I'm a blood-donor reject yet again. Low hematocrit, or in layman's terms, the drop of blood didn't sink fast enough. At least I feel more virtuous for trying.
Notable quote from the Blood Mobile guy. I had commented that it was off that Native Hawaiians, Guamians, Samoans, and "Other Pacific Islanders" all got listed as separate races. Also, what do you do if you're an Australian native? You wouldn't be from an island. He said, "Wait... is Australia in the Pacific? Or (knowing look) is it in the Atlantic?" Yikes. (He also told me Filipinos were the same as, I think it was, Samoans. Now, I can think of a case in which Filipinos are related to Hawaiians (that is, a Filipino friend's Filipino grandmother lived there) but there are certain great and obvious differences between your average Filipino and your average Samoan. A hundred pounds or more, for one thing.)
Yesterday ended up working out well. My current workout plan involves 5 days a week of more-or-less serious distance and two days off, which makes it difficult to get in any weightlifting, unless you're like Rudder, and crazy enough to lift and them erg 10K, or you're willing to do it on an off day. I'm not, because on the off day during the week, I'm using the extra time to go fly (like this morning) and on the weekend one, I'm recovering from all this. I need my vegetation time. Yesterday, I'd made an appointment to get my hair cut after work. When I got there, it turned out they had scheduled the appointment for today. I really didn't want to come in again - if I were good about these things, I wouldn't have been a month overdue for a trim, after all. After determining that I only needed a trim and that I didn't care if it wasn't blow-dried, they managed to squeeze me in, for a time 45 minutes later.
I was considering going to the Borders two miles away to kill time, but was afraid I'd be late getting back. But the salon is inside a fancy local gym (marble showers, towel service, climbing wall, waterpark, tables here and there selling chiropractic services and whatnot, and they're always sending out mailings asking us if we want to come try them for a week. Furthermore, I'd rowed that morning, and so had my gym bag and workout gear with me - and I even had sneakers, which I don't normally take to rowing, because there was a breeze at our house and I wanted to be able to erg at the boatyard or the gym, if it were too windy to row. So I explained at the desk, and asked nicely if I could have a pass to try out the gym, and they obliged, and I got to try out the marble showers, even. (Unfortunately, not the water park - didn't have a swimsuit.)
Of course all the weight machines were different than I'm used to (they didn't seem to have tons of free weights, or at least the only squat cages I saw were being used) so I ended up trying weights that were way too heavy and all my limbs felt like they were going to fall off. And of course, I didn't have time for more than the most crucial exercises, but hey! I got in a weight workout!
I was going to do the meme LA tagged me for, but this has gotten long, so I put it in a separate entry right before this one. Scroll down if you want to read it.
Posted by dichroic at August 18, 2005 03:42 PMIf you always fail the copper sulfate test (I was a chronic flunker and was on call to demonstrate to trainees what it looked like), there are more precise methods, including something they called the hematocrit machine which can measure *low normal*. On occasion I would take an iron pill the day before I was scheduled to donate, but if I didn't donate, I'd be sure to have a nosebleed.
Posted by: l-empress at August 18, 2005 09:33 PM