~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
April 14, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. Jean Houston

★~ International One Moment Of Laughter Day:

Imagine coming home and having your house demolished because the contractor misread the address. It’s funny because it is just so awful, and I’m pretty sure it could happen to me. I love what the City of Pittsburg said at the news conference: “We will no longer offer housing demolition contracts to the company that tore down the wrong house by mistake.” Ya think?

Years ago my grandfather flew in to visit us and at dinner that night, complained that once again his luggage had arrived without his luggage tags. He was certain his luggage was being targeted by luggage tag thugs. My grandfather was a somewhat frail,  soft-spoken man, and the mere thought of luggage tag thugs lying in wait for his baggage to show up two or three times a year so they could ruthlessly rip the tags off struck me as hilarious. And the more he’d explain how carefully he attached the tags and how he’d bought good leather tags, the harder I laughed. Of course, the fact that he was clueless as to what was so funny just made it funnier. When he died, I made sure I inherited his luggage tags.

Cole had a cell phone before most of his friends, and as a result, he seldom received calls on it from anyone other than his grandparents or me. We were driving home from school one day when it started to ring, but he couldn’t find it (been there, right?). The phone is ringing, and Cole is frantically searching for it, and I am laughing so hard I have to pull over. Of course, he finds it just as it stops ringing. Furious, he looks at the phone and says, “Why do these things ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME.” Oh God! I am still recovering.

El Morno friend TCN shares with me one night during a late night Facebook conversation, one of her Facebook friends made a Facebook Christmas tree with ornaments that included all the names of her friends—all the names but TCN name.  She assured me that she looked and she looked, and even went back every day to see if she had been added . . . but no, she hadn’t been. TCN was the little ornament that wasn’t. Laughing hard, I tried to assure TCN that if I ever made a Facebook Christmas tree she would be the star. The STAR! To this day, when I’m feeling a little down, I beg her to tell me the Christmas tree story.

I could go on and on and on. I’m easily amused, and luckily, I live with a teen and have a family that shares my sense of humor, so we laugh hard almost every day. Celebrate International Moment of Laughter Day by laughing hard and hanging around amusing people. In my opinion, life’s greatest revenge is laugher. Remind me someday to tell you about Joe and the coffee can, or my dad and his shoe shine.

★~ Reach As High as You Can Day:

Reaching high” might mean reaching for your dreams, aligning your body and soul with the perfect stretch, or finally pulling the stuff off the top shelf and getting rid of that punch bowl you always hated. No matter what you are reaching for, a good stretch feels great. Don’t worry El Morno friend Aussie Antoinette—we know you are on the more demure side—just reach as high as you can and ask for a boost if you need one.

★~ Ex-spouse Day:

The purpose of ESD is not to encourage post-divorce vandalism, prank phone calls, etc. Instead, the holiday is dedicated to helping those with irreconcilable differences forgive, forget, and move on.

One suggestion for how to celebrate today is to return any items, which you’ve held onto out of spite, to that lying, cheating, no good . . . ex-spouse. You’ll feel better once you returned that chainsaw.

★~ Retro Candy Day:

What is retro candy? The kind of candy you ate as a kid, of course—

Atomic Fire Balls, BB Bats, Bit-O-Honey, Black Jack Taffy, Boston Baked Beans, Bubble Gum Cigar, Maple Bun, Butterfingers, Candy Buttons on paper tape, Candy Cigarettes, Candy Necklace, Caramel Creams (Bull’s Eyes), Charleston Chew,  Cherry Mash, Chick-o-Stick,,Chuckles, Chunky,  Clark Bar, Dots, Dubble Bubble Gum, Fizzies Drink Tablets, Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy, Good & Plenty, Heath Bar, Honeycombed Peanuts, Jawbreakers, Jelly Nougats, Junior Mints, Kits Taffy, Lemonheads, Life Savers, Marshmallow Ice Cream Cone, Milk Duds, Necco Wafers, Pixie Stixs, Red Hots, Root Beer Barrels, Saf-T-Pops, Sen Sen, Sky Bar, Smarties,  Peppermint Stick, Sugar Daddy, Teaberry Gum, Tootsie Pops,, Walnettos, Wax Bottles (Nik-L-Nips), Wax Lips, Zagnut and Zero Bar

Now, before  we celebrate Retro Candy Day, I am going to offer full disclosure: today is supposed to be National Pecan Day—again. But I said to myself, it’s nuts to celebrate Pecan Day again we just celebrated it on March 25.  El Morno friend Debbie doesn’t even like nuts, so why should she have to suffer the injustice of a second Pecan Day? So I changed National Pecan Day to Rocking Retro Candy Day. And here is the brilliance of my plan: if you feel guilty for not celebrating pecans, have a piece of retro candy with pecans in it! YES!

If you are visiting El Morno today to find out how to celebrate National Pecan Day, please click here, and you will be transported over to the National Pecan Day post or here Pecan Day (we have National Pecan day covered!)

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1902 – James Cash Penney opened his first store — in Kemmerer Wyoming. In partnership with Thomas M. Callahan and William Guy Johnson, J.C. Penney named the store Golden Rule. The dry goods and clothing store had a first-year profit of $8,514.36 on sales of $28,898.

♥~ 1980 – Stan Mikita retired after 21 years with the Chicago Black Hawks. His #21 jersey became the first Blackhawks number to be retired.

♥~ 1979- The Doobie Brothers went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘What A Fool Believes’, the group’s second US No.1.

★~Born Today:

♥~1866 – Anne Sullivan (Macy) ‘The Miracle Worker’: famous for teaching the blind and deaf Helen Keller to read, write and speak; died Oct 20, 1936

♥~1912 –  Robert Doisneau  was one of the original street photographers — he wandered the streets of Paris snapping away with his Leica camera decades before thousands of Brooklyn’s hipsters would do the same throughout Williamsburg. Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Town Hall),” a photograph of lovers kissing in the streets of Paris taken in 1950, became his most famous work.

♥~1925 – Rod Steiger (Rodney Stephen Steiger) Academy Award-winning actor: In the Heat of the Night [1967]; On the Waterfront, The Pawnbroker, Dr. Zhivago, The Longest Day, Back Water, In Pursuit of Honor, Mars Attacks!; died July 9, 2002

♥~1935 – Loretta Lynn country singer: Coal Miner’s Daughter, I’m a Honky-Tonk Girl, One’s on the Way, The Pill; 1st woman to earn the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award; named ACM Artist of the Decade [1979]

♥~1941 – Julie Christie actress: Dr. Zhivago, Petulia, Shampoo, Separate Tables, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Fahrenheit 451

♥~1960 – Brad Garrett comedian, entertainer, actor: Everybody Loves Raymond, ’Til Death, The Pacifier, The Moguls

★~ Did You Know:  Here are a few simple stretches to help you reach your dreams or the punchbowl.

♥ ~ Standing and doing light trunk twists: Arms out and lightly twisting, you should be able to look behind you but don’t force it, just nice rotation.

♥~ Hamstring stretch with leg up: Put one leg on a ledge, for example a stool, chair, or counter. Slowly reach with your hand to touch your toe, lean forward slowly and hold for a nice stretch.  Hold for an 8 count, rest and then do another 8 count.  Do both legs, this will feel great when done.

♥~ Toe touch: Stand and put your legs shoulder width apart, and just “hang” down.  Don’t force it, let the hang gradually pull you lower.  Your hamstrings will already be a little looser from the stretch you did earlier, and your lower back and hips will also feel the stretch.  Hang for an 8 or 10 count, come up, and do it one more time.

♥~ Arms up and out stretch: Standing up, hold your hands together and reach as high as you can to the ceiling and hold.  Sit in a computer chair and reach high and back stretching the ribs and upper body.  Reach straight out with both arms and extend back and hold, stretching the chest for an 8 count also.

#

I have noticed something Odd over the past few weeks; people have been using the search term midget (Mom, this means that people type midget in their Internet Explorer search box) and ending up at Odd. As far as I know, we have never celebrated Midget Day, nor have I ever written anything about midgets. I was ready to blow it off as a fluke until people showed up looking for naked midgets and naked dancing midgets! Really??? Do I look like someone who would write about naked midgets or naked midgets dancing? Let me answer that question—NO! No, I would not. I’m not sure if midgets is even the politically correct term. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Restricted Growth Association and the Little People of America found the word offensive. Oh my stars! I’ve got it! Right now, in real time (Saturday 1:56 a.m.)! I wrote a blurb on February 10 about the wedding of two of the world’s most famous midgets, General Tom Thumb (three feet four inches) and his lovely bride, Lavinia Warren (two feet eight inches),and now I have become the go-to blog for dancing naked midgets—which goes to show, you just never know.

It’s late . . . El Morno comes early . . . I’m probably the only person you know who owns her own business, works at home, works the night shift, and dabbles in naked dancing midget research.

What’s new with you? Odd Loves Company!

♥