I’m curious. I’m curious about many things. I want to know about stuff. I always did. I was the kid that asked questions in class. A lot of questions. The best teachers are the ones who answer them.

I want to know about things, and I want to know about people, though I notice I’m less curious about the latter once judgment and condemnation set in. It’s hard to be curious when you’re a wall.

It’s hard to be curious about the why of someone’s opinion when you vehemently disagree with them on a fundamental level, and yet, it’s this systemic lack of curiosity about each other (and the concomitant lack of tolerance about differences) that has left us with our current global sociopolitical pickle.

But I digress.

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Mooses – or perhaps meese?

Did you know that one of the predators a moose occasionally has to avoid is an orca? Did you know moose were good swimmers? I was not happy with that bit of information. It’s bad enough that they’re the size of a van. Can you imagine the shock of swimming in a lake, minding your own business, when suddenly, a moose surfaces in front of you? Do you think you’d levitate?

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Suffrage for women.

Did you know the first country to extend the voting franchise to women was New Zealand? In 1893, the Electoral Act was passed by the New Zealand Parliament, and women were now allowed to cast a ballot.

A year later, South Australia extended the franchise to women and allowed them to run for office. The two freedoms weren’t always tied together, and even where women could technically hold public office, the resistance to them doing so was fierce.

It’s hard to unring a bell. The suffragist movement grew. Canadian women achieved suffrage in 1918, and American women in 1920, though the UK was lagard – women couldn’t vote in the UK before 1928.

The first Canadian woman to hold office, to sit in the House of Commons was Agnes McPhail in 1921.

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Happy hour.

Did you know that margarita is the Spanish word for “daisy?” Did you know that when it debuted, what we call a margarita was called a Tequila Daisy? Did you know that a daisy is a distinct category of drink? Daisies are made with citrus, sweetened with syrup or liqueur, and fortified with spirits. I had no idea. I didn’t even know drinks were grouped in families. I like this one – it includes daiquiris and lemon drops.

Though on the rocks, if you don’t mind. I don’t love my daisies in slushie form.

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Trivia and minutiae.

I love having a phone to look things up on constantly. I love the information I have access to with the internet. But I like to kick it old school as well. I have a set of encyclopedias. They’ll come in handy during the zombie apocalypse. I can learn how to shear sheep – assuming any are left – and how to make thermite, both useful skills.

I have several non-reference books full of interesting minutiae as well. It’s a category of literature I enjoy immensely. I like to leave them strewn about in obvious places, so they encourage the looking into as one wanders by. My current favourite is Gonn and Hal Iggulden’s The Pocket Dangerous Book For Boys. It’s full of the neatest stuff (and yes, I have The Daring Book For Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz as well). Bill Bryson is another great choice. I’m pretty sure if you read his collected works, you’ll know almost everything about everything.

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What random factoids do you know and love?

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