the crowds at bay until Friday evening, so there were plenty of times when we'd hike for quite a long time without seeing anyone else. The weather meant that we didn't have as many great vistas; instead, the mountains peeked out of the cloud cover here and there throughout the week. We did, however, see plenty of wildlife, which I really enjoyed, and fortunately we only saw signs of bears (scat, claw marks on trees) and not the bears themselves. Even without many blue skies, the scenery was breathtakingly gorgeous, and it was a good trip, good to catch up and spend some quality time with Dad.
I'd had Jackson Hole recommended to me before I left, but it's just a tourist trap town. We drove through it and ended up spending more time in a tiny old mining town in Colorado, where we got rained out of little exploratory hikes twice in the same day, and where an old mechanic's shop has been converted to a bar, with Sunday evening jam sessions with a lot of guitars, fiddles, banjos, mandolins, and the odd harmonica or tin whistle too.
Here are Dad and me on the west side of Jenny Lake:
A little chipmunk:
Pika!
A hint of the mountains above the low clouds:
A moose
A marmot
The inside of some bark with an interesting design eaten out by insect:
Another marmot, who put his chin down on the rock as if he were sighing
Bald eagle leaving its nest
Western Tanager (photo cropped)
View from Signal Mountain campgrounds... the view from our campsite was more to the north and not right on the water, but not too far from the water, either.
Some elk
A pond along the path to Hermitage Point:
From near Hermitage Point, looking northwest, with a bit of Jackson Lake on the left
Swan Lake, filled with lily pads
The mountains came out of the clouds a bit
Views from the top of Signal Mountain
This one shows perhaps more than the others how high the mountains rise from the valley--about a mile higher:
Leigh Lake, named after an English beaver trapper, Beaver Dick Leigh.
Jackson Lake, with Mount Moran in the background. Mount Moran was named after a painter whose images of the area (including Yellowstone) were instrumental in securing National Park status for Yellowstone and Grant Tetons.
Moored boats on Jackson Lake
A deer in the campground
Sunset over Jackson Lake
Morning light on the mountains, our last day at the park, and the only one to dawn without heavy cloud cover.
a western bluebird
Same bird, sitting on the post that holds a nest full of baby bluebirds
View of the Snake river in the park (yes, the same one that goes through Idaho).
We had more rain than was ideal for this trip, but the weather and it being early in the season kept the crowds at bay until Friday evening, so there were plenty of times when we'd hike for quite a long time without seeing anyone else. The weather meant that we didn't have as many great vistas; instead, the mountains peeked out of the cloud cover here and there throughout the week. We did, however, see plenty of wildlife, which I really enjoyed, and fortunately we only saw signs of bears (scat, claw marks on trees) and not the bears themselves. Even without many blue skies, the scenery was breathtakingly gorgeous, and it was a good trip, good to catch up and spend some quality time with Dad.
I'd had Jackson Hole recommended to me before I left, but it's just a tourist trap town. We drove through it and ended up spending more time in a tiny old mining town in Colorado, where we got rained out of little exploratory hikes twice in the same day, and where an old mechanic's shop has been converted to a bar, with Sunday evening jam sessions with a lot of guitars, fiddles, banjos, mandolins, and the odd harmonica or tin whistle too.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Training
This morning's run:
2.1 miles in 19:00 minutes, for 9.02/mile pace, putting my total for the week at just over 8 miles.
This week, I planned all my runs in advance: two 3 mile, and one 2 mile, because last week I didn't, and ended up missing my weekly goal for the ridiculous reason that I thought I'd hit it.
It was already pretty warm outside by the time I got out this morning. Despite going pretty slowly, I had the fun of passing a car and a truck. That doesn't happen often when you're out for a run. It was a police car trailing the truck, which was toodling along picking up traffic cones. Evidently I came out just as the 10K was wrapping up. I also passed the last handful of people in the run, a beleaguered-looking woman with a stroller and wild, sweaty hair, and then three people wearing matching t-shirts moseying down the bike path.
It was a nice run. I wanted it to be a recovery run, just to get out there and feel good. Probably this is not technically one of the types of workout that Runner's World would endorse for training, but it is important, I think, if you want to enjoy running, to have a day every now and then where you dial it back enough to just feel good while you're out and enjoy the fruits of all the other workouts. It feels good to know that my lazy day run like today can be a 9 minute pace. It's nice not to be too focused--that's what allows you to notice things, like not only is there a pile of dog poo on the sidewalk, but someone has extinguished a cigarette in it (have I told you how classy my neighborhood is?)
My plan is to not run next week. I'll be hiking instead. The next week, I'll be experimenting with running 4 times a week, instead of 3, and maybe holding the mileage steady at 8-9 miles for a couple weeks. I've been feeling my hip again lately after the 3-mile runs, so doing 4 2-mile ones might be easier on it, giving it a little time to recover. We'll see. If that doesn't feel right, I'll just cut the mileage back to 6 miles per week, and focus on cross training a little more. I should also focus on doing my physical therapy exercises more often.
It's been nice to realize, too, that I've been consistent with my training lately: of the past 8 weeks, there was only one week that I only logged two runs. So, recovery's a slow road, but considering it wasn't all that long ago that I was only doing one run per week, it's not so bad.
Interestingly enough, I only pried myself out of bed this morning by promising myself that I would sit around and drink coffee and didn't need to do anything else. It was only because I'd flipped through the training log and noticed the consistency that I put on running togs and headed out the door--I didn't want this week to be the only one this month that I missed having 3 runs. Consistency is one of my biggest challenges in life.
Also, I feel like this stage of getting back in shape has to be one of the worst. After all, back when I was running one or two days per week, it was reasonably easy to schedule those on days when I felt like running. And when you're logging a lot of miles, you get an itch when you've missed a run, because your body has massive amounts of energy that suddenly have no purpose. But 2-3 mile runs aren't exactly burning thousands of calories, so you're not exactly bouncing off the walls. It's a mental game, of knowing the advantages to going for a two-mile run now, but not feeling like it makes a big difference.
2.1 miles in 19:00 minutes, for 9.02/mile pace, putting my total for the week at just over 8 miles.
This week, I planned all my runs in advance: two 3 mile, and one 2 mile, because last week I didn't, and ended up missing my weekly goal for the ridiculous reason that I thought I'd hit it.
It was already pretty warm outside by the time I got out this morning. Despite going pretty slowly, I had the fun of passing a car and a truck. That doesn't happen often when you're out for a run. It was a police car trailing the truck, which was toodling along picking up traffic cones. Evidently I came out just as the 10K was wrapping up. I also passed the last handful of people in the run, a beleaguered-looking woman with a stroller and wild, sweaty hair, and then three people wearing matching t-shirts moseying down the bike path.
It was a nice run. I wanted it to be a recovery run, just to get out there and feel good. Probably this is not technically one of the types of workout that Runner's World would endorse for training, but it is important, I think, if you want to enjoy running, to have a day every now and then where you dial it back enough to just feel good while you're out and enjoy the fruits of all the other workouts. It feels good to know that my lazy day run like today can be a 9 minute pace. It's nice not to be too focused--that's what allows you to notice things, like not only is there a pile of dog poo on the sidewalk, but someone has extinguished a cigarette in it (have I told you how classy my neighborhood is?)
My plan is to not run next week. I'll be hiking instead. The next week, I'll be experimenting with running 4 times a week, instead of 3, and maybe holding the mileage steady at 8-9 miles for a couple weeks. I've been feeling my hip again lately after the 3-mile runs, so doing 4 2-mile ones might be easier on it, giving it a little time to recover. We'll see. If that doesn't feel right, I'll just cut the mileage back to 6 miles per week, and focus on cross training a little more. I should also focus on doing my physical therapy exercises more often.
It's been nice to realize, too, that I've been consistent with my training lately: of the past 8 weeks, there was only one week that I only logged two runs. So, recovery's a slow road, but considering it wasn't all that long ago that I was only doing one run per week, it's not so bad.
Interestingly enough, I only pried myself out of bed this morning by promising myself that I would sit around and drink coffee and didn't need to do anything else. It was only because I'd flipped through the training log and noticed the consistency that I put on running togs and headed out the door--I didn't want this week to be the only one this month that I missed having 3 runs. Consistency is one of my biggest challenges in life.
Also, I feel like this stage of getting back in shape has to be one of the worst. After all, back when I was running one or two days per week, it was reasonably easy to schedule those on days when I felt like running. And when you're logging a lot of miles, you get an itch when you've missed a run, because your body has massive amounts of energy that suddenly have no purpose. But 2-3 mile runs aren't exactly burning thousands of calories, so you're not exactly bouncing off the walls. It's a mental game, of knowing the advantages to going for a two-mile run now, but not feeling like it makes a big difference.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
It is FATE
FATE, people.
Don't try to deny it.
The evidence:
1) Sam is a black cat.
2) Sam continues to pull his hairs off his belly.
3) Rachel learned how to knit.
4) Rachel learned how to knit cables.
The inevitable conclusion:
Don't try to deny it.
The evidence:
1) Sam is a black cat.
2) Sam continues to pull his hairs off his belly.
3) Rachel learned how to knit.
4) Rachel learned how to knit cables.
The inevitable conclusion:
Farmshare!
Our first delivery of fresh, organic produce came from the CSA this morning. It's like magic, to have food just appear in a cooler on your front porch. We had a nice big basket of strawberries (2 pints), two bundles of green onions, and a massive bag of peas. The neighbors were going in and out of the house (evidently there's going to be a huge, noisy bachelor's party next door tonight. Good thing I know where the earplugs are!) so I divvied the share right away and handed over their share.
It's been a very wet spring, as I understand it, and so the strawberries are a little watery and light in color. Still, being fresh-picked means that they're sweet and tasty. There were more of them, before my little breakfast.
The bag of peas, once divided in half and shelled, became a lot more manageable, as you can see. I did go out to my own little garden and picked the two pods that were ready to add to the pile. I did not plant enough peas. Quite honestly, I didn't feel like shelling any more peas this morning, anyway.
The note that came with the produce was almost apologetic, saying that there would be a lot more food later in the season--12-14 different veggies in a week!
Since I'll be leaving town on Monday, that seems fine to me. It'll be enough of a challenge to eat up the produce that I have in the fridge now, along with the lettuce in the backyard, that's been growing like mad. I am excited that the zucchini seeds have sprouted. The basil was outgrowing the pot it was in, so I added a new row to the garden yesterday, to spread out those seedlings. I staked the tomatoes this week, too, and am happy to see the yellow blossoms on one, with new buds forming on a couple of the other plants. I finally, very very belatedly, transplanted the last of the tomato plants from its original plastic cup. It looks quite pathetic compared to its brothers, but might make a comeback.
Most of the cilantro died an unexpected death, and I can't quite account for that--even the cilantro that was sharing a pot with a lettuce plant and was fine until two days ago turned up wilted yesterday. I wonder if perhaps a curious critter took a nibble near the base of the stem? There are a few cilantro plants left, which I just put into the ground, and hope they thrive there. They look more like they're planning to bolt. If they go to seed while I'm gone, I can't say I'll be too upset. They're a bit pathetic, and I'm out of seeds, so I'd just as soon get some seeds from them and start again.
I also transplanted the pepper sprouts from the pots I started them in, to a row in the garden. They're still quite small. I think I left them outside a few too many chilly nights in May, and there certainly isn't enough sunlight in our backyard for them. They might still amount to something eventually, though.
The loquat tree was looking very poorly after the winter, so it's been outside for a few weeks now. Its leaves were very damaged from the low humidity and my lackadaisical watering over the winter. I've been pruning off the dead leaves a little at a time as the new leaves grow, since I just couldn't bear to see it completely naked, and the new leaves are growing faster now. It needs a larger pot, really, but that will have to wait a little longer. I might pull it from the pot and trim the tap root again, to keep it happier.
***
The Columbus Arts Festival is going on this weekend, so I'm off to find out what that's about!
It's been a very wet spring, as I understand it, and so the strawberries are a little watery and light in color. Still, being fresh-picked means that they're sweet and tasty. There were more of them, before my little breakfast.
The bag of peas, once divided in half and shelled, became a lot more manageable, as you can see. I did go out to my own little garden and picked the two pods that were ready to add to the pile. I did not plant enough peas. Quite honestly, I didn't feel like shelling any more peas this morning, anyway.
The note that came with the produce was almost apologetic, saying that there would be a lot more food later in the season--12-14 different veggies in a week!
Since I'll be leaving town on Monday, that seems fine to me. It'll be enough of a challenge to eat up the produce that I have in the fridge now, along with the lettuce in the backyard, that's been growing like mad. I am excited that the zucchini seeds have sprouted. The basil was outgrowing the pot it was in, so I added a new row to the garden yesterday, to spread out those seedlings. I staked the tomatoes this week, too, and am happy to see the yellow blossoms on one, with new buds forming on a couple of the other plants. I finally, very very belatedly, transplanted the last of the tomato plants from its original plastic cup. It looks quite pathetic compared to its brothers, but might make a comeback.
Most of the cilantro died an unexpected death, and I can't quite account for that--even the cilantro that was sharing a pot with a lettuce plant and was fine until two days ago turned up wilted yesterday. I wonder if perhaps a curious critter took a nibble near the base of the stem? There are a few cilantro plants left, which I just put into the ground, and hope they thrive there. They look more like they're planning to bolt. If they go to seed while I'm gone, I can't say I'll be too upset. They're a bit pathetic, and I'm out of seeds, so I'd just as soon get some seeds from them and start again.
I also transplanted the pepper sprouts from the pots I started them in, to a row in the garden. They're still quite small. I think I left them outside a few too many chilly nights in May, and there certainly isn't enough sunlight in our backyard for them. They might still amount to something eventually, though.
The loquat tree was looking very poorly after the winter, so it's been outside for a few weeks now. Its leaves were very damaged from the low humidity and my lackadaisical watering over the winter. I've been pruning off the dead leaves a little at a time as the new leaves grow, since I just couldn't bear to see it completely naked, and the new leaves are growing faster now. It needs a larger pot, really, but that will have to wait a little longer. I might pull it from the pot and trim the tap root again, to keep it happier.
***
The Columbus Arts Festival is going on this weekend, so I'm off to find out what that's about!
Friday, June 05, 2009
Blah.
You know, it might be a sign when you get up in the morning and the Runner's World magazine that's been on the table for days suddenly looks really interesting. More interesting, in fact, than actually running.
Maybe it's a sign that it would be a good day to take a rest day.
I went for a run anyway. Knowing that I wasn't feeling quite up to snuff, I chose not to try the "workout" that I'd used on the GPS Wednesday. I just don't want to know quite yet what happens if I don't "win." Just used the regular timer. It was a good idea, since the whole run, I felt like it was mile 22 of a marathon... tired, no muscle strength, but still feeling like I could keep going. Mostly.
2.9 miles in 27:21, which works out to 9:24/mile. Considering how absolutely miserable I felt, this is actually kind of exciting. My horrible, slow run was not so slow after all. Yay?
The fact that it was a lousy run is no cause for alarm; the day after giving blood is always going to be like that. Just something to get through. They say you should have a purpose for each run: speed, aerobic, distance, etc. Today's purpose was primarily mental: get out the door and get 'er done regardless of all the excuses to avoid it.
This afternoon, I went to the library and picked up Carrie Fisher's new book, Wishful Drinking. I've read maybe two or three chapters (in lieu of what I was planning to do) and thus far, my impression is that this would be a great audio book, if read expressively. This impression might be because the book is based on the one-woman show Fisher's been doing, but the style is overly conversational, which, when combined with the large amounts of white space (widely spaced lines) and photos, makes the book read as rather fluffy. Ergo, listening to someone read it conversationally would probably be more fun.
It reads like it was written with a martini in one hand.
Not a bad thing. It is what it is.
I did get some writing done today, while sitting at a table next to the river... and will go do a little more now, before heading off to a party.
Maybe it's a sign that it would be a good day to take a rest day.
I went for a run anyway. Knowing that I wasn't feeling quite up to snuff, I chose not to try the "workout" that I'd used on the GPS Wednesday. I just don't want to know quite yet what happens if I don't "win." Just used the regular timer. It was a good idea, since the whole run, I felt like it was mile 22 of a marathon... tired, no muscle strength, but still feeling like I could keep going. Mostly.
2.9 miles in 27:21, which works out to 9:24/mile. Considering how absolutely miserable I felt, this is actually kind of exciting. My horrible, slow run was not so slow after all. Yay?
The fact that it was a lousy run is no cause for alarm; the day after giving blood is always going to be like that. Just something to get through. They say you should have a purpose for each run: speed, aerobic, distance, etc. Today's purpose was primarily mental: get out the door and get 'er done regardless of all the excuses to avoid it.
This afternoon, I went to the library and picked up Carrie Fisher's new book, Wishful Drinking. I've read maybe two or three chapters (in lieu of what I was planning to do) and thus far, my impression is that this would be a great audio book, if read expressively. This impression might be because the book is based on the one-woman show Fisher's been doing, but the style is overly conversational, which, when combined with the large amounts of white space (widely spaced lines) and photos, makes the book read as rather fluffy. Ergo, listening to someone read it conversationally would probably be more fun.
It reads like it was written with a martini in one hand.
Not a bad thing. It is what it is.
I did get some writing done today, while sitting at a table next to the river... and will go do a little more now, before heading off to a party.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Blood, Coupons, and Fortunes
Here's a piece of advice: should you, when you go in to give blood, happen to notice that the nurse has had trouble sticking your donor I.D. number to the post-donation information sheet (getting a side bent under), and also to notice that the way she has marked your vein seems entirely unhelpful and clumsy (in that she has covered in ink an area wider than your vein, thus doing more to obscure it than mark it), do not hesitate to request that a different nurse put a needle in your arm.
Honestly. If I were a person with small veins, I could understand missing my vein or having trouble sticking the needle in straight. But you can trace that vein from my wrist to my shoulder, and it's as big as a pencil at the inside of my elbow. It's not a small target, people.
But to put the needle in wrong and THEN decide that you can't do it, and need to call someone else... someone else who is currently busy and will take a few moments to get there, while a needle is in a person's arm all crooked and painful... that is unprofessional and not cool.
I can't recall having had much trouble donating blood in California, although there might have been a time that someone rolled my vein. I've had two negative experiences giving blood here, though. Two is still a small number, so possibly it's statistically meaningless. But I wonder if there are other issues at play. They're constantly facing blood shortages in California, so perhaps they make a bigger point of not hurting donors? Perhaps Californians have a reputation for being more litigious?
On the up-side, however, I have a coupon for $7 off admission at Cedar Point. I've never been to Cedar Point, but have heard good things. Anyone else want to go sometime this summer?
The other thing is, I also got a coupon where if I test-drive a Saturn, I'll get a $20 gas card. It would be nicer if it was just a gas card, instead of a coupon, but the dealership is not too far out of my way... and the reservoir, where I sail, is quite a bit out of the way, so a gas card would certainly be nice.
Finally, I treated myself to a little lunch at Amelie's, where my fortune cookie told me "Work on improving your exercise routine." I suppose that, given the likely recipient of the fortune is someone who just ate a bunch of greasy Chinese takeout, it's not an unreasonable thing to say. I still felt a bit insulted, though...
Probably it ought to have said, "Work on improving your diet." But that might be bad for business.
Didn't get a chance to hear Obama's big speech yet--did anyone else? What did you think of it?
Honestly. If I were a person with small veins, I could understand missing my vein or having trouble sticking the needle in straight. But you can trace that vein from my wrist to my shoulder, and it's as big as a pencil at the inside of my elbow. It's not a small target, people.
But to put the needle in wrong and THEN decide that you can't do it, and need to call someone else... someone else who is currently busy and will take a few moments to get there, while a needle is in a person's arm all crooked and painful... that is unprofessional and not cool.
I can't recall having had much trouble donating blood in California, although there might have been a time that someone rolled my vein. I've had two negative experiences giving blood here, though. Two is still a small number, so possibly it's statistically meaningless. But I wonder if there are other issues at play. They're constantly facing blood shortages in California, so perhaps they make a bigger point of not hurting donors? Perhaps Californians have a reputation for being more litigious?
On the up-side, however, I have a coupon for $7 off admission at Cedar Point. I've never been to Cedar Point, but have heard good things. Anyone else want to go sometime this summer?
The other thing is, I also got a coupon where if I test-drive a Saturn, I'll get a $20 gas card. It would be nicer if it was just a gas card, instead of a coupon, but the dealership is not too far out of my way... and the reservoir, where I sail, is quite a bit out of the way, so a gas card would certainly be nice.
Finally, I treated myself to a little lunch at Amelie's, where my fortune cookie told me "Work on improving your exercise routine." I suppose that, given the likely recipient of the fortune is someone who just ate a bunch of greasy Chinese takeout, it's not an unreasonable thing to say. I still felt a bit insulted, though...
Probably it ought to have said, "Work on improving your diet." But that might be bad for business.
Didn't get a chance to hear Obama's big speech yet--did anyone else? What did you think of it?
