It gets hot and humid in New York City come summertime but the city’s most prolific inhabitants — its squirrels — have found a way to keep cool, according to the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. It’s called “splooting.” There they are on their stomachs on the cool ground, limbs spread out in the coolest possible position. Lest you think the words “sploot” and “splooting” are the result of someone’s overactive imagination, check out the definition at Dictionary.com: “Sploot” is slang for the pose four-legged animals make when lying down in that position. It makes for a good snapshot and New Yorkers have been flooding online social media sites with iPhone pictures of splooting squirrels all summer long.

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A hairy story

Asha Mandela of Clermont, FL and her 19 foot, 6.5 inch head of hair made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2009. In the ensuing 13 years her locks continued to grow and have now reached the 110 foot mark, reports the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. It’s a good thing she has a hairdresser for a husband because she says she is not going to get a haircut anytime soon. She calls her mane, Cobra, because as she told the folks at Guinness: “I don’t like the term dreadlocks because I don’t think there’s anything [to] dread about my locks … When I’m ready to go into my sleep chamber with my Cobra baby, I would have them tied up in a little sack and we cuddle and talk to each other.”

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What’s in your mollusk?

Sometimes you get more than you bargained for. Take the Overland family of Phoenixville, PA, says the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. They were out for a seafood dinner and dad, Scott, was enjoying an order of northern quahog clams when he got quite a surprise; one of those tasty mollusks came with a bonus– a pretty but rare purple pearl. Scott said he thought he’d “bit down on a piece of shell or something.” Like many of us, he thought pearls were only found in oysters. However, shellfish expert Tim Parsons says they are also found in clams and not as rare as you might think. He says diners report findings two or three times a year. How much is it worth? It’s anybody’s guess, but surely it can bring in three, four or five hundred dollars or more.

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