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La Carmina is our guest blogger during the week of October 5. If you have any questions for La Carmina, add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some more information about Cute Yummy Time:

A cookbook that thinks outside the bento box and brings the popular Japanese trend of kawaii (all things cute) to the American kitchen.

Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Super Mario, Astroboy... American pop culture has been invaded by big-headed, dewy-eyed characters from Japan. The cult of kawaii (ka-why-ee, or all things cute) has spread to every aspect of living-including food. Take Japan's wackiest new trend: school lunches dolled up as adorable creatures. They're feasts for the eyes, but their ingredients such as natto and nori don't exactly sit well with Western stomachs.

Cute Yummy Time interprets this Japanese phenomenon for the American palate. Using familiar foods, La Carmina turns mundane meals into adorable sensations. A risotto ball becomes a curious hedgehog; chicken sandwiches are dressed as chicks. Entertaining has never been so endearing with a blue cheese blowfish for a beach party or strawberry lovers in chocolate crepe robes for Valentine's Day. Each recipe includes step-by-step instructions, illustrations, and eye-popping full-color photos.

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Jessa Slade is our guest blogger during the week of October 5. If you have any questions for Jessa Slade, add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some more information about Seduced by Shadows:

When Sera Littlejohn meets a violet-eyed stranger, he reveals a supernatural battle veiled in the shadows, and Sera is tempted to the edge of madness by a dangerous desire. Ferris Archer takes Sera under his wing, now that she is a talyan-possessed by a repentant demon with hellish powers. Archer's league of warriors have never fought beside a female before, and never in all his centuries has Archer found a woman who captivates him like Sera.

With the balance shifting between good and evil, passion and possession, Sera and Archer must defy the darkness and dare to embrace a love that will mark them forever.

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As promised, today I thought we would have a look at that general belief that the rhyme Ring a Ring a Roses tells the story of The Great Plague of London in 1665. Well, I spent a day studying the symptoms of The Bubonic Plague, which wasn't much fun, and trying to match them with the well known rhyme. That seemed to me to be a logical place to start. This is what I found for Pop Goes the Weasel [NB: This is the British version of the rhyme, Americans may remember different words]:

Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocketful of posies;
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.

This rhyme usually accompanies a dancing game that ends with all the children falling to the ground, getting their clothes muddy and going home to a clout round the ear. Or at least that's how I remember it.