When I was a kid there was a small cheese factory about half a mile from our farm. Sometimes we'd stop by and get fresh cheese curds (sometimes we'd get to watch too). Curds are the best when they're fresh enough to be squeaky. Best of all is when they're still warm.

I didn't understand the squeak until I had my first fresh, warm cheese curd. It's sort of like eating a very tasty eraser.

Even if it was A Very Smelly Place.

Oh, yeah. The Smell. I also bought an imported double Gloucester with Stilton, which ranks up there with the highest of the skeazy cheeses.

Shirley Temple, as a child, wore 56 curls in her hair. Curls were set by her mother who thus made sure of the exact number

Well, 56 is very factorable. So there could be 28 curls per side, with each side sub-divided into four sections of seven curls each.

Or not.

Totally crazy.

I also read somewhere that her mother had a contract to keep all of Shirley's costumes from all of her movies and that they were kept in plastic wraps, in chronological order, in all of the closets in their home.

It's a triumph of the human spirit that Shirley Temple didn't end up spending her days in the attic with the mummified body of her mother.

It's a triumph of the human spirit that Shirley Temple didn't end up spending her days in the attic with the mummified body of her mother.

Or that she didn't end up in a downward spiral of drug-fueled... downward-spiralishness...

I read that in Shirley Temple's autobiography (which I read as a teenager, in a fit of "must read everything the local library has about old Hollywood.") They started the curls because her hair would naturally get frizzy, and her mother figured curls looked better than frizz.

And actually, since the curls were set by rollers each night, it kinda makes sense that it was always the same number -- just have 56 rollers, and use all of them.

One could have totally "gaslighted" Shirley's mom by sneaking in and removing a few curlers. Then when they discovered the horror of not-56-curls, one could sneak the curlers back.

Um, just because.

It's a triumph of the human spirit that Shirley Temple didn't end up spending her days in the attic with the mummified body of her mother.

Perhaps there came a day when she said, "I could kill and mummify my mom, or I could become an ambassador. Hmm . . . maybe a coin flip."

Perhaps there came a day when she said, "I could kill and mummify my mom, or I could become an ambassador. Hmm . . . maybe a coin flip."

"Heads. Hm. Well, two out of three..."

Does the DMV get to close early today?

According to their website, they're open until 5pm today, but as the DMV I will be attempting is across the street, I won't be out much travel time if they are closed. It probably would take me longer to call them than it would to walk over there.