Hello, good morning, and good night:-) No, seriously, I have no idea what end is up. Turns out this pre-menopause mood swing thing? Even tho' I take meds for PTSD that supposedly work on the hormone moods.... Yeah, no. Chocolate. Lots and lots of it. ANd stay away. And come here. And go to hell. ANd hug me. And that was just in a couple hours. My mom's wasn't this bad, so presumably this is a little genetic gift from Dad's side.

I say all that to warn you that I'm in snark mode, my baseline coping mechanism, so check-in may get a bit odder than usual. Or not. I can't judge. Really, I can't. Chocorgasm required. (Yes, I wrote that.)

Gentlemen, I do apologize. Look at it this way. Now you know what makes women tick, before they go "boom"!

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Native Americans introduced English settlers to popped corn, AKA our belvoed popcorn, this date in 1630, according to "the stories". In fact, someone probably knew, but this is what was recorded. People would eat it as a breakfast cereal, with milk.  So investigating the history of popped corn, I came across a site that alleged popcorn was known in Asia thousands of years before Europeans reached the Americas. Now, since maize corn didn't go outside the Americas till after the Euro-invasion, along with tomatoes, potatoes, squash varieties, peppers, cocaine, tobacco, cocoa, and more? *Not remotely possible*. "FactMonster" got *such* an e-mail from me.

BTW, you can also pop quinoa (a South American seed, super-healthy stuff, use in place of couscous if you need to avoid pasta/gluten). Not worth it, but you can. Amaranth (another "super-seed" but not that tasty) and wheat also can be popped, or, as it's called, "puffed". Yes, puffed rice and puffed wheat cereals are bred for that fluffy puffy poofy factor. As with corn, special strains do it best. You can try popping everyday corn etc., but your yield is iffy. And there may be techniques invovled besides "expose to sudden extreme heat".

Speak of, out in the US West, certain pine varieties only release their seeds from the cones in extreme heat, as in *forest fires*. So you can get huge stands of that pine where fire has hit, and see almost none where fire hasn't. (Also, you can just toss a cone into a fire to make it open up and get the pine nuts out if you're hungry, but very few pine trees have decent edible nuts, for flavor.  Europeans mostly use stone pine (arachaeologists have evidence of those going back about 5,000 years) but in the US, western pines like the Colorado, Mexican, or Nevada soft-shell pine are used for nuts, and in many areas, the right to harvest is reserved for Native American tribes. The so-called single-leaf pinyon (pine) is another variety. Mostly, though, animals are the prime pine nutters.:-) Why mostly out west? Well, in the US East, the forests were dominated historically by hardwoods, white pine (no nut value), and Eastern hemlock (tannery value, long story, bark, tannic acid, leather-making, smelly, ew). 

How the eff did I get here from popcorn?! *headdesk*

In 1920, the first dog racing track to use a fake rabbit was opened in California. This of course begs the question: Were they using real bunnies? How? Why? Wouldn't standing at the end of a straight track and y elling 'Bacon!' do the same thing?

Meanwhile, speak of racing, and stupid headlines, this one from 1969: "Woman wins horse race". Errr.... No. Female jockey. On back of horse. OMG. *facepalm* ANyway, had to throw that in there.

And in 1923, the first (successful) farm of chinchillas opened up in California. Chinchillas are rodents from the South American Andes mountains, with fluffy tails like squirrels, but soft, and the long-haired variety particularly (which prefer elevations around a mile high or so, and live in little herds) are used for fur coats and fur stuff and fur in general. No, they don't survive. Sheep are shorn, chinchillas are long-haired squirrel-rats and are killed. Frankly, IMHO, anyone who wants a fur coat should have to raise, kill, skin, and cure the furs themselves. One of our neighbors tried raising a fur-bearing animal. Aside from the stink, the horror show of the cages, and annual bloodshed, it was just lovely. *eyeroll* BTW, no, I don't like raising animals *only* for their skin/fur. Cows get eaten. The hide would go to waste. Nobody eats chinchilla or mink or whatever.

Side note: The recent lifting of a hunting ban on big game and wolves in ALaska's wildlife preserves is aimed at not preserving wildlife, but at fun for hunters, like a certain person who will remain unnamed except as Eric-the-Red-Handed, that miserable bwana-playing safari-taking joy-hunting peice of incompetence.... *seethe* "Here, son, have Alaska for a playground..." Doyou have *any* idea what it took to restore wolf populatoins? What their decimation by humans did to the food chain? Wolves eat mice, rats, rodents, etc, not just "big game" or "livestock" (and in fact, like pumas, prefer small easy prey, thanks, the big stuff can kick and hurt you), and a herd of wolves *will* hunt caribou, but they take down old, sick, ailing, injured, etc., and effectively *cull* the herd like humans do their own da*n livestock! Also, if you pen up livestock, you just duplicated Nature's tar pits, which is called "predator bait". Hello?! Argh! Free-ranging herds are more often victim to a hungry puma (admitted) than to a rampaging wolf pack! ANd they don't kill for fun unlike certain other speices (humans!)....

When cats "play" with their food, btw, they're actually mimicking the hunt all over again, and it causes production of digestive juices that allow them to live on a bones-meat-fur-feather diet. Otherwise, they might not be able to digest as much as they do of their prey.

More side-side-side-way-side note: I also hate the concept of dog fights, cockerel fights, etc., for human amsuement. You want blood and guts to bet on? Get in there naked and bet on yourself. Hmph. *snort tail-lash*

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OK< yeah, time for me to go... uh... yeah. SOrry. So, on this day, Mr. Leo gave me chocolate and very carefully backed out of the room....