Did anyone notice that I didn’t learn anything in June? Actually, I did, but had so many other things to post about that I didn’t make my usual list, which means this month’s list is twice as long as usual.

1. For the very first time in my life, I gave away a cat. Two, actually. I learned that it is a beautiful thing to share kitties with people who might love them even more than I do.
2. Arizona’s speed limit for trucks is the same as that for cars, and it makes for much smoother traffic on freeways. Only Delaware and California require trucks to go 55 mph.
3. I was wrong last year when I said that Manx is not a breed of cat but the accident of birth through malnourishment in the womb. (Did I get that info on the internet?? or in a book??) The veterinarian who made sure Scout doesn’t have another litter set me straight. Scout has a weird stump of a tail and received superior nutrition while growing her 5 babies, resulting in 2 with tails and 3 without.
4. No matter how often I try to understand, the meaning of “meta” eludes me. Do the people using this word just pretend that they know what they are saying, and do the people listening just pretend too?
5. You can buy hard-boiled eggs at Costco. I don’t belong to Costco, but thought it a curious fact when I overheard it this summer.
6. Getting cats “fixed”: we had Scout fixed and she disappeared 3 weeks later. I was wondering if we shouldn’t get Georgia “fixed” so she could make us more kittens, but now she is also gone. This is why I want to have lots of cats. We have a controversial approach to pets, but it is right for us.
7. Not all my friends are readers. (Why does this surprise me?) I was quite amazed to learn that 3 of the 7 friends who reunited at Shaver Lake don’t read much!
8. Shaver Lake is wonderful. I had never been there before although it is only 2-1/2 hours away from Three Rivers.
9. I was the only one of the Shaver Seven who doesn’t color her hair. (Why is this interesting to me? Who knows.) Maybe it is because I’d rather be reading.
10. You can accidentally grow pumpkins. I thought I was accidentally growing zucchini, because the blossoms look the same. Only one is becoming a pumpkin, but wow, the plants are going nuts. (Because they are accidental, they aren’t planted in gopher-proof cages, so I fear for them.)
11. Airdrop is a thing that can send pictures from an iPhone to another nearby Apple device. It makes a funny noise when the photos are sent. (I am learning how to use the dreaded cell phone bit by bit, in spite of zero reception at home.)
12. Branches on a tree make knots on firewood and look strange if you ever have the opportunity to view the inside of a hollow tree.
13. Many flowers have the unfortunate-sounding syllable “wort” in their names. Why? It comes from Old English “wyrt”, meaning root, herb, and plant.