God Bless America in the Kate Smith recording, in place of The Star Spangled Banner, before a Philadelphia Flyers playoff game, WIN

God Bless America in the Kate Smith recording, in place of Take Me Out to the Ballgame, during the 7th inning stretch at Yankee Stadium (old or new), EPIC FAIL

Right now I have parked in front of my house:

(1) Car wrapped around telephone pole, driven by local college students on the way home from hockey practice (fortunately non-fatal combination of college kids, icy roads, and an SUV that, as the grownups know, doesn't stop any better than a normal car)
(2) Their friend's car
(3) A cop car
(4) A sheared off sign warning of the curve
(5) A tow truck trying to figure out how to remove the hockey players' car
(6) A bunch of guys with flashlights inspecting—or trying to inspect—the telephone pole for possible damage

This street is the only entrance to a decent-sized neighborhood, so it's a very good thing that a snow-plow did manage to get past.

I'm no expert, but I've navigated that particular curve in much worse road conditions, so I suspect that they were going too fast for road conditions. This suspicion is heightened by the piece of bumper that ended up in my front yard, about 20 feet from the phone pole.

Yesterday, I was out all day. One of the groups/forums I participate in on Ravelry (account required) organized a jaunt to WEBS, an amazing yarn shop in Northhampton, MA. So, about 30 wild and crazy knitters from all over the Northeast (at least the area delimited by a geometric area with apexes of New Haven; Cape Cod; Portland, ME; Rutland, VT; and Albany, NY) converged. And shopped. WEBS had been alerted to this plan, and were prepared with an open classroom for us to leave stuff in, goodie bags, and extra staff to facilitate check-out.

Lunch was a little chaotic, though, as the one Northhampton native was suffering from a sinus infection and went home to sleep it off. The plan we finally arrived at was to go to an Irish pub downtown, which I was assured was not walking distance from WEBS. So, I got in the car, together with another equally confused participant, and headed for downtown. Within two blocks, we passed an Irish pub, but decided that that couldn't be where everyone else was headed for, because it was totally within walking distance. Instead, the two of us lucked into a parking space downtown, with time left on the meter, and had a nice lunch by ourselves, because, as it turned out, almost everyone else was at the Irish pub that was totally within walking distance. No matter. While we missed out on the bawdy bar jokes, we still had fun.

I came home with a large bag of yarn, and plans to photograph it all this morning for my Ravelry stash pages. One problem, though. It's been rainy and overcast all day, and so no photographs, not of the new yarn, not of the various projects I'm working on or have recently completed.

Most of what I bought was sock yarn. Most of it was expensive enough that most non-knitters would freak out ("$20 for a pair of socks! You know you can buy socks, don't you?"). But I was delighted to find a new stock of my absolute favorite summer sock yarn, a Plymouth Yarns wool/bamboo blend, which comes in at $10 for enough yarn for a pair of socks. I had picked up a ball of it last spring at WEBS. After knitting a pair of socks (Ravelry link) with it, I'd tried desperately to find more, and had had no success to speak of. The yarn, Rockin' Sox, didn't even appear on the Plymouth Yarns web site. In the meantime, I'd tried a wool/bamboo blend from another manufacturer, one with a reputation for higher-quality yarns, and been disappointed at the number of rough spots in the plying that I encountered. Well, yesterday at WEBS, I found more of the yarn I wanted. But somehow, this year, it's called Sockin' Sox, but it's definitely the same thing. So that was a total win.

In addition, I bought enough Lopi Lite for a sweater. Mind you, I have enough yarn stashed for three or four winter sweaters (I realize that, in some circles, this would show me to be a rank amateur). But, of all my winter sweaters, the one I like the best is a very simple pullover knit in a heathered dark charcoal Lopi Lite. I made this long enough ago that I have no picture of it anywhere that I can locate, and it's softened up wonderfully (it's very rough yarn when you're working with it). So, I bought enough yarn in a light olive green to make another pullover. (Actually, I bought more than enough, because one always does.)

And I bought something that I once swore I'd never buy, sock blockers. These are forms whose primary function is to make socks look pretty when you photograph them. I'm such a dork that I had a sock along with me so I could make sure I bought the same size. (Actually, it's the finished mate to the sock I'm currently working on for my sister.)

I had to re-login earlier today, and discovered a comment that had been waiting for moderation for three weeks. I'm supposed to get email notification of comments from people not on my friends' list, but somehow this one must have gotten eaten by a spam filter. Sorry, Norma!

So, I was driving home around 7 o'clock this evening, and spotted a car with no headlights on. I flashed my highbeams,

( and )

I stopped off at the grocery store after work for a little pre-snow panic buying.

My list was: Stoneyfield Farms yoghurt, Breakstone sour cream (I had a coupon), Joseph's low carb pita, Farmstand brand shelled walnut pieces.

What I came home with: yoghurt, sour cream (on sale, on top of the coupon), an avocado (needed), and a jigsaw puzzle of the front page of the Boston Globe from Nov 5, 2008. The puzzle will make a nice birthday gift for my mother.

I'm especially annoyed about the pita. I like the low carb pita, and my blood sugar responds well to it, which is to say, very little. But it's really hit or miss whether it's available when I shop. When I complain about its absence, the store manager will tell me that he's not responsible; the Josephs distributor decides when to restock. This is the case with other supermarket departments as well. The supermarket provides shelf space, but takes no responsibility for product selection. But they also insulate the people who are responsible for product selection from complaints about this selection. There are three different stores that I sometimes shop at that sometimes stock this particular product. I shouldn't have to go to all three of them in hopes that I might be able to stock my pantry.

Well, I had three items left on yesterday's to-do list.

(1) Vacuum as much floor as I can
(2) Clean the half-bath off my bedroom
(3) Put away all the knitting books

I am half-done and that will have to do. I did some vacuuming, in the bedroom and the hall. There's enough stuff on the floor in the living room that I can't really vacuum without dealing with it.

More to the point, I dusted down an empty book shelf downstairs in the spare room. It was empty, because I'd had other things in mind for it. But the wall shelf upstairs in my "crafts" room (which has become more of a junk room) was buckling under the weight of the knitting books. So, after 7 years in the house, I revised my plan, and put all of the knitting books and magazines downstairs. It's less convenient, but the shelf will hold the books with no problem. So it's all good.

And the bathroom? Well, we will not speak of that again.

Today's list, in no particular order (updated at 6:15 PM and again at 11:15PM):

(1) Vacuum as much floor as I can
(2) Clean the half-bath off my bedroom
(3) Put away all the knitting books

Tomorrow is another day...

(4) A little grocery shopping and maybe look for a new dish drainer at Target I didn't like the dish drainers, but I did look
(5) Grind meat for chili
(6) Make chili It's simmering away on the stove now It's quite good, for something made from a mix, albeit a gourmet yummy mix I bought at a festival. (Of course, I added chopped beef, shredded cheese, and cut up green onion and cilantro.)
(7) Knit or spin or both
(8) Watch and mock the NHL skills competition

Maybe I should get dressed and get started.

1) Ate breakfast.
2) Brought dry clothes upstairs. They were washed and hung to dry on Friday.
3) Shoveled walk and driveway. Yesterday, after 45 minutes work got me about 10% of the way done, I paid a neighbor's son-in-law who's starting a landscaping business to snow-blow the rest of the 6-8" deep heavy snow. Overnight, we had another 3-4" of lighter snow, so I could deal with all of that myself, in about 45 minutes.
4) Reheated some turkey-kale soup for lunch; I made the soup on Friday, from a carcass I stuck in the freezer last winter.
5) Photographed some finished knitting projects.
( Details and Pictures )
6) Watched most of the Patriots-Cardinals game. There was snow and it was a blowout.
7) Heard the plow come by again.
8) Spent another hour shoveling the inch or so of new snow since the first time I was out today, including the mass of crud that the plow threw up at the end of the driveway. Pondered the stupidity of the article on the ergonomics of snow-shoveling that I read in this morning's paper. It advocated pushing the snow in front of you rather than flinging it to the side. I already have snowbanks that are, in some places, two feet high. If I pushed the snow to the side instead of flinging it up, I would eventually squeeze my car out of my driveway.
9) Developed a craving for hot chocolate.
10) Came inside and made hot chocolate.
11) Turned on the Jets-Seahawks game. There is far more snow in Seattle than there was in Foxboro.

Today did not start out very well. I got to bed late last night (I decided fairly late that I needed to wind a ball of rather sticky yarn so I can start a scarf today, as it's cold enough for scarves now). And the college boys on the next street were being noisy enough at almost 3AM that I considered calling the police. (I should call during business hours on Monday to find out what the local noise code is.)

I woke up around 8, wondering why the radio wasn't playing. (Even though I don't have to get up early on weekends, I still set the alarm.) I tried to turn the radio on, but nothing happened. It finally occurred to me that that's precisely what should happen when there's a power failure. The clock-radio has a battery to store all of its settings, but you can't listen to the radio on battery. So, I turned over and went back to sleep, assuming that the power would, somehow, be fixed.

Around 9:45, I woke up again. The power still wasn't back. So I stumbled into the kitchen, and squinted at the phone book, looking for the trouble number for United Illuminating. But, I got an "all circuits are busy, try your call again later" recording. Twice. That's more than a little scary.

I do have a boom-box radio in the kitchen, that will run on batteries. However, it has digital tuning, and the LCD display is broken, so it's almost impossible to see what you're doing. I mostly use it with the AUX input to listen to my XM inside, but, fortunately, it was tuned to a known station, from New York, when I switched away from the AUX. The known station was on its normal programming (sports talk), but it's a New York station. I was able, very carefully, to tune in a local station, that was also on its normal, albeit non-local, programming. Even though it was some Fox news crap, it was still strangely reassuring. At that point, I looked up, and my microwave was blinking 12:00. I waited a few minutes for the cable modem to finish resetting itself, and went to the UI web site, trying to figure out what had happened. According to the site, about 25,000 customers in my town were experiencing an outage, but there was no indication what had happened. As of now (12:30), more than half the town is still out.

I have a bunch of errands to do, and a pot of soup to make, so I'd better get going. But I'm wondering whether my normal stores (grocery, liquor, etc.) will have power and whether traffic lights will be working. This could be interesting.

At least I have yarn ready to go so that I have something to knit during the hockey games tonight.

So I have some apples, from the farmstand. I can't eat a whole apple at once, because it would do a number on my blood sugar. So, what's the best way to store a half apple to avoid unappetizing browning?

I've had dental issues lately. I guess that comes with getting older. But, no matter. As a result of avoiding tooth-challenging food, I've just about used up my canned tuna and salmon. That means one thing in my world: a trip to Costco. Costco has the best additive-free canned tuna at a reasonable price. That makes it (almost) worth a special trip, especially as I can stock up on bacon (for when the dental issues are resolved). There are two other retail stops that get combined with the Costco trip (30 miles, round-trip): Trader Joes and the LLBean outlet.

Trader Joes is my source for paper goods made of recycled materials. And their store brand of yoghurt is the same as Stonyfield Farms, for $1 less per 32 oz container. So, I had a TJs list as well.

The thing with Beans is that you never know what you're going to find. But I always have to look. And today I had a specific quest. I've lost about 10 pounds since the 1st of the year. While the dental issues might have something to do with this, it's more likely that I changed the way I eat. Nothing dramatic, but about a year ago, I really committed myself to eating local as much as I can. Given the temperate zone growing season, this isn't fully feasible, but I view it as a target, not as an absolute. So, I didn't eat huge salads during the winter; instead, I had a lot of braised cabbage. I don't have any local sources of meat, but I started choosing packaging with smaller serving sizes. Thick-cut porkchops are typically cut to be close to half a pound. They're not quite large enough to provide two servings, so there's a real temptation to eat the entire thing rather than saving some. So, now I buy the package of thin-cut porkchops, which are typically under a quarter of a pound. As a result, I've been eating less meat, and, when I buy fish for dinner, I'm reducing serving sizes in the same way.

This loss is doing great things for my blood sugar control. But, it's not so nice for my wardrobe. Shorts and slacks that fit me properly last year are now too big. And garments that were just a little too big last year (that I kept in case my weight fluctuated upward) are unwearably big this year. Couple that with the fact that some of my stuff is so old that the elastic in the waistbands needs to be replaced (if I can work out how to do this).

So, LL Beans outlet. While they have some regular merchandise, most of the stock is sold at half the original price. But there are also racks going for 20% or 50% off of the outlet price. The flip side is that if you grab something that's too big, there's no guarantee you'll find the same thing in a smaller size. But today, today was so my day. I came away with 5 pairs of slacks and one pair of nice shorts, for under $60. That gives me something to wear now, and if my weight bounces back up, it won't be devastating.

The Good

So, I just had my main bathroom redone. Unlike pasketti, I paid people to do it for me. However, I still had to go out and buy fixtures myself. I have a whole stack of receipts to add to my "House" folder, so that if I ever have to figure out how much I put into home improvements over the years I can. Yesterday, I got the Visa bill including most of these purchases. Even without checking the receipts, I could identify most of the purchases (light fixture, toilet, cabinetry, tile, towel bars). But, the Lowes charge was a bit of a puzzlement. I couldn't locate the receipt, and the charge seemed to be too high. All I could remember getting at Lowes was the mirror and some CF bulbs for the new light fixture. There was around $100 unaccounted for. So I called customer service at the Lowes I shopped at, read off a few numbers from the statement and confirmed my name. The CS rep put me on hold for less than two minutes, and came back, telling me that the third item on the charge was a faucet set. Yep. The new faucets in the new sink came from Lowes.

The Bad

This morning I decided to take my shower (in my new bathroom!) after breakfast. That turned out to be a bad decision. As I was drinking my coffee, the power went out. I looked outside, and there was a crew from United Illuminating moving lines to a new pole. They clearly had cut the power to do so. So I threw on some clothes and went outside to find out how long the power would be out. The guy I spoke to told me that it would be at least an hour-and-a-half. He further said that they had knocked on doors to alert homeowners who would be affected of the power cut. I told him that nobody had knocked on my door, and that I had been up and dealing with breakfast for well over an hour. He told me that they had. So I went inside to finish my coffee (a shower was out of the question as there are no windows in my new bathroom). After a few minutes, I decided to call UI to register a complaint. The woman I spoke to was appropriately sympathetic. But it was only after I got off the phone that I realized that I should have asked for a few dollars credit. Oh well.

In one of the forums I participate in on Ravelry, some posters talk about "yarn accidents": "Gosh, officer, I don't know how that luscious sock yarn made its way from the shop to my car to my house, but I'll just have to gird my loins and knit something from it."

Today was the first day of the local Farmers' Market. As Farmers' Markets go, it's a small one. There are usually 3 or 4 farmers represented, as well as a local bakery and a soap-maker. Today there were two soap-makers and a funky salad maker with an odd business model. But the pickle maker from last year wasn't there. So I wandered around, and selected a quart of strawberries (on the list) and a bag of peas (on the list). I couldn't find radishes (also on the list). But, somehow, a ginormous bag of Swiss chard found its way into my car, and, thence, into my kitchen.

When I got home, I weighed the Swiss chard: over 3 pounds. That, my friends, is a lot of Swiss chard. I cleaned half of it, and discarded (and composted) the stems from the other half. I then put the cleaned half in a soup pot, with just the water sticking to it, and steamed it until it wilted. Following that, I spun the water off of it. For dinner tonight, I took about a third of the steamed chard and sauteed it in olive oil with chopped garlic and red pepper flakes. It was delicious. But I have enough steamed chard for two or three more meals, and as much more raw chard in the fridge. I'm thinking I'll freeze some and make a crustless quiche.

But, yeah, a chard accident, most definitely.

There are 1500+ people signed up for Summer of Socks 2008. That means that there are 1500+ people competing to knit socks between June 21 and some time around September 1. There are prizes galore. Last summer, somebody knit 42 pairs of socks over the summer. I can't imagine. Even during the Stanley Cup playoffs, when I watched a lot of TV over the course of two months, I only managed 6.3 pairs of socks. That's a little less than a pair of socks per week. And there's less knitting time over the summer. So, we shall see.

Of course, I've been getting work done on the house. Aside from the air conditioner, I've been getting one of the bathrooms totally redone. The original bathroom, that I've been living with for 7 years was awful. It seemed that every few months I had to replace toilet innards, the medicine chest smelled, the floor rolled, there was no storage space to speak of, the vanity light was gross, and the electrician who put in the overhead heat/fan/light unit did a piss-poor job on the switches. And there were very few towel bars. All that is gone. I have nice tile floor, a new vanity, a new toilet, a linen cabinet next to the vanity, and the switch situation has been fixed. Still to come is a new vanity light, a nice mirror over the sink, a cabinet over the toilet, and towel bars.

There's been a bit of adventure getting the work done, and it's taking longer than I'd anticipated. Between the contractor's girlfriend taking ill and the contractor being attacked by a vicious dog on another job, there have been setbacks. So, I've had to take more vacation days than I anticipated to "supervise". In this context, supervising involves giving workmen permission to use the downstairs bathroom, providing plastic bags and glasses of water, and changing the vacuum cleaner bag. But it's also given me unanticipated knitting time. As a result, there's an actual change that I'll finish my first pair of socks within a week. Right now, I'm about 1/3 done with the second sock.

Of course, I started off with a pair of worsted weight hiking socks. On the other hand, the yarn, a soy-polypropelene blend, is sticky in a way that wool-blend yarns aren't. But the sock, as knit, has a sproingy feel to it. I have enough of this yarn for two pairs of socks. But I want to finish the first pair and actually go for a hike in them before I start the second pair, as I might want to knit the other pair with a looser gauge. We shall see.

I have two working digital cameras, a newer, 6MP point-and-shoot with image stabilization, and an older 3.2MP point-and-shoot with no image stabilization. I pretty much don't use the older camera. But, as I said, it still works. And I really should put batteries in it, pull out one of my older memory cards, and keep it in my purse. When I'm out and about, I'm constantly seeing things that I should snap a picture of.

Today, when I was going out to run some errands, about two blocks from my house, as I was coming around a bend I sensed a "small animal in the road" movement, and stopped. Normally the animals in the road are squirrels or, occasionally, a feral (or escaped) cat. Once, in the winter, I saw a fox in somebody's front yard. Today, the animal crossing the road in front of me was a wild turkey.

While this is suburbia, there are some nearby open spaces, and this isn't the first wild turkey I've seen in the neighborhood. But still. I'd like to have a picture of a wild turkey high-stepping across the road.

I slept in and haven't done a whole lot. It happens. But as I was watching a baseball game I didn't really care about, I couldn't help notice how filthy the living room windows were. So I actually got off my duff and cleaned them. Since they're tilt-out windows, I could clean the outsides as well. It's not a perfect job—there are streaks—but it's a decent job. And I even vacuumed up the crud between the window and the screen.

There's stuff I should have planted and that I should water. Oh, yeah, and pick lettuce (and arugula) for dinner. And water. Maybe I should go do that.

ETA: lettuce, arugula, and scallion picked and soaking, but I decided that watering wasn't necessary. I made up for it by washing my dining nook floor, for the first time in way too long. The swiffer cover was absolutely gross.

(1) The new hand-knit swiffer cover did a good job cleaning my kitchen floor. I rinsed it after using it, and it's now drying in the bathroom. I knit another cover, but have to sew it up.

(2) My freezer compartment does a very quick job making ice cubes. I've filled the bin (it takes about 5 trays of cubes), and, even though the tray cubes are a slightly different shape from the cubes made by the broken automatic icemaker, they still feed through the dispenser reasonably well. This means that I can have crushed ice, which I have come to prefer, in drinks. (And, when I was in Shaws this evening, they had ice cube trays which, I swear, weren't there on Sunday.)

(3) I stayed home from work today, as I was having work done on the house. I now have a much better patio door than I had before. Not only does it latch shut, but it locks. And the guys who installed it were very careful, so it's well insulated around the edges, which the old one wasn't. This should prevent heat leakage next winter. In addition, I now have a wall air conditioner in the living room. The guys made a hole in the wall and put in the A/C. They'll have to come back Friday or Sunday to do trim. In addition, the air conditioner needs a dedicated circuit. We turned it on, briefly, to make sure it worked, but the TV and DVR weren't on.

(4) I finally got the beans planted in the vegetable garden. It's been over a month since I planted lettuce, radishes, arugula, and scallions, and I've been picking the arugula and lettuce thinnings for salad for about a week. Norma of Now Norma Knits posted today about radish greens, and the comments to her post are full of serving suggestions. So, next time I thin radishes, I'll take the greens, wash them, and do something with them. I'm leaning toward starting slowly and putting them in chicken soup; I have a carcass in the fridge that has to become soup sometime in the next few days.

(5) I have a work-related cocktail party to go to tomorrow evening. The linen pants I want to wear were way too long (despite their classic cut, they're apparently designed to be worn with fuck-me shoes), so I had to hem them. I bought matching thread a year-and-a-half ago, and, while doing laundry over the weekend, I ironed them and marked where I want the hem to lie. It's probably been 30 years since I've actually sewed a hem, so I had to fake it a little, but at least the stitches aren't visible on the right side. Small blessings.

OK, I admit it. I can be a hypocrite. I talk a good game about "living green". I compost, in suburbia, no less. I try to eat local, as much as I can (avocados don't count; so sue me!). I recycle. Oh, lordy, I recycle. The actual volume of trash I put out for weekly pickup is probably 1/3 the volume of the recycling (we won't talk about weight, because those newspapers are heavy!). But I have my blind spots, oh yes I do.

And one of them is my Swiffer. It's just so much easier to give the kitchen and bathroom floors a quick once-over when I don't have to deal with buckets. But mops are reusable and Swiffer pads aren't. And the pads aren't all that cheap. (Of course, like printer ink, that's kind of the point.) So a few months ago, when I saw that someone on Ravelry had posted a pattern for a knit Swiffer pad, I added it to my queue.

During the Stanley Cup playoffs, I've been doing a lot of knitting. A lot of knitting. I've finished four pairs of socks for myself, and am more than half done with a pair for my sister. Last night, when game 2 of the finals rolled around, I was sick of socks (horrors!). And on Saturday I'd picked up the yarn for some swiffer pads. After knitting socks on 2mm needles, the 5mm needles I needed for the Swiffer pad seemed huge. And, indeed, this was a quick knit. It took me all of one evening to finish one washable, reusable Swiffer pad.



And a close-up of the stitch pattern:



Project details:

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth Reusable Swiffer Cover, from Skull Charms
Yarn: Lily Sugar and Cream Violet Veil Ombre and Hot Purple
Needles: US 8 (5mm)
Modifications: None (well, aside from using size 8 rather than size 7 needles)

I was doing a bit of vacuuming on Saturday, and realized that the bag was full (yes, I have an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner, with a bag). So, I changed the bag, taking the last spare out of the closet. The logical thing to do at that point was to buy a new package of bags, so I'll have them the next time I decide I need to change the bag. I bought the vacuum cleaner maybe four years ago, at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and have bought replacement bags there, when needed (using one of the ubiquitous 20% off coupons). So when I went out to do errands, I stopped in, only to find no vacuum cleaner bags. I asked a clerk where they were, and was told that they no longer stock them, but that she would be glad to put in a special order. Special order vacuum cleaner bags???!Q?!? Nuh-uh. In what possible world does this make sense? Fortunately, they stock the bags I need in Stop and Shop (as well as, I discovered later, Shaws and Target).

And another thing. Ice cubes. According to Consumer Reports, the most frequent cause of service calls on modern refrigerators is broken ice makers. And my refrigerator has, for the second time in seven years, a broken ice maker. This leaves me with three options. I can pay for a $100 service call to get the ice maker fixed. I can pay somewhere around $1000 for a new refrigerator with a working ice maker (and, unlike mine, a filter on the water line to the ice maker). Or I can do without an ice maker. Consumer Reports also says that if the refrigerator is more than a few years old, it doesn't make sense to get it fixed, as newer refrigerators are much more energy efficient. But I'm spending a bunch of money this summer on other home improvements, and the refrigerator still works perfectly well (aside from the ice maker), so I'd like to defer getting a new refrigerator as long as possible. That leaves option three. Or does it?

The other day, it occurred to me that I don't need an ice maker to make ice. I could do it the old fashioned way, filling ice cube trays at the tap (with filtered water!). However, when I moved into a house with an ice maker in the refrigerator, the ice cube trays that I had previously used went into the Salvation Army bags, and are long gone. No matter. I could buy some more. Not so fast. Here's a list of merchants who don't stock ice cube trays: Bed, Bath, and Beyond (I'm sure they would have special-ordered!); Stop and Shop; Shaws; Target. It took two days of errands to discover this. A little web-surfing last night revealed a few sources, all with minimum shipping costs exceeding the price of the ice cube trays! On the other hand, if I drive 30 miles on a quest for ice cube trays, that's $4.20 worth of gas, at today's prices. However, I had one last place to try. One of the web sites I turned up last night selling ice cube trays was Walgreens.com, and there's a Walgreens less than a mile from myself. So I headed out this afternoon to see if the store had them in stock. They did, but they don't any more! And I will have ice cubes this summer. With a little luck, I can put them in the bin attached to the ice maker and still use the dispenser/crusher.