Where’s my coffee?
They look delicious.

mmmm cookies with an attitude.

Had to look up what a haka is. What did we do before toobz?

Made ginger snaps day before yesterday. Gingerbread cookies beyond my desire to work this year. Maybe next year.

Mmm ginger snaps…got enough to share?

Hold out your plate. I’ve already given away to 2 people, but as I’m single, there’re plenty more.

They were complete serendipity. I was buying candied fruit for my fruit cakes and in the same display there was candied ginger with a recipe attached. Bought 2 just in case, and now the second recipe dough is in my freezer to take to relatives for Xmas.

okay!

Bought a bushel of Northern Spy apples today. Making apple butter now (did you know it takes 3 minutes to peel and core one apple?). Will cook up some other delights in the next few days, but need to find a place to store the apples where the critters won’t get at them. My refrigerator is too full.

Rest period over. BBL.

They obviously take their gingerbread men very seriously in NZ. Here is this year’s video:
http://www.bakeryoftheyear.co……video.aspx

I digg cookies

LOL, this is just what I needed. There’s food fight downstairs about whether or not Chambliss is an icky grandpa or not. Good use of leftover mash potatoes, but I’m out of ammo now.

scary serious

dosido – we’ve got enough leftover mashed potatoes for the whole neighborhood. Come on over.

For some reason, I’m having visions of Richard Dreyfuss experiencing an encounter of third kind with his mash potatoes. gravy?

*catapults a spoonful @ egregious*

It’s on!

green beans flying your way…tough, cold, and they sting!

*loads pea shooter*

Darn. We needed you guys downstairs. It started getting serious, and everyone knows we haven’t a total brain among the lot of us. Whew.

/s or not ;->

ping ping. ping ping ping…

they’re all ricocheting off my ginormous (and clean) pot lid. ha!

Truce, let’s check out the palin post. always good for more laughs.

*THWACK!*

Oops, sorry all. Everyone o.k.? Just found the last of the dip under the edge of the couch. HAH!

hey, who were those masked heroes?

Yum! You know your apples! We can’t often get that variety here, and late summer storms messed with the whole crop, all kinds. Gots to have my apples.

don’t sweat it Adie. many people get cranky over the holidays from spending too much time with the family members they moved away from…then defend the idea of families getting together so they can grab each other inappropriately and complain (or not complain) about it afterwards.

We’re getting better at recognizing our holiday hot buttons and keep the whining to a minimum now so we can move on to what we want to do. Like have a food fight with fire pups. :]

OK, who nailed me with the stuffing down the collar? arggggh!

OK..for those readers who are NOT rugby fans, here is ‘the real deal’ – the originators of the haka in rugby(which, despite what the label on this clip is NOT a war dance..because war dances are done with weapons..the haka is a challenge dance..a test). This team is the New Zealand “All Blacks”(sorry..that’s their name and has been since they started in 1898). There is not just one ‘haka’, though the most famous one is Ke Mate(”I Die”). Watch this one, folks…and shiver..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cle20lQg0Qs

[…quietly tiptoeing thru the kitchen with the large bowl of whipped cream…]

heh heh. don’t knock it. there are pine-nuts in that stuffing, yummy!

we are blessed here. we get along. it takes some work. it’s worth every bit. we had our holiday, scrunched in around work schedules, and we are refreshed and renewed.

yes. we are spoiled rotten. but it takes some work. over years and months and precious moments.

but you knew that. ;->

hey. don’t be hasty. pumpkin pie with that?

oh good, I like my haka with tongue

LOL. I see you!

Thanks Toby! I have been trying to find more haka vids since someone (was it you?) posted a haka many moons ago when there was a big congress battle coming up. I forget which issue, probably fisa or defense budgets. I thought it was a soccer thing. Oh the ignorance!

I learn a lot here at the Lake.

Rubgy. And as soon as Marcy arises from her diabetic coma from yesterday’s meal, she’ll help us find that haka, I hope.

Did I mention she’s a really good cook?

well, as is noted at the top; there are two people here who are/were rugby players. The gingerbread one is just a hoot, frankly, though if you go on youtube, there is a response vid from a cookie company with their ‘team’ of cookies doing a haka in response to the gingerbread men haka…another classic. the best part of this All Blacks vid, though, is the looks on the faces of the opposing team – they look totally clueless.

I went to watch and yeah, the opposing players look like boehner during the bailout vote.

where is the haka to the haka response vid? I’ll try to find it. I love the one here. I showed it to my girls who love to bake. the flour is hilarious.

OMG that was hysterical and so needed.

We could have used a haka before the last family gathering — maybe that would have cut down on the tension.

cookies with dobro.

perfect for not shopping on Black Friday blues.

Here you go…put down the drink, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII6kQcleok

Oh Toby you beat me to that one. I do like the Fijian Cibi only version too, though.

omg too cute. I can’t get enough cookie haka. thx!

and now I went to other haka vids and am hysterical about one where the big Kahuna had to keep looking behind him to keep a skinny guy serious and menacing. bwahaha!

I like this one too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..&NR=1
Basically, they’re telling the

try again: they’re telling the opposing team they’re gonna annihilate them.

Wow, I had thought downstairs was over….then it wasn’t. I think Im going back to bed.

Margot…if you can listen(the sound is a little muddy…too bad on that)really closely, they are doing the Ke Mate haka…very traditional..the very first, supposedly. It is traditionally said that it was written by a chief who was hidden in a pit in the ground by another chief’s people when he was being pursued by a third tribe. The other chief is ‘the hairy man’ who is referenced here and this describes the hidden chief’s fears, hopes, and ultimate ascent from the pit. The words of that one and translation of that one (wiki)is:
Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!

Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!

Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru

Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā

Ā, upane! ka upane!

Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra!

’Tis death! ‘tis death! (or: I may die) ’Tis life! ‘tis life! (or: I may live)

’Tis death! ‘tis death! ’Tis life! ‘tis life!

This the hairy man that stands here…

…who brought the sun and caused it to shine

A step upward, another step upward!

A step upward, another… the Sun shines!

(and, if you want, we can schedule tattooing (ta moko)next week)

Make my tattoo a little honu.

Let me get back to you about that…but I like the haka.