Another way to donate stem cells

I might also add--for those who are neither pregnant nor who relish having bone marrow removed from their hip--that you can also collect life-saving stem cells in a process very much like plasma donation. You sit in a chair, a needle takes blood from your arm and spins it through a machine to remove the appropriate blood parts, and then it is returned to your body. I've given plasma before, and it was a very simple process. The school explained that last that that kind of collection would also work. So there you go, there's another way you can give the gift of life to somebody.

Happy last day of fall!

So, so tired! Two late nights in a row--the school program last night and my birthday today, so a late night to get green curry and cake put together. A hint for those who like the looks of Black Forest cake but who are disappointed when the recipe turns out bland: pour the juice from the cherry can/jar over each cake layer, and then melt a thin layer of chocolate over each layer. To make it even better, drop some almond flavoring in the whipped cream. Yum. (Credit to my husband, the family cake-baker. My cake-baking extends as far as Betty Crocker.)

Since I'll be most likely wildly doing last-minute Christmas shopping, as well as trying to go somewhere with my poor sister-in-law, who has been doing day trips on her own to see the sights while school is going on, I don't know how much I'll be around tomorrow. But happy solstice to all who celebrate it. Which reminds me of the Donne poem, A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day. I like words and I like Donne, strange though some of his writing is. Which brings me to another aside: apparently some of my ancestors were friends with John Donne, because both the guy and his wife left stuff to him in their wills. Cool, huh?

A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day
by John Donne

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
    The sun is spent, and now his flasks
    Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
            The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

For the rest of it, see http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/nocturnal.htm.