In the US, it is an Individual Donor Assessment and applies to everyone. Everyone gets the same question tree, regardless of sexual orientation. If you have had a new partner in the last 3 months or have multiple partners that doesn’t defer you, it sends you to the next tier of question: have you engaged in anal sex. Yes to anal with a new partner or multiple partners is the deferral. If you haven’t had a new partner or multiple partners in the last 3 months, you will not be asked about anal sex. Canada went live with their individual donor assessment a year before the US and has noted a slight drop in donations in straight donors because they are now being deferred for high risk activity when they were previously missed.

Prep is listed under a medication deferral. First responders that take prep for protection from workplace exposure are deferred as well.

(I’m a blood banker)

This meme feels too real. I’ve definitely been MJ…

Retoin, won’t you retoin my love?

My love is yours

My Clinical Microbiology teacher: I’m no longer allowed to teach you how to waft plates, but… if you happen to catch a whiff of ____ growing on a plate, you would smell ____. ::wink, wink::

15 minute drive to the store, better grab my knitting

This overlooks that 100% cotton jeans will break down when they are discarded (unlike polyester and nylon). A good pair of jeans can be mended and worn for many years instead of a new pair every year. Jeans can lead a very useful “after life” as insulation or be recycled into new fabric.

It also ignores the chemicals and energy required to turn beechwood and bamboo into wearable fabric.

I don’t know what the solution is but natural fabrics aren’t the enemy.

That is such a cool concept!

No, I was trying to use up some left overs. I tried again with fewer stitches and it gave me the fit I was after.

TX had similar bullshit (nothing until 11) when I was there working overnights. It’s my 8pm. I’ve been up keeping patients alive all night. Make my drink.

Gotcha! I’ve stuck with Samsung because they make a phone that will fit in the pathetic excuse that is women’s pants pockets. My husband tried to get me to switch to the Pixel but it was too big.

My Samsung does it very easily with decent customization options in Gallery (and has for at least two phones). What phone are you using that can’t? I agree the collage feature in Google photos is lame.

Well how do we know that any scale at all is right?

My lab has weights that get calibrated against a NIST standard annually. We use those weights to perform daily quality control that our scale is accurate (to +/- 0.01g). If the quality control fails then we recalibrate the scale.

They look great! I love the stitch pattern

Ezekiel’s description is pretty wild: Ezekiel 10:12-21 Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. I heard the wheels being called “the whirling wheels.” Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the Kebar River. When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the cherubim spread their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not leave their side. When the cherubim stood still, they also stood still; and when the cherubim rose, they rose with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in them. Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them. They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Kebar River, and I realized that they were cherubim. Each had four faces and four wings, and under their wings was what looked like the hands of a man.

For a while people were doing AI prompts for biblically accurate angels (sometimes mashed with other characters). I can only do so much with sugar cookie dough.

Same in NM

Jamie Lomax’s Doodle series of patterns are a fun way to dip your toes in color work (stranded knitting). You pick a single sided cowl or a infinity loop knit in the round. The pattern comes with a bunch of little mini charts, most are worked two colors at a time, and you pick which ones you want to use and which order. Her website https://www.pacificknitco.com/ and she’s on ravelry https://www.ravelry.com/designers/jamie-lomax

I have knit picks interchangeables. I have a mix of nickel plated and the colored wood (Caspian and Majestic). In some sizes, I have both. I like both for different projects. The nickel are slick and great for when I want my stitches to fly off the needles. The wood are “sticky” which is handy for when my yarn is slick as snot and slipping off the needles when I don’t want it to.

I haven’t tried any of the more expensive interchangeable brands because I’m so deep into the knit picks set, I don’t want to start over.

If your taste skews in the direction of steampunk, then don’t look at this book either 🫣. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/needles-and-artifice

Both of these designers are in my favorites! I’m from NM too and their designs remind me of home.

Beautiful work! The colors are 😍