My initial slogan and plan for celebrating St. Patrick's day was "Three Pints in a day", but by the end of the day it became "Hope deferred".
I awoke with this plan in my head. I was going to Donate a pint of blood, then eat a pint of ice-cream and later that evening go out with friends and celebrate St. Patrick's Day and drink a pint of green beer. You see, I have never donated blood, I have never gone out on St. Patrick's Day, and my friend Jessica suggested that I add drinking "green beer" (even though we know its just food coloring in the beer) to the list.
I tried donating blood once in the late 90's but was rejected because of my temperature and they never hunted me down and despite the fact that my parents work at drives all the time, I have never given. But I decided that since my father's life was saved last summer due to someone else giving blood, I wanted to give before I left for Africa as that would take me out of the donating pool for awhile. My friend Maggie had never given before, and although terrified, she agreed to accompany me on this task. We raced to the drive after work and checked in. At first I thought they might reject me based upon my recent vaccinations for Ethiopia, but I knew that I was OK with my timing, I had checked the Red Cross web-site--but no, I had a good screener, I was fine.......but then came the test for anemia...I FAILED......WHAT??? I made her re-test me.......FAILED again.....Me? Anemic? I could not believe it!....I could NOT give blood. I was absolutely crushed. Maggie, who was beyond petrified passed and was ready to donate. Now normally, they do not let anyone near the person donating, but because we were both PA's they let me stay with the the whole time which was TOTALLY awesome!
Well, needless to say, without donating the blood, I did NOT need to eat the ice-cream. So when Maggie and I went to a BBQ after donating I gave our friends the ice-cream....so much for 2 of my 3 pints, only 1 pint left.
Later that evening I met my friends Lance and Mary to celebrate as I have never ventured out on St. Patrick's Day (I'm not that brave a person). They chose a pretty tame bar for us to meet at (no crazy Irish bar--whew!) but there was no green beer to be had, so I had to settle for Guinness (which I have had before, but hey...at least it was a pint!). The company was good and the conversation great. Personally I'm not sure how Lance was standing as he had just returned from Kenya a few days before and now that I understand what that jet lag feels like returning from Africa I have to say that he is SOME friend for going out with me to help me complete something on the list!...that jet lag is awful!
So, the day was not quite what I planned. So I learned that you can plan all you want, but sometimes hope is deferred......not cancelled........just deferred. So I decided that if I get to 40 things and I have room for one more thing, well I might not include this one on the list....it was a bit mild to keep. But for now it is included.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment