COME BACK TOMORROW!

Strange news from abroad!

An old man happily married for 60 years was left in shock after being told at a government office that he had separated from his wife 17 years ago.

The old man went to the government office to get a copy of his identification card where an official told him that he was separated. The man's son, who had accompanied his father, was also shocked on hearing this from the official and asked his father whether it was true. The man denied that there was any separation and expressed his resentment at the mistake. He was left in a further conundrum when he tried to rectify the mistake. Having visited the offices on several occasions to rectify the mistake, the officials keep telling him to "come back tomorrow."

MELBA PEACH vs CHICKEN TETRAZZINI!

Dame Nellie Melba and Luisa Tetrazzini

vs

Chicken Tetrazzini and Melba Peach

What are Chicken Tetrazzini and Melba Peach?

They are actually two different things; one is a dish, the other is a summer dessert.

Why Melba Peach? Why Chicken Tetrazzini?

Well, these two contrasting food items were named after two of my favorite long-ago opera prima donnas; Dame Nellie Melba, Australian nightingale, and Luisa Tetrazzini, Italian-born opera star. The rivalry between the two well-reknown sopranos even extended to the invention of the famous dish and dessert.

It is widely believed that Chicken Tetrazzini dish was to have been invented in 1908 by Ernest Arbogast then chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California, where Luisa Tetrazzini was a long time resident. Melba Peach, on the other hand, is a classic dessert invented in 1892 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London.

Melba Peach is a combination of two summer fruits: peaches and raspberry sauce accompanying vanilla ice cream. The chef heard the performance of Dame Melba at the Covent Garden and was inspired to create a dessert just for her.

Chicken Tetrazzini usually involves a non-red meat, mushrooms, almonds in butter or cream and parmesan sauce flavored with wine or sherry, over spaghetti. More specifically, it tends to include diced fowl, seafood, or another non-red meat, served with mushrooms over spaghetti or another thin pasta, with a thickened butter and cream-based sauce. The sauce is generally flavored with wine or sherry and well-cooked stock vegetables, such as onions, celery, and carrots. It is served hot, often garnished with lemon or parsley, topped with almonds and/or parmesan cheese.

I haven't tried Melba Peach; Chicken Terazzini, well, I enjoyed a plateful at a despedida party of a lady friend last night.

CURSIVE WRITING?

My colleagues always say that my handwriting is really so cool and artistic. I don't know about that. It was probably the result of the so many writing exercises I did when I was in the elementary grade. My teacher would require us to practice writing each letter of the alphabet several times everyday following patterns... "capital letter A, small letter a","capital letter B, small letter b," and so on. It paid off! Where did this cursive writing originate?

The practice of linking characters of the alphabet to produce the small letters used today in writing originated in the monasteries of the Middle Ages. Scribes found it earlier to write whole words without lifting their pens from the paper. They connected the individual characters instead of writing a space, lifting their pen, and writing another character.

TRIVIA - MILLION

Did you know that the word million didn't come into being until around 1300. Until then, the largest number word was "myriad," which was Greek for 10,000. Archimedes, in calculating the number of poppy seeds in the entire universe as he knew it, used expressions meaning "myriads of myriads of myriads..."

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - NATURE

"Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path and leave
a trail."



Ralph Waldo Emerson

American essayist, philosopher, poet, and
leader of transcendentalist movement in the early
19th century.

WHAT IS YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NAME? - SECRET!!!

Yam Bank, Papua New Guinea

Natives of Papua New Guinea, who deposit their money in the bank at Port Moresby don't get numbered accounts. Instead, they are identified by the names of fish and birds or other natural objects. One bank customer is called sawfish for instance; another, hornbill. Each depositor keeps his symbol secret.

My bank account name is damselfly!

AND LIFE GOES ON!

Even criminals should follow certain work ethics or else they will be thrown out of work and put behind bars. This is what happened to two smugglers and six illegal foreign workers, a local daily reported. The two smuggled the illegal workers out of a southern border town to the city. At the end of the journey, the illegal refused to pay a huge amount of money demanded by the smugglers. The smugglers took them to a building outside the city and locked them up saying they would not be freed until they paid the money. However, the smugglers permitted a hostage to call his friend to bring the money. But what he requested his friend in his native language was to inform police about them with a description of the location. And the police were very happy to arrest all the parties involved. The smuggling of illegal workers involved several thousands as fines and jail terms and the deportation of illegal immigrants.

In the area where I live, there are so many overstaying foreigners struggling to earn a living. Poverty, pain, and emotional stress make them even more stronger to survive each passing day. Life goes on and life is really what you make it!

A HERO AND A SAINT

In His name, I bear witness and acknowledge my faith!

True heroes are indeed rare, and such was the uniqueness of Edith Stein, who went to her death in Auschwitz wearing the Star of David on her nun's habit, after offering herself as a sacrifice in an effort to save others. She was born into a German Jewish family; became assistant to the philosopher Edmund Husserl, converted to Catholicism and took her vows as a Carmelite nun 12 years later. When the Nazis rounded up Jews for extermination, Edith Stein proudly identified herself as Christian and Jewish, and in 1942, was gassed. Twenty years after her death, the Vatican began the formal canonization procedure the St. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce, the name she took--which make her the first Jewish Catholic saint of our time.

THE NAME OF THE GAME IS CAT'S CRADLE

My grandson, Ruan, was so happy to share the news that he just learned some tricks using strings, but doesn't really know the name of the game. He was probably talking about the cat's cradle. This game reminds me of my childhood days. We only not used strings, but also rubber bands to form figures, like star, alpha letters, spider web, and others.


It is one of the most universal games in the world and played in almost every culture. What is somewhat a puzzle to ethnologists is that widely scattered peoples like the Maoris of New Zealand, the North American Indians, the Arctic Eskimos, and Africans, make figures of string between their hands that are exactly the same.

LOVE IS FOR THE TWO OF US!

Love is lovelier the second time around!

A woman has married a man whom she refused to marry 25 years ago. It was in 1983 that the man sought the hand in marriage, but she refused because her circumstances would now allow her to leave her parents. Later when conditions changed and she was ready for marriage, no suitor of her liking turned up. She confided in one of her friends that she wished her first suitor might come again. The man learned about the woman's sentiments only recently and was overcome by emotion. He proposed again to her and immediately agreed.

A very interesting love story indeed!

HOW DO I LOVE THEE? - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

(Sonnet 43 from Sonnet Portuguese)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - FRIENDSHIP

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow -
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead -
Just walk beside me and be my friend."

Unknown

THE MOON IS FALLING?

The moon is always falling. It has a sideways motion of its own that balances its falling motion. It, therefore, stays in a closed orbit about the earth, never falling altogether and never escaping altogether.

A BED MISTAKE!

Strange News from Abroad

A woman finds naked thief for company. She woke up to a real nightmare, discovering that the naked man who had slipped into her bed in the middle of the night was a thief, not her husband. She was asleep when the thief noticing that her husband was fast asleep on the couch, quietly stripped off and lay down beside her. The dozing woman's suspicions were raised when she spoke to him and his voice sounded strange. She then went to another room and found her husband on the couch. She screamed, causing the thief to flee by leaping out the window with the stolen items.

FUNNIEST SUPERSTAR

He was five when he started his show business career. His mother, a local music-hall performer lost her voice during the performance and had to leave the stage. He went on and sang a well-known song. Halfway through the song, a shower of money poured onto the stage. He stopped singing and told the audience he would pick up the money first and then finish the song. The audience laughed, the first of millions of laughs in Charlie Chaplin's fabulous career.