~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥
April 26, 2013
★~Today’s Quote: Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.~ Charles M. Schulz
★~Hug an Australian Day:
G’day mate! Today we pay tribute to the Ozzie’s in our lives that we know and love. Odd’s Ozzie mascot is Antoinette. If you don’t have an Ozzie to hug today, we’ll share our Ozzie with you… I’m sure Antoinette won’t mind a hug from you. Just leave her one in the comments like this {{{{ }}}}.
~ No part of Australia is more than 621 miles from the ocean.
~ Australia is not connected by land to any other country and so it had developed its own wildlife. The kangaroo, the koala, the emu and the kookaburra are among the creatures found only in Australia.
~ The Tasmanian Devil does exist, and it has the jaw strength of a crocodile.
★~ Pretzel Day:
Not sure what to munch on today? Well, let me give you a hint: Thick or thin? Straight or twisted? Crisp and crunchy, or soft? Salted, unsalted, mustard flavored, perhaps? Yep, it’s Pretzel Day. Pretzels are believed to be the world’s oldest snack, dating back to 610AD in Southern France. Monks baked thin strips of dough into the shape of a child’s arms folded in prayer. Add a little salt, and Voila!…the pretzel industry was born.
★~ Today in History:
♥~ 1819 – The first Odd Fellows lodge in the U.S. was established in Baltimore, Maryland. The official name of the organization is theIndependent Order (of) Odd Fellows or IOOF. The main focus of the fraternal order is “to relieve the brethren, bury the dead, and care for the widow and the orphan.” This focus has been broadened through the years to include the principles of friendship, love and truth. The Odd Fellows maintain homes for the aged, the poor, widows and orphans and provide members with financial aid in sickness or death. Membership of the order is more than 1.5 million.
♥~1937 – The publisher of LIFE magazine just about passed out when he looked at his just-off-the-press publication and noticed that someone had forgotten to put the word “LIFE” in the upper left-hand corner! It was the only time that LIFE was nameless. Since hundreds of thousands of copies were already printed, the magazine hit the streets with no name on the cover! The reason? A picture of a rooster would have had an obscured comb if the logotype had been used in the upper left-hand corner as usual.
♥~1941 – The first organ was played at a baseball stadium (Cubs)– in Chicago, IL.
♥~1975 – On top of the Billboard popular music chart was B.J. Thomas, with the longest title ever for a number one song. (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song was number one for one week.
★~ Born Today:
♥~ 1785 – John James Audubon ornithologist, artist: the original Birdman; died Jan 27, 1851
♥~ 1900 – Charles Francis Richter’s – Richter, an American author, physicist and seismologist. His work led to the development if the Richter scale.
♥~ 1904 – Charles K. Feldman film producer: Casino Royale, What’s New, Pussycat, Walk on the Wild Side, The Seven Year Itch, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie
♥~ 1916 – Morris West Australian novelistand playwright, best known for his novels The Devil’s Advocate (1959), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), and The Clowns of God (1981). His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than 1 million copies.
♥~ 1933 – Carol Burnett Emmy Award-winning comedienne, actress: Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall [1962-1963], Carol & Company [1962-1963], Mad About You [1996-1997]; The Carol Burnett Show, Carol Burnett and Friends, The Garry Moore Show
♥~ 1963 – Jet Li- actor: Fearless, Cradle 2 the Grave, The One, Kiss of the Dragon, Romeo Must Die, Lethal Weapon 4
♥~ 1971 – Jay DeMarcus, Country musician (Rascal Flats)
★~ Good to Know: This Weeks Odd Story:
Tiger, Tiger…In the bathroom?? Jenna Krehbiel of Salina, Kansas walked into a restroom and came face-to-face with a tiger. She had just watched the big cat act at the Isis Shrine Circus at the Salina Bicentennial Centennial Center, but she didn’t expect to meet one of the stars.
“I went in to use the bathroom, and a lady came in to get her daughter out and said there was a tiger loose,” Krehbiel, who was a first-time visitor to the circus, told the Salina Journal. “I didn’t know it was in the bathroom, and I walked in the (open) door, which closed right after I had walked in. I saw the tiger; it was at most two feet in front of me, and I turned around calmly and walked back toward the door.”
The tiger had escaped at some point during the show, according to Center officials, prompting staffers to lock down the area, but the roughly 25-foot-long bathroom apparently had more than one entrance — Krehbiel came in from the other side, putting her “the closest [she’d] ever been to a tiger not in a cage.”
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I would stay and chat, but I have our last shoe review to post. Hope you have a Grrrrrreart Day!
Just curious, what is the strangest close encounter you’ve ever had? Amuse me, somebody has too.
Odd Loves Company!
♥
{{{{ }}}}
I don’t have an Aussie close to hug so there is one for Antoinette! Although I did have a dream about Australia the night before last after I watched a show on kangaroos on tv before going to bed.. It was a bit frightening so I won’t go into details here! 🙂 Happy Friday!
We don’t get to analyze your dream. Sigh. Happy Friday to you…a little late.
Morno,
Pretzels are a world class snack. I don’t know any Australians, but I’m happy to hug Antoinette. My strangest encounter was a gator on a golf course. It wasn’t a surprise that there was a gator on a golf course in Florida, but it sure the heck surprised us. It was sunning itself on the 11th hole. We didn’t stick around.
TGIF. Have a good one.
Good idea to leave that gator speedy quick, rumor has it they are a lot quicker than they look. I don’t like those kinds of surprises. TGIF.
Thank you for the hugs, Beth and Mike! I’m a very lucky (and tired) aussie! {{{HUGS}}}
ps. Beth, better to dream of kangaroos than a tasmanian devil, they’re scary looking things.
Hope you got lots of hugs, if not you can extend hug day over the weekend…your writing reports I believe and will need them
MORNO,
I remember hugging Antoinette last year, wasn’t she traveling on some big trip? Anyway, happy to send another hug. I would love to go to Australia.
Pretzels are main stay in our house. Good snack all the way around.
Thinking about the close encounter, but it would hard to top running into a tiger in the bathroom.
TGIF!
Antoinette was on her big trip last year and she is coming to the USA this year, so we will hug her in person.
Hugs to Antoinette since I don’t know any Aussies to wrap my arms around!!
A tiger in the bathroom?? Yikes, and she had presence of mind to leave? Hmm, I bet a lot of other people would have “lost it” right there, considering as how she obviously had to “go” in the first place!!
She claims her training as a social worker kept her calm. One has to wonder where she works!
Hugs to Antoinette!
I couldn’t possible top that tiger story.
MJ
Are you sure??
we have/had relatives in australia. i remember my mom sending an air mail letter before the holidays.
i love pretzels! have gotten into the wheat honey twists.
good day!
I will have to try honey twists! I love pretzels. Not as much as Lays, but a lot.
I miss Australia soooo much! I began my doctoral work there in James Cook University in Cairns, and then had to leave when my preceptor went to U Taz and there was no other faculty who could supervise an international online student. Univ. of Tasmania doesn’t doa nursing PhD online. Sigh…. Ihope to get back some day soon. Most beautiful country i’ve ever seen. {{{{Australia}}}
I’m sure you will go back, and now you have sealed with a hug.
Apologies for the typos. Cold here today and the arthritis in my hands is acting up.
Typo’s what typos? Odd rule, we ignore all typos. Sorry about the arthritis.
Hugs to Antoinette. {{{{ }}}}
I will try to amuse you with my close encounter.
Many many years ago I was one of four adult chaperones for a boy scout camping trip. They had to earn a wilderness camping badge so this group of 11-12 year old boys, plus us adults planned a week long survival type camping trip in what is referred to as the “interior” of Algonquin Park, which is in Ontario Canada. The interior part of the trip meant we left our vehicles in a parking lot and loaded up a total of six canoes with gear and food for a week. No tents, just rope and light tarps. Then we set out on a circular route through the series of lakes, rivers, and marshland, part of which required us to portage. Portaging just means lugging the canoes and all the crap over land to get to the next body of water along the route. It’s impossible to portage a canoe full of stuff so a portage requires two trips or even three if there is a lot of heavy stuff. The land was usually rocky, hilly, bush terrain that was not easy to get through.
Day one we set out in great spirits until I accidentally tipped a canoe while getting in. Everything in my canoe got soaked so we had to make camp early to dry out the stuff. That’s when we realized all, and I do mean all, the toilet paper (bio degradable natch) was completely destroyed. Us adults made the executive decision to carry on. After all, we all knew the difference between poison ivy or oak leaves and the non poisonous types. Next morning dawned grey and forbidding, but we marched valiantly forth. Big mistake. By afternoon it was pouring rain.
By day three there had been no let up in the rain. Everyone was soaked and miserable. But by then we were nearly halfway around our journey. We thought it would take about as long to go back as it would to continue. So we carried bravely on.
Day five and it was still raining. We’d had no hot food for 24 hours because there was no dry wood. We were trying to survive on freeze dried rations that we could only soak in cold lake water mixed with nasty iodine tablets to clean the water. We were coming up to the second to last portage, but it was a brute – 2 miles overland. One mile straight uphill and the other mile a treacherous steep downhill. We were too exhausted to carry much so faced three trips. I only had to do two because while the other adults went back for the final load I got to hang with the scout troop and try to cheer them up. Fortunately I’d managed to tuck away and keep dry a full bag of Oreo cookies.
The portage took most of the day. Decision, keep pushing on and make camp farther on, which meant we’d be back to our vehicles and civilization the next evening – a day early, or camp right there. The scouts got the vote that time. Perhaps buoyed by the Oreos they elected to carry on. So on we went, paddling our canoes. We were still paddling when darkness fell. It was a dark night and still raining. Canoeing in the dark is not a recommended activity and we had to slow down. I was in the lead canoe when we slammed into something pretty hard. We shined a flashlight and realized we’d run up against a beaver dam. It was just above the level of the water and about five feet across – built of sticks and mud. There was no way around. To speed the process of getting over it I volunteered to get out and stand on the dam and try to drag each canoe over it. I did mention it was pitch dark. You couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face. It was late – past midnight and we were all tired. The campsite was just beyond the dam. So I started to drag and pull and heave canoes while those in the canoe helped by rocking to and fro and trying to dig their paddles into the dam. I didn’t think our plan would work but in my efforts I backed into a tree and used it to brace myself which seemed to work. So we slowly got that first canoe over the dam. And the next, and two after that. It was just as I was heaving on the fifth canoe that I suddenly felt the tree I was using to brace myself shift and I felt something hot and damp whoosh past my neck. I froze. The pair in the canoe started to complain, wondering why I had stopped. Shsst I whispered. Can you shine a light over here – just past my shoulder? I tell you every hair on my head was standing on edge. I had no idea what was beside me but I suddenly realized that it was not likely to be a tree since they don’t exactly grow in the middle of a beaver dam. A boy scout shone his light and we all sucked in our breath at the same time. It was a freakin moose. A big bull moose with antlers And it appeared I’d woken it up from his slumber. It was massive. And it’s snout was breathing heavily down my neck. Now, for those who have never seen a moose up close and personal, they are big. They can be as tall as 7 feet at shoulder height. And weigh up to 700 lbs. and while usually pretty placid, if startled or angered they can get extremely aggressive. Holy crap! I’d been leaning up against that moose for quite some time. Instinct kicked in. I turned to that boy scout who was still shining his light in the moose’s eyes and told him to turn it the heck off (or words to that effect). Then with one mighty heave I got their canoe over the dam. I grabbed the front of the last one and practically threw it over the dam, leaping into it as it hit the water on the other side. That’s when I yelled, MOOSE and we all took off just as we heard a mighty splashing behind us.
We made it to the campsite in no time, let me tell you. Thinking about it even now makes my palms sweat and heart race, even as I have to chuckle. So hope I amused you with my close encounter.
OMG…I am going to have to read that story a few more times. Running out of TP that is awful…Good Lord. You were brave. 😀
Ok, I know about Moose from being in Alaska and they can be very ornery! I think your moose, knew you were miserable (hard, hard, hard to pass on the pun) and decide to give you a break. On the other hand you are standing in live water…where anything could live…last night, in the dark? CRAZY. I’m tell you not even a bag of Oreos could save that trip for me. And yet, you do have a very good story…..And I was very amused. Thank you. I’m going to read it again.
My mother just read your story and said the same thing I did–In the water, in the dark…Oh no! Not us.