cross stitch item showing a Paint-like window with 90's motif items inside. Items are: Gameboy, multicolored high-top sneaker, cassette tape, VHS tape, headphones, Spice Girl CD, 3 1/2 inch floppy disk, can of Play Doh, a stylized S, lava lamp, game controller, multicolored ice cream scoop in waffle cone, pink old-style computer, heart-shaped sunglasses, alien head, tamagotchi, can of Arizona iced tea, Caboodle makeup holder, one white and one black cat head, each one with half-moons on the forehead, a paper Dixie cup with blue and purple decorative lines in the middle. There are scroll bars on the bottom and right side. On the top are options: File, Edit, View, Images, Options, Help. The first letter in each word is underlined. Above that is the purple title bar which says,

As promised last week, the finished cross-stitch project! Sorry-not-sorry about the wrinkles - I couldn't motivate myself to drag out the iron. This is the one where I ran out of DMC 604 and waffled forever about where to buy it. I really liked all the colors in this piece but I was very tired of pink by the time I was done! There are a couple of spots where my backstitching is wonky and I have to go back and either redo it or tack it down but I was done with the piece for now and wanted to move on.

So a couple weeks ago I talked about doing my first blood donation. Well, Red Cross was very excited and after that sent me emails saying, hey, did you know you could also donate PLATELETS? And we really need PLATELETS? And you can donate ONCE A WEEK? Wouldn't that be COOL?? So last week I did my first platelet donation! (Platelets, by the way, are blood cell fragments.)

Now, back in the day I used to do plasma (the liquid portion of blood that the blood cells are suspended in) donations, for money, because I was a poor working single mother and that was diaper and gas money. This wasn't for pay but the process is similar. With plasma donations they would only access one vein and it was a 2-3 hour process of extracting the blood, spinning out the plasma and returning your red blood cells. This was a little different because they accessed veins in BOTH arms, which meant you were effectively trapped for the duration of the donation and couldn't use your arms for anything, not even to hold a book. They do provide screens with Netflix on them, so you can entertain yourself while donating and they are more than happy to come over and help you out if you need buttons pressed on the remote or something else. They caution you not to move and to keep your arms straight and I swear if you just thought about moving an arm one of them would sense it and call out DON'T MOVE YOUR ARM!!

I don't mind having my veins poked and, once I got settled, I was able to enjoy the movie I picked. The actual donation process took about 100 minutes. The only problem is that I got SO COLD. Like, my inner core got cold and I coudn't stop shivering. I hated to be a bother but I had to ask twice for a warm blanket.

One more neat thing about the blood donation - they let you know where your blood was used! What I donated in early January ended up being sent to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, CA.

Listening

I've continued listening to the Celeritas audio drama and I've got 3 more episodes to go. It's really good and I'm enjoying the story!

Reading

I finished 2 books last week, When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning and The Waiting Game by Nicola Clark. The first one I already talked about in previous blog posts. I am just so amazed at the collaborative effort that was undertaken to get books into the hands of soldiers. This truly is an amazing story and I would highly recommend you checking it out, especially if you love and appreciate reading and books.

The second book was recommended after I read the story about Catherine of Aragon and her sister Juana of Castile (Sister Queens) and it was all about the ladies-in-waiting for Henry VIII's queens. That was unexpectedly interesting! I did not realize that queens had so many ladies-in-waiting - there was an inner circle of like 5 or 6 and then an outer group of many more plus a group of young girls. It seemed to total about 30 or so. I always thought it was just the 5 or 6! Also, queens did not always get to pick their own ladies. Sometimes you kind of inherited the ladies from the previous queen, sometimes ladies were assigned to you and then reported back on your activities. Sometimes the ladies engaged on activities on your behalf! I love history and I know about ladies-in-waiting but this book shed some new light on something that I never really thought about before. I'm going to see what else the author has written because her writing style was so engaging!

I'm switching genres and am currently reading an autobiography by Dave Barry, Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass. It's light and funny and just the right chaser after the history books.

Watching

I watched one movie this past week and that was during my platelet donation. I picked The Six Triple Eight which is a fictionalized account of the predominantly black, all woman 6888th Postal Battalion from WW2. This movie was "fluffy" - not a serious history piece but based on some serious history. It's amazing what these women accomplished especially considering the short shrift they were given by the white military men they had to deal with.

I watched an episode of Nature on PBS, Tusker: Brotherhood of Elephants. It was such a good episode. I knew elephants were matriarchal but I was surprised to see what an important role male elephants had in teaching the young.

Other than that, I've been catching up on a lot of the YouTube channels I watch. I've been watching a lot of episodes from History and Coffee (also Books, Pens & Music) which focuses on Tudor history. I know, I railed a while ago about the Tudors getting all the attention while the Plantagenets with all their crazy history are RIGHT THERE (and being ignored). But I stumbled onto this channel and really like it! She's done some thought exercises (What if Elizabeth I had gotten married? What if Anne Boleyn had agreed to be Henry's mistress? What was Wolsey thinking as everything unravelled?) and I've found those really interesting. She also covers other aspects of Tudorness (The Forgotten History of Breakfast, The Hidden Language of Tudor Jewelry). It's been really fun going through her videos while I sit and cross-stitch.

I thought I might start sharing some of the YouTube channels I watch with you all. Maybe you'll find something new to watch, maybe you can recommend something else to me! Somehow I have gotten sucked into watching home renovations. I would have sworn I had no interest in that (much like I have "no interest" in infrastructure) but I am now keeping up with several channels!

Link Lagniappe

When I first started using Zonelets I had Disqus set up as a commenting system but it looked obnoxiously ugly and I ditched it. Some people are happy to not have blog interaction but I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts you want to share! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.