Some Not Very Interesting Things

Okay. I must admit. I find these things interesting but perhaps you, being a normal person, will not.


Yesterday I arrived on time to donate my blood plasma only to be rejected. I hate rejection.


Of course, I had to wait for THGGM who was not rejected. My rejection will cost me fifty dollars this week. Of course, I've had rejections which cost me considerably more than fifty dollars, but I am an honest woman and - honestly - it made me very whiny.


I failed to bring my purse with me, so I had no driver's license and could not leave. What I had was a book and an uncomfortably hard 'waiting room' chair. Oh, and the opening game of Tiger Baseball playing loudly. I would not have minded that if things had been going better for them.


The book I had brought along to read while donating was Faith Baldwin's "Testament of Trust". It's good 'light reading' while my plasma is being twirled and spun out of my blood, but not so good with a ball game blaring in the background. Normally, the waiting room is a good place for people watching, but since we had late appointments, I was about the only people there, and we have already confirmed that I am not interesting. And it would be weird to watch oneself, I suppose.

But! The silver lining!

First I must tell you that I HATE the word 'serendipity'. I don't know why. I just do. It might have something to do with a group I belonged to once that used the Serendipity Bible as a Bible study tool. I never became a fan of that style of question and multiple choice answers it provided. Somehow, I could not find relevance in being asked if I was more like person A, B, C, or D in a particular chapter, especially when the choices had little connection to the text at hand. And, it made me itchy, as I am wont to be when pressed for an answer that doesn't really exist.

Although THIS did catch my attention, even with the Tiger's losing loudly in the background:

"Serendipity - This word, coined by Horace Walpole in 1754, is coming into use again (note from me - this book was written in 1958). It derives from his allusion to a fantasy, 'The Three Princes of Serendip' - which was the old name for Ceylon - in the course of which the princes were always making discoveries of things they weren't looking for - happy things, as well as unexpected. Always in the reflections of our minds we are looking for reasons for what has happened or is happening; we are in search of answers. Perhaps we will chance on something lovely and unexpected, a thought leading us into paths we had forgotten or did not know were there."

Oh, it's hard to argue against a word THAT good.

And did YOU know that Ceylon used to be called Serendip?

See? I can learn stuff!

It isn't interesting stuff. But, in a teachable moment, when I feel rejected, my team is losing, my chair is uncomfortable, there are no interesting people to watch and I've nowhere to go, a thought may pass through my brain and stick there long enough for me to learn something.

Now run along and have yourself a serendipity-doo-dah day.

Which, of course, would mean a day filled with:

a.) something lovely
b.) something unexpected
c.) forgotten paths
d.) that which we did not know was there
e.) all of the above
f.) none of the above
g.) pink stuff put in one's hair in the 1960's