~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
October 29, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: “Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.” – Anonymous

★~ National Cat Day:

“What greater gift than the love of a cat?” Charles Dickens once mused. Cats are one of the most beloved human companions of all time. They were first domesticated in the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent 12,000 years ago. When humans relied on hunting as their main source of food, dogs were most useful, but when the first agricultural societies emerged, cats became invaluable. Domesticated cats became responsible for keeping grain stores free of mice and other rodents. Today, cats can be found in 34% of American households, making them the most popular house pet in the United States.

Adopt a cat, pat a cat (ask first), buy a cat some cat nip, or just enjoy how purrfectly content they look stretched out under a sunbeam. Click for more fascinating cat facts.

★~ Hermit Day:

Celebrate Hermit Day by spending some time alone with your preferred pet and a good book. Throw  a blanket over the dining room table and climb inside your cave- don’t forget snacks, phone and laptop- Lets not be foolish.

★~ Oatmeal Day:

Oatmeal smells good and as far as I’m concerned that is as good as it gets. It is also one the three foods Cole doesn’t like either, so it’s off our breakfast menu. People have fixed it every imaginable way for us, but no matter how much brown sugar, cinnamon, maple syrup you pore on it’s still Oatmeal. I have been told that, McCann’s Irish Oatmeal, is very good and I’m sure it is good IF you like oatmeal. I do have a folksy Oatmeal fact to share:  The Quaker Man is one of the oldest advertising mascots in America. The Quaker Oats company registered him as the first trademark for a breakfast cereal in 1877.

If you enjoy oatmeal here are 5 favorite Hot Oatmeal recipes.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1891 – Fanny Brice (Borach) actress: Ziegfeld Follies; comedienne: Baby Snooks; subject of film: Funny Girl; died May 29, 1951

♥~ 1945 – The first commercially-made ballpoint pens went on sale — at Gimbels Department Store in New York City. The pens sold for $12.50 and racked up a tidy profit of $500,000 in the first month!

♥~ 1964 – The largest star sapphire in the world, the Star of India, was stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Fortunately, the gem was later found, unharmed.

♥~1969 –  The first connection on what would become the Internet was made today when bits of data flowed between computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute. This was the beginning of ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet developed by the Department of Defense.

♥~ 1983 – Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon became the longest-charting album of all time when it logged its 491st week on the Billboard Top 200 album chart.

★~Born Today:

♥~1933 –  Valerie Worth – author,  She’s most famous for her “small poems,” poems for children about everyday objects. She said “As a child, I preferred reading and writing to everything else, and I still feel much the same way. I was also greatly attracted to ‘smallness,’ perhaps because throughout grade school I myself was the smallest in my class.  Books include: (1972), Small Poems Again (1986), and Curlicues: The Fortunes of Two Pug Dogs (1980).

♥~ 1938 – Ralph Bakshi writer, director, animator: Hey Good Lookin’, Heavy Traffic, Fritz the Cat, Wizards, Streetfight; director, animator: The Lord of the Rings; writer, director: Fire and Ice; director: Cool World

♥~ 1947 – Richard Dreyfuss Academy Award-winning actor: The Goodbye Girl [1977]; Valley of the Dolls, Jaws, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lost in Yonkers, Nuts, American Graffiti, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Graduate, Postcards from the Edge, In Mama’s House, Karen, The Education of Max Bickford; TV narrator: American Chronicles

♥~ 1948 – Kate Jackson actress: Charlie’s Angels, The Rookies, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Baby Boom, Killer Bees, Satan’s School for Girls, Loverboy

♥~ 1971 – Winona Ryder (Winona Laura Horowitz) actress: Little Women, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Age of Innocence, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Lucas

★~ Did You Know: Introducing a few Hermits!

♥~ Robert Harrill was just the average down-on-his luck guy – he had some crappy jobs and a failed marriage. So he decided to scrap society and go live in the Fort Fisher State Recreation Area in North Carolina at the age of 62. He lived off of oysters and planted a vegetable garden; his home was an abandoned WWII bunker. But he didn’t avoid people the way most hermits do: he had tons of visitors and even a guestbook for them to sign. He was arrested as a vagrant several times, but was able to successfully defend himself in court and eventually, they gave up trying to prosecute him. He died in 1972, of a heart attack.

♥~ Noah John Rondeau was famous as the hermit of the Adirondack Mountains. Prior to hermithood, Rondeau was a guide in the western Adirondack High Peaks, which served him well when he retreated from society. He started living alone in the Cold River area in 1929 and was so reclusive that he even coded all of his journals with ciphers. The Conservation Department kicked him out in 1950, and 67-year-old Noah John went to work as Santa Clause in Wilmington, N.Y. He died in 1967, his journal ciphers weren’t cracked until 1992.

♥~ Willard Kitchener MacDonald was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, but hid in a shack near Gully Lake in Canada for more than 60 years. His reasoning? He wanted to avoid fighting in WWII. His records are a little sketchy, as you imagine a hermit’s might be, but it’s believed that he took up residence in the shack sometime between 1944 and 1950. He lived there alone until 2002, when his hut perished in a forest fire, taking his few possessions with it. The County then built him a little cabin, but in 2003, when some people tried to make him seek medical help, he fled back into woods. He died in 2004.

♥~ Valerio Ricetti lived a fairy tale hermit life in New South Wales, Australia– he turned a cave into an amazing dwelling that included a chapel, landscaping, terraced gardens and stairs. He lived in his little utopia for at least six years, until he fell and broke a leg. A passerby found him and took him to the hospital, which is how his hermitage was discovered – he had to give an “address” and his amazing work was discovered. He was unable to pay the doctor but instead sneaked into town and worked on his garden at night when no one would notice him. He and the doctor became good friends and he eventually became more sociable, even working for a while. Government officials deemed him harmless (and highly skilled in stonework). He worked for awhile before returning to his cave when “voices” told him his work was not yet finished. Eventually, he took the money he made working and went to Italy to visit his brother. He never returned to his “Hermit Cave,”  which is now on the New South Wales State Heritage Register.

♥~ Manfred Gnandinger a hermit who lived in the village of Camelle south of Germany arrived in town wearing nice clothes and appeared to be well-educated but when the young school teacher in town rejected him, he built himself a little hut on the beach and lived there for the next 40 years. He wore only a loincloth and was a vegetarian who only ate what he grew.

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Cole called me on his way to school this morning, to tell me to go outside and look at the moon…it was awesome. I did not see it last night but early this morno against the pale morning sky it took your breath away. Nice way to start a Monday. Along with apple cider donuts!

If you are in Sandy’s path be carefully out there and be sure to let your Facebook friends know how you’re doing! Virtual friendship counts and we worry when we know disaster is looming and we hear nary a word.

Wishing you a marvelous Monday!

♥~