I finally got curious.  A web search later, TIDE comes to the rescue with a “The Language of Laundry.”    To wet your appetite, here are the “Machine Wash” and “Water Temperature” symbols.  (Who knew those dots meant something??)

I was catching up on my stack of New Yorkers, and read a great article on honey bees & their mysterious disappearance.  Highly recommend. I also learned a couple random facts about bees: Honeybees are the only animals besides humans known to have a representational language: they convey to one another the location of food by dancing. When the queen lays an egg, she is able to choose its sex. Males, known as drones, perform no useful function except to mate. They are loutish and filthy, and the workers?sterile females?tolerate their presence for a few months a year, then systematically …