In honor of my virus:

261. Maimoides advocated chicken soup as a tonic for health.

262. There is some evidence that something in chicken noodle soup has a anti-inflammatory property, which may be why it earned its reputation as a "cure" for flu and cold.

263. The name "chicken noodle soup" came about because of a verbal slip in an Amos n' Andy radio show in the 1930s. Campbell's had been about to discontinue their "chicken soup with noodles" but the new name was extremely popular.

264. Turkey is higher in iron than chicken.

265. The traditional Japanese cold remedy is called "tamagozake" and is made from heated sake, sugar and raw egg.

266. 25% of all modern drugs used in the US are derived from plants, according the Wold Health Organization.

267. 80% of people globally uses herbal remedies for something.

268. The word "drug" comes from the Dutch for "dried plant".

269. Sleeping in a sacred place in order to be cured or to have a vision is called "incubation".

270. The word "influenza" is from the Italian for "influence" and was first used in English in 1743; other archaic words include catarrah, grippe, Spanish fever and sweating sickness.

251. Duke Ellington's father was a butler who made blueprints for the US Navy and occasionally was a White House caterer.

252. Best line lately from "House":

"Your lips say no (steriods), your prunes say yes. Hypogonadism. Isn't that a great word?"

253. Fried rice, one of my children's favorite dinners, is actually snack food in China and not a meal. Good thing we're headed to DC and Mexico!

254. "I will come back alive and as deep in love with you as the cormorant dives, as an anemone grows, as Neptune breathes, as the sea is deep." Dylan Thomas to his wife Caitlin, April 5th-ish, 1950.

255. Ellington composed his first piece, "Soda Fountain Rag," by ear because he couldn't read or write music.

256. Dr. House likes monster truck rallies. I like that in a doctor.

257. Another good "House" line: "His heart rate is rising like a Randy Johnson line drive."

258. Almost 40% of the population report having had hallucinations at some point in their lives.

259. Beware of typos. There is an enormous difference between fornication (sex) and formication (the sensation and hallucination that bugs are crawling all over you).

260. Nefertiti liked bright red nail coloring, while Cleopatra preferred a more rusty red.

241. "Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in, Time, you thief, who loves to get Sweets in your list, Put that in. Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, say that health and wealth have missed me. Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me." (Leigh Hunt)

242. Helene Hanff called herself "one of the 999 out of a 1000 who don't become Noel Coward." That's how I feel today (approximately).

243. One of the reasons I love Helene Hanff is because reading her books is like watching someone you really like get what they want -- her books are so charming and warm.

244. She was played by Anne Bancroft, Anne Jackson, Ellen Burstyn and Elaine Stritch. Not bad!

245. Hanff was literally guided through books by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, known as Q, who also was used as the literary inspiration for Horace Rumpole (Rumpole of the Bailey), written by John Mortimer, QC.

246. Q had a daughter named Foy.

247. His bardic name was Marghak Cough (Red Knight).

248. Rumpole refers to his wife as "She Who Must Be Obeyed." Hmmmmm...

249. Actually, this line comes from the novel "She" by H. Rider Haggard.

250. Best line lately from Grey's Anatomy --

"Who is Santa Claus?"

"An old white man who enters houses inappropriately?"

"No, me."

231. Umm Kalthoum, who is still revered in the Arab world as perhaps their best singer ever, came from a tiny village in rural Egypt.

232. Jamal Badran's technical drawings for the restoration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque are exquisite.

233. There are several specialist museums in Amman, including The Coin Museum, The Stamp Museum, and a Museum of the Political History of His Majesty the Late King Hussein.

234. Cafeteria Al-Quds, a tiny falafel shop in Jabal Amman, has been immortalized as a historic location, offering tasty treats (including the Royal Sandwich) for about forty years.

235. Habeeba's is a chain of sweet shops in Amman specializing in knafah, which is like a phyllo and white cheese pie drenched in rose syrup. The original outlet makes about 18,000 pies a year.

236. Knafa is a FABULOUS breakfast on a cold winter's morning. (And yes, rose syrup and white cheese go nicely together, thank you.)

237. Reem's, a tiny shwarma shop (think gyro), sells about 5,000 sandwiches a day -- and there is NO PLACE to sit down.

238. Zattar is the Arabic word both for thyme and for a spice mix made from thyme, sesame seeds, sumac and olive oil. It goes great with popcorn.

239. Mansaf is the Jordanian national dish, made from lamb, reconstituted milk (made from preserved milk called jameed) and spices served over rice. Traditionally, it is eaten with your bare hands and MANY people still claim it tastes better this way. I agree -- it's certainly more fun to eat this way!

240. Quinces have more pectin than any other fruit and thus are the base for an excellent homemade cough syrup.

221. The Big Bird costume has a tiny tv inside it since there is no opening where the actor inside can see out.

222. Big Bird is covered in turkey feathers.

223. Cookie Monster one day ate a VW Beetle.

224. He also likes eggplant, which he disclosed in 2006. Somehow, "Eggplant Monster" just wouldn't have the same panache.

225. In 2008, Cookie tried to eat Stephen Colbert's Peabody Award during an appearance on The Colbert Report. Colbert retaliated by accusing Cookie of not wearing a cookie lapel pin!

226. During an episode first aired on March 15, 1976, Mr. Hooper received his GED. He also let everyone know that his first name was Harold.

227. The scene in "Farewell, Mr. Hooper" when the adults explain to the Muppets that Mr. Hooper had died was done in one take and Bob McGrath refused to walk by the store for a year -- it was all too emotional.

228. Grover's birthday is October 14.

229. Foo-Foo is the name of Miss Piggy's poodle.

230. Fozzie Bear was named for Faz Fazakas, the Muppeteer who figured out how to have Fozzie wiggle his ears.

210. The omelette may have originated somewhere in the Middle East and travelled west. I personally am very grateful.

211. The largest omelette ever was made in Canada and weighed 2.95 tons. All the chickens in the surrounding area cried and still, on the anniversary of its making, wear tiny black wingbands.

212. The word for omelette in Persian is "kookoo."

213. Leonardo da Vinci used to buy birds in the market just for the fun of releasing them.

214. Hunter S. Thomson's ashes were shot out of a cannon atop a 153 foot tower, along with red, white, blue and green fireworks and music by Bob Dylan and Norman Greenbaum.

215. One of the motorcycle groups whose members started the Hells Angels was called The Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington.

216. The Sesame Street song, "Bein' Green," has been recorded by a diverse group of performers, including Frank Sinatra in 1970, Diana Ross (1974), Ray Charles (1975), and Tony Bennett (1998).

217. Big Bird sang "Bein' Green" at Jim Henson's funeral.

218. Oscar the Grouch was originally orange (season one) and turned green later. In 2009, he was interviewed by Anderson Cooper and intimated that he still was orange, but had turned green because he didn't bathe -- he was covered in moss.

219. He is also Canadian -- his father was from New Brunswick and his mother from Nova Scotia.

220. Big Bird's teddy bear is named Radar after the M*A*S*H character.

220.

201. There have been 8 English kings named Harry.

202. Neolithic people knew how to weave.

203. Zebras have not been domesticated generally, due to their unpredictable, panicky personalities.

204. Cross-breeding between zebras and other horses or horse-like animals have created the zeedonk, the zony, the Zetland and the zorse. Great words for Scrabble!

205. The horns of a giraffe are called ossicones.

206. Kudzu, which is eating the South, can also improve soil by fixing nitrogen and by spreading minerals attached to soil on its roots.

207. A popular name for digitalis is Witches' Gloves.

208. Ohio's state flower is the scarlet carnation in memory of William McKinley, who used to wear them.

209. "Water Forms II" is a fountain, located at Occidental College, depicted a ceremonial location on the planet Vulcan in the film "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock".

191. While Jordan is one of the three driest countries in the world, it is raining today! It is predicted to rain for four days! Yea!

192. People often are more impulsive when they are around the color red.

193. The word "rosemary" comes from the Latin term for "dew of the sea."

194. A tamale without filling is called a "deaf tamale" (tamale sordo).

195. Erbil has been inhabited since 23 AD.

196. The Kurdish name for Erbil, Hawler, is derived from either the Greek word, "helio," "sun," or from "horler," "temple of the sun," and means "the place where the sun is worshipped."

197. Nasi goreng, one of my favorite foods, is an Indonesian and Malaysian form of fried rice, cooked with sweet chili sauce.

198. Miep Gies, who helped shield Anne Frank, her family and some of her friends, has a planet named after her (99949).

199. There is a giant billboard advertising dog products (with a dog on it) on the road from the Dead Sea to Amman. Given that dogs are considered unclean here, that is kind of funky!

200. In 2005, the apartment where Anne Frank and her family lived, became a refuge for writers who are prevented from working safely in their home countries, and the first writer selected for a year's tenancy was El-Mahdi Acherchour, from Algeria.

181. I can do a back-turning kick in tae kwon do, as well as a screw-turning kick. I believe that means I kick butt!

182. "You know how this is:

if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me." (from If You Forget Me, by Pablo Neruda)

183. There is a ginkgo biloba tree in the Kew Gardens in London that is several hundred years old and was stolen as a sapling, then returned.

184. Ginkgo biloba trees have been around since the Jurassic period. They are so hardy that six trees, growing within 2 kilometers of the Hiroshima blast site, still survive.

185. Delight in Disorder by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness:

A lawn about the shoulders thrown

Into a fine distraction--

An erring lace, which here and there

Enthrals the crimson stomacher--

A cuff neglectful, and thereby

Ribbands to flow confusedly--

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat--

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility--

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.

186. Oscar Wilde's mother, whose pen name was Sperenza ("hope" in Italian), may have outlasted creditors by reciting Aeschylus to them.

187. Wilde's father, William, was both a leading ear-and-eye doctor and a student of archaeology and folklore.

188. Wilde was a Master Mason.

189. One of my great-grandmothers saved the trees on her street in LA from being cut down by threatening the city officers with her own ax; another great-grandmother threw a minister out of the house on one of his Sunday visits (his last?), telling him, "Apparently, Sir, your God is not the same as my God."

190. "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go." Oscar Wilde, not long before his death.

171. Chamomile can help you sleep and can produce a lovely green dye.

172. There is a kind of chamomile known as either dog-fennel or stinking chamomile. It is also known as mayweed and dog-finkle, not to mention pig-sty-daisy and chigger-weed.

173. Thyme was used by the ancient Greeks for courage and in embalming by the ancient Egyptians. It was also (like basil) used to help the dead pass to the afterlife.

174. Oddly, it is a great source of iron.

175. Money-saving tip: gargle with thyme tea, which has a high concentration of thymol, a major ingredient in Listerine!

176. Dorothy Parker suggested that her epitaph read, "Excuse my dust."

177. Tony Gwynn played his entire career (20 years) for the San Diego Padres. Now his son (Tony Gwynn Jr.) plays for them.

178. Gwynn began using a small bat (30.5 oz.) because he wanted a bat that reminded him of an aluminum bat.

179. Gwynn got both his 2000th and 3000th hits on an August 6 (1993 and 1999) -- the same day as his mother's birthday.

180. Don Coryell's pass-based defense, known as "Air Coryell," is considered the genesis for modern football, with its reliance on the pass rather than the run.

161. Haiti is the only nation ever to have won its independence through a slave rebellion.

162. It is the only fully independent nation (the others are politically connected to France, as collectivites or departements) in the Americas to be Francophone.

163. If you put green bananas in a brown paper bag with an apple or a tomato, they will ripen within 24 hours due to the gases given off by the other fruit. (Thanks Carrie!)

164. Coming to a store near you: Hippo Sweat Sunblock (may be known by some other name). Don't be conned by imitations. Real hippo sweat is red and a wonderful sunblock. I'm-a gonna get me some of that stuff!

165. Jasmine means "gift of God".

166. The city of Madurai in south India is known as The City of Jasmine.

167. The word "basil" is derived from the Greek word for "king" -- it is believed that basil was discovered when Helen and St. Constantine discovered the True Cross. It is also believed to have been found around the tomb when Jesus's resurrection was discovered.

168. Basil contains a chemical (E)-beta-caryophyllene (BCP) which helps to allow a cannabis receptor to work without allowing the high.

169. Basil is often used in various cultures, from ancient Greece to India, to ensure a safe journey for the dead to reach the afterlife.

170. In several Orthodox churches, it is used to prepare holy water.

151. Dark chocolate is a tasty way to get your antioxidants. Milk chocolate has some too but not as much. White chocolate, which is technically not really chocolate, doesn't have them. I like dark chocolate.

152. Thomas Hardy was a blue baby -- the story goes that he had been put over in the corner, thought to be dead, and finally started to cry. Think that this affected his worldview?

153. "All for one, and one for all!"

154. The word "fear" comes from the Old English but meant the event, not the emotion. The first documented use of the word meaning the feeling is in circa 1290.

155. Oliver Sack's middle name is Wolf.

156. Matt thinks this website is a "back-up" of my brain, and he may be right.

157. The asteroid 84928 is named for Sacks.

158. "Man of Constant Sorrow" was first recorded by the Dick Burnett, a visually impaired fiddler from Kentucky.

159. "You Are My Sunshine" was first recorded by James Houston "Jimmie" Davis as a campaign song when he ran for governor of Louisiana.

160. Davis taught history and yodeling at a girl's school in Louisiana.

141. The Abu Darwesh Mosque is the most distinctive mosque in Amman, with black and white stripes and red trim. It was built in 1961.

142. Emperor Hadrian visited Jordan in 129 AD. And this was before the advent of airplanes...

143. A glengarry is a brimless Scottish hat with ribbons down the back.

144. The name "judo" comes from the Japanese for "gentle way".

145. Adjacent to Karak Castle is a mountain called "Mother of Snows" (Umm al-Thalaja).

146. The chipmunk belongs to the squirrel family and its call sounds like Alvin when he's being naughty.

147. The Bedouin tent is called, in Arabic, "beit as-shar" or "house of hair" because it is woven of goat hair. It swells when it rains and thins when it dries.

148. The term "guy" when referring to people is taken from Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the British Parliament.

149. Protein helps to get you ready to sleep (explains Thanksgiving...).

150. Some people think the banana is the dreaded fruit in Eden.

131. The word "testis" comes from Latin and refers to both male genitalia and to the person who is a witness. Coincidence? I think not.

132. Boars have curly penises.

133. India ink may have come from China.

134. China is the source of most keffiyehs, the red-and-white or black-and-white head scarf many Arabs wear.

135. About two decades after she was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc was retried, with her former verdict demolished. Too late for Joan, but good for the rest of us.

136. Bicycles are now made with bamboo frames. Wasn't that in South Pacific? Apparently it is very shock absorbent.

137. A guy named Nicolas Meyer made a triathlon bike from hemp.

138. There are Dead Sea scrolls in the National Archeology Museum in Amman -- and never any lines to see them, nor an admission fee.

139. There is a Lego class (an afterschool activity) at the American Community School in Jordan.

140. Abraham Lincoln had a baseball diamond built on the White House grounds.

121. The giant milkweed is also known as Sodom's apple.

122. The location of Sodom and Gomorrah may be at the southern end of the Dead Sea. There is also a pillar of salt (among a bunch of them left from the Dead Sea) which is believed to be Lot's wife, and the cave where he and his daughters took refuge and lived, not to mention the church that was built to honor him. Jordan is Lot country!

123. Barley has been cultivated since at least 7000 BC.

124. Modern turkeys, which have been bred to have enormous breasts, cannot fly.

125. They can also drown in a rainstorm. Not the brightest birds in the shed...

126. The dish "pheasant under glass" was actually kept under a glass dome from the kitchen to the table to keep it moist.

127. People are more likely to experiment with food at lunch or dinner, but not at breakfast.

128. Cakes (most cakes) can be frozen for six months without any problems, although cakes with little fat can only hold out for six weeks.

129. Spider silk can be used for containing offspring, catching prey, mating and transportation. I highly recommend it (just kidding).

130. Ground wasabi, after being mixed with tepid water, takes 15 minutes to reach full flavor.

My first excerpt from Shonagon's Pillow Book:

"16. Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster

Sparrows feeding their young. To pass a place where babies are playing. To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt. To notice that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy. To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one’s gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival. To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.

It is night and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of raindrops, which the wind blows against the shutters. "

Several of these things make my heart beat faster -- even now in 2010.

111. Foraging, bartering, and other forms of trade and discovery which do not involve cash.

112. The word "chowder" comes from the French, "chaudiere," referring to the pot. It could also be from Old English "jowter," the one who sells fish.

113. In my next life, I am going to be a gospel singer. A good one.

114. JRR Tolkien worked for the Oxford English Dictionary, primarily in the W section, with words with Germanic roots.

115. He sent his four children letters from Father Christmas, with a number of characters including Polar Bear, the Snow Man and Illbereth the Elf. He might be more of an anti-Grinch than me!

116. Helene Hanff's "Q's Legacy" is one of the best books ever for me. She was an autodidact, but he, through his collected lectures and essays, guided her and "taught" her about literature. I just find this such pure thirst for knowledge and love of literature.

117. Q, also known as Arthur Quiller-Couch, completed Robert Louis Stevenson's "St. Ives," when he died in the middle of its writing.

118. Q was also the antithesis of F. R. Leavis (horrible man, Leavis)!

119. Helene Hanff's phone number was inadvertently printed in "84 Charing Cross Road" and not only did she leave it in, she did not change her number, talking to fans whenever they called.

120. Eating chocolate when the kids aren't around. I feel like I'm sneaking.

101. I'm in triple digits! Unfortunately, I will be here for a while...

102. They paved the parking lot at school. While usually I am not a fan of paving, I am delighted that my shoes will no longer look like I dragged them through the mud behind my car every day.

103. The weather forecast calls for rain next week. Jordan is the third driest country in the world -- we need rain!

104. Tumeric, which often is found in curry, is extremely good for you. Eat more curry! (I wonder if the health benefits extend if you spread it on your skin, as some women in south India do, leaving an odd yellow color behind. It takes a while to get used to.)

105. Pasta may have come from the Middle East. Italians, take note! According to Wikipedia, in the Jerusalem Talmud, there is a kind of boiled dough called itrium eaten in Palestine from 3-5 AD. There is an Arabic word, "itriyya," which refers to dried thin strips of semolina which were then cooked (and there is a lot of vermicelli in Arabic sweets). In 1154, this itriyya was made in Sicily, according to a text written by Muhammad ad-Idrisi; this itriyya comes in long strips and also in sheets, as in some kinds of modern pasta.

106. The equivalent of "fast food" in Egypt is called kosherie: elbow macaroni cooked with onions and lentils, with vinegar and hot sauce on the side. It is excellent.

107. There is a Serbian new wave band called Pasta ZZ.

108. The apple is part of the rose family.

109. The words for "apples" and "evils" in Latin are identical: "mala".

110. The Guinness Book of World Records entry for the largest apple is from Hirosaki, Japan, weighing 4 pounds 5 ounces, in 2005.

91. In Granada, there is a tea and spice shop just outside the Cathedral and they sell a medieval tea blend -- it's the best.

92. I have finally managed to stay awake through a Pink Panther movie.

93. "Darling, you want to know what I want of you. Many things, of course but chiefly these. I want you to keep this thing we have inviolate and waiting -- the person who is neither I nor you but us." -- John Steinbeck to his wife, Gwendolyn, July 1943

94. Lime juice makes black beans taste terrific.

95. Cinnamon toast makes excellent comfort food.

96. I can do a turning-back-turning kick in tae kwon do.

97. My son told me that for a 43-year-old, I'm a pretty good athlete!

98. My car is home from the mechanic, the oil leak is fixed, and I didn't have to sell any vital organs to pay for it!

99. "O my beautiful, my cherished, my adored, my darling Eva. I am as impatient as a goat tied to a stake, although you do not care for that phrase." Honore de Balzac to Madame Evelina Hanska, Nov. 23rd, 1833

100. "Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder." Abraham Lincoln, describing his marriage to Mary Todd, to Samuel D. Marshall, November 11, 1842, a week after his marriage.

81. The name polka came from the Polish word pulka, meaning half-step.

82. The main difference between trout and salmon is that trout stay where they are and salmon travel. (Does that make me a salmon? I don't want to be grilled or smoked!)

83. According to Wikipedia, happy okapis say "vloom." I wonder what they say when they are sad?

84. Okapis have blue tongues and can lick their own ears, the only mammal to be able to do that.

85. The Marsh marigold is a type of buttercup and is somewhat poisonous, so don't eat it!

86. While the word "marigold" may be from "Mary's gold," referring to the Virgin Mary, the genus name, "tagetes," may be derived from one of the main Etruscan gods, Tages.

87. Tages was believed to have been either the grandson of Jove or leaping out of a field as it was being plowed.

88. The name, "Guadalajara," in Mexico comes from Guadalajara in Spain; it originates from the Arabic name wadi al-hayara, valley of stones. Our Arabic will continue to come in handy!

89. There is no "g" sound in Arabic.

90. Guadalajara is the location of the sixth Guggenheim museum.

71. Today (January 11) is the day Amelia Earhart, in 1935, flew solo from California to Hawaii. Thanks to Teri Schamp-Bjerede for that!

72. Saladin's cousin built Rabadh Castle in Ajloun (in Jordan) as part of a chain of castles that stood against the Crusaders. It guarded the Jordan River Valley and the Ajloun iron mines. They used a system of pigeons and bonfires to send messages from Damascus to Cairo in just one day. Who needs email?

73. There is only one species of squirrel that lives in Jordan (the Persian squirrel), and it's only in one little area in the north.

74. Aloe vera can be effective against psoriasis.

75. Certain species of grasshoppers turn into locusts when their population increases to a specific point.

76. Quince tea is a folk remedy for coughs (and it is reasonably effective). This is what I give the kids -- with honey in it. Quince has more pectin than any other fruit, and the pectin coats your throat (as does the honey).

77. The Griffon vulture does not have a sense of smell -- it locates carrion by sight.

78. The Palestinian sunbird (well, okay, the male) is a lovely, iridescent blue-green. The female is grey.

79. Grey can be a first name as well as a color.

80. Jordan's national bird is the Sinai rosefinch.

61. Brenda Leigh Johnson, the eponymous character on "The Closer," worked for the State Department according to her father (according to wikipedia, it's the CIA).

62. She eats more candy than I do, which is saying something.

63. Xi Jung, an author writing in Song Dynasty China, used forensic information (like how to tell if someone had been drowned or strangled and to pay attention to insects) in a book, "Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified" in 1248.

64. Dr. Watson comments that Sherlock Holmes, although he knows quite a bit about poisonous plants, knows nothing of practical gardening.

65. "M" has appeared in every Bond movie except "For Your Eyes Only" -- he was "on holiday".

66. In "Quantum of Solace," Bond does NOT say "Bond, James Bond," or "Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred."

67. Raymond Chandler was born in the US but educated in England, in fact at the same school where PG Wodehouse studied, Dulwich College, London.

68. PG Wodehouse grew up in England but lived as an adult also in America and France. He became a US citizen in 1955.

69. Sean O'Casey called Wodehouse "English literature's performing flea," but I don't know if Wodehouse could jump well or swim.

70. Lime juice is really tasty when mixed with sparkling water.

51. Pres. Obama has been compared by several people to Mr. Spock -- given how well most of his solutions to crises turned out (admittedly, he had script writers), that's who we need right now!

52. This is my kind of love letter:

"I can neither Eat nor Sleep for thinking of You my dearest love, I never touch even pudding." (Horatio Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton, Jan. 29, 1800)

53. The phrase, "off the cuff," refers to speakers jotting down last-minute notes on their sleeves.

54. Muhammara, my favorite Arabic mezze, is made from roasted red peppers, bread crumbs, walnuts, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, lemon juice, and cumin. It is easy to make, tasty and healthy -- did I mention also addictive?

55. One of Matt's favorite spreads is roasted garlic, a recipe which has come down from ancient Babylon.

56. During the Middle Ages, it was believed that cumin kept both chickens and lovers from wandering. What does that say about chickens?

57. Saladin was a well-educated, cultured man. He attacked Karak Castle when Humphrey IV of Toron married Isabella of Jerusalem there, but requested to know which of the towers housed the newlyweds and forbade shelling of that tower for three days.

58. In the Bahamas, there is a tiny uninhabited island called Egg Island, where people keep their chickens.

59. The egg carton was invented by Joseph Coyle in British Columbia to solve a dispute between a chicken farmer and a hotel.

60. Chickens with white ear lobes lay white eggs, while chickens with red ear lobes are more likely to lay brown eggs. That's the extent of it.

44. Scorpions dance to mate (and at least for David Attenborough, it works well to classical Spanish guitar)!

45. Pablo Neruda was the Chilean consul in Rangoon, Java and Barcelona from 1927-1945. This completely makes my day!

46. Jordanian taxis must have a working meter, so you don't have to guess what the fare is or haggle. It's very civilized, although almost always smoky and without seat belts.

47. Neruda wrote a poem about fleas:

Fleas interest me so much

Fleas interest me so much

that I let them bite me for hours.

They are perfect, ancient, Sanskrit,

machines that admit of no appeal.

They do not bite to eat,

they bite only to jump;

they are the dancers of the celestial sphere,

delicate acrobats

in the softest and most profound circus;

let them gallop on my skin,

divulge their emotions,

amuse themselves with my blood,

but someone should introduce them to me.

I want to know them closely,

I want to know what to rely on.

48. The flea is the second-best jumper in the animal world, behind the froghopper, but cannot swim.

49. Jane Wyatt, the actress who played the mother of Spock in the original TV series, was descended from Rufus King, one of the original signers of the US Constitution, and later an ambassador and senator.

50. A quote from the Mr. Spock entry in Wikipedia:

"Spock, as originally described in Gene Roddenberry's 1964 pitch for Star Trek, is described as "probably half Martian, he has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears"

These are all by Pablo Neruda, translated from Spanish -- Thanks, Scott!

41. Soneto 50
Cotapos says your laughter dives
like a hawk from a stony tower. It's true:
you slash the world's green leaves
with a single bolt of lightning from on high
that falls, and cuts, and leaps the tongues of dew,
the diamond waters, the bee-filled light.
And there where long-bearded silence had lived,
your starry grenades, your suns, explode.
Down comes the sky, and the shadows of night.
Lit by the full moon, bells and carnations burn,
the saddlemaker's horses gallop.
Because you are small as you are, let it rip:
let the meteor of your laughter fly,
electrifying the name of all nature.

42. Soneto 52
Singing unto the sun and sky with your song,
your voice threshes the grain of the day,
the pines speak with their green tongues,
all the birds of winter trill.
The sea fills its cellar with footsteps,
with bells, chains, and groans –
metal and tools jangle,
wheels of the caravan creak.
But I hear only your voice – it rises
with the flight and precision of an arrow,
it falls with the gravity of rain,
your voice scatters the highest swords,
and returns laden with violets –

my companion through the skies.

43. Soneto 53
Here are the bread, the wine, the table, the house:
a man's needs, and a woman's, and a life's.
Peace whirled through and settled in this place:
the common fire burned, to make this light.
Hail to your two hands that fly and make
their white creations, the singing and the food:
salve! the wholesomeness of your busy feet,
viva! the ballerina who dances with the broom.
Those rugged rivers of water and of threat,
torturous pavilions of foam,
incendiary hives and reefs:
today they are this respite, your blood in mine,
this path, starry and blue as the night,
this never-ending simple tenderness.

31. I ran into Carmen, one of my Spanish teachers, and as I was telling her about my holidays in Spanish, the same discussion was going through my head in Arabic.

32. Cheap chocolate, while not as creamy or quite as delicious as expensive chocolate, gives me roughly the same happy buzz.

33. George Lucas donated (yes, DONATED) the story rights to Star Wars to KUSC-FM, the NPR affiliate located at University of Southern California, where he attended college. (Rhys got the CDs of it for Christmas -- EXCELLENT)

34. Arabic taught me to gist, which is an incredibly useful skill.

35. The word pesto refers to the preparation of the sauce, not the ingredients, which means that you can have whatever you want in your pesto, as long as it's ground up. (pesto, pestle -- get it?)

36. Starbucks is indeed named for the character in Moby Dick, which, when not read in a class, is a highly entertaining adventure story.

37. While you may have your own opinion of Taylor Swift, I am grateful to her for her Romeo and Juliet song. I inadvertently amused a woman at Target this summer by telling Radhika Shakespeare's story so that she didn't think that the two of them lived happily ever after (which of course they do in the song). Radhika was not amused.

38. Poinsettia plants are named for the first American ambassador to Mexico (1825-1829), Joel Roberts Poinsett, who went on to found what is now the Smithsonian.

39. Poinsettia sap was used by the Aztecs as a medicine to combat fevers.

40. The botanical name for poinsettias, Euphorbia pulcherrima, means "the most beautiful euphorbia". The Latin word pulcherrima is the root for the English word, "pulchritude" meaning beautiful.

21. Chariots of Fire, while not a perfect movie by a long shot, always makes me cry.

22. Richard Harris agreed to be in the Harry Potter movies because he wanted to make his grandkids happy.

23. This project is an excellent way to face my fear of writer's block.

24. If, at the Shaumari Nature Reserve in Jordan, they bred a Red-Necked Ostrich to a Blue-Necked Ostrich, might they have Purple-Necked offspring?

25. It is said that there is a tunnel leading from the stage of the Roman amphitheater in downtown Amman up to the Citadel. Although it would not be safe, I wish I could climb it.

26. There is a drink at a local restaurant here called the Kiwi-Wiwi. It is tasty and the name makes me laugh.

27. There was a restaurant, which has since closed, which had a spinach-kiwi smoothie. It was even better than the Kiwi-Wiwi.

28. One of my more surreal moments in Jordan was being downtown, behind a car full of women wearing the niqab (face veil), when The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince's song "Darling Nikki" came on the radio.

29. There was a series of comics spread out over several decades when Flash raced Superman to see "once and for all" who was fastest. One of the first races was to support the UN.

30. Indian glass bangles -- they make a hell of a mess, but they are beautiful and they sound lovely.

11. There is a fossil of a dragonfly-like wing about 12 inches long, giving it, according to David Attenborough, about the same wing-span as a sea gull. If they were brightly colored, like today's dragonflies, they would be beautiful.

12. Although some people think it smells like cat piss, I love the scent of eucalyptus. Apparently it is good for focusing.

13. I think it is excellent that dragonfly males, after mating, show off the best places to lay eggs to the female. He is in charge of the location of the larvae nursery!

14. The way that mint lemonade makes your mouth water.

15. According to the FDA, a product in the United States cannot be labeled chocolate if it contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, artificial sweeteners, or milk substitutes. Yea, FDA!

16. Apparently, chocolate milk is excellent after a workout. Gatorade, begone!

17. Jordan is effectively the meeting point for Asia, Africa and Europe, leading to a country with native animals like hedgehogs, ostrichs, and onagers. You didn't know that camels and badgers could co-exist, did you?

18. The hawk moth mates with both partners looking and flying in the opposite direction.

19. Geranium seeds form corkscrews.

20. The body temperature of a honeybee has to be above a certain temperature in order to fly.

3. The way that the ibex in Wadi Dana know that you're watching them, but know that there is NO way you'll be able to get to them, so they just hang out and watch you. It's a little disconcerting feeling like you are in THEIR zoo, but I think it's healthy!

4. When the vegetable and fruit guys come yelling their wares through the street. They drive little toyota pickups (I think) and use a loudspeaker to shout out their best deals. They also do something similar in India, which might be why I like it.

5. The smell of basil/rosemary glycerine-based soap, and the way it wakes me up in the morning. It's almost as good as grapefruit. Rosemary has been found buried in some ancient Egyptian tombs and basil is often grown around homes for luck.

Perhaps having them blended together in my soap will bring me luck in this life, rather than the next!

6. For those of you who watched The Bucket List, it is true that some people pay outrageous amounts of money to drink coffee made from beans that have been eaten, and excreted, by the common palm civet, also known as the Toddy Cat or the Motit. The coffee is known as Kopi Luwak (or Motit Coffee) and according to Wikipedia, prices in 2009 for this ranged from USD$300-1400 depending on where you purchased it. I think it is great that someone thought this would be a good idea to try! Apparently, it is the "best coffee" because the civets only eat really ripe coffee beans.

7. Linda Gass's art quilts, which use a traditional art form to illustrate environmental issues. Her quilt "Wetlands Dream" depicts through mapping the difficult issues of restoring the San Francisco wetlands.

8. The "sssshhhh" sound that the sugar makes as it goes into the coffee first thing in the morning. Such a tiny sound, such anticipation...

9. Peanuts, from April 15, 1995: Charlie Brown is lying awake on his bed, with Snoopy asleep on top of him. The first frame says, "Sometimes I lie awake at night and I think, 'Maybe I can change my life around.'" and the second says, "Then a voice comes to me out of the dark, 'Sure, make a lot of paperwork for the rest of us,'" Charles Schultz was a funny guy.

10. The word graveyard in Arabic is "muqabara," and may possibly be related to the word "macabre". The two languages are SO different that I get a thrill whenever I find a connection!

The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon (Makura no Shoshi) is an enthralling collection of the observations of Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting at the court of Empress Teishi in Heian Japan. She kept it for about a decade (c. 990-1002), making lists, writing poetry, and recording her opinions on the people, behaviors, and politics she saw swirling around her.

I first read it at Occidental College and loved it, especially since so much of it seemed so contemporary. While some of the more stylized behaviors obviously were out of date, the motivations and the scheming are still with us.

Right now, there is a lot going on in my life: my mother has dieds, my husband is serving as a diplomat in northern Iraq, and we are facing a move back to DC from Amman, Jordan, where we have lived for the last four-and-a-half years. I've noticed some depression sneaking in and decided to start a project -- Jenn and Sei. I'm going to create my own pillow book, my own lists of observations and things. I want to document 50,000 things that I enjoy before 7 June 2010, the day before my son turns 9. And not naming stuff, but being very specific. I will also post some excerpts from The Pillow Book, because Shonagon was an amazing writer. With luck, this will keep me busy enough to thwart any negative attitudes!

Please check back periodically to see what's on the list and if you have any ideas, please send them my way! Thanks for reading.

Here goes:

1. The iridescence of the Blue Morpho butterfly, especially the Menelaus Blue Morpho. Its larvae eat one another, and adults feed on the juice of rotting fruit, but it is absolutely stunning.

2. The way that the hoopoe looks like it has polka dots on its feathers. While they were considered special and sacred in Ancient Egypt, they were considered thieves and bad omens in other parts of the world.

It just goes to show...