Happy Plush Animal Lover's And National Chocolate Day (...Oh Yeah, And My Birthday, Yay!)

Wow, what an honor it is to have three special days all rolled into one, what an honor it is for my birthday to be shared with plush animal lovers and cacoa bean connoisseurs worldwide.



The history of chocolate may still be quite young, but yet sooooooo fecund. In 600 A.D. the Mayans migrated into the northern regions of South America, establishing the earliest known cocoa plantations in the Yucatan. Many have argued that the Mayans had been familiar with cocoa several centuries prior to this date, who have considered it a valuable commodity, used both as a means of payment and as units of calculation. So they took beans from this "cacao" tree and made a drink they called "xocolatl." Aztec Indian legend held that cacao seeds had been brought from Paradise and that wisdom and power came from eating the fruit of the cacao tree. (maybe my #1 endorphin import comes from it, LOL!)



Because chocolate was originally cvonsumed in liquid form (The word "chocolate" is said to derive from the Mayan "xocolatl"; cacao from the Aztec "cacahuatl". The Mexican Indian word "chocolate" comes from the terms choco ("foam") and atl ("water") ) chocolate in its modern term was first noted in 1519 when Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez visited the court of Emperor Montezuma of Mexico. American historian William Hickling's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838) reports that Montezuma "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices, and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma consumed his "chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that it was an aphrodisiac.

Chocolate was introduced to the United States in 1765 when John Hanan brought cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts, which proliferated with help of Dr. James Baker. The first chocolate factory in the country was established there, and to this day, the rest is history! :)

Scorpios like me just can't resist the seductive sapidity of chocolat! The last Aztec Emperor, Monteczuma certainly thought it was an aphrodisiac, as he is reputed to have drunk it fifty times a day to get his freak on, LOL! When the Spanish Conquistadors took the chocolate drink back to Spain from the new world, its Aphrodisiac myths lived on so it's not surprising that chocolate continued to be associated with love when it spread through Europe. Even the great Latin lover, Casanova consumed Chocolate before bedding his many conquests.



Chocolate does contain two chemical substances called Phenylethylamine and Serotonin (and I'll all about that! :) ) These substances are known as mood lifting agents found naturally in the human brain. They are released by the brain into the human nervous system when we are experiencing feelings of physical love, passion or lust, causing a rapid lifting of mood, a rise in blood pressure and increasing heart rate, inducing feelings of well being, bordering on euphoria we usually associate with being in love.

Eating Chocolate also releases Phenylethylamine and Seratonin into the system which artificially produces those same euphoric effects, plus it gives a substantial energy boost thus increasing stamina, possibly at a critical moment, probably explaining why many think of it as an aphrodisiac, yay! :)



(giggles) I've always been such a softy for plush toy pets as well! :) Guess my small hands have their advantage, like my mom says ever so often, in nurturing and fondling furry little things with a feminine touch! :) I'm soooooo sensitive that every Easter, when the easter bunny would leave me with a box of marshmallow Peeps, to this day, I can never eat them because though I know they're not real living things and just candy shaped chicks, they just look sooooooooo cute and I just feel an immediate sense of grief everytime I look at them as though they're little living peepers! (giggles) I've kept some as pets for about 3 1/2 years now! This Peep Jousting is just like Dark Ages ordeals, I tells you! I demand it be outlawed! Can't you see the mercy and grief behind their 32 calorie faces and carnauba wax eyes, like a dolls eyes? LOL! Peep off, Sacramento, peep off! (shows pouty puppy face)



:) I have a lil' family of Liquid Blue Deady Bears who always are there for me everyday I come home to my lil' doll house-sized crash pad, along with a menagerie of Beanie Bears, my buddy Brer Frog who I rendezvoued with at Splash Mountain a few years back, Gidget the Taco Bell Chihuahua, and Jerry Garcia, who I gifted with some new suave big sunglasses! :) Lookin' sharp, Jerry, you still know the score, sunshine daydreamer!



(giggles) How sweet it is to share my birthday with the likes of the chocolate cavaliers and plush toy proselytes! (sigh) Sometimes I can get real sentimental on birthdays, especially ones like this, because my dad has told me all this week, "So, how does it feel to be the age I was when your mom and I gave birth to you?" (giggles) I guess I've just always like to think of birthdays as just another day in our lives, for I feel if I thought otherwise, it often seems to encourage too much pensiveness, as though I can't decide if my parents were too young and restless when they were young and rushed things, if I am a late-bloomer, or if it's simply that the times have changed and it is natural for people to be motre careful and selective about their lovers and partners nowadays. I still long very much for my first kiss, and want to experience this feeling more than any other feeling in the world, but life is a journey and the journey always matters in the end and I want to spread glitter each and every step I make in each step closer I come to my cute intruder! :)

So, twenty-second birthday, I'm ready, ready to embrace the great wide open! As God is my witness, may these days bring me more blessings than I am predicting! Onward, my legions of hopes!

And thank you all so much for being my friends that have stood up and believed me up to this day. Let me just say that whether you give me a birthday greeting six days before my birthday or six days after my birthday, I am always just as happy. Belated birthday greetings never hurt me one bit, for just knowing someone cares and thinks of me makes me feel warm inside like a Care Bear on a spring picnic! God Bless You All!



Remember these wise words of Franz Kafka: "Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old." Keep spreading your light to the world and let live, yay!

(hands complimentary piece of angel-food tea cake just for you)

Love,
Noah Eaton