~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
January 28, 2014

★~ Today’s Quote:

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

– John O’Donohue

★~  Kazoo Day:

Alabama Vest and Thaddeus Von Clegg invented the kazoo in the 1840s. They presented the new instrument at the 1852 Georgia State Fair, and it soon became a staple in the popular music of the era. The kazoo, the banjo, and the glass harmonica are the only instruments invented in America. More about the Kazoo under Good to Know.

★~ Blueberry Pancake Day:

Whip up a delicious batch of Blueberry pancakes, top them with a little maple syrup, and celebrate Blueberry Pancake Day! If you missed Blueberry pancakes for breakfast…enjoy them for dinner. YUM.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1887 – 125 Anniversary of the largest recorded snowflake — a stone-cold behemoth said to be 15 inches in diameter. The freakishly massive flake reportedly drifted — or perhaps plummeted — to earth at Montana’s Fort Keogh in 1887.(The snowflakes in that Jan. 28 storm, according to a New York Times piece a few years back, were described by a rancher as “larger than milk pans.”)

♥~ 1934 –  Robert Royce’s ski tow rope invention was used for the first time in Woodstock, Vermont.

♥~1959 – Vince Lombardi was hired to coach the Green Bay Packers.  Under Lombardi, the Packers won five NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls.  The championship trophy for the Super Bowl eventually was named after him.

♥~ 1978 – “De plane, de plane.” The weekly, hour-long Aaron Spelling production of Fantasy Island began on ABC-TV.

♥~ 1995 –TLC’s Creep hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The smash held down the top spot for four weeks : “So I creep yeah; Just keep it on the down low; Said nobody is supposed 2 know; So I creep yeah; ’Cause he doesn’t know; What I do and no attention; Goes to show oh so I creep.

♥~ 1996 – Super Bowl XXX,  the Dallas Cowboys became the first team to win three Lombardi Trophies in four years.  Dallas defeated Pittsburgh, 27-17.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1855 – William Burroughs inventor of adding machines and practical calculators

♥~1887 –Artur Rubinstein American pianist: played solo for the Berlin Symphony at the age of 12; 

♥~ 1912 –Jackson Pollock abstract expressionist artist: Male and Female, The She-Wolf, The Tea Cup, Painting, Easter and the Totem, Ocean Greyness, Full Fathom Five; killed in car crash Aug 11, 1956

♥~ 1936 –Alan Alda (Alphonso D’Abruzzo) Emmy Award-winning actor: M*A*S*H. During his years as Hawkeye, Alan Alda also starred in a TV movie about Death Row prisoner Caryl Chessman.  Other people associated with prison stories share a January 28th birthday with Alda.  They include the real-life “Birdman of Alcatraz,” prisoner Robert Stroud (born 1890); actor John Banner, who played Sgt. Schultz on “Hogan’s Heroes” (1910); and director Frank Darabont (1959), who made the prison movies “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption.”

★~ Good to Know: 

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Vbxxc9FUW_M[/youtube]

The kazoo is dubbed the “most democratic” instrument in the world as just about anyone can pick one up and play it right away.

A number of blues, jazz, vaudeville and bluegrass acts worked the instrument into their repertoire, and a kazoo can be heard on a record for the first time on the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recording of “Crazy Blues,” taped in 1921.

One of the Kazoos biggest musical roles was with David Bedford’s 100 Kazoos. In this 1971 performance, the audience members were provided kazoos, which allowed them to play along with the professional instrumental ensemble.

The Beatles use kazoos in their song “Lovely Rita” and Jimi Hendrix used the instrument in his song “Crosstown Traffic” to help accentuate the blown-out speaker sound he was looking for. Frank Zappa was also a fan, incorporating the sound whenever he wanted to add a comedic touch to his songs.

Barbara Stewart was one of the most famous kazooists of the last hundred years. She started out as a classically trained singer and then moved on to form a quartet called “Kazoophony.” Ms. Stewart may be the only person on earth to be considered a “kazoo virtuoso,” and appeared at such venues as the Carnegie Hall and The Tonight Show. If you want to improve your kazooing, you might want to check out Stewart’s books, The Complete How to Kazoo and How to Kazoo.

Stewart also led the audience of Royal Albert Hall in a performance that broke the Guinness World Record for Largest Kazoo Ensemble, with  3,910 participants. It’s not the most harmonious song you’ll ever hear, but still having almost 4,000 musicians playing the Kazoo is pretty impressive.

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Tales from the Polar Vortex. Cole and I ventured out late yesterday afternoon and the cold was exhausting to navigate and fraught with dangers, like when my car window froze down at the Starbucks window.  Fun times, let me tell you.

Today, schools are closed again so I guess we’ll be snacking and watching more television. Cole started watching re-runs of ‘The Office’ during the last set of cold days and the marathon is continuing through this set of cold days.  I’ve never liked the show but 60 episodes later I’m finding myself tuning into it more and more. As  Nana always said, “You can get use to hanging, if you hang long enough.”  We are snacking on my perfected mini-crescent-dogs recipe; our favorite cold day snack.  I’ve add cheese to the original recipe. Mmm good.

Cabin fever? Me? Well, lets just say I’m laughing hard at celebrities on You Tube reading mean tweets and this kind of dialogue….

Michael Scott: Ladies and gentleman, I have some bad news. Meredith was hit by a car.

Oscar: Where?

Michael Scott: It happened this morning in the parking lot. I took her to the hospital. And the doctors tried to save her, life, they did the best they could. And she is going to be ok.

Stanley: What is wrong with you? Why would you have to phrase is like that?

Good luck to the South and Southwest El Morner’s that are having a snow-ice s down with Leon! My advice… SURRENDER.

Time to start todays polar adventure and to check to see how the mini-hotdog supply is holding up!

Odd Loves Company!