5092 Almost finished with chemo.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

We get heavier as we get older because there is a lot 

more information in our heads.

So I'm just really intelligent and my head can't store 

all that information, so it has to be stored other places.

That's my story and I’m sticking to it.

================================================

Well, a major update.  I'm in the middle of my seventh round of chemotherapy, will start the eight and last on February 14th, and then on to the daily radiation.  I am tolerating the chemo so well that for the past two rounds we skipped the Neulasta (immune system stimulater) because I figured out that it was that shot that was causing me to feel so icky in week one of each round, and on every previous blood check my numbers were (to use the doctor's term) robust.  

Round five was interesting - I had an allergic reaction to one ingredient of the mix that resulted in itchy red hives all over my entire body.  Claritin quickly took care of that, so now I take one tiny Claritin every day.

They had told me that my hair would "thin" some, but I wouldn't go bald.  "Thin" turned out to be about 90% of my hair.  I have very little left on my head, and I'm pretty much bald in other interesting places.  The doctor was happy to hear that, actually, because he was beginning to worry that I was tolerating it TOO well.  I gave up on my hair and cut it to about two inches, and just slick it back with gel to cover the nearly bald spots.  Doesn't bother me at all.  I can tell it's trying to grow back, because there are short fine angel hairs that stick up here and there.

Yeah, the fatigue is building.  I don't want to go anywhere or do anything, but it's not so bad that I want to take naps.  Don't care to walk very far, for some reason my thighs rebel, so early in January I got a handicap parking placard, but that's when we started skipping the Neulasta, so I haven't had to use it yet.

There was a question as to why I was getting CMF, when there are newer treatments out there.  CMF has been around since at least the '90s.  It's OLD!  Well, when the oncologist told me he chose CMF because it wouldn't cause the side effects that the newer ones did, I got worried that I got CMF because of my age (frail little old lady that I am (NOT!)), and maybe he thought I couldn't handle anything more nasty, so I did some research.  There are clinical trials comparing CMF to other newer chemotherapies, and, in particular for what I have, triple negative breast cancer, it turns out that CMF works just as well as all the others, with fewer side effects.  Any differences in outcome were like 1% or less, which is negligible, really.

The biggest news is that Memorial Sloan Kettering has just in the past few months opened a cancer center only 7 miles from my home, an easy 13-minute drive.  The surgery and chemo was at a breast center a 40-minute drive away, which wasn't so terribly far when I'd make the trip two days in every three weeks (Daughter went with me only for the first cycle).  But daily?  For like seven weeks?  That's a trek.  So I'm looking into having the radiation (prone, must be prone) at Sloan Kettering.  We'll see.  I'll also be able to get second opinions there on other stuff, too, like the follow-on treatments.

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Politics.  I've been freaking out just like most of the world, but funniest thing, it wasn't until yesterday that I realized, "This is REAL!  It's not a comedy skit that'll be over in a few weeks!  This is IT!  It's not a joke!"   Well, it is a joke, but it's no longer funny.   Chemo didn't nauseate me but what's happening in Washington does.  Bannon?  Cheney redux, but with less political savvy and fewer brains.  http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/report-bannon-had-to-be-reminded-he-wasnt-the-president.html

(Does anyone know what happened to the Hatch Act, a 1939 federal law holding executive branch employees must "maintain a federal workforce that is free from partisan political influence or coercion"?)


I sort of was for Bernie, but I knew he'd never get the nomination.  I think the DNC realized that as soon as he was nominated the RNC would be screaming "Socialism!  Communism!", and the exact same people who voted for Trump would fall for it.  Bernie might have got even more popular votes than Hillary, but the electoral college fallout would have been the same.  Same people, in the same states. 

The website https://www.track-trump.com/ is updating daily on promises made, and actions taken over the first 100 days.  It's an excellent source for what's going on, presented without commentary.   

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Remember Matt and his dancing around the world?  At 0:14 in this video, Matt is dancing in Philadelphia, and if you look very quickly, you'll see a little girl in a striped dress on the left, directly in front of a guy in a grey-beige shirt, dancing up a storm.  That's my Nugget.  I don't know how Hercules (in the grey-beige shirt) knew Matt would be there, but, well, there they are.



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This is Tom Scott.  He mostly does science-oriented videos from fascinating places around the world, and I'm subscribed to his channel on YouTube.  He posted this one after the election.  And his fears are justified.  All over the internet, a certain group of people have become nastier.  Much much nastier.  It's like they think they have been given PERMISSION to be ... well, nasty.   And the one person who could tell them to knock it off, is ignoring the problem.  I despair.




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Several of the nurses have, after seeing the "age 72" on my records, remarked on my facial skin.  The left side of my face was torn up in a bicycle accident in my teens, and with age the scars are showing up now, finally, as a network of fine lines and pits.  The right side of my face is smooth.  I have the usual sagging along the jawline, but the nurses remark that "You have no wrinkles!"  

They'll ask if I moisturize, and I say no.  I'd hate to tell them why I think I have few wrinkles.

This is terrible to admit.  I rarely wash my face.  I don't wear makeup like foundation or blush, so it's not like I have to wash that off at night.  In a bath or shower I often forget my face - it gets washed as a side effect of washing my hair.  So, I guess, rather than moisturizing, I just don't wash the oil out.

I also won't exfoliate.  Jay had a theory that it was very bad to exfoliate, because your skin all over your body is naturally protected by a thin layer of dead skin cells, and if you remove that layer, the top layer of live cells die to reform the protective layer, and then the skin has to regenerate new cells to maintain skin thickness.  Cells generate by division, and any cell can split only so many times (look up "telomeres") and when it reaches that limit, the cell dies.  Exfoliation causes early cell death, so your facial skin will thin and age faster.  

Chemotherapy has affected my skin.  It seems to be thinner and saggier all over my body, probably because chemo will prevent regeneration (a good thing, I guess, as far as tumors go).  I've obviously lost some fat under my skin, even though I've lost only 2 or 3 pounds over the past seven months.  I'm hoping it will all go back to normal after this is over.

--------------------------------------------------

Well, I hope to be better about posting.  I will try, anyway.  
.

5053 Got the blahs

Friday, February 5, 2016

First you have to figure out who you are.
Then you have to like who you are.
Then you have to be who you are.
That's where strength comes from, and all else follows.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday it was very warm, close to 50 F.  Nugget came to visit, and we went to the town hall (pay taxes), the bank (deposit some checks), post office (buy stamps), and a sub shop (feed Nugget).  She was wearing a light jacket, I wore no jacket or sweater at all.  She tried to get me to put the top down, and I might have, except that I'm still full of phlegm and don't want to tempt fate.

The snow from the previous storm had been steadily melting, and yesterday the last little bits disappeared, even in the shade.  It was a nice feeling.

So this morning I was surprised to wake to the sound of a snowplow going down the street.  There's a manhole cover near my driveway, and when the plows hit it, they make a loud bang.  That's what woke me.  I got up and went to the window and found about three inches of snow on the ground.  What?  Oh, come ON!

But it's near 50 again, and it's melting fast.  That means ice overnight, but it should all be gone tomorrow.

-------------------------------------------------

I've been reading this blog, and adding tags.  I started near the end of 2006, I think, and I'm now into late 2008.  I can't believe how much has changed.  

Before I moved to New Jersey, I was going out for lunch or dinner with friends three or four times a week, sometimes more.  I went to performances, fairs, shows, movies, auctions.  I read a lot.  I walked a lot.  I was, in short, very active and social.  I was involved with Mensa, and Meetup, volunteer groups, and the dance stuff.  I had a lot of opinions, some even passionate opinions, which became blog posts.  And, of course, there was The Man.  I really really miss the fun we had, back when it was fun.  I miss that version of him.

Then I moved down here (late 2010, early 2011), and almost immediately had the kidney thing, which put the skids to so much for so long.  The local Mensa bunch, the folks within travel distance of my current location, anyway, isn't to my taste.  Local meetup groups seem to emphasize booze and bars, which doesn't interest me, plus I don't understand most of the people I'd met at the few functions I'd attended.  They seem so, uh, New Jersey shallow.  And racist.  (Becs, resist the urge, I have enough negativity of my own right now...)  There are no auction houses.  I checked into volunteer organizations, and they don't do anything much around here. There doesn't seem to be any easy way to find out about activities, lectures, happenings, and the few public events I have discovered --- the crowds and traffic were discouraging.

So my world has been getting smaller and smaller.  I go nowhere, talk to no one.  I'm turning into a hermit.  As to opinions, I almost never turn the TV on, except for a very few shows I watch and then immediately off again, and I never watch the news.  I resist exposure to the news because a.) they never cover important stuff, and b.) what they do cover tends to just anger me.  And there's no point in saying anything about it, because nothing will change.  Nothing will ever change.  It's about to where I don't care anymore.  What will be will be.

So, reading old posts is reminding me that once life was fun.  

 But the elements that contributed to the fun don't seem to be here.

----------------------------------------------------

The Aberdeen township sent out an email saying that ALERT! a pit bull who had bitten three people has been diagnosed with rabies, so they need to know of anyone who had contact with the dog.  If you or anyone else blah blah contact blah blah immediately.  A very long email, detailing what rabies is, mentions of past animals in the township with rabies, what animals to avoid (raccoons, stray cats, skunks, etc.), blah, blah, blah.  

Nowhere in that whole screed do they describe the dog other than that it was a pit bull, nowhere do they mention what neighborhood, and this is a long narrow township.  They also don't advise anyone to check their cats for damage, most of which run loose and are not taken in at night.  (That's where some indication of neighborhood might come in handy.)

Around here, about every fourth dog is a pit bull.  Nobody trains their dogs.  They might try, but they don't know how.  People seem to think that their dogs speak English, so yelling "Hey, you, get over here!" should have meaning to the dog, and they get mad when the dog doesn't obey  I suspect few people get the immunizations.  I know just by looking that almost nobody neuters male dogs, especially the pits.

What does surprise me is that you almost never see dogs running loose.  Too many guns around, I guess.
.

5049 Snow Spider Queen

Sunday, January 25, 2016

The Nugget tried to make a snowman in my front yard, but the snow, although heavy, wasn't sticky and wouldn't roll.  So she pushed some together into a mound, and her Daddy got a solid chunk from the side of the street for on top, and she made a spider. 

It has the proper number of legs.  Note the crown.  It's a queen spider.
.

5029 Weird-oween

Tuesday, October 3, 2015

I wish there was some way to estimate how many kids would show up for Hallowe'en, and when.  Last year we had a gazillion, all between 5 and 9 pm.  This year there were very few.  They started showing up at 2 (!!!???) and I wasn't at all ready, and it was all over by 7.  I don't understand.

I don't like to hand out candy.  The past few years I had LED blinking rings and bracelets, and for boys who didn't want "jewelry" I had tiny LED fingertip flashlights.  They went over well.  This year I had one bowl with 12-count boxes of Crayola sidewalk chalk, and another bowl full of whistles and kazoos, sitting on the porch.  Kids could choose one from the bowl of chalk, OR two or three items from the bowl of whistles.

At least half the "kids" were at least 15, many older. Half!  Even worse, on three occasions, the MOTHERS came up with a batch of little kids and the MOTHERS ALSO GRABBED STUFF OUT OF THE BOWLS!  Handfuls of stuff from BOTH bowls!  Carefully not looking at me!  That completely blew my mind!

I think next year I might put up a little sign:

 "If you are taller than I am, forget it."

I had moved a chair out onto the porch, set up a space heater to blow on me, and settled down with a book.  I did get quite a bit of reading done.  There was a lot of time that there was no one on the street.

The Nugget came to my house early, grabbed a kazoo, and ran back home, whence she and her mother drove off, not to be seen again for hours.  Turns out they'd gone to another neighborhood to make the rounds there with friends.

Rapunzel, at the nursery school costume parade on Friday:

The wig is a bit too far back on her forehead, so her own hair is peeking out, but that was almost necessary to keep it out of her eyes.  The wig reached to her knees in the back.  (She looks good blonde.)  That wig cost me less than $20 new on eBay, including shipping, and it really looks great (when it's combed), with natural color variation and a natural-looking part.  It was a surprise how nice it looked when it arrived.  I was expecting it to look like fake hair, but it doesn't.   I just might get another one for me.

The nursery school kids marched around the parking lot.  The day before, Daughter had told me that Nugget didn't want to be in the parade.  I asked why, and Daughter said, "She's shy."   Duh?  I never noticed shyness in her.

Anyway, Daughter was late (she's always late, everywhere, for everything) and didn't arrive until the parade was over and the kids were just lined up for photos, so I'm glad I was there to wave at Rapunzel in the parade.  Nugget was amazing.  Notice her hands in the second photo above.  She was marching like she was a beauty queen perched on the back deck of a white convertible, flashing a genuine smile the whole way, and waving both hands at the adoring crowd.  All she was missing was a sheaf of roses.

Shy, my eye.
.

5015 Awwwww....Gramma's pause button

Sunday, September 27, 2015

"Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

 -- Dr. Seuss --

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I dropped the Nugget and her mommy and daddy at Newark Airport on Thursday.  Nugget was all excited at "going on VACATION!" and flying on an airplane and seeing alligators!  Her goodbye to me was rather perfunctory.  

Today I got a phone call from Florida, from a sobbing Nugget who missed her Gramma terribly.  Poor little thing.  There have been many times that I haven't seen her for a week at a time, and it never bothered either her or me, but I guess being in a strange place, being obviously far away, in obviously different surroundings, makes a difference.

When she's upset about something, she often wants to see Gramma.  I offhandedly mentioned to Daughter that I want to be a "safe haven" to Nugget.  Naturally, Daughter was offended by that.  It's not like I want to replace Daughter as Nugget's main haven, but that I want to be a safe place she can go where there's no pressure, no schedules, where she can relax completely and maybe even think things over in her own way.  I can be more indulgent than her parents.  Grammas are allowed.  There are no expectations.

So I think she's just a little overwhelmed right now, and wants to "hit pause".   Gramma has the pause button.

--------------------------------

I have acquired (via Craig's List) a large, wide, blond wood-finish 3-drawer file cabinet.  I can maybe now dig my way out of the paper piles.  

All my life I've had a problem with paper.  At the country house we had four wide drawers, but still there were piles of paper everywhere.  The main problem was that I'd pay bills, or open mail, and then I didn't file stuff right away, because it took so long, and the reason it took so long was that there was a separate folder for everything.  An electric company folder.  One for phone stuff, one for each of the cars, separate ones for each of the insurance policies, separate ones for each bank account, for each stock, ... and so on, spread out over four drawers with three rows of hanging folders in each drawer, arranged alphabetically.  So filing was a royal pain.  Up, down, back, forth, over the drawers, for each piece of paper.  The greatest system in the world is literally useless if you don't use it.

Now that the only person I have to answer to is myself, I have simplified.
There's one folder for everything I pay every month.  It's labelled "Utilities", but it also includes credit card  bills.
One folder for all insurance policies, of any kind.
One folder for all bank statements.
One folder for everything having to do with investments.
One folder for all taxes.
One folder for all auto purchase and service records.
And so on.

It's kind of arranged by "when processed" grouping.  Monthly stuff, quarterly stuff, random stuff.  That way, when I pay the monthly bills, I can just gather up everything and put it in one place.  No sorting.  The bank statements usually arrive at about the same time.  Within the folders, nothing is sorted.  It's just a jumble.  If I ever have to pull together a history, it will be easy enough to just go through the jumble in the proper folder and pull out the pieces I need.

I'm starting to feel better.  Not just because I'm getting a handle on the mess, but now I might be able to actually find stuff.
.

4089 Overwhelmed

Wednesday, August 13, 2015

"Computers make it easier to do a lot of things,

but most of the things they make it easier to do

don't need to be done."

--Andy Rooney--

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Poor Andy (above).  He may have been right 15 or 20 years ago, but I guess he never saw the scary video I posted on 8/7/15.

---------------------------------------

I haven't updated in a while because I've been, well, not so much sick as wracked.  Things are piling up.  I've been trying to get to the grocery store for weeks.  I am literally out of everything, have been living on Subway and WaWa sandwiches and salads, and what few things like cereal, milk, and eggs I can pick up at the corner quik-shop!  Which brings up another complaint -- my bank, which started out less than a mile from here, has moved to about 8 miles down the highway, and now my grocery store, across the street from where the bank used to be, is closing.  Going out of business (A&P).  The next acceptable one is a few miles down the highway, and most significantly, this being New Jersey, it's on the wrong side of the street, which adds another mile to the trip.

So Monday I gave up and placed a $300+ order with PeaPod, which was delivered yesterday, and with my back out, I still haven't finished putting all of it away.

Again, I'm late on paying the monthly bills.  I'm glad I don't foresee having to apply for any loans, because I'm sure my credit rating is in the toilet.

The Nugget has had a heavy chest cough since 8/2, but doesn't seem to have anything else going on.  Last Friday, 8/7, I started coughing.  It's a tickle in the back of my throat (which Nugget has also described), and a heavy dry cough.  Nothing else seems to be going on.  No fever or stuffy chest feeling.  The cough is really bad in the morning and late evening.  During the day it's not so bad.  Nugget and I together sound like a seal colony.

However!  As frequently happens, the coughing has affected my back.  My lower back "went out" Monday morning.  I'm wearing an elastic belt arrangement that presses against my tailbone and at least allows me to stand and walk, but the pressure on the nerves from whatever's out of place affects my legs.  My right leg is almost numb.  And it also causes, um, bathroom urgency.

I am very unhappy that (AGAIN!) I am unable to go to the country house.  I haven't been there in a month.  Things keep happening that make it difficult to leave.  I have to schedule my trips carefully to avoid traffic (like definitely no travel on Fridays or Sundays, and so on).  Going up on Thursday morning and returning on Saturday afternoon is ideal, because then I don't miss garbage or recycle pickups.  I had planned to go tomorrow.  Not happening.

I've been shopping online, and have received several packages over the past few weeks.  I hear a thump on the porch, the doorbell  rings, I walk immediately to the front door, maybe 30 feet, open the door, and there's no one there.  Just a box or package next to the door.

I look up and down the street, and there's no truck, no delivery person.  Nothing.  It's getting eerie.

Last week WOOT! had a really good deal.  They had blackout drapes in a variety of lengths and colors for only $30ish a set.  They were described as two panels at 72" wide each panel by various standard lengths.  That would mean one set each would fit my breakfast SGDs, dining room windows, and the two front bedrooms upstairs (where the sun blasts in every morning, and the streetlight all night).  So I ordered a set for each of those four rooms.  Then, after I ordered, WOOT! noticed the description was incorrect, and the panels are each actually only 36" wide.

WOOT! promised to refund the credit card and accept return of the drapes for everyone who had ordered before the description was fixed.   So, since the middle of last week, I've been writing increasingly frustrated emails to WOOT!   Their first note said all I had to do was refuse delivery.  A later email said they would be sending prepaid return labels to everyone who needed one (that was last Thursday or Friday, I think).

On Friday, the doorbell rang, and there was the box, and no delivery guy in sight.

Note to WOOT! --- "box arrived, no opportunity to refuse delivery".
Response from WOOT! --- "simply refuse delivery".  
Note to WOOT! --- "no opportunity to refuse delivery, please send return label".  
Response from WOOT!: ---  "simply refuse delivery, or we will send a return label." 
Note to WOOT!: --- "Please send return label". 
Response from WOOT! --- "simply refuse delivery".

I don't understand.  The box has been sitting on my porch since Friday.  Am I supposed to call FedEx and have them come and get it?  Will FedEx consider that refusing delivery?  I guess I'll have to call FedEx and find out.  Is WOOT! going to send a label or not?  What's most frustrating is that the return address on the box is the fabric company, which happens to be just 14 miles from here.  I told WOOT! that I would be willing to return the box to the fabric company myself if it didn't screw up paperwork, but I got no response from WOOT! on that.  Well, I did get a response, but it said "simply refuse delivery".  I'm not kidding.  They're obviously not reading any communiques, just pushing the "refuse delivery" button.

I used to like WOOT!, but their customer service is the pits.
.

4088 Conversation with my heir apparent, #2

Friday, August 7, 2015

You either sink or swim or you don't.

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The Nugget pooped in the potty at my house a few days ago.

She poops every day, and she poops a LOT!  I haven't seen grown men with her output.  I usually say something like "What on earth is your mommy feeding you?!", which usually gets me her breakfast and lunch menu for that day.  She does tend to be rather literal.

Well, anyway, the other day I expressed amazement, and I asked "Your belly is so little, and that poopy is so big, where on earth were you storing all that?"

She looked up with a huge smile, and said, "In my bagina!"

(Daughter later explained they had been learning the proper names for body parts.)
.

4081 Conversation with my heir apparent

Sunday, August 1, 2015

Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the last fish has been caught.
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

--Cree Prophecy--

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Bombing down the highway in the BMW convertible, top down, wind in our hair, sun on our faces.  We pull into my driveway and stop, and then there's a 4-year-old voice from the toddler seat in the back:

Gramma?

Yeah?

When you die...

Yeah?

Can I have this car?

Yeah. You can have all my jewelry, too.

OK.  But don't die until I can reach the pedals.
.

4052 Catching up on photos

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

"[T]he more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be

a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum.

The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable,

the further to the right he or she will be.

--Roderick Stackelberg, Hitler's Germany, Routledge, 1999, pp. 4–6

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I've got a backlog of photos I want to post - because I like to keep stuff here, if for no other reason.

This is a portrait of me that Nugget drew last week.  Apparently it is usual for her age group (recently turned 4) to have the arms and legs coming directly out of the head.   Kind of makes me wonder - I know she's very aware that people have torsos (she comments on my big boobies and belly often enough!), so why do they leave it out?  Is it that arms and legs and heads are so much more important?  I thought it was interesting that she very carefully drew in the fingers and toes.

This is the dandelions in my city house front yard last month.  I dragged out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up as much of the seed heads as I could, because I knew if the mower-kid mowed that mess, dandelions would take over the entire neighborhood.  Then I spread a weed killer/fertilizer mix.  It looks a little better now.

This is one of the five daffodil beds at the country house, this past spring.  Late April, I think.  There are several varieties in there.  This is looking up from the end of the driveway toward the house, which is beyond the brow of the hill.

 This is a bit of the side yard at the country house.  Pretty, isn't it?  I hate to give it up.

Snake!  He's coming down from inside the exterior siding near the front door of the country house.   I think each of those tiles is 6" square (the photo angle makes them look rectangular, but they are square), so if you straighten him out, that makes him about 36" long!  At his thickest middle, he was an inch and a half wide.  They can get up to almost 4 feet long, but I'd never seen one before as big as this one.

I had some Lincoln Logs here for a while, waiting for the Nugget to get old enough to be interested.  We got them out the other day.  Her Daddy built the section of barn to the right.  Nugget built the section to the left.  So far, there's no evidence of a budding architect.

Nugget's nursery school has special days, like "silly hat day", "pajama day", "funny hair day", and so on.  The next four photos are from two "funny hair" days (I wonder what boys do for funny hair....).  Daughter was very creative.

(Mouth full of peaches.)

Side view.

Another funny hair day.  She had been watching Sesame Street on TV when "the pee-pee urge" hit.  I came around the corner and found this.    Usually she uses a ring that fits in the seat of the grown-up toilet, but she didn't want to miss any of the show, so she dug out her baby potty and set up shop in front of the TV.

My lava lamp.  Sometimes when it's warming up, things get interesting.

.

4051 Outside the box.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Homophobia: The fear that gay men will treat men the way men treat women.

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Nugget is very "into" clothes.  I don't know where she got that.  She especially loves "tutu-looking" skirts, and sparkles, bangles, and sequins.

A while ago she was wearing a straight, knee-length, rib-knit skirt with a t-shirt over.  I was a bit surprised by the skirt, not her usual style, so I complemented her on her grown-up look.  

She replied that it looked grown-up because it was her mother's.

"Your mother's skirt fits you?  Wow!"

"No, it's not her skirt."  She lifted the t-shirt to show me.

She was wearing one of her mother's tank tops as a dress/skirt.  Because it was a stretchy rib-knit it fit her perfectly as a dress (except for being a bit low-cut, hence the t-shirt).

Cool idea.
.

4040 Final bird entry

Saturday, May 23, 2015

I found the baby bird dead Wednesday morning.  I think there was something wrong with him all along.  He never made the fecal sacs that chicks his age are supposed to make, and his cloaca looked prolapsed.  It may have happened when he fell from the nest, or it may have been that way all along so he'd been kicked out of the nest.  We'll never know.

I called Daughter, and she was sad.  She told Nugget, and Nugget was excited, wanted to see the bird right away.
 "Aren't you sad?"
"No.  I like to see dead bodies!"

Oh, my.  Not sure what's going on with that kid.

Well, Daughter has a lot of anatomy books, has even participated in a human dissection, maybe that explains it?

Hercules, Daughter, and Nugget left Thursday for a five-day trip to West Virginia (some kind of caching shindig) and Pennsylvania (Hercules' family), so there wasn't time for a proper funeral.  So the bird is in a box in a freezer bag in my freezer.  Daughter said I could go ahead and bury him while they were away, but I don't want to --- mainly because I am incapable of digging a hole these days, and putting him out with the garbage is distasteful.  On the other hand, given Nugget's ghoulish fascination with "dead bodies", maybe it's a good idea if she doesn't know where he's buried.

-----------------------------------------

More chain-jerks:

• Weary and wary are different words.
• We are all frustrated by "I could care less" (meaning "I couldn't care less").  Believe it or not, in the past few days I have seen at least three examples in three different places, of  "I could careless."  Don't people think about what they say (write) anymore?
• Exacerbate and exasperate are different words.
• Disorientate is not a word.  Yes, disorientation is the noun, but the verb is simply disorient.  Same with orientate/orientation/orient. 
• This one drives me crazy:  "calm, cool, and collective."  That one I hear as well as read.  How does one be collective?
• Sew and sow are different words.  You can't sew the seeds of discord.
• Invite is a verb.  It is not a noun. 
• Ask is a verb.  You don't have an ask of someone.  You have a request or a question.

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4036 Long time no see.

Friday, May 15, 2015

It's been a while.  Slightly over a month.  Partly because I'd been busy, but mainly because my laptop had been in the shop (which was mysteriously closed for a while).  I have my little Sony notebook, which works just fine for visiting websites and reading mail, and writing short comments and so on, but is frustrating to type on.  Yes, I bought a Bluetooth keyboard for it, but the freakin' thing doesn't want to hold a charge.

Laptop is now back, so I am too.

About the only noteworthy thing that's happened in the past month is that the Nugget celebrated her fourth birthday, and I've been to the old house twice in the past three weeks, both very expensive trips.

Nugget has been hearing about measles, I guess.  She told her father one day that she wasn't feeling well, might be coming down with something, "I think I have weasels."  For her birthday I got her an art easel she can use at my house, the kind with blackboard on one side, white board on the other, and paper on a roll underneath that can be draped over the top.  She went home and told her Daddy that Gramma got her a weasel!

Sometimes it's hard to know what's going on with 4-year-olds.

I hadn't been to the old house all winter.  They had a LOT of snow last winter, and I just didn't want to deal with it.  My last trip of 2014 had been in November, to make sure the furnace was on and to shut off the water and drain the pipes so there'd be no danger of freezing.  I made my first trip for this year in late April, heading up Thursday, planning to stay until Saturday.

It was still very cold up there - daytime high in the low 40s and nights dropping into the low 30s.  When I got to the house on Thursday, it was 56 in the house.  I pushed the thermostat buttons to boost the heat, and nothing happened, except that the thermostat went blank - except for a flashing "low bat".  Hmmmm.

I drove into the village and bought some batteries.  I installed the new batteries, and the thermostat went completely wonky, like digital "8"s blinking everywhere.  But the furnace fan did come on.  It was blowing cold air.  Seems like the burner wasn't on.  Hmmmm.

I went downstairs to check the furnace, and the gauge on the oil tank said it was empty.  Hmmmm.  Maybe the furnace hadn't been running at all?  So how could it have been 56 when I arrived?  Then I remembered - that house is extremely well insulated, and practically the entire west wall is glass.  The afternoon sun can warm it up.

By then it was getting late, sun was low, and the temperature started dropping.  Obviously I wasn't going to be sleeping there.  I don't know what the heck was going on locally, but the cheapest close hotel room I could get was $199.  Plus tax.  Sigh.  Non-scary Kingston motels aren't cheap to start with, and Rhinebeck is worse.

The next morning, Friday, I went back to the house, and it was cold. Worse, it was a cloudy day.  The Hairless Hunk had been removing some fallen trees from my side yard, so loads of logs, his huge trailer, AND a flatbed truck, AND his spare car were parked at the top of the driveway.  The fuel oil truck needs to be able to turn around at the top because the driveway is long, steep, curving, and narrow and they hate to back up or down it.  I can't call for a delivery until I know the Hunk has cleared the driveway, and he has a job.  I felt so discouraged I packed up a few things and went home.  Made my calls from there.

I couldn't go back until the second Monday following, but I got an oil delivery order in the meantime, and made an appointment for thermostat service on Monday, May 4, at 2 pm.  I rushed up river that Monday to arrive by 1 pm, because I had to nail some house numbers on a tree near the end of the driveway, because some fool had run over the mailbox.  The bark on the tree was light gray.  The numbers were 7 inches high, black with reflective white edges.  From a distance of 8 feet you couldn't see the stupid numbers.

Drove up the rest of the driveway and found the invoice for the oil delivery on the front door.  They had pumped $9.32 worth of oil.  Duh?  The previous delivery had been in late February, for 250 gallons, so that means that up until February the furnace had been running, but had not been running since the February delivery.

The service guy arrived.  He said yeah, the oil tank is full, the gauge must be stuck on empty.  The furnace had to be reset, it must have run out of oil just before the February delivery and shut itself off.  Yup, the thermostat was dead, no idea why, sometimes they just fry themselves.  Especially after fifteen years.

I'm so glad there's no water in the pipes in the house.  It was a very cold February and March up there.

The furnace guy didn't want to install a new thermostat.  He was honest.  He said the thermostat isn't covered under my (very expensive) service contract, so the company would bill me $300 for a new one, but I could buy a perfectly good one for $65 at the big hardware store across the river and install it myself or have someone do it for me.  The Hunk works weird hours (UPS), so he was already sleeping and would be leaving for work at 9 pm.  It took me about 30 seconds thinking to say, "Fooey.  Do it now.  I'd rather have it working now than have to freeze here today and spend another night in a hotel."  (The bill has arrived, BTW, and I got a discount because of the service contract, so it was just a hair over $200.)  That's $400 so far on two trips up, in addition to the $100 per trip in gas and tolls, and I hadn't accomplished anything yet.

After the furnace guy left, I went to the deli to get a late lunch, and hit a pothole.  With the BMW.  Split a sidewall, about 1.5 inches.  Drove into the village to meet with Piper to discuss investment strategy, then drove to Rhinebeck to the tire place.  They didn't have my tire in stock (low profile, drive-flat).  They can get it in by tomorrow morning, but that's ok, I can drive on a blown drive-flat at low speeds for like 100 miles, no problem.

By then it was like 6 pm, and I was dog tired.  I poked around at the house a little bit, and went to bed early.  I slept very badly, hardly at all, because the alarm clock no longer works, and I needed to be up and dressed early.

At 7 am Tuesday morning, the Hunk came by to look at some tools I had told him he could have from the basement - a large standing drill press and a table saw.  He's been so dependable and helpful the past few years, keeping the grounds presentable and the house safe, as far as I'm concerned he can have everything I don't need.  He loaded the drill press into his truck, and then said, "Hey, your tire's flat."

BMWs don't come with spare tires.  Or jacks.  There's no place to put them anyway.

The damn thing was down to the rim.  No way I was going to drive it the 10 miles to Rhinebeck.  Now, the Hunk gets home from work about 6 am, works a variety of jobs until about 2 pm, goes to sleep for a few hours, and then back to UPS at 9 pm.  He had mentioned he had a contract in Rhinebeck that day.  I said I was going to call the tire place and get a tow truck.  He said no, he'd just take the tire off and take me and the tire to Rhinebeck - but he wouldn't be able to pick me up again until around 2, is that ok?

The new tire was on the rim at about 11, and I got a call from him as I was paying ($245) for it, he needed to go home to get some tools - so he picked me and the tire up, took us home, put the tire on the car, and retrieved his jack and tire iron, and went back to the job.

See why I don't mind giving him drill presses and table saws?

Continued next post.......
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4028 I'm still here.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Not much to say. I'm doing next to nothing, except that somehow I still manage to mess up the house and create laundry --- and still can't keep up with it.

That robin I'd mentioned who was hunting in my front yard is still there every day, and he seems to have laid claim to the territory. 0ne day another robin landed on the lawn and was happily hunting, ignoring robin #1, and robin #1 had a fit. He attacked, and there was quite an aerial battle, until the stranger retreated to the lawn across the street. Later, the stranger hopped into the street, and "my" robin marched back and forth on the curb, as if to say "the line is drawn here!", until the interloper retreated.

The cyst in Jasper's throat doesn't seem to have gotten any larger since it refilled after draining, still slightly smaller than maybe a ping pong ball.  But he's still beating up on his water dish, splashing in it and emptying it all over the kitchen floor twice a day.   It's low enough that I'm sure it's not hurting his neck.  I think he's just playing.  But this is a serious problem, since it means I can't leave him alone for even a day (let alone the two or three days to go to the country house) unless I have Daughter come in twice a day to refill his dish.

No, the water dispensers won't work for two reasons - he's so timid the glug glug will scare him away from the water altogether, and if there's somehow no sound he'll just empty the entire reservoir in one play session.  'Tis a puzzlement.

I need a way to allow him to drink, but discourage him from splashing.

Daughter believes in using "correct" terms for everything with the Nugget.  The other day I was at their house and commented to Nugget that she's getting so very tall, she's already up to my chest (she'll be four next month).  She ran over to her daddy, stood close in front of him, put her hand on the top of her head, and said "Yes!  I'm already higher than Daddy's penis!"

The taste of Spring weather was short.  The past week has been very cold.  The township had an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday (Nugget's age group ran to gather eggs lying on the outfield of a baseball diamond --- the eggs were just lying there on the very short grass, plastic eggs with candy inside, it looked like the place had been scatter-bombed --- and of the hundreds of eggs, three contained gift certificates for a craft store.  Nugget got one of them.  But, it was so cold I was wearing a winter coat and a fur scarf over a heavy sweater, and after the egg gathering I went back to the car for shelter from the wind while everyone else visited the playground.

I have fallen in love with PeaPod grocery deliveries.  I'll still go to the store for anything I want to see and touch, like fresh vegetables, but I think I'm pretty well locked in for everything that comes in a package.  No more lugging dozens of bags to the car, lifting them from the trunk, and dragging them to the house.  By the time I finish a major trip on my own, I'm too tired to put the stuff away.  The products don't cost more - in fact they run a lot of sales.  There is a delivery fee and a driver tip, but they keep sending me email coupons for free delivery, and I'm more than happy to add a tip.  And the driver takes manufacturers' coupons that are deducted from the bill before it goes to the credit card.  I love it!

Which reminds me - time to put together something for dinner.  Bye!
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4010 Followup from the south

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Well, Ex#2's lab results came back, and he does have (did have?) Stage 1 colon cancer.  Apparently no big deal.

Mentally he's not doing so well.  In the ICU he apparently kept trying to get dressed and leave, so they finally had to strap him to the bed.  Daughter has been talking with him on the phone, and he thinks he's in a hotel. "I don't know the name of it.  The cleaning ladies are nice, but they won't  let me out of bed."

Daughter had a nice long heart-to-heart with a case manager, and the plan now is not for him to go directly home, but to spend some recovery time at a skilled nursing facility, where maybe? they can evaluate? his ability to care for himself.  "The family", his sister and all those other family members down there, have a very strong prejudice against admitting any kind of mental problems, they see it as some kind of unacceptable weakness, a character flaw, so Daughter has to work against them, too.  She's been choosing her words carefully, and that's a strain itself.

In the meantime, Hercules's maternal grandmother, who pretty much raised him, died on Tuesday.  Not unexpected, she's well into her nineties.  The funeral is tomorrow.  Hercules's mother is just plain nuts, certifiably, seriously, the only way she avoided incarceration in North Carolina was by agreeing to psychiatric counseling, whereupon she promptly moved across the country, well anyway she is currently at nasty odds with everyone else, including Hercules, and she will be there.  Daughter and Nugget were supposed to go to the funeral, too, but Nugget suddenly developed an abdominal malady while visiting me yesterday, and she was throwing up last night, and lethargic today (but a bit more chipper this evening), so Hercules left for Pennsylvania today alone.  Poor guy.  Daughter is, I suspect, guiltily happy she doesn't have to deal with her mother-in-law.

The MIL hasn't seen the Nugget in --- gee, maybe more than a year, not since she moved to Arizona or wherever the hell she is now, and I'm worried that since Nugget isn't there, she's going to change her flight plans and insist on coming back here with Hercules.  That may be more than Daughter can handle right now.  Probably more than Hercules can handle.  Likely more than their marriage can handle.  I hope he has the strength to say no if she demands it.

Well, things have been very tense across the street for a while now.  I hope things will loosen up over the next few weeks.
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3992 Slumber party!

Friday, October 31, 2014

War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Nugget:

The Nugget is three-and-a-half now. 

Last Saturday night, her parents were going to a party, and I had agreed to babysit.  Daughter asked how late they could stay out, and I said as late as you like, I have my book, and there's the couch, don't worry about time.  But Daughter still fussed, so I had a Great Idea - how 'bout Nugget just stays overnight at my house?  We asked Nugget, and she was all for it.

By Saturday morning I was having second thoughts.  Nugget has stayed in hotels and various relatives' homes many times, but always with her Mommy.  As far as I know, she'd never slept away from her Mommy.  I had visions of her waking at 3 am with "I want my Mommy!", and nothing ever cures that but the production of her mommy, immediately.  Daughter said that Nugget was excited about staying over at Gramma's, and there's no turning back now.

So, she came over at 7 pm.  Bedtime was supposed to be 9 pm.  I think she finally fell asleep at 11 pm.  We had a good time, arranging hair, telling stories (I do a really good job with The Three Billy Goats Gruff and the ogre) and generally giggling.

I think there's a particular time when kids start sleeping with their head at the top of the bed and their feet pointing toward the foot of the bed.  She's not there yet.  Several times during the night I had to move her legs off my back.  And among the eight stuffed animals and dolls in the bed with us was a bear that  talked when squeezed, and he happened to be between us and I kept leaning on him ("I looooove when you hug meeeee").  And then there was the usual checking every half hour to make sure she was still breathing.  I got no sleep at all, but she slept very well --- until 3 am.

She woke me, near tears. "Gramma, I had a monster dream."
"Oooo.  I bet it was scary."
"Yes.  It was berry scary."
"But you know it was a dream, right?"
"Yes."
"And you're not dreaming now?"
"No."
"Are there any monsters around now?"
"No.  There's no monsters now."
"Monster dreams are very scary.  But they're just dreams.  They're not real.  They go poof when you wake up."
"Yeah.  Ok."  And she was back to sleep almost immediately.  No "I want my mommy".
I was so proud of her, and so grateful.

We got up about 9 am, two hours later than usual for her.  She said, "Mommy says wake up, go potty, brush teeth, take a bath, get dressed, then eat breakfast."  Only Mommy had forgotten to pack her toothbrush and I had no extras, so she decided to skip the whole routine and just get dressed so breakfast would happen sooner.  After breakfast, her Daddy noticed we were up and came to get her.

And I went back to bed for two hours.

Later, Daughter says she asked Nugget if she liked staying at Gramma's.   Nugget said no.  Then she threw her arms up in the air and said, "I don't like it, I LOVE IT!"

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3976 The past isn't there any more

Sunday, September 14, 2014

It takes a long time to gain trust, five seconds to lose it.

---------------------------------------------------------------

For some reason this past summer I thought a lot about Gettyburg, Pa.  I had a strong urge to visit.  Nope, not as a tourist.  From summer of 1965 to summer 1967, a mere two years, I lived there.  I taught high school math.

Even though it was only two years, a lot happened.  They were the densest two years of my life, and they had a powerful influence on the next twenty or so years.  More happened in a month there than happened in whole years of the rest of my life.  Maybe it was my age.  Maybe it was the sudden freedom, being on my own.  I don't know.

I originally wanted to stay at a particular B&B in the middle of town.  [See http://www.brafferton.com/.  Check out the beautiful rooms!]  I selected a suite with a Jacuzzi and private entrance, and in July I made a reservation for the nights of September 9 and 10.  I figured that the tourist season would be winding down, so traffic would be less, especially on weekdays, but it would still be warm.

And then, on impulse, I mentioned to Daughter that I planned to go, and asked if she and the Nugget would like to join me.  I was thinking simply nice little vacation.  Daughter jumped to the utterly baseless conclusion that I was facing an emotional upheaval and was begging for her support, so she had to go.  Of course she didn't check that with me.  That's one of the things we fight about --- that she makes assumptions and then operates on them without checking with the other person, ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME!, and then she holds those assumptions against you.

I attempted to get Daughter and Nugget a room in the same B&B and discovered that they don't allow children under 10-years-old (or so, I forget), so I cancelled that reservation and booked two adjoining rooms at a Marriott outside town.  I was disappointed that the particular Marriott didn't have an in-room Jacuzzi and mentioned that to Daughter, so she did her own research and found another hotel that had something they called "family suites", that did have Jacuzzis.  Now from the photos on their website, the suite looked like two completely separate rooms with a shared bathroom between them.  So I called them, verified the Jacuzzi, made the reservation for a family suite WITH Jacuzzi (it was an unbelievable $160/night), and then cancelled the Marriott.

Sigh.

It was a 3.5 hour drive, which meant that Nugget would require a run-around break at some point.  Also, Daughter and I could not spend that much time in quarters that close without one of us (her!) having a meltdown bigger than the Nugget could throw, so we took separate cars.  Besides, that would allow us to do different explorations once there.

She left an hour before me, but we arrived within minutes of each other. 

I was very annoyed to find that the suite looked nothing like the photos implied.  It was a room with two queens with the bathroom by the entrance door, like any other cookie-cutter room, and then another room with a king bed opening off to the side of the queen room.  Yes, it had a door that could be closed, but one would have to go through the queen room to get to the bathroom.  Yuck.  AND, there was NO Jacuzzi.  I called the desk and asked if we could move to a family suite with a Jacuzzi, and was told no, there were no other rooms available.  I pointed out that I had specifically asked for the Jacuzzi, had moved from the Marriott on the assurance that I'd have one, and I was very unhappy.  They compensated me by reducing the room rate to $100/night.  Daughter was hyperventilating.  That was a warning I missed.


A few minutes later, as we passed the desk on the way out to find dinner, Daughter stopped at the desk and .... I don't know how to describe it ... she had an emotional  breakdown and said she couldn't stay in that room because there was no place she could be alone, there was no retreat, could she have another room for herself.  I was very embarrassed, and nodded to the clerk and told her to put it on my tab.  They gave Daughter another room, FREE.

After Daughter walked away, I told the clerk that this is NOT your problem to fix, it's our problem, my Daughter is nuts, so please put her room on my credit card, but they said no, it's ok.   I just wish Daughter had said something to me earlier.  We could have moved entirely to two adjoining rooms.  (I especially felt bad the next day, when I overheard one of their regular customers being turned away, because they were full, no rooms available.)  So I ended up with the family suite all by myself.  

[Embarrassed much?  Look like one of those city folks who walk in and start demanding all kinds of free stuff?]

That pretty much set the tone.  I should have gone alone.

-----------------------------------------

The town has changed a lot.  It's surrounded by battlefield where nothing can be built, so the town has expanded by getting a lot more dense.  There was very little that I recognized.  Fifty years ago it was a sleepy little rural town that sort of woke up a little every summer when the tourists came, but there was little in the town itself that primarily catered to tourists.  Mostly, they just tolerated them.  In fact, there was just one chain hotel, a few small family-owned motels, and people who took in guests in the summer for some extra cash.  Now there are huge hotels all over the place.  Shops that primarily catered to the needs of townfolk and farmers now seem to be geared toward tourists, all antiques or artsy-fartsy.  

Actually, the middle of town is beautiful.  And then I remembered that last year was the 150th anniversary of the battle, so I'll bet all the sandblasting, restored and refurbished storefronts, fancy lampposts, and the huge planters everywhere were federally funded.

I found my old apartment building, the diner where I ate dinner almost every evening with six to eight students crammed into my booth with me, the location of the trailer I moved into after the fire at the apartment (that location, which used to be on the alley behind an apartment building, is now an extension of the hospital), and some other things.  But mostly I recognized very little.  

The past mostly isn't there any more, it's been papered over.

--------------------------------------------

Before anyone yells at me about the filth of hotel Jacuzzis, I have a way to handle that.   I pack a small bottle of Clorox.  Fill the tub up to the intakes, pour in half the bleach, run it for a few seconds, and then let it sit for about 15-20 minutes, run it again for a few seconds, then drain it.  If there was anything floating after after the second running (which I have seen only once in 30 Jacuzzis, The Man loves a Jacuzzi), just do the process again.  It is now safe.  Go out for dinner and by the time you return the bleach odor is gone.

---------------------------------------------

Another odd thing happened.  I had a memory of a section of road heading out of New Jersey into an unknown state, where the road crosses a bridge over a steep-sided river gorge, into a wonderland of small heavily wooded mountains piled one on another.  Beautiful.  It's been driving me crazy for the past few years because I didn't know where it was, couldn't remember where I might have been driving from or to, or even when.  I just wanted to find that piece of road again.

It got to be an obsession.  Several times over the past year I went to Google maps street view and followed almost every major road out of New Jersey in every direction, especially those that crossed a river near the state line.  No luck.

Going to Gettysburg, I let the GPS guide me.  And there it was!  It's Interstate 78 west, over the Delaware River.  I still have no idea when I might have taken that route in the past.  Maybe I dreamed of it. 

Returning, the GPS took me a different route, via the Pa turnpike, and the NJ turnpike.

Odd.  Like I was meant to find it.  Odder still, my memory was of heading west over the gorge. Had I returned by that route heading east, I might not have recognized it.
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3798 Little Drummer Girl

Sunday, November 17, 2013

This is Nugget playing the bowl drums.  The first selection (13 seconds) is from earlier in the week when it was just the two of us.  It's short because the battery in my camera suddenly died (no warning!). 

The second (26 seconds) was a few days later when her daddy was watching, too, and she seems a lot more restrained.

It was windy outside, and the wind sometimes catches the flap over the dryer vent and makes a banging noise.  At the end of the clip, the flap banged and startled her, and she jumped up and ran for her daddy's legs.

[I don't understand why the Youtube logo is on the lower right.  If you click on that, you don't get these videos. Blogger did that all by themselves, and these videos are not on Youtube.  I don't understand.]
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3776 More amusement

Saturday, October 12, 2013

I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound

by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it.

--Plato--

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Daughter told two-and-a half year old Nugget that they were going to the playground.
Nugget asked if she could take her little pull toy dog along.
Daughter said yes.
Then Daughter heard Nugget telling the doggie what was going to happen.
It went something like this:

First we have to go piddle.
Then we put our socks and shoes on.
Then we go get in the car.
Then we drive to the playground.
Then we go on the swings and the slides and the climby things.
Then we get in the car and drive home.
Then we put the bandaids on.
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3774 Wrenches and plans and all that

Friday, October 11, 2013

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." 

--G. K. Chesterton--

-------------------------------------------------------------

My back was out or in some stage of delicate for a month.  By the end of last week it felt pretty good, so I figured I'd make it up to the country house this week.

Not to be.

Last Friday, the Nugget was miserable and snobbery.  By Sunday evening I was sneezing, and by Monday I was miserable and snobbery.  'Long about Tuesday evening the miseries started to descend into my chest.  Last night, Thursday, at about 9 pm, a good six hours since I'd taken some (every four hours) Robitussin, I felt really good and thought "Wow, it's over!".  By 11 pm I was crawling to the cabinet for more Robitussin.

Sigh.

Will I ever again see that house?

Nugget is still suffering.  Although her nose is now dry, her voice sounds like a cartoon witch, so I guess the miseries are in her throat and chest, too.  She still laughs and plays, but at any moment the least tiny thing will send her sobbing into her mommy's lap.  I told Daughter if she aches all over even 1/3 as bad as I do, take pity on her.

At least I have Robitussin.
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3753 Making stuff

Thursday, July 25, 2013

God says, "Take what you want ... and pay for it." 

-- via a Stephen King character --

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Last week  the Nugget and I made cookies.  Oatmeal chocolate chip.  Small lesson learned - leave the warm chocolate chips for when she's a little older.  Messy!  But yummy.

Today we made ice cream.  Well, technically ice milk, but it was good anyway. 

• Fill a large ziplock bag with ice cubes, and add a lot of salt.
• Fill a small ziplock bag with milk and zip it tight.  We used vanilla-flavored milk, which is already sweetened.  You can use chocolate, or you can chop up some fruit in it.  Whatever sounds good.
• Put the small bag inside the big bag and zip it up tight.
• Wrap the bags in a dishtowel, and put gloves on your little helper.
• Shake the bag, a lot.  Squish it sometimes. The kid will probably get tired, but as long as she can do the first few and the final few shakes, she'll be satisfied that she! made the ice cream.
• Check occasionally to see if it's thickened yet.
• When you take the small bag out, be sure to dry it before opening it, so you don't get salt in the ice cream.
• Dump into a bowl and enjoy.

Nugget's comment, "Too cold.  Put in mike-o-wabe, Amma."
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