★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
February 2, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote: 

If candlemas day be fair and bright,

winter will take another flight.

if candlemas day be cloud and rain,

winter is gone and will not come again.

~ from festivals, family and food

 

★~ Candlemas:

The word February is believed to have derived from the name ‘Februa’ taken from the Roman ‘Festival of Purification’. The root ‘februo’ meaning to ‘I purify by sacrifice’. As part of the seasonal calendar February is the time of the ‘Ice Moon’ according to Pagan beliefs, and the period described as the ‘Moon of the Dark Red Calf’ by Black Elk. February has also been known as ‘Sprout-kale’ by the Anglo-Saxons in relation to the time the kale and cabbage was edible.”

Candlemas marks the midpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. South of the equator, of course, it’s the exact opposite. In many traditions it is considered the beginning of spring. It’s the dawn of the year. It’s the time of germination.

Now is the time of stirring when the earth begins to soften and the waters to flow, while frost still bites & winds blow,and the light is growing stronger, and life begins to wake. This is the feast of Brigid, the goddess of fire & water. She is the year’s midwife who births the sun. Through the union of fire & water, the ancients, our forebears, worked magic to call in the spring, So let us join together as one folk to make our offerings in joy and reverence. For all that dies shall be re-born. Thank you, Facebook Friend Hazel!

Celebrate today by lighting candles, cleaning your home, planting some seeds (if the ground is warm enough), or starting something; Candlemas is a time of new beginnings. Light a fire and toast some marshmallows; allow your spirit to shine brightly.

Ground Hog Day:

February 2 brings the most-watched weather forecast of the year—and the only one led by a rodent. Legend has it that on this morning, if a groundhog can see its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If it cannot see its shadow, spring is on the way. A groundhog (or woodchuck or “whistle pig”)  became the predictor of spring because it hibernates during the winter months, and when you begin to see them above ground it is a natural sign of spring. Germans who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the mid-1800s began keeping an eye on the groundhog. The widespread population of the rodent made it a handy weather forecaster.

In the 1880s some friends in Punxsutawney, Penn., went into the woods on Candlemas Day to look for groundhogs. This outing became a tradition, and a local newspaper editor nicknamed the seekers “the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.” Starting in 1887 the search became an official event centered on a groundhog called Punxsutawney Phil. A ceremony still takes place every year.

Today Punxsutawney Phil lives in a climate-controlled habitat adjoining the Punxsutawney Library. A local celebrity, he gained national fame in the 1993 movie Groundhog Day (which was shot in scenic Woodstock, Illinois). The weather-watching rodent’s predictions are recorded in the Congressional Records of our National Archive. So far, Phil has seen his shadow about 85% of the time.

Canada’s Groundhog Day relies on the predictions of an albino groundhog named Wiarton Willie. Although Punxsutawney Phil gets the most attention, various American cities have their own special groundhogs; New York City’s official groundhog is called “Pothole Pete.”There’s no Groundhog Day in Alaska. For which we can thank Sarah Palin. There aren’t many groundhogs in Alaska, so then-Gov. Sarah Palin signed a bill officially designating February 2 as Marmot Day. The Marmot can’t forecast the weather, but he may be the only rodent that can see Russia from his burrow.

★~ Crepe Day:

The French call Candlemas Chandeleur, Fête de la Lumière,* or jour des crêpes. They celebrate Chandeleur by eating a lot of crêpes, and they also do a bit of fortune telling while making them. It is tradition to hold a coin in your writing hand and a crêpe pan in the other, and flip the crêpe into the air. If you manage to catch the crêpe in the pan, your family will be prosperous for the rest of the year. If the crepe falls on the ground, I predict you will yell “oh, crap!” and the dog will prosper.  Here is a great recipe (2 1/2 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk a pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon of rum. Put in blender and cook 1/4 of batter in preheated non-stick pan.

★~ Heavenly Hash Day:

Heavenly hash is a dessert! Really? What about hash say’s dessert? Although I have to admit these heavenly hash bars look pretty good.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1653 – New York City was incorporated . At the time, its Dutch settlers called it New Amsterdam.

♥~ 1913 – One of the busiest buildings in New York, the Grand Central Terminal, opened.

♥~ 1940 – Frank Sinatra had a hit single with the song “New York, New York” in 1980. That was 40 years after he got a big break by joining the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. His first performance with the Dorsey band was February 2, 1940.

♥~ 1959 – The Coasters tune, Charlie Brown, was released. The tune went to #2 and stayed there for three weeks, but didn’t make it to the top spot of the charts. A catchy song (“Fee fee fi fi fo fo fum. I smell smoke in the auditorium…”), it was on the charts for a total of 12 weeks. And what song was at number one, preventing Charlie Brown from reaching the top, you ask? Venus, by Frankie Avalon

★~ Trending Right Now:

♥~ Groundhog Day 2013: Will ‘Punxsutawney Phil’ See His Shadow?

♥~ The Ed Koch Show: “I never doubted that I would be a good mayor,” said Ed Koch, with a self-satisfied smile. “I never did.”

♥~ Warm Bodies: Movie. A funny new twist on a classic love story, WARM BODIES is a poignant tale about the power of human connection. After a zombie epidemic, R (a highly unusual zombie) encounters Julie (a human survivor), and rescues her from a zombie attack. Julie sees that R is different from the other zombies, and as the two form a special relationship in their struggle for survival, R becomes increasingly more human – setting off an exciting, romantic, and often comical chain of events that begins to transform the other zombies and maybe even the whole lifeless world.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1882 – James Joyce poet, author: once said, “The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.” Joyce wrote Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan’s Wake (1939); an autobiographical novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (1916); and a short-story collection, Dubliners (1914), among other works.

He was educated by Jesuits, first visited a prostitute at the age of 14, dropped out of medical school and aspired to be an opera star. He met and fell in love with a Galway hotel maid named Nora Barnacle when he was 22 years old, and he set the action of Ulysses on the day he had his first date with Nora, June 16, 1904. It’s now commemorated all over the world each year as Bloomsday, after the novel’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom.

Joyce liked to drink and he liked to dance; his daughter-in-law said that “liquor went to his feet, not head.” He usually sat with his legs crossed with the toe of one crossed again under the calf of the other. He was kind and generous to strangers, and he was known to invite waiters to join him at his table for food and drink. His friend, Sylvia Beach, proprietor of Shakespeare and Co., said that Joyce “treated people invariably as his equals, whether they were writers, children, waiters, princesses, or charladies. What anybody had to say interested him; he told me that he had never met a bore.

♥~ 1947 – Farrah Fawcett actress: Charlie’s Angels, The Burning Bed; ex-Mrs. Lee Majors; Playboy pictorial [12/95]; died Jun 25, 2009

♥~ 1954 – Christie Brinkley model: Cover Girl Cosmetics; actress: National Lampoon’s Vacation

★~ Saturday Giggles

In this clever ad, a British Columbia film crew appears to be headed for disaster, yet the result is advertising so fresh, you’ll swear it was just pulled out of the dryer.

Move over, Snuggle bear, there’s a new beast in town

[youtube]http://youtu.be/eryxAcsTcOA[/youtube]

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It snowed last night. An inch or two. This past week was the anniversary week of the big Chicago Blizzard  of 2011, so perhaps Father Winter was feeling a little nostalgic. The bad news is my campers are all “little dogs,”  who are not fond of the white stuff. Rascal likes the idea of snow, she always dashes outside with a lot of terrier enthusiasm and then turns and rushes back inside with that same enthusiasm. Like a little kid, the moment she is toweled off and warm she ready to try again.

What are your plans for the day?

Odd Loves Company!

♥