FarmWife Answers, episode seven

This post is number 995 for me. I got kind of excited when I checked my dashboard this morning & saw it said "Posts: 1,000" until I realized there was a bunch of stuff in there that needed to be deleted (if I put in pictures, blogger likes to save 3 or 4 different copies of the same unfinished post). We need to plan a 1,000th post extravaganza! Any ideas on what we could do?

Thank you for showing the love & checking out my guest blogging debut. It was fun. Slightly nerve racking, but fun.

Now, on to the heart of the matter. Ya'll are seriously putting me to work today! Your curiosity is overwhelming. Let's see what I can do for you.

Ang asks: how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

We've been asking that since the commercial premiered in 1970. And tons of people have taken it upon themselves to answer.

It's amazing what comes up if you Google that phrase. There are entire web sites dedicated to answering that age old question. My favorite being one done by a class at the Mississippi School for Mathmatics and Science. Then there's the less formal & less scientific folks at WikiAnswers who's opinions are spread far across the board. I've found anywhere from 250 to 5,000 licks. When I was in 6th grade, the boys in my class tried it. They each got around 1,200 licks.

It all depends on how you're licking. Is the pop outside of your mouth at all times only getting contact with the tongue (like the owl in the commercial), or are you one who puts the entire pop in your mouth for each lick resulting in a greater surface contact?

In the end, Mr. Owl is right. The world may never know.

Ang also wants to know: Why are girls worse (catty) in Middle School than any other time in their lives?

In a word, Hormones. In two words, Hormones and insecurity. Take a poor child who suddenly goes from being a little Barbie loving girl to a half grown woman over the course of a summer, toss in a mega dose of hormones comparable to what she'll again go through with pregnancy and then menopause, and add in about 1,500 more girls just like her & some thing's bound to go wrong. It's a pack instinct. They're like wolves. Go after the weak & infirm first and be sure you protect your place in the pack at all costs. Middle school is worse than Wild America.

Kork's been watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding (glad I wasn't the only one watching that this weekend). Why do some cultures promote the spitting onto the heads of loved ones to protect them from evil?

It isn't only a Greek custom. It has roots in many European & Middle eastern countries. I have to admit, researching this is really sparking my curiosity. The website I found is rather extensive (more of a term paper than web site), and covers everything you'd ever want to know about the evil eye.

First of all, "evil" here is a relative term. It's not something inherently evil nor is it truly cursing an individual. It's really all about coveting. The belief is that if someone looks on someone with envy, it can cause a drying up. The site states an example: A typical account of such a mishap might be: "I dressed the baby in new clothes and took him to town and a woman who has no children saw him and said, 'Oh, what a pretty child!' and as soon as we got home he began to vomit!" Because this belief has roots in desert cultures, drying up (of children due to vomiting or diarrhea, mother's milk, young fruit trees) is a serious matter.

It is thought spitting three times will combat the dryness. It's also a practice to spit three times if you look on someone approvingly. You may inadvertently bring on the evil eye (which is how it usually happens, not by someone meaning to do harm), so to offset praise you should either spit three times on the person or comment negatively about them. "What a pretty child. Too bad he's so dirty."

Mrs. X ponders: where does the term Cloud 9 come from?

I was surprised to find this is a relatively new phrase. Some people want to contribute it to the levels of enlightenment in Buddhism, others to the actual cumulonimbus clouds in meteorology, but these are both debatable. One of the earliest references is of cloud 8 and has to do with be drunk. Many different numbers have been used (8, 7, 39). It appears the number 9 was only settled on in the 1980's. One site I found states: The imagery was originally of a 'cloud cuckoo land' or 'head in the clouds' dreaminess, induced by either intoxication or inspiration, rather than the 'idyllic happiness' that we now associate with the phrase.

And it also leads directly into Kork's second question: Where did the term "7th Heaven" come from?

According to Answers.com the seventh heaven is the dwelling place of God in Muslim & Kabahhal beliefs. It is also the highest level of heaven in the Jewish tradition. It is the ultimate in joy & happiness. It just can't get any better that that.

Mrs.Anweiler asks a tough one. How do I get an oil (like olive oil) stain out of a wool, dry clean only suit jacket?

Before doing anything, I'd call a dry cleaner. One tip I found said to cover the stain in baby powder and let it set overnight. It didn't say anything about wool, but since you aren't wetting the fabric, I don't think it would hurt. It also said to blot the back side of the stain with a paper towel & dry cleaning solvent. I wonder if the Dryell stuff would work. What ever you do, keep heat away from it! Good luck with it! (Tell your husband he should take better care of his things! I said so!) ;)

The Queen Mother (all hail the Queen Mother) wants to know: Where did the term stain glass come from and how come church's have them?

I'm not sure where the term stained glass came from, but it was probably just a literal name. Since stained glass predates recorded history, there's no information about it's origins. But it was just that, glass stained different colors by the addition of metallic salts & oxides. It's been made the same way since Theopholius the monk wrote his how-to on it in the 1100's.

The Abbot Suger (Eleanor of Aquitaine was his Queen) used it to rebuild his Cathedral (St.Denis near Pairs, one of the first in the Gothic style...see picture) and started a trend. My guess would be that since the church was the only group that had real money at that time, they were the only ones who could afford it. Abbot Suger believed the presence of beautiful objects would lift men's souls closer to God.

And finally, Anonymous Jones asks: Do sports bras prove that women were never intended for physical fitness by nature? Bounce, bounce.

At least not of the aerobic type. Bounce, bounce. We're much better suited to walking, pilates, yoga, and the like...at least after nursing 4 babies. Bounce, bounce (and not the kind men pay big bucks to watch).