The other night, in the middle of the night, in the cozy warmth of my bed I awoke and had to google Bea Arthur's height for some reason. I needed to know. And, as I was googling I realized I didn't know WHY I needed to know, only that I was compelled to find out.
She's 5' 10".
She was 5' 10".
I remembered doing it the next day and wondered what other skipping stone points of contact I've looked up recently--not delving deeply into any one thing, but abundantly curious about all sorts of things. And, why wouldn't I be? Bea Arthur portrayed Auntie Mame's friend Vera Charles; I'm sure she heard Mame say, "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"
Not me, sister. Not me.
Let's see what I've been feasting on as of late, shall we?
I looked up how to spell McMurphy, as in the poor guy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Yggdrasil. Norse mythical tree. Huge thing.
Knutepunkt. Northern European LARPing. Look it up if you need to. Join me!
Men's rain poncho. Someone might need one.
A related search: best umbrella. And let me say here, that I don't really care how good it is, might even be the best, but an asking price of over $300 is really too much.
Here was a meta one: I had had a dream that I was involved with people selling dozens of t-shirts. When they put a hole in the tag to convey something (don't know what), the term for that was a teasing. I looked up t-shirt teasing and got smart ass sayings on shirts.
Bechdel test. Thought it was spelled with a t. Needed to know spelling.
Saw an ad for a Prada backpack. Wondered what such a thing would cost. It can stay with the excellent umbrella, unused, unbought.
When to eat persimmons. I've never had them, wanted to know what to look for. One site said eat when firm. One site said let soften.
How long to cook leg of lamb per pound. It was a little more than 20 minutes per pound. It was also a roast, not a leg, but that didn't matter. I made a paste of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and rosemary and rubbed it onto the roast before cooking. Sprinkled a little additional salt on just before putting in the oven. Oh. My. God. It was amazing with brown rice, and lemon, Parmesan roasted broccoli.
Oregon Blue. How can there be a "new" color? Yeah, there can't.
Speaking of: What do mood ring colors mean?
Who was on the balcony with the queen on her wedding day? It's who you'd expect. Doesn't hurt to check.
Good Day Sunshine lyrics. My daughter would probably point out that I've heard that song for all of my conscious life--not counting toddler-hood. Why wouldn't I know the lyrics? Well, critical daughter, because as a rule I only remember choruses and will break out into loud singing when the songs roll around to that point, and make up the rest of the lyrics singing those parts more quietly to not out myself. Yes, but why? I don't know. Why do you think you will not be like me some day? It's coming...
Estoppel. No taksie backsies. You said it and we know you said it.
Trover Conversion. Finders keepers, but only sometimes. Maybe the other tenth of the law, as in not always. GIVE IT BACK!
Why more black squirrels? I never saw anything but grey squirrels growing up and well into adulthood. Now I see them all the time. They're striking. It's a genetic mutation. Just coming out now with more frequency. Who knows if there's an advantage to that?
Stream impeachment hearing Didn't listen/watch the whole time. It's all so awful. I'm sorry, World.
Amendment granting Native Americans the right to vote Should have been the fifteenth, but it wasn't until the Snyder Act in 1924 that they received full suffrage. So much jive.
Be gay do crime I can get behind civil disobedience for good causes.
Submittable Just so I could check if my submission "in progress" for about 6 months had been decided on. My first rejection! Do you know how many marvelous people have been rejected, over and over again throughout all of time?! I'm in very good company.
Children of Heaven so I could share a link to the synopsis and a video clip of this amazing movie from Iran. A homeschooling mom was concerned about how demanding her child had become and wanted to show them how others live with very little.
Effete Spelling is tricky.
Buy squid ink powder I think you can see why I would google that. Can you walk into your grocery store and find it? Where would I go for such a thing?
This is all some of the things I looked up in about a week's time. There's so much more. What did I do before the internet? I'm sure my mind didn't jump around as much as it does now. For all the resources at my fingertips, for all the information cataloged in clear, accessible ways, I could be diving very deeply into interests. But, I don't. I flit. I skim. I jump from here to there.
On the other hand, any curiosity I have can be immediately satisfied. It's good to know things. I like finding answers. I almost never sit in wonder and instead want to know.
Still. I wonder if something is lost in that. Maybe sitting in wonder allows the mind to wander, to connect disparate dots, to further ask more questions. Maybe there's something rich in not knowing but wondering.
Honestly, I'm tempted to google that: what is lost by immediately satisfying curiosity?
I'm not going to. I'm going to let that one go.
Bea Arthur was 5' 10". Maybe I'll just think about that for a while.
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