Geekdom. It was one of the more enlightening shabbatot, largely a break from the halachic imperatives. In the name of pikuach nefesh I returned to the world of platelet donors yesterday. My appointment was not until 12:30 so I could have gone to AKSE but I had been to Beth Emeth for Kaddish the night before. AKSE had a bar mitzvah, son of a lady whose past encounters were troublesome and Beth Emeth counts as a place of Kedusha, which AKSE does not. Thus I rationalized doing something other than services in preparation for my mid-day phlebotomy. igp had to pick up her Toyota which needed a gas tank replacement so I took her to the repair shop. I thought about going to breakfast buffet near CCHS but I opted for seeking breakfast at the U of D campus less than a mile away. Finding a non-chain place open before 10AM took some exploration but at the western end of Main Street I found a Bagels&Deli place run by a Hispanic family. I was by far the oldest person in the room with the owner as my only contemporary. The kids were probably alumni of the last few classes. Nearly all except those registered for a 5K event showed up in flip-flops and whether registered or not I seemed to be the only one with long trousers except for one fellow who came in his pajama bottoms. I placed my order quickly, had trouble finding a place to sit down, spilling a notable fraction of my coffee on my jeans and dorsum of my hand. By bagel and egg took more than twenty minutes to deliver, long enough for the other places on Main Street to open by the time I chowed down.

Having invested in a state park seasonal pass, I walked back to my car, enough of a distance to count as exercise, then followed the GPS incorrectly to White Clay Creek State Park, puttered there for a short time, then sought my amusement at Marshalls, the expanded version which was a great disappointment, then found my way to the newly remodeled blood bank, which the GPS could not locate but I knew where it was. After my donation of platelets and plasma, I selected a crimson blood bank hat as a premium, then off to look around for stuff I really did not want to buy at Costco, then crossing the street to check out the new wing of the Christiana Mall, again nothing of interest there other than an expanded Barnes & Noble. On the way out I came upon the Apple Store which had some IPads on display. I found it very difficult to use. The keyboard was not in either a qwerty or an alphabetical pattern, moving up and down was not obvious nor was moving back to where I was or closing down. And to think that in my day of the 1960's I was a prototypical geek of the era, though we were not called that then. In the ensuing forty years I've been evicted from the Geek Fraternity for not keeping up with their foreign language.