A week ago I went to give blood, but my hemoglobin count was only 12.1. The Red Cross requires women donors to have 12.5 or better. I have always had a tendency toward anemia (probably why I get tired easily), and I trudged home with my list of iron-rich foods once again.

This week I'm eating to reach that 12.5 goal. Beans, lentils, dark green leafy things (which are nameless to me. Kale? Chard? whatever). Dried apricots, dried peaches (no sacrifice there) and walnuts and pistachios.

Munch, munch, chomp, chomp. The food seems heavy, maybe because I know it's a good source of iron and my imagination translates that into bulky and rich. Crunch, crunch, nibble, nibble, there goes another leafy green thing down the hatch, leaving a metallic taste in my mouth (another imagination item?)

And I'm avoiding tea for the week, because the tannins bind with the iron and then the vegetable-based iron isn't absorbed into the blood. And I'm taking a supplement.

I wonder if I can make a pillow out of the pistachio shells bagged and sewn into a piece of heavy cotton.