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

★~ Today’s Quote: And above all… Think Chocolate! ~ Betty Crocker

★~ Chocolate Candy Day:

Over 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate candy are consumed annually. On average that means each person consumes over eleven pounds per year! I am certainly doing my part! We are having a very Merry Chocolate Candy Holiday Season. My brother-in-law sent us home Christmas Day with his “so wonderful” homemade chocolate, and we were treated to hand dipped chocolate covered strawberries. My mother sent her “world’s best” fudge, and several friends gave us boxes of chocolates.  We are rich in chocolate. I wish I could share some with you. Really! Not my mother’s fudge, of course…I don’t share the fudge. Ever. Sorry.

★~ Card Playing Day: 

Card Playing Day is easy to celebrate, just grab a pack of cards and play your favorite card game.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1846 – Iowa joined the union as  the 29th state. The name Iowa is an American Indian word meaning ‘the beautiful land’.  Des Moines, the state’s largest city, and capital. The Iowa state bird is the eastern goldfinch, the state flower, the wild rose, and the state motto: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”

♥~ 1912 – The first municipally-owned street cars took to the streets of San Francisco, California. The first car was named, RICE-A-RONI.

♥~ 1964 – Principal filming of the movie classic, Doctor Zhivago, began on location near Madrid, Spain. When completed, the film was 197 minutes long and so spectacular that it received ten Oscar nominations, winning five of the Academy Awards, including Best Original Score.

♥~ 1981 – WEA Records (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic) raised the price of its 45 rpm records from $1.68 to $1.98.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1922 – Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee turns 92 years old today. During his time with Marvel Comics, Lee co-created such famous characters as Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. Lee played a pivotal role in growing Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house into a large corporation.  Stan Lee,  popularized the saying, “With great power there must also come — great responsibility”

♥~ 1954 – Denzel Washington Academy Award-winning actor: Glory [1989]; Malcolm X, St. Elsewhere, The Pelican Brief, Crimson Tide, Courage Under Fire, The Hurricane,Remember the Titans

★~ The Wildest Christmas Dinner

This is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to find out who had the wildest Christmas dinners. It won first prize. . . . 

Christmas With Louise

As a joke, my brother Jay used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them.

What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay’s kids’ stockings overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.

One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don’t sell those things at Wal-Mart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown.

If you’ve never been in an X-rated store, don’t go. You’ll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, “What does this do?” “You’re kidding me!” “Who would buy that?” Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section.

I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour.

Finding what I wanted was difficult. “Love Dolls” come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I’d never heard of. I settled for “Lovable Louise.” She was at the bottom of the price scale.

To call Louise a “doll” took a huge leap of imagination.

On Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life.

My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise’s pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.

The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more.

We all agreed that Louise should remain in her panty hose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. “What in the hell is that?” she asked.

My brother quickly explained, “It’s a doll.”

“Who would play with something like that?” Granny snapped.

I kept my mouth shut.

“Where are her clothes?” Granny continued.

“Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran,” Jay said, to steer her into dining room.

But Granny was relentless. “Why doesn’t she have any teeth?”

Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, “Hang on Granny, hang on!”

My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, ” Hey, who’s the naked gal by the fireplace?”

I told him she was Jay’s friend.

A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa’s last Christmas at home.

The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the mantel, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants.

Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.

It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember.

Later in my brother’s garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Louise’s collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh.

Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health.

I can’t wait until next Christmas.

#

It’s 2am in the morning.  I’ll pay for being a night owl tomorrow, but  if I didn’t grab the wee hours to Blog a bit, it just wouldn’t happen this season. We’ve been dancing, dashing, and prancing around the homestead these last couple of weeks. All good in a hectic, harried, merry, odd kind of way.  I’m going to blog all about it as soon as I catch my breath.

Now, go do your part for the greater chocolate good! Make Odd proud! Eat chocolate candy! I know you are up to the challenge!

Odd Loves Company!

♥