"we are all made of stars"

[hermionesviolin]

I keep meaning to look into giving blood and never actually doing so, but recently I finally poked around the Red Cross website (Eastern Massachusetts).

So after work today I took the #71 to the Watertown Public Library (well, to the Watertown Square terminus, which is like 2 minutes away).  Wow!  I mean, I was spoiled by MML [ugh, I disapprove of this new embedded website] even pre-renovations, but this is all light wood and glass and sliding doors and big open rooms and really nice.  (It also has a freaking cafe and bookstore.  I honestly have mixed feelings about this.)  [Edit: And really, I was spoiled more for the size of the collection than for the building itself -- though yes, even pre-renovations I liked MML's space a lot.]

Also, the route to/through Watertown is quite lovely.  Some of it reminds me of the Arborway/Jamaicaway, and a lot of it is just that classic New England.  (Though some of it is weird, like "Bell Tower Place," which is condos formerly a church.  And at Keenan St. on the way back was a gas station with a sign saying "Last Gas til Cambridge," which amused me -- bah, why can't I find online maps that give me dotted lines indicating town boundaries?)

Actually giving blood... I tried to give blood twice while I was at Smith, and once they were like "Maybe if you were better hydrated we could actually get blood out of you," and once they were like, "Well you're not anemic, but..."  (This time, I heard them tell a woman this time that her iron was 12.3, which was fine, but they require a minimum of 12.5 -- I wanna say mine was an 11-something that time at Smith, but I honestly don't remember.)  I was fine this time, though.  They didn't tell me my iron number, just said I was fine.  They took my temperature (98.5), pulse (60), and blood pressure (110/82) and found a vein (left arm) and it was a little slow at times but fine.  And I had juice and (lots of) cookies afterward.  (Oh, and I got a $5 Panera coupon just for showing up to give blood.  And entered a raffle for Red Sox tickets.)

And I read some of the Boston Globe.  JoeF's human interest stories (in the Herald) often don't grab me, but I liked this piece.  And this piece started off seeming to me very sympathetic to conservative mindsets but ended very critical of John McCain, which was a transition that didn't entirely work -- 'cause I wasn't clear along the way what the ultimate arc was.

I took the #96 home from Harvard Sq. to get home in time for the S2 premiere of The Sarah Connor Chronicles -- which I would not have known was tonight had musesfool not mentioned it, so thank you!

In other fannish news, penknife summarizes "The judge's decision in the HP Lexicon case (barring Vander Ark from publishing a print encyclopedia version of the HP Lexicon website, and awarding minimum statutory damages."

Addendum: My replacement store credit cards all came today [it occurs to me that I really need to buy a new wallet], along with a thank you gift from the Handel and Hayden Society -- and a facsimile of the 1843 wordbook for Messiah (with introduction by Christopher Hogwood) and "a sampler CD of some favorite concert moments from recent seasons."

Comments

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

Hrm, d'you think they use a different scale out in MA? Because the hematocrit level needed here is 38.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Huh. *Googles*

Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, Blood Count (http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/0,1082,0_557_,00.html#hemhem)
Acceptable if you have a hemoglobin at or above 12.5 g/dL.
Acceptable if you have a hematocrit at or above 38%.

[rhipowered.livejournal.com]

So it's same meaning, just different methods of checking. Righto.