~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
January 2, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote: The problem with winter sports is that – follow me closely here – they generally take place in winter.  ~ Dave Barry

★~ Run it Up the Flagpole to See if Anyone Salutes Day:

“Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes” is an expression dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, when corporate jargon was more patriotic and less flashy  It means to float an idea by people to see what they think, or if they notice. Today, let the creative juices flow  while trying out and testing new ideas and concepts by running them up the flagpole.

★~ Cream Puff Day:

Cream Puffs made their debut in the United States in 1880. However, the first cream puff originated in Europe sometime during the 1540s when Catherine de Medici’s pastry chef created the baked puffed shells for Catherine’s husband, Henry II of France.

I have made cream puffs from a recipe that my sweet mom sent me, and it went pretty well—they puffed rather nicely. I may have a knack for food that puffs (cream puffs) and poofs (popovers). Do you think I missed my calling as a pastry chef? I am thinking of opening a bakery called Poofs and Puffs, and everything I bake will be covered in fluffy icing and powdered sugar. I might even drizzle chocolate sauce over my creation. Maybe I should run this idea up the flagpole, because the one thing that might get in my way is not liking to cook. Costco sells wonderful cream puffs.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1770 – a huge Christmas pie was baked in London, according to the Newcastle Chronicle, it was made of “two bushels of flour, twenty-four pounds of butter, four geese, two turkeys, two rabbits,four wild ducks, two woodcocks, six snipes, four partridges,two neats’ tongues, two curlews, seven blackbirds, and six pigeons. It was nearly nine feet in circumference at bottom, and weighed about twelve stone.”

♥~ 1788 – One peach of a state, Georgia, became the 4th state to enter the United States of America.  Georgia is also referred to as the Empire State of the South. First explored by the Spanish, but named after King George II of England, Georgia became the stronghold of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Georgia’s state bird is the brown thrasher; state flower: for some reason it’s not the peach blossom, but the Cherokee rose; a state tree: the live oak; a state song: Georgia on My Mind; and an official state motto: Wisdom, Justice and Moderation.

♥~ 1872 – Brigham Young, the 71-year-old leader of the Mormon Church, was arrested on a charge of bigamy. He had 25 wives.

♥~ 1971 – George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass was number one on U.S. album charts. Harrison was the first ex-Beatle to hit #1 with a solo album.

♥~ 1965 – The New York Jets signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported $400,000.

♥~ 1983 – The smash musical, Annie, closed on Broadway at the Uris Theatre after 2,377 performances: the sixth longest-running show. The five longest-running shows at the time were: Fiddler on the Roof, Life With Father, Tobacco Road, Hello Dolly and Music Man.

♥~ 1995 – The most distant galaxy yet discovered was found by scientists using the Keck telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. “8C 1435+63″ was estimated to be 15 billion light years away. The discovery was made by a team of astronomers from the University of California, led by Hyron Spinrad. They found the new galaxy to be 150,000 to 200,000 light-years across.

★~ Born Today:

♥~ 1903 – Sally Rand (Helen Gould Beck) dancer, stripper: inventor of the fan dance;

♥~ 1920 – Isaac Asimov sci-fi writer–  His family immigrated to the United States when he was three years old, and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. He spent most of his time working in the family store, and he was fascinated by the shop’s newspaper stand, which sold the latest issues of popular magazines. When his father finally relented and let him read pulp fiction, Asimov started reading science fiction obsessively.

He started writing science fiction as well. He published his first story when he was 18, and published 30 more stories in the next three years. At age 21, he wrote his most famous story after a conversation with his friend and editor John Campbell. Campbell had been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature, which includes the passage, “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which has been shown!” Asimov went home and wrote the story “Nightfall” (1941), about a planet with six suns that has a sunset once every 2,049 years. It’s been anthologized over and over, and many people still consider it the best science fiction short story ever written.

♥~ 1936 – Roger Miller songwriter: King of the Road, Invitation to the Blues, You Don’t Want My Love; singer: Dang Me, Chug-a-Lug; 11 Grammys in 1964-65; wrote hit musical: Big River; died Oct 25, 1992

♥~ 1968 – Cuba Gooding Jr. Academy Award-winning (supporting) actor: Jerry Maguire; Pearl Harbor, The Tuskegee Airmen, Outbreak, Losing Isaiah, A Few Good Men, Boyz N the Hood, Coming to America

♥~ 1973 – Lucy Davis actress: The Office

♥~ 1983 – Kate Bosworth actress: The Horse Whisperer, Young Americans, Remember the Titans, The Newcomers

★~ Did You Know:

♥~ On Bloody Mary Day (January 1st) there was some conversation about the foods that heal a hangover….so I sent our El Morno research team into the field to do a little bit of research…

♥~ Menudo: A spicy Mexican soup often times made from tripe (cow stomach), Menudo (not to be confused with Menudo, which may make your hangover worse) is supposed to cure even your deadliest hangovers. It is said to stimulate the senses, rejuvenate the insides, and clear the head. Most alcohol scholars, however, claim that the combination of spices in the soup simply distract your mind and body from the hangover.

♥~ Prickly Pear: If you’re hungover in the desert and can’t find water, the extract from the prickly pear cactus might just do the trick. It won’t curb the headache but it will alleviate nausea, dry mouth and loss of appetite.

♥~ Pickle Juice: Could this Eastern European and Russian staple be the perfect hangover cure? Swilling the juice will replenish the electrolytes your body lost the night before and also wake you up a bit. Professional athletes drank it before Gatorade was invented.

♥~ Go for a jog: Get moving! Doing a little exercise can help flush out toxins, get you to drink more fluids, and distract you from the pounding headache you probably have. Motivation might be your biggest obstacle when it comes to this cure.

♥~ Hair of the Dog: Also known as drinking more, the expression is a shortened form of the colloquial English phrase “hair of the dog that bit you.” Many people claim a shot of tequila in the morning keeps a hangover at bay –Others think it just puts off the inevitable. If this sounds like your cuppa, however, add two Alka-Seltzers to the shot and call me after your nap.

♥~ Quaff: According to soyouwanna.com, the perfect hangover cure is theirs – a drink called Quaff. They claim that after it cures your hangover “it might just clear out your nasal passages, shrink your hemorrhoids, and leap out of your body and write your History term paper.” The cure includes taking two aspirin, 200mg cysteine, 600mg Vitamin C, and 1 tablet of vitamin B complex and then washing it all down with a milkshake consisting of a banana, V-8, strawberries, honey, OJ, milk, salt, and nutmeg.

♥~ Hypnosis: A hangover cure can now be downloaded to your desktop! Hypnosisdownloads.com has a 20-minute hypnosis session that will ease your headache and repair the damage done to your body. The session includes the soothing sound of angels and “a mountain stream splashing refreshingly through your mind” that is guaranteed to work.

♥~ B12: A deficiency of B12 is thought to be one of the causes of a hangover. It can be found in vitamins, meat, eggs, dairy products, or vegetables (asparagus, Spinach), cereal beans.

♥~ Denny’s Grand Slam: The 1,000 calories worth of pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, and butter that comes with a Grand Slam seems to hit the spot. And it’s certainly an improvement over the fried canaries that the ancient Romans used to eat to cure their drink-induced ailments.

♥~ RU-21 was developed in Russia for the purpose of keeping KGB agents sober while their contacts got drunk and divulged state secrets, RU-21 actually ended up being the perfect hangover cure. It entered the US market in 1999 as Cold War relations warmed and has been a staple of the all-night party scene ever since. This is best taken before or while drinking to prevent the morning hangover. Our El Morno research team did not find what the downside to taking this supplement is but before to check before you pop one.

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How is your New Year going so far? Today will be spent restoring some order to my abode. I think. I usually start out with the best of intentions to put everything away precisely and orderly. THIS YEAR. When do you start taking down and putting away?

Odd Loves Company!