Busy Bees

The blog may look a little thin for a day or two, as night-frosting has begun.

What, you may say, is night-frosting?  Well, i'm so glad you asked.

It sounds like it should have something to do with fairies coming through in the night and leaving frost patterns everywhere, but it does not.  At least, it does not for us.

For the bakery, night-frosting is when we get so very busy that some of us stay after hours to frost as many cakes as possible for the next day.

We've been so busy, we stopped taking orders for Thanksgiving already.  If you want a cake, you may come in and get one of the shelf cakes, but no more special orders.  We will just be able to fill the ones we already have.

And excellent news!  Every month we get a mystery shopper, and that person gives us a grade.  This month, the bakery earned 100%!  The person was greeted properly, the hostess came out from behind the counter to help the shopper and offered a sample, and did everything correctly,.  The cake purchased was even perfectly done.

The boss was so excited that, as she says, it's a team effort so everyone gets a reward.  Free cup of coffee from Starbucks for everyone!  Yes, i'll gladly take that.

But frosting until  late at night (and washing up after), and then cleaning for clients during the day is leaving me a bit thin, so not as much blogging, and it may take me some time to catch up on things around here.

Today is:

Brumalia -- Byzantine Empire celebration of Dyonisus and New Wine Festival; until the solstice

Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day -- there used to be a website associated with this day, but it closed; that's no reason for you not to celebrate your uniqueness!

Celtic Tree Month Ruish (Elder) begins

D.B. Cooper Day -- anniversary of the 1971 hijacking

Discovery Day -- Tasmania (by Abel Tasman in 1642)

Feast of the Martyrs of Vietnam -- Roman Catholic Church

Guru Tegh Bahadur Martyrdom - Sikh

Lachit Divas -- Assam, India

National Sardines Day 

Persephone Day (a/k/a Kore -- Ancient Greek Calendar (celebration of her as wheel goddess of the underworld; date approximate, but she is often associated with St. Catherine)

Ragtime Day -- birth anniversary of Scott Joplin

St. Colman of Cloyne's Day (Patron of Cloyne, Ireland)

St. Joachim Ho's Day -- a Martyr of China

St. Mary of Cordoba's Day (Patron of martyrs)

Strange Names Day -- in honor of all the celebrity -- and other -- kids with "unique" names; sponsored the last Tuesday in November by Marlar in the Morning at 101QFL in Rockford, IL, US

Teacher's Day -- Turkey

Third Bash of the Tree-Toppers -- Fairy Calendar (fairy creatures who don't believe in "one" or "two", so start counting at three)

Use Even If Seal is Broken Day -- internet generated; observe at your own risk, always!


Birthdays Today:

Katherine Heigl, 1978
Brad Sherwood, 1964
Stanley Livingston, 1950
Rudy Tomjanovich, 1948
Dwight Schultz, 1947
Oscar Palmer Robertson, 1938
William F. Buckley, Jr., 1925
Howard Duff, 1913
Charles "Lucky" Luciano, 1897
Dale Carnegie, 1888
Erich von Manstein, 1887
Alben William Barkley, 1877
Scott Joplin, 1868
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864
Bat Masterson, 1853
Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849
Bram Stoker, 1847
Zachary Taylor, 1784
Laurence Sterne, 1713
Charles Theodore Pachelbel, 1690
Baruch Spinoza, 1632(O.S. date)


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Guys and Dolls"(Musical), 1950
Softball, as a sport, invented this day as a spur of the moment game at the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago, IL, US, 1887


Today in History:

Theodosius I makes his formal entry into Constantinople, 380
Rabbi Nathan ben Yehiel of Rome completes his Talmudic dictionary, 1105
The Thames River freezes, 1434
First observation of transit of Venus occurred (only 2, record event), 1639
Abel Janzoon Tasman becomes the first European to see Van Damien's Land, later renamed Tasmania, 1642
First Lutheran pastor ordained in America, Justus Falckner at Philadelphia, 1703
Mt. Vesuvius erupts, 1759
Luik-Visé-Maastricht railway opens, 1861
Joseph F Glidden patents his improved barbed wire, 1874
The first US absentee voting law enacted by Vermont, 1896
Clyde Coleman of NYC patents automobile electric starter, 1903
Radio Belgium makes its first transmission, 1923
The first woman pilot on a transcontinental air flight, Miss Ruth Nichols (Mineola, NY to Calif), in a Lockheed-Vega, took 7 days, 1930
In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens, 1932
Lee Harvey Oswald is murdered by Jack Ruby, 1963
During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (AKA D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money, and is never seen again, 1971
A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany due to the 1973 oil crisis; it lasts only four months, 1973
The communist party resigns in Czechoslovakia, 1989
By a margin of only 50.28% t 49.72%, Ireland votes to end the 70 year old ban on divorce, 1995
Ireland presents its austerity package to the European Union and IMF, 2010
Palestinian officials announce their plan to exhume the body of Yasser Arafat too determine if he was poisoned, 2012