~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
November 1st, 2014

Firefighters from the Lacey, Washington Fire Department recently responded to a call about a burning mobile home. The crew quickly extinguished the fire and noticed a family of pet hamsters inside the burning building. They grabbed the five hamsters—later identified as Oreo, Madonna and three unnamed babies—and brought them outside to safety. Afterwards they administered oxygen to the furry critters. The adults survived and so did two of the offspring. Nobody else was in the building at the time and no firefighters were injured. For more info visit Lacey Fire District 3.

★~  Today’s Quote: To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die. ~Thomas Campbell, “Hallowed Ground”

★~ All Saints’ Day:

All Saints’ Day,  honors all of the saints, known and unknown, in Christian history. Dedicating a specific day to individual saints and martyrs is an ancient Christian tradition, and the Feast of All Saints can be traced back to 837AD.

★~ Day of the Dead:

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) begins, November 1, 2014, and ends November 2, 2014.

Originally the “Feast of the Dead” was celebrated in Celtic countries by leaving food offerings on altars and doorsteps for the “wandering dead”. . Extra chairs were set to the table and around the hearth for the unseen guest. Apples were buried along roadsides and paths for spirits who were lost or had no descendants to provide for them.

It is believed during this time that the veil between the worlds is thin and communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easier. Today is also a good day to watch for number sequences that might have meaning to you, and to pay close attention to synchronicity that might show up as you go about your day.

 ★~ National Vinegar Day: 

It has been said that balancing flavors makes great food, and vinegar is the kind of ingredient that can help achieve this balance. Most of us use vinegar in a salad dressing, but vinegar is also what gives barbecue sauce its tang and it’s essential to making mayonnaise.

Vinegar is made via a fermentation process. Different fermented foods result in different types of vinegars and different flavors. Whether you’re dousing freshly fried potatoes in malt vinegar or macerating strawberries in balsamic vinegar, the options for taking ordinary food to new heights are endless.

Aside from its culinary uses, vinegar is a helpful cleaning agent and can also be used to help ease the pain of jellyfish stings.

Quick Cider Vinegar Dressing 

★~ National Deep Fried Clams Day:

It was a slow day at his clam shack Woodman’s of Essex on July 3, 1916, when Lawrence Woodman – known as “Chubby” to his pals – first got the idea to do the unthinkable and fry a clam. A few of his friends were hanging around the shop when one, enjoying Chubby’s homemade potato chips, turned to him and said, “Chubby, if you can fry a clam half as well as you make potato chips, I bet people would buy them.” The gang laughed off the wild suggestion, but Woodman and his wife Bessie went to work and debuted their fried clams at a town parade the next day. “He made $35 that day,” recounts Steve Woodman, his grandson and current co-CEO of Woodman’s. “That was the most he’d ever made in a single day, and he was a smart man so he kept the clams on the menu.”
Over the century, Woodman’s has transformed from a tiny clam shack into a bustling restaurant with a mail-order seafood enterprise and its own cookbook, but one thing hasn’t changed: the fried clam recipe. You can make them at home by following the Woodman’s recipe.  

Your wondering why we celebrate fried clam day in November instead of July? Me too. But it is not ours to reason why….

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1512 – A major artistic marvel was shown to the public for the first time on this date in 1512…Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.  The project took four years to complete, as Michelangelo painted Biblical scenes while lying on his back atop a 60-foot scaffold.

♥~ 1913 –   During the summer of 1913, Charley ‘Gus’ Dorais (‘14) and Knute Rockne (’14) practiced the forward pass while working as lifeguards on a beach in Ohio. On Nov. 1, Notre Dame met Army for the first time in West Point, N.Y. Led by head coach Jesse Harper, the Irish debuted the pass – an offensive scheme that surprised the Cadets and shocked the sporting world. It helped counteract Army’s size advantage, and Dorais completed 14 of 17 attempts for 243 yards, as the blue & gold cruised to a 35-13 win.

♥~ 1930- November 1st is the anniversary of two technological marvels used by drivers in Michigan.  A tunnel connecting Windsor, Ontario and Detroit was dedicated on this date in 1930.  The tunnel is located 75 feet below the Detroit River.  The 1st of November in 1957 was the opening day for a five-mile bridge stretching across the Straits of Mackinac, linking Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas.

♥~ 1947 – The famous racehorse, Man o’ War, died. More than 2,000 people attended his funeral, which was broadcast on NBC Radio and featured nine eulogies. Man o’ War’s grave – which features a 3,000-pound bronze statue of the champion – attracts more than 7,000 visitors each year at the Kentucky Horse Park. Nine businesses in Lexington bear his name and there is a race in his honor at Belmont.

♥~ 1959 – A low-tech device that has saved the faces of countless hockey players was used in a National Hockey League game for the first time.  The nose of Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante was broken by a flying puck during a game that day.  He sat out part of the game, but then returned wearing a fiberglass mask he had used during practices.  After the mask became a sort of good-luck charm for the Canadiens, it became standard equipment in the NHL.

♥~ 1969 – Abbey Road, by The Beatles, was #1 on U.S. album charts.

♥~ 1994 – The Chicago Bulls retired Michael Jordan’s uniform (No. 23) and put it on display at the United Center. A sculpture was later commissioned and placed outside the arena with the inscription, “The Best There Ever Was. The Best There Ever Will Be.”

★~Famous Birthdays:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/zSAJ0l4OBHM[/youtube]

♥~ 1871 – Stephen Crane novelist: The Red Badge of Courage; died June 5, 1900

♥~ 1950 – Dan Peek musician: guitar, singer: group: America: A Horse with No Name; LPs: Hat Trick, Holiday, Hearts

♥~ 1957 – Lyle Lovett Grammy Award-winning singer: Best Male Country Vocal [1989]; Cowboy Man, songwriter: This Old Porch [w/Robert Earl Keen], You Can’t Resist It, Closing Time, If I Had a Boat; actor: Ready to Wear, Short Cuts, The Player

♥~ 1962 – Anthony Kiedis musician: guitar; lead singer: group: Red Hot Chili Peppers: Under the Bridge, Give It Away, Californication, Scar Tissue, Otherside, Suck My Kiss, By the Way

★~Sistine Chapel Gallimaufry:

♥~  Michelangelo wanted nothing to do with the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. In 1508, 33-year-old Michelangelo was hard at work on Pope Julius II’s marble tomb, a relatively obscure piece now located in Rome’s San Pietro in Vincoli church. When Julius asked the esteemed artist to switch gears and decorate the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, Michelangelo balked. For one thing, he considered himself a sculptor rather than a painter, and he had no experience whatsoever with frescoes. He also had his heart set on finishing the tomb, even as funding for the project dwindled. Nevertheless, Michelangelo reluctantly accepted the commission, spending four years of his life perched on scaffolding with his brush in hand. He would return intermittently to Julius’ monumental tomb over the next few decades.

♥~  Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel in a standing position. When they picture Michelangelo creating his legendary frescoes, most people assume he was lying down. But in fact, the artist and his assistants used wooden scaffolds that allowed them to stand upright and reach above their heads. Michelangelo himself designed the unique system of platforms, which were attached to the walls with brackets. The impression that Michelangelo painted on his back might come from the 1965 film “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” in which Charlton Heston portrayed the genius behind the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.

♥~  Working on the Sistine Chapel was so unpleasant that Michelangelo wrote a poem about his misery.
In 1509, an increasingly uncomfortable Michelangelo described the physical strain of the Sistine Chapel project to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia. “I’ve already grown a goiter from this torture,” he wrote in a poem that was surely somewhat tongue-in-cheek. He went on to complain that his “stomach’s squashed under my chin,” that his “face makes a fine floor for droppings,” that his “skin hangs loose below me” and that his “spine’s all knotted from folding myself over.” He ended with an affirmation that he shouldn’t have changed his day job: “I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.”

♥~ Michelangelo’s masterpiece has proven highly resilient. The Sistine Chapel’s frescoed ceiling has held up remarkably well in the five centuries since its completion. Only one small component is missing: part of the sky in the panel depicting Noah’s escape from the great biblical flood. The section of painted plaster fell to the floor and shattered following an explosion at a nearby gunpowder depot in 1797. Despite the ceiling’s apparent hardiness, experts worry that foot traffic from the millions of people who visit the Sistine Chapel each year continues to pose a serious threat.

♥~ Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel art was touched up—and stripped down—in the 1980s and 1990s.
Between 1980 and 1999, experts restored selected artwork in the Sistine Chapel, including Michelangelo’s ceiling and his famed fresco known as “The Last Judgment,” which he created in his later years. Specialists meticulously dissolved layers of grime, soot and deposits, substantially brightening the colors of the centuries-old paintings. The restoration also undid the work of Pope Pius IV, who ordered the placement of fig leaves and loincloths on Michelangelo’s nudes during the 1560s.

♥~ The Sistine Chapel ceiling’s most famous panel might depict a human brain. In the section entitled “The Creation of Adam,” figures representing God and Adam reach for each other with their arms outstretched. Their almost-touching fingers are one of the world’s most recognizable and widely replicated images. Some theorists think the scene also contains the unmistakable outline of a human brain, formed by the angels and robes surrounding God. According to Frank Lynn Meshberger, a doctor who pioneered this hypothesis, Michelangelo meant to evoke God’s bestowal of intellegence on the first human.

♥~ New popes are elected in the Sistine Chapel. Built in the 1470s under Pope Sixtus IV, from whom it takes its name, the Sistine Chapel is more than just Vatican City’s most popular tourist destination. In fact, it serves a crucial religious function. Beginning in 1492, the simple brick building has hosted numerous papal conclaves, during which cardinals gather to vote on a new pope. A special chimney in the roof of the chapel broadcasts the conclave’s results, with white smoke indicating the election of a pope and black smoke signaling that no candidate has yet received a two-thirds majority.

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Happy November! I hope you remembered to say Rabbit Rabbit but if you forgot just remember to say it tonight at bed time.

Brr. Its a blustery cold day in Chicago but the temps are suppose to rise to a sunny 40 later in the day. I’m going to make bread today to go with our chili tonight and maybe stew tomorrow night.

Don’t forget to fall back tonight. My sweet Mom protests the change by refusing to change her car clock. She is such a rebel.

Wishing you a super Saturday.

Odd Loves Company,

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