May 17, 2022: Update Potpourri -

You may recall that I donated blood recently, in honor of a friend, and the phlebotomist and I had a little weep together. Well, yesterday, I got a note from the Red Cross telling me where my blood went. 

It went to California. San Francisco, in fact.

This follow-up service is new to me, and I haven’t gotten my head around it. Presumably, they send follow-ups because they can, and because donors like knowing the details, knowing that their very own personal blood went to a very specific place, and didn’t just get tossed into a giant vat.

But I had honestly kindof closed the book on that particular bag of blood. We had broken up amicably, at my instigation, and I hadn’t expected to hear about who it was seeing now. 

Not that I know who, of course, but still, it’s enjoying a lovely mid-May down there, and I’m drying out my boots over the register, in the wettest Oregon spring in 80 years. I’m weirdly jealous.

In other updates, Oregon Humanities is doing Dear Stranger again, and I know a few of you thought it sounded like fun, so here’s a link. Basically, you write to a stranger in care of O.Hm., and they swap your letter with someone else’s, all anonymously. It’s a one-time pen-pal thing, unless by mutual consent you decide to pursue something more.

This time the prompt for letters (not that first-round pen-pals really engaged with the prompt) is “care.” That got me thinking many worthy thoughts, and then I sidelined into thinking about what I DON’T care for, and how “I don’t care for” could mean two things: I don’t tend to or nurture whatever it is, and/or I don’t like whatever it is.

After a brief spell of rooting through my psyche, I realized that “house plants,” qualify on both counts. I don’t like them, and thus I do not nurture them. But also, I don’t nurture them, and then I feel guilty as they shrivel and die, which (the guilt) makes me not like them.  I do not care for house plants!

I’m sure my pen-pals will be fascinated to learn this.

Speaking of engaging with strangers, a year ago, we were on a stroll, and we heard a small voice yelling “Hi! Hi!”  It took a minute to spot her. She was across the street, standing on her front steps, with her mothers sitting on either side, and she looked pretty new to standing. She was shouting “Hi!” at us. We waved. She shouted “Hi!” again. And again.

So we crossed the street, where I basically shouted Hi with her for a while, and Rick chatted like an adult. Her moms said she had been pretty much isolating, cut off from strangers, her entire life, and they had worried she might be shy, or even afraid of people. They were no longer worried.

I was in the neighborhood again this evening, and a small person in pink was yelling “Hi!,” and running around on the sidewalk. Can’t prove it was the same person, but there’s a strong possibility. Girl after my own heart.