~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
April 15, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote: When I hear somebody say ‘Life is hard’, I am always tempted to ask ‘Compared to what?’ Syndey Harris

★~ Life Sucks Day:

Have you met Sucktopia? A giant monster who reaches out and snatches your “Life is Good” t-shirt and replaces it with a “Life Sucks” t-shirt?

After I told Cole his dad died, he looked at me in horror and disbelief and said, “Mom this really, really sucks.” “This sucks” stuck. Ever since that defining moment in our lives, I have stopped saying I am sorry to friends and family when bad things happen but instead say, “That really sucks.”  People usually look at me with relief because they know I get it; they know I am on a first-name basis with Sucktopia.

Today we give Sucktopia her due and acknowledge that co-workers who are professionally inept and socially repugnant suck; family members who are ill tempered, dimwitted misfits, psychos, and felons suck; and medical insurance, gas prices, and taxes flat out suck. Death, without a doubt, sucks for those left behind.

About six months after Joe died, Cole said to me, “Mom, dad dying sucks, but life is still pretty good.”  I hugged my kid and stuck my tongue out at Sucktopia, who sucked away.

Because Life Suck Day falls on a Sunday it will start at 3pm and go until tomorrow at 12   noon.

★~ Take A Wild Guess Day: 

How perfect!  As many of you know, I have a dream of being a bookie. My El Morno friends indulge my dream by encouraging me to set up pools for anything and everything. Currently, we are running a baby pool to celebrate the upcoming arrival of El Morno friend Julianne’s grandswan. The grand prize is $50, and we have a few other prizes as well. Guesses are free, and you don’t need to know Julianne to play. Just click Joyce’s baby pool, and you will be clicked over to the Expectnet site where you can “Take a Wild Guess.”  There are even some hints on the guess page!

★~ Rubber Eraser Day:

Without the invention of the rubber eraser, our faux pas would not be erased, and our documents and drawings would be messy. We would live in a constant state of “do over.”  Today we are grateful for the invention of erasers!

★~ Glazed-Spiral Ham Day:

I have no idea why we are celebrating Glazed-Spiral Ham Day the Sunday after Easter. At Easter the food of the day was empanadas. Odd. The good news for me is that Cole was out of town over Easter, so today is a do over for us. We love ham!  If you are hammed out, may I suggest having beef- or chicken-filled empanadas.  Late breaking news I learned in some countries they call empanadas curry puffs.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1770- The rubber eraser was invented (more or less)by the noted scientist Sir Joseph Priestley (discoverer of oxygen).

♥~ 1934 – Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead welcomed a baby boy, Alexander, to the comic strip, Blondie. The child would be nicknamed, Baby Dumpling.

♥~ 1955 – “Two all beef patties…” This is the anniversary of McDonald’s. Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s — in Des Plaines, IL. Kroc began his career by selling milk shake machines. Among his first customers were the McDonald brothers from Southern California. After selling them several machines and watching the efficiency of their drive-in restaurant, Kroc bought the rights to market the brothers’ good fortune and hired them to work for him. On his first day of business, sales of 15-cent hamburgers and 10-cent French fries totaled $366.12. Thirty years later, McDonald’s grossed a whopping $8.6 billion annually

♥~ 1956 – The worlds’ first all-color, TV station was dedicated — in Chicago, IL. It was named WNBQ-TV and is now WMAQ-TV

♥~ 1971 – George C. Scott refused the Oscar for his Best Actor performance in Patton at the 43rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony at LA’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He had previously told reporters that he did not want the honor, saying (after the votes had been cast and tallied), “It is degrading to have actors in competition with each other.” Scott called the Oscar ceremony, “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.

♥~ 1989 – Roy Orbison’s You Got It hit #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first top-ten hit for Orbison since Oh, Pretty Woman in 1964.

♥~ 1947 – Jackie Robinson played his first major-league baseball game (he had played exhibition games previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He went 0-for-4 against Boston. Robinson did get on base due to an error and scored the winning run in a 5-3 win for the Dodgers.

★~Born Today:

♥~1452 – Leonardo da Vinci artist: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Virgin of the Rocks, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne; died May 2, 1519

♥~1933 – Elizabeth Montgomery actress: Bewitched, Robert Montgomery Presents; died May 18, 1995.

♥~ 1951 – Heloise (Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans) newspaper columnist, writer: Hints from Heloise; she took over the Heloise empire after her mother, the original Heloise, died in 1977

♥~1990 – Emma Watson actress: Harry Potter series.

Did You Know:

♥~ McDonald’s serves 1% of the world’s population every day

♥~  McDonald’s sells more than 75 hamburgers every second

♥~ McDonald’s’ $24 billion in revenue makes it the 90th-largest economy in the world

♥~ McDonald’s hires around 1 million workers in the US every year

♥~ According to company estimates, one in every eight American workers has been employed by McDonald’s

♥~  The Queen of England owns a McDonald’s near Buckingham Palace as part of her vast real estate portfolio

♥~ McDonald’s delivers — in 18 countries!

♥~ The only place in the lower 48 that is more than 100 miles from a McDonald’s is a barren plain in South Dakota

♥~ About one-third of Mexico’s sesame seed crop is purchased by McDonald’s for its buns and there are roughly 380 seeds on each one.

♥~ In Japan, Ronald McDonald is known as Donald McDonald because there is no “r” sound in Japanese.

♥~ With all the talk of dead-end “McJobs”, McDonald’s actually provides its employees comprehensive benefits, including medical, dental, 401(k) matching, and offers workers a program called Mc$ave, a money market fund managed by T. Rowe Price (TROW).

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I am spring cleaning my house one room at a time, and yesterday, I finished my bedroom. I was trying to resist the urge to paint when Cole asked me if he could paint my bedroom with a buddy. I was promised the family discount. We live in Joe’s childhood home. Joe’s dad built the house and made sure his boys learned painting, wood work, electrical work, tiling, and plumbing skills. I see no reason not to continue the tradition, so more than likely, I will choose a color and hire Cole and his buddy to do the job. I will simple tell them the same thing my sweet mother always told me before I started a project: “If you make a mess and don’t clean it up, I will kill you.” Aren’t traditions great?

It’s a soggy Sunday in Chicago, but that’s ok because I’m going to tackle two more rooms in my house. What are you up to today? Odd Loves Company!

♥