Another word Sam knew was "said", but there was quiet panic: "what kind of 'said' is this? (We're working on "their" and "there" right now) because I haven't been spelling it this way?" Me: "Oh? How have you been spelling it?" "S-E-D" (YES! Sam has some grasp of phonics!) So I explained that while it sounded like "sed" it's actually spelled "said."

Sam is also doing "skip-counting" to prepare for multiplication tables. It's way over the child's head. All the stuff that should have been part of the previous years at home, just completely undone. (Though I was talking to someone about a home-schooled child, and this kid spends hours daily practicing music, but can't do 13 x 10 without a calculator, because it's "stifling his creativity" to memorize multiplication tables.)

I took a walk with Sailor on Monday, 2.5 miles, and another on Wednesday. That one featured someone who had put up his Christmas lights. I was even polite to him, instead of beating him about the head and shoulders, how dare he. The walk was 2.75 miles. Then it rained later in the week, as well as I had other things to do. Poor dog.

Yesterday I discovered the Who Wants to be a Millionaire site, and got hooked. It took me about an hour to download the test month of Flash4, and then I was ready to play!

On game 1, I was wrong at $1000 (what do I know from Howard Stern?) then died at 4000, then I lost the million dollar question on my third try. However, if it were real money, I'd have quit at $500,000.
Game 2 I went all the way to a million, and was wrong there. I don't think I'd have quit that time in "real life", so I'd have "only" taken home $32,000.
Game 3, today, I lost at 2K and then it broke on the restart. Finally I got it going and the audience did me wrong at $8,000. On the last try, I did myself wrong at $250,000.

This also linked me to the Britannica (hmm, 1 "n" in the URL?) site, which is now up and running and lovely.

Therefore, I forgot all about the turkey which was cooling in the oven till it was sliceable. Fortunately, Rich reminded me, else I'd have been in danger of poisoning the homeless, as Xeney feared!

This morning, then, I was up early and discovered the roaster pan had a little leak, just enough to get turkey fat all over the bottom shelf of the fridge. After I cleaned THAT up I sliced the bird beautifully, dark on one side, light on the other. When I was a kid, my Mom would get chicken backs and necks (9 cents a pound or so) and I learned to get more meat off these than most people get off a whole chicken. I had quite a few tiny scraps left to share with the pets (the cats didn't know what to make of it!) and made a delicious soup from the bones and my own homegrown herbs.

Once the turkey was delivered, as well as pencils and child scissors for Mustard Seed, and motel toiletries and Duplo bricks for the women's shelter, I came home. I decided to see if Riddler was still there. It is, but the trivia game is still messed up. It took my years-dead registration OK, but I couldn't play the trivia, so I left.

My SETI@home packet finished and I've started on a new one. (July 22 this time.) I went to the site and discovered a freeware star map that shows where my machine is checking. Of course I downloaded it. Neatsie!

I was looking at the counters and discovered the day I saw Boondocks Aaron I had 325 hits! That's way out of proportion, so I checked his page, and sure enough they linked me. Neat!

The sun was shining and the wind blowing, yellow leaves raining down. This is the prettiest time of year on our street. Even though a number of the sick Modesto ashes have been removed, there are enough to form a yellow arch, and when they fall on the street it resembles a country lane. This is a vast contrast after coming off gridlocked Watt Ave. It's getting worse each year, though. There's so much freeway traffic the trees no longer absorb all the sound, and Watt itself is hardly worth driving on any time during the day.

One of the cacti in the front garden is rotting out. We have no idea what has caused that. I almost forgot to bring my air plants in for the winter, and tonight is a frost, so I'd have been really sorry.

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One pound down, 9 pounds in 6 weeks. Or I could just trade weights with Rich. I already mentioned the walks on Monday and Wednesday. I cleaned some in the back! I got rid of magazines. I mailed off a letter to B's incipient inlaws. So it was a mixed week, but better than recent ones.