Blood Drive

I gave blood yesterday for the second time in my life, and the whole process was so easy that I was reminded I should do this more often. The fact that I’m able to give blood at all is impressive considering that I used to get very dizzy or even pass out when I got vaccines, and I would definitely pass out if they had to draw blood for a test. But I’ve been getting better about the whole needle thing over the years, and when I was still living in Boston my co-workers talked me into going to a blood drive with them. I was nervous, but being with a group really helped. I found that giving blood was nowhere nearly as scary as I had imagined, and before I knew it, the process was over and I was sitting again with my co-workers having a snack. But that was about 3 years ago, and I had never gone to donate blood again.

A great opportunity presented itself recently—by donating in this blood drive, I got a free ticket to Body Worlds 3. It was the perfect incentive to do something I should have done already. I made my appointment, answered all the questions about risk factors, and went through the iron test to make sure I was able to give blood. And then it was time to actually give the blood. The guy that got me all set up was very nice and did a great job—I don’t have a bruise at all (of course it helps that I have easy-to-find veins!) Honestly, the iron test was more unpleasant than the blood donation part. I really should donate more often than once every 3 years.

Great Friends

Silvi and Daisy became close buddies over the last week or so. There are many great images of these two together—here is a sampling of some of their fun times.

St. Paddy’s Day

I never thought I could have such fun on St. Patrick’s Day. I would have stayed out all day, had it not been that I had to work for a few hours today, I have to work tomorrow, and my brother’s family is in town. It all started at 8 am, when Tim and I joined a couple of friends at Four Peaks. We enjoyed some Oatmeal Stouts, which were delicious and smooth and almost too easy to drink, as well as an Irish Car Bomb, which was also surprisingly easy to drink and tasty. We all left around 11:30 and I headed off to work while Tim continued on with our friends. They went to a couple of other bars while I was at work—lucky them! Three of us were reunited in the afternoon, and we went to one more bar before Tim and I headed home and our friend went home to pick up his wife for further partying. I think part of the reason I enjoyed going out today for St. Patrick’s Day is that no one was going crazy or having accidents and incidents in the bars or on the street, and the general atmosphere was very happy. I’m guessing that as the night progresses and people get more intoxicated, things will change so I’m glad I was out during the day and had such a good time. I’m thinking that next year Tim and I should make sure we make ourselves fully available for this celebration of all things Irish—who cares that I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in me!?!

Air & Space

My brother had always wanted to see a Guppy, and so yesterday he, Silvi and I drove down to Tucson to the Pima Air & Space Museum. We visited a number of hangars and saw a huge variety of aircraft, ranging from fighters and bombers to presidential airplanes. And of course the B-377SG Super Guppy. More than a guppy it looked like a beluga whale to me, but I found out that there is also an aircraft called the Beluga.

In Hangar 1 we saw some bizarre little planes, many of them rather cute. One of them was the Bumblebee, the smallest piloted airplane. There was also a tiny jet just like the one used on the James Bond film “Octopussy.” And a strange contraption with a backward pointing propeller attached to the top of the plane.

We went into the Space Exploratorium, where one of the volunteers insisted that we get our picture taken “on the Moon.” We weren’t sure what he was talking about, but he was so insistent that we followed him. We entered the Challenger Learning Center and found that they had a picture of the Moon’s surface with the Earth in the background and he took our picture there. Then he showed us around the Center, where they bring in school groups to simulate running a space mission. They have problems that they encounter and have to solve using protocols given to them as well as their own problem-solving skills. It turns out that they have these centers in various parts of the country (including Peoria), as well as one in Canada and another one in England. I was impressed by the programs he told us about.

Also within the Pima Air & Space Museum grounds is the 390th Memorial Museum. The centerpiece is a B-17G Flying Fortress, and we were lucky that we got to talk to a gentleman that had flown one of these during World War II. He flew 35 missions as a pilot on a B-17, including bombing raids over Berlin. He had a lot of interesting information, as well as a great story about having to make an emergency landing in England because two of the four engines had gone out, and just as they were about to land yet another engine went out, leaving them with only one.
And I got to see a F4U-F Corsair, which was exciting for me because I love the Corsair. I think part of it has to do with the stories about Pappy Boyington’s Black Sheep Squadron, and part of it is just that the Corsair, the "Whistling Death" with its bent wings, is a beautiful airplane.

I really liked the artwork on some of these airplanes—they told a lot about the crew inside, and made each airplane unique.

We only wished we’d been able to visit the interior of more airplanes, but overall we really enjoyed the visit and spent over 3 hours walking around. I’d like to return some day and also visit the AMARC (Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center) at the Air Force base across the road.

Full Day

Yesterday was exhausting, but it was a lot of fun. I went to the Renaissance Festival with my mother, brother, niece and sister-in-law, as well as my friend Kristen, her husband and her son Adam. Whew! Keeping track of that many people at the festival grounds was a real challenge. Tim unfortunately got a really bad headache in the morning and decided it would be best to stay home, rather than make himself more miserable in the sun all day. Probably a wise choice, but I had really been looking forward to going with him, so that was a bit of a bummer. Besides, he was the one that had been talking about the Renaissance Festival all along—I personally really wanted to attend the Ostrich Festival this particular weekend, but we had already gotten so many people lined up for the Ren Festival that I wasn’t going to change everyone’s plans at the last minute just because Tim wasn’t going.

At the festival, I found the usual assortment of freaks and geeks that attend these events wearing the most varied costumes (and a lot of tails—I’m not sure where those came from), along with a lot of families. The sights and sounds of these festivals are definitely entertaining. I also found some vendors that I remember from the Renaissance Faire I attended in upstate New York in the summer of 2000, including the people that sell Sky Chairs (I really wanted one in 2000 and I still really want one now) and a clothing company called Greentree Weaving, where I purchased a tank top last time and might have purchased another item of clothing this time around had they had anything a little smaller.

When it came time to get some lunch, I foolishly ordered a fish sandwich. Well, it turned out to be about a foot long, and far too big for the hot dog bun they gave me with it. It was delicious, but a little scary-looking. I almost bought a turkey leg to bring back to Tim, but then didn’t know how I would carry it back without making a big mess in my brother’s van, so I decided against it. We walked a lot, checked out some shows, visited the shops, and were generally amused by all that was going on. Finally around 3 pm, we started heading out. Silvina and Silvi were making their wax hands, so my mother and I went ahead to the van with Kristen and family so they could pull out Adam’s car seat (he had come with us since he was really excited about riding in the van), and then she and I almost passed out from exhaustion while we waited. It felt so good to be in the air-conditioned van—and sitting down!

Then when I came home, Silvi and I took Daisy for a walk. Just as we were rounding the corner to come home, we ran into a couple of dogs that were off their leashes. I recognized the Rhodesian ridgeback as belonging to my neighbor, and luckily he was wearing a collar. The other one, a small brown and white dog that I later learned was a Boston terrier, did not have a collar but I thought the two were together since they were running around with each other. I managed to get the ridgeback, Finley, to hold still long enough that I could dial the first number on his tag and unfortunately got voicemail, so I called the second number on the tag and got my neighbor. As it turns out, the pool guy had been through their house and hadn’t blocked the hole under the gate when he left, and so the dogs had gotten out of the hole that Finley had dug up. He said he was out in Mesa and that he had gotten a ride there and couldn’t get back so quickly. That irked me because here I was running after his dogs, trying to make sure they didn’t get run over. Well, I guess he eventually managed to get a ride or something because he said he was on his way. I managed to trap the ridgeback in my yard by leaving the gate open and waiting till he was in and closed it. Buckley, the little dog, was much harder to catch, however. My neighbor kept saying on the phone that he was really friendly and would come up to me, but didn’t seem to understand that his dog was being awfully skittish. A lady who lives across the street and also has Boston terriers joined up in the rescue effort, and she and I got in her car along with one of her own Boston terriers, and we followed Buckley up and down the surrounding streets. We tried getting out of the car to see if we could get him, we tried tossing food out at him—nothing worked. Eventually Buckley ended up running under the gate and going back to his own yard. When that happened, I blocked the hole and called my neighbor. At that point he was literally around the corner and came home and put both of the dogs inside his house. I really hope they will fix that hole for real instead of just blocking it with objects because while people mostly drive at a reasonable speed around this neighborhood, you just never know when someone is going to round a corner too fast. Let’s just hope that Finley and Buckley will be safe behind their fence!

Lena-Daisy Relations

As evidenced by this picture, things aren’t going so badly between Lena and Daisy. Daisy still doesn’t understand why Lena won’t play with her, and Lena doesn’t particularly like Daisy, but they are doing much better than a couple of weeks ago.