The next person who says...

 ..."fiscal cliff" has to put a quarter in the swear box.  (You know, the box you have to pay a fine to every time you use a word you shouldn't, and the money goes to charity.)

And, as a bonus, if you say it around me, i'm likely to swear at you, and thus have to join you in paying said box.  (Not really, but i'll be tempted.)

How about, instead of all the arguing, we learn to get along like these two?

If they can do it, so can we.

In other news, it's drizzling rain here, and i'm very cold.  In fact, i've taken to huddling over the crock pot to keep warm.  There's been a soup or crock dish every night for days, and no complaints, it's so cold, they all are loving the hot food each evening.

We've found an unlikely consumer of merliton casserole in our house.  My dad loves it, as do my brothers.  #1 Son likes it okay, but can only eat so much of it.  Yet my mother insists on cooking huge amounts every holiday, and sending it home with us, where Sweetie despises the stuff and it just goes to waste.  Until now.

Our diabetic cat, Badlands Blackie, has decided he doesn't like canned food when getting his insulin shot.  Instead, he wants merliton casserole.  So i've frozen it into serving size blocks, and will be looking at making more, or something similar, when it runs out.  No, i'm not asking my mom for the recipe.  That would be too awkward, as she would then believe everyone here adores the stuff and would make even more each year.  Better to wing it.

Finally, in a blog post that really has no point except that i've gotten used to blogging every day, my oven is (i think) officially dead.  The range top works, but the last time i jimmied the oven into working, an hour after i got it turned off it started beeping, the LCD reading F-1, whatever that means, and i had to flip the circuit breaker to get it to stop.  Since i cannot live with that beeping sound, i have no intention of turning the oven on again.  In this house, until i have money to fix the oven, things that can't be cooked in the toaster oven are off the menu.


Today is:

American Historical Society Annual Meeting -- New Orleans, LA, US (127th annual, with over 300 sessions covering a wide range of scholarly topics; through Sunday)

Arba'in-e Hosseini -- Iran (40th day after Ashura)

Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival -- Chicago, IL, US (12th annual, celebrating the best in local and national sketch comedy; through the 13th)

Day of Remembrance for Princess Olga -- Slavic Pagan Calendar

Hakozakigu Tamaseseri -- Fukuoka, Japan (ceremony of the red ball which brings good luck to the team which catches it)

Icing Morning -- Fairy Calendar

Humiliation Day -- drawing attention to the fact that it's okay to be humble, but not to humiliate others

J.R.R. Tolkien Day -- birth anniversary

Memento Mori / "Remember You Die" Day -- Wellcat Holidays suggests putting these words where you can see them often, to remind you to cherish what you have today

National Chocolate Covered Filled Cherry Day

Revolution Day -- Burkina Faso

Shigoto-hajime -- Japan (first work day of the New Year; work begun well today will prosper)

St. Genevieve's Day (Patron of females in the military; Paris, France; against plague, disasters, fevers)

Tamaseseri Festival -- Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan (men in fundoshi - loincloths - compete for the ball; if the winning team is from a seaside town, it will be an auspicious year for fishermen, if the land team wins, there will be a good harvest)

Tenth Day of Christmas


Anniversaries Today:

Alaska becomes the 49th US State, 1959


Birthdays Today

Eli Manning, 1981
Danica McKellar, 1975
Joan Chen, 1960
Mel Gibson, 1956
Victoria Principal, 1950
John Paul Jones, 1946
Stephen Stills, 1945
Van Dyke Parks, 1943
Dabney Coleman, 1932
George Martin, 1926
Maxine Andrews, 1918
Victor Borge, 1909
Ray Milland, 1905
Zasu Pitts, 1898
Marion Davies, 1897
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1892
Father Joseph Damien, 1840
William Tucker, 1624 (first African American child born in North America)
Cicero, BC106


Today in History:

Joan of Arc is handed over to the bishop for trial, 1431
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine, 1496
Martin Luther is formally excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, 1521
The first theater in Amsterdam, the Schouwburg, opens, 1638
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont as a separate state, 1749
Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico, 1823
Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia, 1848
The Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors, 1868
Oleomargarine is patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY, 1871
The wax drinking straw is patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC, 1888
The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, then the largest in the world, is put into use, 1888
The first known use of the word automobile was seen in an editorial in The New York Times, 1899
British explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt, 1924
Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy, dissolves the Italian parliament, 1925
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States, 1933
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress, 1953
Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland, 1958
The West Indies Federation is formed, 1958
Apple Computer is incorporated, 1977
Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century, 1988
In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), 1993
More than seven million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, receives South African citizenship, 1994
The People's Republic of China announces it will spend fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys, 1977
The Mars Polar Lander is launched, 1999