I had a really cool (at least in my eyes) post planned for today, but it's been thwarted by 2 things: I got conned into giving blood today, and we have no running water in our house.
Yes, I got conned into giving blood. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against donating blood or those that do so on a regular basis. But it wasn't in my plan for today, mainly because I've been feeling really shitty lately with all of the headaches and I know I haven't been eating right, but also because I'm that person that always nearly passes out after getting blood drawn and it takes me so long to recover. I didn't even know we had a local blood drive going on today until my mom told me she was leaving to go up there, and asked me to keep an eye on my niece. About 20 minutes after my mom leaves, I get a call from my neighbor Terri (who always helps coordinate the blood drives) telling me that our other neighbor's son Tyler needs me up at the blood drive for some reason. She's really quick to get me off the phone, so I'm starting to think that there's some kind of emergency. My dad was outside cutting the grass, so I thought maybe Terri had called him and he just didn't hear his phone which was why she called me but that wasn't the case. So I flag him down and tell him what's going on, and that I'll be back as soon as I figure out what's going on. As I'm pulling out of the driveway I can see my dad on the phone calling someone (which turned out to be my mom), and then as I'm pulling into the parking lot he calls me (the blood drive was being held at the fire station that's directly behind our subdivision). He tells me that mom didn't answer her phone, and to just let him know as soon as I can what's going on. So I'm freaking out a bit and when I walk into the room I'm greeted by the sight of my neighbors (who were all working the blood drive) and my mom sitting around and talking, and the only thing that goes through my mind is "what the fuck". Then my mom says "now don't get mad", so of course I get irritated immediately, and then goes on to explain that Tyler was working the blood drive so he could enter for a scholarship, and in order to be eligible for said scholarship he needed to bring in at least 35 people and collect at least 65 units of blood. Don't ask me how the people vs units thing works, because I don't know. Then they tell me that the only reason they told me Tyler needed me and wouldn't say anything else was because my mom didn't think I'd come up and donate if they asked me to.
Now, I'm not really the kind of person that can say no when someone asks me for a favor. Had one of them just called and said "Hey, Tyler needs to bring in more people for the blood drive so he can be eligible for this scholarship" I would have said "Sure, let me chug a glass or two of water and I'll be right there." But no. My mother had them concoct this whole scheme to trick me into coming up to the fire hall because she knew there would be no way I could say no once I was there in person. I WOULD HAVE SAID YES ANYWAY. YOU DIDN'T NEED TO TRICK ME. Gah. So now I'm annoyed with my mother and my neighbors on top of feeling shitty while I'm recovering because the actual donation process went like this: try the right arm, can't find a good vein, try the left arm, can't find a good vein, have someone else try the left arm, still no luck, go back to the right arm, finally find a good vein to use, prep and get the needle in, no blood comes out, poke and prod and stretch, still no blood, discuss whether or not to take the needle out and try the left arm again, decide to switch arms, go through the prepping poking and prodding again, still no blood, end up switching back to the right arm, poke and prod some more, finally get a slow drip. My veins don't like giving up blood. Sigh.
Now the second part of our day: we have no running water. After the whole blood drive fiasco, I came home to find my dad finishing up cutting the grass and getting ready to turn on the sprinklers. He tells me I have about half an hour before the zone that hits my bedroom window will come on, just giving me a heads up so I can close the window. We can hear the first zone turn on, but nothing is happening. The sprinkler heads aren't coming up, and there's no water pressure. I really don't know what's going on with that since dad has now locked himself in the basement and banned us from using any water. So I got sent to pick up dinner and I might have to take my niece home in a bit if dad can't get the water working again. And if he can't fix it by tomorrow morning, they're not going camping as planned which pisses us all off because they're out the reservation money and I won't have the house to myself. So that's fun.
The original plan for today's post was to have a fall wishlist of sorts for clothes and various other things since I'm having serious issues not being able to go shopping right now. Materialistic? Yes. But fall is my favorite season for clothes and I'm a little cranky about it. I have no idea how long it'll take me to put the post together, but I'm thinking I might try to get it together for tomorrow. We'll see.
