~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
March 12, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.” (Old Indian)

★~ Napping Day: 

Napping Day provides an opportunity to adjust after changes to daylight savings. El Morno friend Teresa tracked down for us  everything you need to know about napping. Click quietly, please!

★~ Plant a Flower Day:

If you want to start native plants from seed this year and live north of the Mason-Dixon, you’ll definitely want to start your plants indoors about now to get blooms by summers’ end. It’s a fun project with the kids using cardboard egg cartons, eggshells, recycled yogurt cartons, toilet paper tubes or newspaper starter pots: the National Wildlife Federation has instructions here.

★~ Alfred Hitchcock Day:

Hitchcock is the cinematic pioneer behind so many classic thrillers. Diehard fans, as well as the easily distractible, can spot Hitchcock making cameo appearances in nearly all of his films. He was, for instance, a pet shop customer in The Birds and a bus passenger in To Catch A Thief.

★~  National Baked Scallops Day: (Food of the Day challenge #241)

Scallops are one of the most popular shellfish in the world. These meaty mollusks are low in fat and are delicious sautéed, deep fried, or baked!  Put scallops on the menu and in the oven for a delicious dinner!

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1841 – Englishman Orlando Jones patented that fabulous miracle food known as corn starch. Where would our gravy’s be without it

♥~ 1912 – The Girl Guides, the forerunner of the Girl Scouts of America, was founded. Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low assembled a group of eighteen girls from Savannah, Georgia for the first ever Girl Scout meeting. Low believed that all girls should have the opportunity to develop physically, mentally, and spiritually. She organized service projects, outdoor adventures, and enrichment programs to get girls out of house and into the community. Today, over 3.2 million girls and adults are active Girl Scout members, and over 50 million women are Girl Scout alumnae.

♥~ 1951 – “Mr. Wiiiiillllssssson!” The comic strip, Dennis the Menace, appeared for the first time in 16 newspapers across the U.S. The strip became an international favorite in thousands of newspapers

♥~ 1966 – Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks became the first player in the National Hockey League to score 51 points in a single season.

♥~ 1986 – History’s fattest cat died at age 10 in Cairns, Australia. The neutered male house cat named Himmy was 38 inches long and weighed 47 pounds.

♥~ 2001 – An anonymous donor pledged a no-strings-attached 0 million gift to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) of Troy, NY. It was the largest donation to a university in U.S. history.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1832 – Charles Boycott real estate agent: refused to lower rents, served eviction notices instead [1880]; tenants refused to deal with him; in other words, they boycotted Boycott making his name a part of the English language from then on; died Jun 19, 1897

♥~ 1933 – Barbara Feldon (Hall) actress: Get Smart, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

♥~ 1946 – Liza Minnelli Academy Award-winning actress: Cabaret [1972]; The Sterile Cuckoo, Arthur, Liza with a ‘Z’!; daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli

♥~ 1948 – James Taylor singer: You’ve Got a Friend, Handy Man, Fire & Rain, How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved By You

★~ Did You Know: 

♥~ Alfred Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar, yet sixteen of his films garnered fifty nominations, his 1940 classic Rebecca won Best Picture, and he was nominated as Best Director for Rebecca, Suspicion, Spellbound, Lifeboat, Rear Window and Psycho. “Always a bridesmaid,” he philosophized, “never a bride.”

♥~ Although Hitchcock, was not considered an “actor’s director,” such stars as Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Robert Walker, Grace Kelly, Doris Day, Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Tippi Hedren gave some of their finest performances in his films.

♥~  Hitchcock repeatedly watched  Smokey and the Bandit and Benji; the latter 1974 stray dog hit reportedly made the dog-loving Hitchcock cry.

♥~  Hitchcock married his screenwriter-editor-assistant director wife Alma in 1926 and they remained constant companions and working partners until he died in 1980.  Their only child, actress Patricia Hitchcock appeared on Broadway and in her father’s Stage Fright, Strangers On a Train and Psycho.

♥~ Hitchcock was famed for his wry, very British sense of humor which often expressed itself in practical jokes: pretending to lose the key to the handcuffs that bound together fhis The 39 Steps stars Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll; giving an elegant dinner party at which every course, from soup to dessert, was bright blue; switching off the lights on the set of Strangers On a Train and stranding his daughter Patricia at the top of a Ferris wheel.

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Today once was National Donkey Appreciation Day. But, apparently, donkey appreciation is waning.

I was up very late last night learning about Hannibal. Now I really know what it means when someone says “we were like Hannibal crossing the Alps.” Hannibal, it seems, marched 90,000 foot soldiers, 12,000 cavalry, and 37 elephants from Spain, through Gaul, over the Alps, and into Italy. I bet that was one smelly road trip. One of the questions on the paper Cole was writing was to consider if Hannibal was a classic tragic hero. Cole felt he was–after all Hannibal or, to some, Hannibal the Horrible, had a rough childhood and was fathered by a man with impossible expectations. He wanted him to conquer Rome. Cole also felt that Attila the Hun’s reputation was undeserved. I’m either raising a therapist or a Republican.

It’s our first Monday after springing forward and losing an hour of sleep. Lose or gain an hour…I can’t win. My pups don’t wake up any later when we gain an hour, and I have to wake them up when we lose an hour. Let’s all hope El Morno friend Carol gets the time on her “shitty clock that requires a ladder” changed without breaking her neck. My Facebook page would simple not be the same without her. My sweet mother refuses to change her car clock, while Cole thinks the Monday after daylight savings time starts should be a national holiday. Here is a fun daylight savings time video:

Did you spring forward with a smile or curse?

Hope you have a very Merry Monday!

♥