Let's Share a Pint!

I recently donated my 13^th gallon of blood to the American Red Cross, and I’m feeling pretty proud! To keep this momentum of generosity, I’m also letting Ollie borrow my new swag to wear on his hoodie. He loves wearing clothes and you can tell that the bling makes him feel extra proud.

I started donating blood with my dad when I was a teenager. He was a regular blood donor and invited me to come along one day. It was easy and fun and became our “thing.” We would race and usually completed our donations in under five minutes. We Lings are genetically very juicy. He would take me out to lunch afterward. It was awesome. Then I got older and became an awful person and we quit doing that together. Sorry, Dad. But the seeds were sown and I had learned that donating blood was an easy way to give something that meant a lot to certain people.

Over the years, I have worried about what else I was giving of myself in addition to my blood. There are lots of reports of “cellular memory” in which transplanted organ recipients took on traits of their donors. Strange cravings for Chicken McNuggets and freaky new abilities in drawing or cooking have been detailed. Even though recipients of my blood are not getting a whole organ, it tickles me to think that someone might suddenly develop aversions to shopping or figs. Or perhaps irresistibly begin stockpiling pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream when it goes on sale.

I’m mindful to think positive thoughts while I’m donating blood these days, but it IS still MY blood you’re getting. So don’t be shocked if you fly into a rage after seeing Christmas decorations go on sale in August.

We moved to Oregon when the kids were 4, 5, and 6 years old. The blood drives at City Hall were super laid back and staffed with volunteers who were chill with kids, so I began the habit of bringing my three young children with me to donate blood. The first time, the volunteer was suspicious.

She: The kids can’t be with you when you donate.

Me: I know. They’ll just stay in the snack area. They’ll be fine.

And they were fine. They’re great kids. They brought their little GameBoys and ate as many little packets of Oreos and Goldfish as they wanted. The little old ladies were happy to serve them infinite free juice boxes. They were content, and it only took a half hour or so.

At some point, phlebotomists started using single-use markers to indicate the locations of veins. They would always ask if I wanted to take the marker home; otherwise they’d throw it away. This hilarity ensued one afternoon.

My pediatrician commended me one day. “If they see you donating blood, they’ll probably donate blood when they get old enough.” Alex and Audrey have already given it a go. At least I know that none of my kids are scared to donate blood. And when they have the time and energy, I have confidence that they’ll at least consider it. There’s a season for everything.

Oregon Law requires cars to have both front and back license plates. California Law did not require this in 2004, so we only had a single rear plate when we first moved. One afternoon, the kids and I were headed to lunch after a blood donation, and I got pulled over for failing to have a front plate on my minivan. This was the first time the kids had seen something like this and the boys got worried as I talked to the nice officer.

As I pulled out my license and registration, Chris asked, “Mom, are you giving him money?”

As I continued talking to the officer, Alex started to panic, “Mom, is he going to take you to jail??”

And OF COURSE, this happened RIGHT on the main road AT THE ENTRANCE TO OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. Audrey stayed calm and observant as is her nature. She gave me a play-by-play of all the cars slowing down to make note of the police apprehension of their newest neighbor-slash-criminal.

There’s Mrs. Quarterman!

Look, Mom! Libby’s mommy just drove by!

It feels great to get compliments on my big veins. “Oh, yeah!” they’ll exclaim when I show them my arms. One time, a phlebotomist wrapped a cuff around my upper arm to find a vein, and he chuckled, “Whoa! Do you even lift, Bro?”

When my oldest was very sick, I felt powerless that there were SO many things that were completely out of my control. Donating blood every two months felt great, but this was the time I also started donating platelets as a way to alleviate my feelings of helplessness. I LOVED it! Donating platelets doesn’t make you feel tired or require any recovery time like donating whole blood sometimes does. It DOES take a lot longer, about three hours. But the process is nice. I got warm blankets and watched a movie without interruption, which is something that rarely happens at my own house! The staff were so nice, always making sure I was comfortable.

But alas, my body rebelled after a couple of years, reacting to the anticoagulant. At first, I started getting nauseated, which was tolerable. Then one time I threw up. So gross. Good thing cancer patients are so damned grateful! After that, I was told that it would be better for me not to donate platelets anymore. *sigh* But I’m still a boss at whole blood donations.

I changed my Red Cross profile picture this year. Get it? One hundred and one donations.

And now I have this nice pin after my 104^th donation. I think it’s SUPER COOL how people come together, lining up to donate blood after a disaster or emergency. But like slow and steady giving, it’s EVEN BETTER if you donate blood regularly if you can. Make an appointment and come with me! I’ll take you to lunch after!

As always, thank you for reading!
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You May Say I'm a Dreamer

I have heard many opinions that NOBODY wants to hear about anyone else’s dreams; that dreams are boring to everyone except the dreamer. But I usually get favorable responses to the dreams I share. Are people just being polite?? You have to tell me these things, friends! Just be honest. I can take it. If you loathe hearing about dreams, it’s OK! Bye! I’ll just see you next week.

Or not.

I lost my first subscriber a couple of weeks ago. NGL, it stung a little bit. But I’m still alive.

Last week I wrote about my “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” weekend in San Francisco and mentioned a recurring dream about being in college. In my dream, I don’t understand ANY of the material presented in my calculus lecture and JUST find out that I have missed six weeks’ worth of homework assignments!

Several of you mentioned that you have a similar dream! A couple of you dream that you forget to attend classes ALTOGETHER UNTIL FINALS! Dude. That’s stressful! But since we are all going to get F’s, at least you didn’t waste your damn time going to lecture and freaking out over homework and feeling totally stupid. Just completely bailing until finals is probably the better way to go.

Another recurring dream shows up when I’m extremely tired and probably sleeping very soundly, but I need to pee. I dream about the most horrifying public restrooms imaginable. They are vast with at least a hundred stalls. The stalls don’t line up in a row but rather wind around in a maze, impossible to check in any organized manner. I tiptoe across the flooded tile floor, peeking into soiled and splattered stalls, sometimes checking the same stall several times because I’m wandering in a loop. No matter how I try to steel myself, I can’t bring myself to enter into any stall because of various levels of nasty overflow. Once I figure out that I’m dreaming, I can kind of wake myself, kind of like Tris from Divergent. 

“This isn’t real.”

Now, I used to have big problems with public restrooms. My mom tells me a story of when I was a little kid on a car trip. I used to sit in the front seat on the arm rest of our Buick. No seatbelts, no problem! I needed to go potty, so my parents stopped at the only place available in that rural area, a rest stop with an outhouse. I took one look at the facilities and said, "Suan le, suan le," which is Chinese for, "Forget it." This is probably because, at three years old, I lacked the vocabulary for "Aw, HAIL no!" My public restroom phobia subsided somewhat during pregnancy, but I can still hold it like a boss. 

My oldest son was kind of like that when he was little. Like me, he has a really sensitive sense of smell and an enormous bladder. He frequently refused to go into a public restroom, so I regularly traveled with Ziplocs. Pro-tip: Always use quart-sized freezer bags....because the sandwich bags WILL LEAK.

Most kindergarten boys are ridiculously sloppy penis-handlers, so the boy’s bathroom would typically have pee sprayed everywhere. What a literal nightmare! Alex would have to pee so badly that he could not learn his kindergarten things. His teacher was kind enough to allow him to use the adult's bathroom, otherwise he just wouldn't go.

This is in contrast to my second son who was captivated by poop. He found all the dog poops at the park and would squat down to inspect them. DON’T PUT YOUR FACE SO CLOSE! He wanted to tour EVERY SINGLE PUBLIC RESTROOM and try them all out. It was a hard call to know if he really needed to go. 

One day when he was in second grade, I got a call from the school office to come pick him up because he had an "accident." Unlike Alex's kindergarten teacher, Chris's teacher was a meanie, so I imagine she wouldn't let him go when he needed to. When I walked into the office, the whole joint smelled like poop. And there was my sweet boy just sitting in a chair (in his poop) reading a book, happy as a clam. God bless elementary school office staff who regularly go way above and beyond the call of DOODIE.

When my house or life is too messy, I have this dream that rats are in my room. There are laundry lines or streamers strung up on my ceiling like a party and the rats run and jump across like Cirque du Soleil as I am paralyzed with fear in my bed.

I know exactly where this dream comes from. When I was about five years old, my family visited the Malaysian village where my dad grew up. I’m talking dirt floors and washing laundry in the river. My grandma used to scold me when I complained about laundry. Because when she had small children, she not only had to scrub all the damned laundry by hand, but she had to watch her children extra carefully because sometimes crocodiles come out of the river and eat them. Dayum, Grandma.

Yeah, this was that kind of place. I don’t remember much about that trip except for cold showers in communal bathing rooms and the questionable sleeping arrangements. My brother and I were small enough to sleep with my mom on the same bed in a tiny bedroom with some kind of fire in the center to keep mosquitoes away. There were rats running along the rafters above our heads, so I wanted to use the blanket. But it was HOT AF and the blanket was CERTAINLY woven out of HAY it was so scratchy! Thinking back on this night, where was my dad? I have no idea how my mom survived this trip.

Another recurring dream is easily explainable: Bees swarm suddenly around me then fly into my pants. It is very terrifying, but usually happens shortly before I fart myself awake. 

Here are a couple of other recent memorable dreams:

The stash of earplugs that I keep on my nightstand were actually siu mai, the delicious Chinese dumplings usually made of pork or shrimp. When Albert started snoring, I reached for a siu mai, rolled it between my thumb and forefinger, stuck it in my ear, and went back to sleep.

I was getting dressed in the gym locker room. Women have said a lot of weird things to me in that locker room, but this night, a woman looked at me and said, “You should REALLY consider some underpants that are a little more…..substantial.”

I was at a store where the cashier was blind. A person in front of me tried to trick her by giving her a five and telling her it was a ten, but she could tell he was lying just by rubbing the bill! When my turn came to pay, I handed her all the bills from my wallet and she told me exactly which denomination each of them was. I woke up completely amazed!

Most mornings I tell Albert, “Oh, I had a crazy dream!” I don’t remember the details of many of them, but the dreams establish feelings of delight or curiosity or intrigue that linger. I wonder what it means sometimes and where these crazy ideas are generated.

I’d love to hear about your craziest dreams!

Thanks for reading!
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If I Could Turn Back Time

Even though I know that you guys will not even be mad that this post is late, I’m feeling some kinda way. Last night I had a recurring dream about being back in college. In this dream, I mechanically and obediently attended calculus lectures which I didn’t understand, while everyone around me was bright-eyed and engaged. Oh, wait. That was real life…

Just kidding.

That WAS real life a long time ago AND ALSO I had this dream last night. It’s always calculus. Three-fifths of Fus have this abnormal propensity for calculus. One of them is NOT ME. Those three obviously have problems. But here I go off on a tangent, deriving too much pleasure from math puns once again. The club can't even handle me right now!

In this dream, I suddenly remember that I have homework due. But it’s already the sixth week of class and I haven’t even looked at a single assignment! I’m filled with a sense of panic and dread. I seek out the professor who is very understanding, but I know that there’s NO WAY I’ll ever be able to catch up!

I get lots of compliments for being organized and dependable, but I’m recognizing that this behavior evolved as a coping mechanism for anxiety. Knowing that a blog post will be late LITERALLY gave me nightmares. Anxiety can be motivating if you are able to co-exist with it in a healthy way. I am lucky that my anxiety isn’t overwhelmingly unmanageable, and I hold a great deal of compassion for those with bigger beasts to battle every day.

I spent 36 hours in San Francisco this past weekend! This is totally not my style. It’s extravagant and expensive and requires a lot of energy. I’m pretty content to stay home and read a book most of the time. That’s a socially acceptable way of saying that I’m kind of lazy. But this was a special occasion!

Several months ago, my sister bought a slew of tickets to a play called “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Albert had bought this book for me when it first came out, but I wasn’t that excited to read it. Who reads PLAYS?? I have clearly been traumatized by Shakespeare and fricken Oedipus Rex.

But this was Harry Potter, emissary of wisdom and central character in the stories that offer new joys and epiphanies each time I revisit them. YES, I wanted to hear more of the story! I’ll even read a PLAY.

I was pleasantly surprised that reading this play wasn’t actually very different than reading a regular Harry Potter book. The characters were familiar and their voices already had a home in my head. The story was full of surprises and revelations and nail-biting tension. What have these boys gotten themselves into and HOW WILL THEY GET OUT OF IT? So when my sister asked me to come to San Francisco to see the play with her….

First of all, my sister is one of my very favorite people in the whole world. She’s funny and smart and so easy to be with. She knows about all of my Weird Things and never makes fun of me or gets mad at me about them. Well, a LITTLE BIT she makes fun of me, but you know....within reason. Even though I try really hard not to let my WTs get in the way when I’m with my sister, I never worry about them slipping out even after I’ve had a teeny-tiny bit too much wine. It’s comforting to be understood and accepted on such a deep level.

My sister also invited some childhood girlfriends from Southern California. We all grew up together and hung out at each other’s houses while our moms gossiped in the kitchen. My sister gets together regularly with several of the ladies, but I’m quite a lot older than they are. When they were in high school, I was finishing graduate school and getting married. They were barely of drinking age when I was having babies. A couple of other older sisters were also invited, and I was excited to see them all.

And also I was nervous.

I have seen these ladies on and off over the years, but we never spent a significant amount of time together as adults. It’s been 15 years since I’ve lived in California, and the times I have spent with them were usually gigantic gatherings with all the families, so deep, vulnerable conversations were really limited. Would I feel the need to tone myself way down or filter my comments to the point of inauthenticity?

As soon as we had spent an hour together, all my fears fell away. Jeannie brought out leftover San Francisco dim sum. I brought out a bottle of Oregon wine. I felt a deep sense of knowing and of being known, of loving and being loved. Amongst the seven of us women, a lot of shit has gone down over the past 15 years. But there was acceptance even when there was no way of understanding some things.

How rare and blessed it is to have people in my life like this! They are supremely reliable and want the best for me. I have no doubt that they would each help me without any ulterior motive. It is impossible to search for friends like this. What are the chances that our parents came from different countries and ended up in that tiny town of Camarillo 50 years ago? What are the chances that you pick a house with neighbors who become life-long friends? What are the chances that you meet anyone at a particular moment and make a connection? Friends like these are simply gifts from God.

I didn’t know what to expect from the play, and I promise not to give anything away, but it was UH-MAY-ZING!! It was quite a feat of endurance to sit for a five-hour performance! Practically like running a marathon……except sitting down. Many of us agreed that we might have appreciated this performance better as a Netflix miniseries to enjoy in our jammies. BUT it was an exceptional shared experience, and I’m certain that many of the effects are better experienced live.

The main premise of the story is that Harry and Ginny have a son who is NOT sorted into Gryffindor and this causes the child all sorts of insecurity. Most Hogwarts students have an idea of which house they’ll be sorted into, and many have a real aspiration to be in a certain house.

Over the weekend, my sister told me that she had taken Sorting Hat online tests and gets placed into “Ravenclaw” every single time. To see which house I was in, I took five tests yesterday. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of each house.

• Gryffindor: Brave and Stubborn
• Hufflepuff: Loyal and Over-trusting
• Ravenclaw: Intelligent and Dismissive
• Slytherin: Resourceful and Manipulative

My sister is definitely intelligent, but in the 40-plus years I’ve known her, I can’t think of a single instance that she’s been dismissive. So I checked in with her to see if these tests were junk. No, she told me, she DID say Ravenclaw, but her house was actually Hufflepuff. I KNEW IT!!

My test results weren’t as consistent. Of the five tests I took, I got Hufflepuff four times and Gryffindor once.

The most interesting result was this one that stated that I’m 33% Hufflepuff, 29 %Gryffindor, 25% Ravenclaw, and 13% Slytherin.

This was my favorite result because it shows that everyone is multi-dimensional and has capacity for every characteristic. But since it’s impossible to express every characteristic at the same time in every action of your life, your overall actions are determined by the more dominant characteristics. And the dominant characteristics are determined by your priorities. And THIS is why the Sorting Hat takes into account the student’s choice. YOU GET TO CHOOSE what your priorities are!

I would say that every Hogwarts house (as well as every breast size) is represented in this group of seven ladies. While there is a sense of dominance in one trait, we of course carry characteristics of each of the houses. Dispositions at birth are stretched with life experience. Time and age, coupled with the work of awareness, have a way of making you more interesting while smoothing out your edges. This is probably the reason Hogwarts kids are sorted when they are eleven years old. Sharing a house with similar people is most helpful when you’re young, allowing blossoming young adults to venture out and grow while also having access to a comfortable home base.

We stayed up talking into the wee hours. Thank goodness for Daylight Savings time! I haven’t stayed up that late since my jerk babies refused to let me sleep many years ago! I couldn’t even tell you what we talked about. It was pure connection and sharing.

Another huge element of the Cursed Child story is the Time Turner. Would I have used a Time Turner like Hermione Granger to help me get through calculus in college? To spend more glorious time with the ladies I enjoyed so much last weekend? To get this blog post done on time yesterday?

I think not. Because five hours of Harry Potter taught me that Time Turners cause a whole lot of unintended troubles. I got through calculus fine enough to solidly know that I never want to take another calculus class in my life. I enjoyed being with the evolved women who are more interesting and layered than the girls I grew up with. Going back in time would bring me to a place that is not right where I am today, and here is right where I want to be.

This blog might not meet time expectations, but it’s right on time. Thanks for being patient and taking time to be with me!
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