Tentative

"Tentative. My whole life this week is tentative."

Me, to T, as he tried to make plans for dinner over the next two nights, and I stared at the unshrinking mound of work in my Inbox.

However, I did make time to give blood this afternoon. I thought it would only take like half an hour at the most, but we went right at the end of the blood drive, along with all the other last-minute people rushing to give their share. By the time I explained to the doctor that I didn't know if I'd had a Hepatitis B jab, was prone to fainting off and on but not regularly enough for it to be an issue, and had in fact been to Hanoi earlier this year, and then I was tested to make sure my hemoglobin sank to the bottom of the Harpic blue test fluid (very CSI, except for the absence of the TMIcam), and had my left arm vein prepped but they couldn't find the vein, so I waited in line for a bed with a right arm vein, and finally gave my 300 ml worth of O+ goodness and got a drink (not packet Milo with palm olein but fat-free carrot-and-mixed-juice) and some genuine Singaporean Khong Guan biscuits for my trouble --- a good hour and some had passed by.

I did, nevertheless, walk away with a very impressive- and space age-looking white plaster over the hole they poked in my vein. Very "I just had a blood test done at Camden Medical Centre", as opposed to the more plebian "The auntie just spent ten minutes flicking at my inner elbow to coax the vein out".

It was only three minutes and she wasn't that auntie.