By recent I mean "today." This is a glimpse of what goes through my brain on a daily basis

--> Identification of red foxes versus coyotes (foxes are not necessarily red but reliably have black legs and a bushy white-tipped L O N G tail held out from body, so what we saw trotting down the sidewalk at midday was probably the neighborhood fox, not the neighborhood coyote)

--> Followup topics: are red foxes native to North America or were they brought over from Europe? (Recent genetic research indicates the populations are all native, contradicting long-held assumptions about gentry colonists bringing them over for game hunting.) Do people still raise foxes for fur? (Ew, yes.) Can you own a fox as a pet in Illinois? (Not legally. Indiana, yes, though) Look at all these cute pet fox videos...

--> Both desiccate and siccate mean dry--why have two such similar words mean the same thing? I knew the answer but double-checked the etymology before responding to someone who asked this online. (They differ in degree. Siccate means dried like you dry off after a shower or hang out wet clothes. Desiccated is dry like beef jerky or a mummy. Latinate words & fun Latin prefixes!)

-->Looked up the location of Tonga on a full world map because news maps annoy me. Followed that by playing "name that European country" on world-geography-games.com, and also "name that African country. Did not do well on either one, but slightly better with Europe than Africa, no big shocker there.

--> What are marshmallows made of? Why are they called marshmallows? What's the traditional use of mallow? How and where does it grow? Does the flower have a scent? Is it considered an herb? What's the difference between an herb and a spice? History of spice trade. Origin of National Geographic magazine. (Yes, folks, this is how my brain bounces 24/7/365.)

I love the internet. Yes, Wikipedia, I often start there, but the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the USDA. The NCBI.NLM.NIH site. Archives galore. Social media is a hellish time suck, but the internet? The internet is fucking amazing. Maybe it makes my writing better? I don't know. It makes the process fun & makes time fly, that's for sure.

That's all for now. Until later!