Rendering Plans and Actions

I was going to donate blood yesterday. I had my appointment scheduled well in advance. Earlier on, I was intending to go, but when yesterday finally arrived, I did not go. Which really was for the best, considering that between the time I scheduled my appointment and the day of the blood drive, I contracted a cold, and have only begun recovering within the last few days. Certainly, I felt better yesterday than I did a week ago, but it still seemed inadvisable to donate. I would be in a somewhat closed environment with a large number of people (some entering, some leaving), and would run the risk of transmitting the illness to them. Then there is the greater risk, that though I may be feeling better, my body has not yet fully purged itself of the virus. If that were the case, the blood drawn from my body could (and probably would) be infected as well. So, for all parties involved, it was for the best that I not participate.

We make plans, and try to follow them through. However, we cannot plan for everything, and giving the sheer scope of "everything", it is quite likely that the plans we make may fall through. Things happen that we didn't or couldn't account for, and we just have to deal with it.

A few days ago, on Sunday, I went outside and tried to chip away at the large section of ice that was covering several squares of the sidewalk in front of the house. I didn't make much progress. Actually, it would be more appropriate to say that I made little to no progress. In the days between then and now, there has been a slight upswing in the average temperature, with the end result being that all the ice melted. What work I did has been rendered null and pointless. I'm a little annoyed about that; I'm more annoyed that considering how large the resulting puddle has gotten if it freezes again (quite likely, given that it's still January), the resulting ice will cover even more of the sidewalk (especially given the fact that water expands when it freezes).

You take the time to plan out something, or to do something, and then it all gets rendered meaningless by forces beyond your control.

Such is life.