Thingamabobs and Whatchamacallits

The word pineapple in English was first recorded in 1398, when it was originally used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now called pine cones.)  When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit, they called them pineapples (term first recorded in that sense in 1664.) because of their resemblance to the pine cones.  The natural (or most common) pollinator of the pineapple is the hummingbird.  Pollination is required for seed formation; the presence of seeds negatively affects the quality of the fruit.  In Hawaii, where the pineapple is cultivated on an agricultural scale, importation of hummingbirds is prohibited for this reason.   Certain bat-pollinated wild pineapples, members of the bromeliad family, do the exact opposite of most others by opening their flowers at night and closing them during the day.   On the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores, out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal, pineap...

  What do you do when it is too hot to be outside?  Hang around in the house, as near to the window unit air conditioner as possible, and start going through books, one by one, to see which ones you can bear to part with in an attempt to clear the clutter and prepare for "downsizing"!!!    Books have been a huge part of my life ever since my very early childhood.  Mum taught me to read even before I started school at the age of 4 1/2 years, and I remember afternoons at home with all the neighborhood children sitting round in a circle in our living room while she read to us!   In my years of traveling the world, I have carried a lot of books with me, three of which were from my childhood when I was three and four and five years old!   I also still have books from my parents and grandparents, including the old classics they read in school, books commemorating royal weddings and events, Coronations, and even have a Book of Common Prayer inscribe...