help reading cookie values

[Sean]

I am trying to read a cookie I set but I am not sure if I really set
it correctly or I am not reading it correctly.  I was given the
following instructions to set the cookie.  It appears to be working
because in Firefox browser I see the cookie listed for my domain

> you set a cookie in a pythonscript like:
> context.REQUEST.RESPONSE.setCookie('cookie_name', 'some value',
> expires=(DateTime() + 365).toZone('GMT').rfc822(), path='/')
>

 I have been searching everywhere to find information on reading the
cookie value that I set.  I used the following code I found which
returns 'no cookiez' in spite of the fact that I see the cookie in my
browser's cookie listing.  I must be doing something wrong in the way
I am testing for its existence

import Cookie
import os
thiscookie = Cookie.SimpleCookie()

if 'HTTP_COOKIE' in os.environ:
#if os.environ.has_key('HTTP_COOKIE'):     I tried this way also

thiscookie.load(os.environ['HTTP_COOKIE'])

a_code = thiscookie['my_cookie'].value

return a_code

else:

return 'no cookiez'