Eat a Cranberry Day, Expresso Day, Odds and Ends

~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
November 23, 2013

Sunny November (Explored Nov 22, 2013 # 2)

★~  Today’s Quote:  “In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important” — The Doctor, #Season 6

★~ Eat a Cranberry Day:

Cranberries

While they may be very good for you, most people don’t snack on fresh cranberries due to their bitter taste. However, we can appreciate cranberries today, perhaps munch on some dried one’s and on Thanksgiving celebrate them to their fullest! Do we have a plan?

~ The word cranberry comes from “craneberry”;  first named by the early European settlers in America who felt the expanding flower, stem, calyx and petals resembled the neck, head and bill of a crane.

~ Cranberries come from the cranberry bush, a dwarf shrub that grows in acidic bogs. Commercially, cranberries are grown in cranberry beds, which are surrounded by dykes to hold water in, allowing the bushes to be grown in water.

~ Wisconsin is the leading producer of cranberries, with over half of U.S. production.

~ Raw cranberries have been marketed as a “superfruit” due to their nutrient content and antioxidant qualities.

~ Laboratory studies indicate that extracts containing cranberry may have anti-aging effects.

~ Cranberries are tart and bitter on their own

★~ Espresso Day:

caffe-expresso

I have to admit that I have never experienced what aficionados claim to be coffee in its truest form; espresso. Too strong!  Generally, espresso describes any type of coffee that has been brewed by steam. The word refers to the method of preparation and not to any specific brand. But like all relative things in life, some espressos are better than others.

Louis Bernard Babaut invented the first known espresso machine in 1822. It was commercialized by Edward Loysel de Santais in 1843 and presented to the world at the Paris Exposition in 1855. This early machine had two teeny, tiny drawbacks. It sort of blew up from time to time whenever a steam fitting or chamber failed, taking with it whosoever had mastered (or in this case, failed to master), the secrets of its operation. Another drawback was that the coffee would burn if care was not taken to insure that the steam chamber didn’t get too hot. Making espresso in the old days, was a real art that required skill, knowledge and interpretation on the part of the operator.

Fortunately today you can just pop into your local coffee house and order an espresso to be made especially for you and delivered to you expresso

★~ Today in History:

Google Doodle

♥~  1889 – The Jukebox made its debut at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It consisted of an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph inside an oak cabinet with tubes sticking out, and by depositing a coin you could listen to the recording through the tube. In its first six months of service, the Nickel-in-the-Slot earned more than $1,000

♥~ 1936 – LIFE magazine debuted. The first cover pictured the Fort Peck Dam in Montana (part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program) photographed by Margaret Bourke-White. On page 2, a photo showed a doctor slapping a newborn baby — and the caption read, “LIFE begins.”

♥~ 1954 – Bruce Hornsby musician: piano, singer: group: The Range: The Way It Is

♥~ 1964 – The Vatican abolished Latin as the official language of the Roman Catholic liturgy. In 1988, however, Pope John Paul II, in a binding pronouncement, decreed that respect must be shown everywhere for the feelings of all those attached to the old Latin tradition by wide and generous permission for celebration of the old (Tridentine) rite. By the close of the twentieth century, the Tridentine Mass was once again being celebrated throughout the world with the permission and encouragement of many Catholic Bishops.

♥~ 1974 – One Hit wonder Billy Swan reached the #1 spot on the singles charts with I Can Help, the most popular song in the U.S. for two weeks.

♥~ 1984 – Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie passed his way into sports history by leading Boston College past Miami, 47-45, at the Orange Bowl in Miami. Flutie threw a 48-yard pass on the final play of the game. That play became known as ‘The Pass’. Coaches  were wrong when the said the 175-pound senior was too short to play football.

♥~ 2013 –   Doctor Who is a British science-fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The program depicts the adventures of a Time Lord—a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor. He explores the universe in his TARDIS (acronym: Time and Relative Dimension in Space), a sentient time-travelling space ship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, the Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilization, help ordinary people, and right wrongs.

More than 4000 Doctor Who fans, signed a petition asking Google to do a doodle for the show’s 50th Anniversary. Today, those wishes were granted: not only did Google make the doodle, but the game gracing every Google homepage in the world today is one of the biggest the company has ever produced.  Beware: Once you figure how to play the game,  you’re transported into a new dimension and your day disappears.

★~Born Today:

Harpo Marx

♥~ 1859 – Billy The Kid, Legendary outlaw of western US.  Ruthless killer, a failure at everything legal, he escaped from jail at age 21 while under sentence of hanging. Recaptured at Stinking Springs, NM, and returned to jail, he again escaped, only to be shot through the heart by pursuing Lincoln County sheriff Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, NM, on the night of July 14, 1881. His last words, answered by two shots, reportedly were, “Who is there?”

♥~ 1888 – Harpo (Adolph) Marx comedian, musician: harp, piano; silent member of the Marx Brothers comedy team: Animal Crackers, A Day at the Races, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, Monkey Business, A Night at the Opera, Go West, At the Circus; actor: Silent Panic; died Sep 28, 1964

♥~ 1992 – Miley Cyrus actress: Hannah Montana; songwriter, singer: Who Said, Best of Both Worlds, True Friend

★~ Good to Know: 

Wo-Fi

♥~ United: Sorry we almost killed your dog. Will $2700 buy your silence? Passenger: No, but it will buy you a front page news story about your attempt to silence me with money

♥~ City Where It’s Now Illegal to Smoke in Your Own Home

♥~ Firefighter is suing a homeowner after a slip and fall

♥~ Oh Deer! Man emerges from shower and grabs a golf club to chase a deer out of his house;

♥~  A KKK member approaches a black musician at a bar, they become friends because of Jerry Lee Lewis, and the black man starts a crusade collecting robes and hoods of men he convinces to leave the Klan. . .

♥~ On November 22nd, 1963, the director of the Boston Symphony broke the news to his musicians and the audience that the President had been assassinated. Here is the audio from that event, and the remarkable music which followed

♥~  @zachbraff Sir, I think you photobombed my newlywed couple the other day in New York. 🙂 Well played…

wedding picture

Canadians are tough!

Cute as Cute Can Be
[youtube]http://youtu.be/SP4MgE6EmJE[/youtube]

Worth Thinking about….

#

What are your plans for today?

Odd Loves Company!

7 thoughts on “Eat a Cranberry Day, Expresso Day, Odds and Ends

  1. the thanksgiving feast is not complete without cranberries.
    LIFE begins……well played!
    such a poignant audio from the boston symphony at a difficult time.
    i flew with my dog from tx to mi one summer. john later told me he waited until i boarded the plane before he spoke with an airline employee about taking care of our dog crate on the tarmac. i’ll own this airline if anything happens to that dog were john’s words! i was young & stupid……never again although mickie was fine. i feel for the poor woman. good for her to fight the good fight for her greyhound & not keep her mouth shut.
    no farm today. too much rain. we’re just hanging out, enjoying college football & much cooler temps.
    good day!

    • Good for John. Flying dogs is so risky. I’ve heard so many horror stories. And I watched from the gate window while they fussed with my Dobe’s crate door as he went crazy. And then of-course the idiots had to do it a few more times while I pitched a fit at the gate. Never again. Sorry your farm day was rained out, but sounds like you had a fine rain plan!

  2. Computer issues all day. Finally seems to have ironed out. i am going to have to make some changes, I guess. Maybe over Christmas when my son is home to help me. I won’t tell him tho or he will head for the hills.
    I’m a fan of cranberries and Dr. Who. I’ll wait till Thanksgiving for the cranberries tho. I ordered my pies today. The standard pumpkin and apple. I also buy the bird which I will deliver tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the big day.
    Boston symphony piece was powerful. Glad the girl said no thanks to the money. People need to stand up to corporate shenanigans.
    Hope my home is where the internet is tomorrow. Have a good one.

    • I hate computer problems and you seem to be having more than your fair share. Hope your son can help you work them out. In the old days kids went home to help their parents around the house, these days they go home to do tech troubleshooting :-D.
      Sounds like your Thanksgiving prep is well underway!

  3. Love dried cranberries..great in salads , cookies, etc..so much tastier than raisins …
    That puppy on the treadmill is so cute. 😀

  4. Playing catchup on Sunday. Didn’t even turn my computer on for Saturday. Busy sprucing up the house for Domer’s return for Thanksgiving holidays. So Latin was abolished today? A part of me misses it — and with four years of Latin under my belt, I’d probably get a lot more out of services now!

Comments are closed.