Palely loitering.

Here's the perfect metaphor for my job: it's like being one of those guys in the circus who keeps a lot of delicate china plates spinning on top of long, skinny poles. You can't believe stuff doesn't go flying and crash but somehow it never does. I felt like I was desperately keeping the plates spinning today. No crashes, but some close calls. I won't go into details because I don't want to relive the day but boy, am I glad I'm home. Gonna do some major sitting around. Maybe read my new book, one of Margaret Frazer's Sister Frevisse mysteries. I'll eat an orange in an attempt to get my iron level back to normal. I'm still kind of peeved that I tried to give blood last week and they sent me away because I'm anemic.

I don't remember what motivated me, but I thought I'd be a good person and help out the Stanford Blood Bank on Friday. Unfortunately for me, they were being staffed by the unusually clueless and I wasted most of the lunch hour wondering when someone was going to get to me. Turns out they'd completely forgotten about me even though I was the only person in the waiting room. Then I went through the whole pre-donation medical history interview only to have my blood test 10.8 for iron levels. They need at least 12.5, whatever that means. So I spent my lunch hour being ignored, in a hideous hospital environment, didn't get to donate blood, and didn't get lunch, either. My reward was a list of "Iron Enemies" and "Iron Friends" which will help me figure out which foods to combine or avoid eating in conjunction. Apparently, cheese is an Iron Enemy when eaten with whole-grain bread (the bread neutralizes the body's ability to absorb the iron in the cheese). That happens to be one of my favorite lunches, of course. Anyway, I'm going to pay attention to the list for a while. In two weeks I'd better be chockablock with iron or I'll start licking the iron skillet.

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