Category Archives: Flotsam / Jetsam

Flotsam / Jetsam

My wrist is haunted

Hey there, squad. I hope you’re having a nice summer. Mine’s been pretty good thus far. And I think it’s not technically even summer yet, so that’s good I guess.

We went to our second concert as a family over the weekend, and three-quarters of us enjoyed it thoroughly. One-fourth of our group does not love live music. We saw The National at the Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta. The show was great, and the venue was lovely. It’s a new Roxy, though, that they built next to the new Braves baseball stadium. It’s a nice little area — everything new, new, new, nice, nice, nice — but it felt a little bit sanitized and a lot bit gentrified.

This morning I got a cortisol-and-lidocaine cocktail shot into my wrist to try to get my 20-year-old ganglion cyst to stop being such a pest, but so far it’s not helping. I first learned about Ol’ Gangly when my brother broke my finger and the X-Ray tech said, “Oh hey, you’ve got a really big cyst in your wrist.”

I just learned that it’s an “occult ganglion,” which I assume means it’s made of ghosts.

It does hurt when it makes its presence known every couple of months, but it stops hurting after two or three days and so I’ve mostly ignored it for a few decades. But it’s been bothering me for about 10 days now, and my hand keeps getting tingly. So I reckon it’s time we parted ways. I await a call from the hand surgeon. If that doesn’t help I’ll be calling the GhostFacers.

A dramatic pre-enactment of my wrist surgery.

Also today: I finally replaced the computer charger that the cats chewed through. So now I can use my laptop again, and I am doing so right now. The new charge cord is wrapped in aluminum foil to dissuade the chompy little beasts.

Also today: I went to the mall and bought a new bathing suit. I wanted a one-piece, because I’m tired of the top of my mom-style tankini floating around when I get in the pool, and so a one-piece I got. Swimsuit shopping is never fun, and when I went a few weeks ago I got discouraged about being decidedly egg-shaped and left without a new suit. But this time I decided if I’m going to be egg-shaped anyway, I may as well be a colorful Easter egg and so I bought something that is neither black nor gray. I don’t know for sure that my change of heart was the aftermath of the cortisol and lidocaine, but maybe the next time you go swimsuit shopping you should consider getting a shot right in your ganglion cyst beforehand.

You get weird results when you search a free stock photo site for “egg.”

There’s a writing challenge going ’round Twitter about writing 1,000 words every day. I thought I might try it, but it started yesterday and I didn’t write any words at all, so I’d have to write 2,000 words today. So far I’ve written 500 or so. We’ll see if I have any more words left later today.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in and see how things are going out there in the internet world. I hope you’re well.

Flotsam / Jetsam

Catching up

Our car died twice in a week in a half, while we were driving. It’s been in the shop for two weeks, and the mechanics at the Ford dealership have told us just to come pick it up because they can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. So that’s fun.

Reasons I Have Recently, At The Last Minute, Changed My Mind About Stopping at Starbucks for a Chai Latte on the Way Out of Target

  • A screaming toddler in close proximity to the Starbucks. (This is not mom-shaming. This was self-preservation.)
  • There were three people in line already and the person at the front was making a complicated order. (This is not order-shaming. This was self-preservation.)
  • The Starbucks guy running for president. (This is possibly narcissistic-billionaire-shaming.)

    I made Chrissy Teigen’s Carrot-Coconut Soup a few weeks ago, and it was delectable. Don’t skip the fried shallots.

    Rockford and I are very excited about the “Dune” casting, although we are uncertain about Jason Mamoa. I hope they cast more Skarsgårds as Harkonnens.

    A List from My Notes App
    Dilly beans
    Pickled radishes
    Bread and butters
    Dill pickles
    Applesauce
    Relish
    Jams
    Salsa
    Fair photo

    Another List from My Notes App, This Time About Potential Cat Names
    Killmonger
    Hulk AKA Bruce Banner (Hakabebe)
    Thor
    Loki
    T’Challa
    shuri
    Okoye
    Tom Kibbleston
    Hemsworth
    Evans
    Peter parker
    Aragorn
    Hobbit
    Treebeard
    Sweet rabbit
    Groot
    Stairwell
    The cool one
    CAT
    Yaj Yaj
    A different hobbit
    Sweet head

    • Homeschool, partner campaign, reviews

    Enhance your homeschool science class with MEL Chemistry

    Disclaimer: MEL Chemistry sent Nichole a starter kit to review here at Butterscotch Sundae. All opinions are Nichole’s own, and Nichole is paying for subsequent kits.

    “Can we blow stuff up?”

    This is, naturally, a question one frequently fields when teaching a middle school chemistry class, and I anticipated that when I started planning our semester. So I started scouring Pinterest for experiments that walk that fine line between safe and exciting, and we started the class.

    Things were going pretty well. The experiments were probably closer to the “safe” end of the spectrum than the kids had hoped for, but I felt OK about it.

    And then one evening as I was browsing Pinterest, and a post about MEL Chemistry caught my eye. “Exciting experiments delivered to your door every month”? I clicked and looked around, and I was sold.

    They were equal parts thrilled and nervous to wield the fire in the carbon snake experiment.
    I contacted the company and explained that I was interested but wasn’t sure it would work in a class setting, and they said they’d send me the first kit to try out. A couple days later it arrived, and I was and am so impressed with it. The starter kit includes a flask and a beaker; a VR viewer; a solid-fuel stove; safety glasses; and a macro lens for your cell phone camera. They also send you two kits with the starter set, and each kit includes two experiments.

    The kits include full, clear instructions and most everything you need to perform the experiments. MEL Chemistry sends enough of the reagents to be able to do each experiment twice. With 7 kids in our class, though, that’s not quite enough for everyone to do every experiment. It’s working well for us to run the experiments as Lab Demonstrations, with two kids doing the work and the others either observing or working as photographers and videographers.

    The included camera phone lenses have proven to be popular.

    So far we’ve made fiery little carbon snakes and a foam eruption from the Chemistry of Monsters kit and a wee little hedgehog from the Tin kit. The kids enjoyed the carbon snake and the foam eruption a bit more than the tin and zinc “hedgehog” — because of the fire and movement — but I thought the formation of the spikes on a little ball of zinc was pretty incredible.

    The carbon snake was very cool and somewhat creepy, though.

    MEL Chemistry has made 80 virtual reality lessons, and the ones I was able to check out were phenomenal. The atom structure and electron orbital lessons were particularly great for helping the kids visualize a pretty esoteric concept. With the kits and the virtual reality lessons, I think this could be a complete chemistry curriculum. Unfortunately, the cost of the full VR license — $499 for 10 devices for a year — is far out of my price range. Some of the VR content is available just by downloading the MEL Science app, though, and the lessons available are well worth the download.

    A MEL Chemistry kit subscription is $35 per month for a single set of experiments or $50 per month for two sets each month. I don’t think the kits alone would be sufficient for a full year of middle school science on their own, but they sure are a fun complement to whatever chemistry curriculum you’re using. The glassware and other hardware is excellent quality, and I love that they include all of the chemical materials you need as well.

    The only thing on my MEL wishlist (other than $500 for a VR license) is that it would be nice to be able to choose the order in which the experiments arrive so I could make sure they correspond to what the kids are learning that week. I’m going to subscribe even without that option, though, and I’m looking forward to seeing what lab demos MEL Chemistry drops on my porch over the coming year!