Autumn!

 Welcome “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun.”

Gotta love Keats, especially today.  It is the First Day of Autumn.

There is something delicious about fall.  Maybe it’s the promise of cooler weather after a scorching summer.  Maybe it’s the smell of pumpkin, cinnamon, and other spices of the season.  Maybe it’s the extra thick Vogue with the season’s luxurious looks.  Or, maybe it is that all of this happens under a glorious canopy of color.  

We here at The Daily Cupcake love fall and could keep listing reasons (football, sweaters, chili, Halloween…) ad naseum.

Instead we lift today’s cupcake to the dipping thermometer and crispy air.

Happy First Day of Autumn.

Elephant Appreciation Day

Today’s cupcake goes out to all of those who love elephants and help to protect them.  It is International Elephant Appreciation Day.

Years ago, I happened to catch part of a documentary on an elephant herd, and it made quite an impression.

Basically, a calf had just been born and was struggling to walk.  The herd stayed with the wee one (well, wee for an elephant) and tried to nurture and guide it with tender trunk hugs.  The calf still struggled.  Soon the herd was in desperate need of water and had to move on, clearly hesitant to leave the new born.  Only the parents stayed to care for the calf, who was equally in danger.  The documentarians were heart-broken that their work was about to record the demise of this small family and tried to figure out how to help without creating more stress for the struggling group.

Miraculously, the next morning the calf was finally able to stand (he was an unusually tall calf and his legs had cramped in the womb; it took time for the legs to strengthen and stretch) and slowly the three made their way to a watering hole.  

By the end of the program I was a crying mess and had a new love of the elephant.  They are deeply loyal and loving creatures.  Those studying elephants report that they  display “a wide variety of behavior, including those associated with grief, art, play, use of tools, compassion and self-awareness — evidence of a highly intelligent species rivaled only by dolphins and primates.”

And, of course, these tremendous creatures are losing their natural habitat to ever expanding mankind.  Then there are those who hunt them, for sport or ivory.

Today is the day to honor earth’s largest land-dwelling mammals.  If you would like to help their plight, several organizations are dedicated to the protection of elephants and enforcing the poaching laws that protect them and would welcome your support.

Punch.

Lest you take your pirate habits a day too far, let us explain.  Today commemorates the sweet, juicy concoction punch.  It’s National Punch Day.

British Colonists living in India were introduced to the celebrational drink (originally served with alcohol, so truly celebrational).  And 100 years later, high school boys are trying to honor the original tradition by returning the “punch” to punch.  Ah, the circle of life.

Since National Punch Day coincides with clean hands week, here is a way to celebrate both.  Latex gloves are filled with the drink of choice (plastic side in, powdery side out, otherwise eeeewwwww) and frozen, then added to the punch.

Compliments of Better Homes and Gardens (BHG.com)

Kinda creepy?  Sure.  Kinda fun?  Yep.

Happy Punch Day!

ARGH!

Shivver me timbers!  It’s here!

Today is finally here.  I know you have looked forward to it all year as we have!

Yep, it is finally Talk Like A Pirate Day!

According to its founders, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket, the reason to speak pirate lingo today is “because we’re guys, and because we can.”

Lofty ambitions and misogyny aside, this day caught on like wildfire.  

And why not?  Why should preternaturally handsome actors and amusement park workers have all the fun?  The rest of us should have a day to release our inner sea-dilenquent.

Available at etsy.com from laurasdogboneart.com

What may have started as a lark is now an Internet sensation.  Need pirate socks, pirate t-shirts or a pirate patch?  They are available.

For the day, you can ditch your parentally given moniker and adopt a more fearsome tag.  (For example, Pirate Bella the Rum-Swiller–it’s rather catchy).  Websites galore offer tips on everything from how to make a paper hat to pirate-ese translators and dictionaries.

Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen, me fellow scallywags.  Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Have Respect: Wash Your Hands!

Today begins Clean Hands Week.

Perhaps the calendar gods saw Contagion last week-end and freaked out like the rest of us did.  Regardless, the best way to battle the phantom threat of a modern plague is to scrub down the phalangies.

Experts recommend humming “Happy Birthday” while soaping up.  The Daily Cupcake asserts that humming “Happy Birthday” does not make a person sound foolish enough.  We recommend a verse from Sir Mix-A-Lot’s classic “Baby Got Back” or perhaps the chorus of “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”

And having awesome looking soaps, like these found at Bath Bubble and Beyond couldn’t hurt.  

Today also happens to be Respect Day.

Really, we are trying here, but the truth is, that commemorative days have to be created to encourage people to wash their hands and have respect for one another is just frightening.

We would like to think better of humanity than this.  Though perhaps those in public office do need a reminder.  So today’s cupcake is a congressional reminder to keep yourself clean and have a little respect.

Mayflower Day

Thankfully in 1620, there were at least 102 discontented Brits who had endured enough of English society that they were willing to risk life, limb, and serious seasickness to start over elsewhere.

This is mind-boggling.

Just what does a person have to go through to want to start over in a new world? I’m guessing there were old nay-sayers who still thought the world was flat.

So these pilgrims were willing to sail off the edge of the world rather than live another moment in tyranny. What makes the story all the more awe-inspiring is that they didn’t just sit around whining and complaining about how lousy life was, nor did they spend all their time saying someone else should fix the problems. On September 16, they took their lemons to another shore and had the Native Americans show them how to make New World lemonade.

And what did the adventurous pilgrims do to entertain themselves for more than 60 days? Stories? Jokes? Songs? More likely: prayer, probably for forgiveness for foolishly thinking a ship trip was a good idea.

So today’s cupcake goes out to those optimistic pilgrims. Happy Mayflower Day!

I wonder what they would think of their New World’s 2011 congress.

Felt and 102 Degrees

Just as the thermometer is topping out in the triple digits, yet again (60+ days and counting), it’s time to don a felt hat?

Today’s seasonally-inappropriate, we’d-die-of-heat-stroke-if-we-tried-it cupcake is for Felt Hat Day.

Evidently, the idea of today is to honor the bygone tradition of hat wearing; to wear a felt hat just for the hay–er, felt–of it.

Bogart would be proud.  Really.  

He helped make the Fedora the ultimate topper for the better part of the 30s and 40s.  Movies made the gangster/detective look complete with the Fedora, and Bogart made the gangster or detective look cool.

There are others who have helped keep the tradition alive.  A hatless Indiana Jones just wouldn’t have had swagger.

And then we can’t forget  Mad Men for making us all wish we lived in the stylish decade of the swinging 60s.  

If you happen to live where hat would not be a heat death trap, those of us in the blistering south ask that you put on a felt hat today.  We shall support you in spirit if not in practice.

Happy Felt Hat Day!

Dunkin’? Krispy? You Choose.

Here’s a bit more information than is appropriate to divulge on a public blog: I adore a good donut.  And an even better donut is one with hidden delight.

Yet this is the first that I have heard of National Cream-filled Donut Day.  Think of all the uncelebrated September 14ths gone by.  Arrrggghhh!

Okay, moving on.

Just who exactly came up with the first cream-filled donut is unclear.  The general consensus is that the Dutch settlers introduced the U.S. to their olykoek (or “oil cake”), and the sweet dough fried in fat is the closest progenitor of the modern donut.

But, these early versions had issues.  Namely, it was difficult to cook them completely so the center was often gooey.

So, does this count as the first cream-filled donut?  Yeah, we didn’t think so either.  It sounds more like the first half-baked donut.

Other early versions were stuffed with fruit or nuts, which helped to cook the center, or the center was poked out all together.  But who came up with the idea of injecting cream into Boston’s donut or creamy frosting into a Long John is unknown.  

The more research we do here at The Daily Cupcake, the more we realize genius often goes unrecognized.

Today’s cupcake goes out to the quiet inventors who helped the donut realize its potential.  We’d love to name names and salute you.  Instead we’ll think of you as we indulge in your legacy.

Perfect Symbiosis

If ever two commemorative days were destined to be together, they are today’s.

Happy International Chocolate Day AND Day of Positive Thinking.

We positively think today will improve immensely if it is dipped in chocolate.

I could not find the source of this pic. If you recognized it, let me know. I'd love to give them credit. They are gorgeous!

The truth is your author is feeling just a bit too snarky to do today justice, so instead I offer my favorite snips of wisdom from quotegarden.com and the most delicious-looking photos I could find.  Bon A Petite!

• A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.  ~Herm Albright, quoted in Reader’s Digest, June 1995
• Attitudes are contagious.  Are yours worth catching?  ~Dennis and Wendy Mannering
• If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want.  ~Oscar Wilde
• I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.  ~Ancient Persian Saying  
• If you don’t think every day is a good day, just try missing one.  ~Cavett Robert
• Oh, my friend, it’s not what they take away from you that counts.  It’s what you do with what you have left.  ~Hubert Humphrey
• Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.  ~Winston Churchill
• There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate.  ~Robert Brault

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

• A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.  You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.  ~Roald Dahl
• To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.  ~George Santayana
• Happiness is an attitude.  We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong.  The amount of work is the same.  ~Francesca Reigler
• The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.  ~Foster’s Law

A Week of Dancing and A Day of Gaming

Today is Video Games Day.

Wow!  The Daily Cupcake could hear the loud cheering from here.  Impressive.

We acknowledge that there are many people who are rabid fans of their game of choice, and today offers an excuse to chuck responsibility and go for the console.

For others, today is a day to find your game of choice.  I’m still searching.  My first love was Frogger.  Then there were brief flirtations with Pole Position and Super Mario.  There was that dark period lost to endless games of Tetris.  Things improved with Dance, Dance Revolution.  And lately it has been all about Wii (to the point that I can no longer find a tennis opponent, so sad).  Oh, yeah.  And Angry Birds.

There are unexplored worlds out there–Grand Theft Auto, anything with ‘war’ or ‘football’ in the title.

And they may just have to remain unexplored because today also marks the beginning of Line Dancing Week.  

(The loud cheering you hear now is from my mom.)

Grab your Wranglers, Justins, and 50 of your nearest and dearest and line up!  Really, when was the last time you cut loose to “Cotton-eyed Joe”?  Enjoy!

To sum up, the real question is: is there a video game of line dancing?  If there isn’t one yet, I hope they invent one like this!

Happy Gaming Day and Dancing Week!