All posts by johncohn

Tuesday night – Bloodletting

TOday was momentous. I was able to give blood again for the first time in almost 25 years. I was a frequent donor before `1999 when the Red Cross put a ban on blood donations for people who had lived in teh United Kingdom for more than a year. The ban was due to the “mad cow” disease scare back in the late 90s’ Mad Cow disease (or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) .. or more accurately the humann. variant which is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), is a prion disease. Its not a virus or bacteria.. but rather a rogue malformed  protein (prion) which convinces other similar protein molecules to become malformed.. It’s kinda like Ice 9 in Kurt Vonnegut’s book Cat;s cradle  ….

Wait.. where was I.. oh yeah.. blood donation. The Red Cross recently dropped  the ban on folks how’d lived in the UK.. either because the disease had dissapeard.. or becaus they now have a test for it.. donno..

all I do know is that I can now donate blood again.. 
Its the first time I’ve been able to give blood since Sam died. Sam was an organ donor.. and it seems to me that blood donation is the only kind of ‘organ’ donation you can do time and time again.. 

I went in for my donation and found out that the guy taking my blood was new on the job.. it might have even been his first day..   He was great.. A long time phlebotomous was heing him along the way…. which added soe time.. my whole donation took almost 2 hours (!).. but it felt good to do !

 

It was 64 degrees out today.. which is CRAZY for february.. through the warmth really did feel good

 

Tonight we had yoga soup night.. always one of the high points of my week ! 

 

Nice ot have people coem visit

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Sunday night – paw prints

FIrst order of business today was to go let Jerry and Nat’s dog Kota out for a quick run and bathroom break. SHe was happy to see me !

Today we decided to do one of our favorite hikes.. we drove up Bolton notch road and parked our car and walked back home via the old duch brook trail. We love this trai.. it could use a bit more trailmarking now that its not part of the long trail.. we always get a little lost

We noticed soem great paw prints .. May bobcat ? cayote ? not sure >

 

ALways see this old grafitti on the trees.. makes me sad to see the trees marked like this.. but is cool history.. I guess

 

We got to walk over a frozen bever dam.. hope we didnt wake anyone !

 

We left a sam stone at duck brook shelter

 

One cool other theme for the day was reflections.. (I should reflect on that . Check out the trick of light when the sun hit the vary small print on the edge of this airtag

 

We also saw these cool reflection on a side of a house.. but never figured out where they were coming from..

 

Now thts somethign to reflect on !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – new quilt !

Today we got the quilt that our sister in-law denise had made just for us. We got to pick out the pattern and the colors when we were down in Kansas last march

Denise is a master quilter.. she has a huge computer controlled cutting and quilting machine that is a wonder of automation. 
Aftr picking the design, we baught the cloth and denise went to work..It was a year in the works.. . and  it arrived today.  !!
It is so amazingly beautiful.. Check this out !


Thank you so much Denise !!.. We will always treasure this !

 

The second excitement for the day was our first cahance to meet Baby James.. the new son of our good freind Kevin and Margaret   They brayght james by to meet us .. he’s so cute !

It was great cathinng up with Kevin and Mrgaret. THey are really enjoying their ‘baby moon ” !

BUt wait.. thres’s more !

later in the day we met up with Tim. Jen and Deb for a  belated birthday  dinner for your’s truly. we had a lovely dinner at the Stowe village inn that our friends Mike and lauren have beautifully refurbished. The place is gorgeous.. , the food was great and the friends were wonderful as always. 

 

The final event for this very fun and busy day was goign down to walk our freinds Jerry and Nat’s dog kota. THey are out of town for the evening.. .. LKota is such a sweetie !

Wow.. what a jam packed day !

nite all, nite sam

-me