Six geese a layin?

How  many eggs are in  nog?

Just drink the brandy!

Appearances

The message in today's window of my Advent calendar:

An angel of the Lord appeared;

"I bring you good news"

Peace Be With You

Peace be with you all.

I will confess,

I have made palm crosses

from 

Palm Sunday palms

every year of my life

since learning how to

in

Kindergarten

Some years

youngsters 

in 

adjacent pews

are focused on how

this happens.

I quietly

take their palms 

make them into crosses

and send them back

to smiling faces

On very blessed years

I spend the majority of the mass

crafting palms

for those

who quietly pass me their palms

smiling hopefully

this 

spreads joy for most

but earns me

glaring disapproval

from others

I will confess 

I do not enjoy 

what I call

the mob mentality masses

I cannot speak

the parts

of the crowd

thirsty for evil

calling out,

"Crucify Him!"

Instead 

of speaking horrors

I hang my head

 praying  intently

for 

beauty

 in human spirits

and 

I craft crosses

Blessings on You!

May you have the hindsight to know where you have been

The foresight to know where you are going, and

The insight to know when you have gone too far!

Haiku Monday: Balance

Good Morning Haiku Contributors.

This week our Haiku mission is to explore the concept of 

"balance"

The No Bowl Winner

A note about that OTHER game, congratulations to Seattle's SeaHawks.
They played impressive football.  I think they have ushered in a new era in football
of fleet, fit, finessed gridiron gladiators. About the Broncos....Peyton showed up to play,

I'm not to sure what happened to his teammates.

Our game had some low and high scores as well.

Thanks to all challengers and a special welcome to new to the Pond player Amanda.

Our thanks also to Chickory for giving us all another game to play! Her haiku:

Ten thousand items

eleven ingredients

Mexican kitchen

To quote Karl, Chickory's wit and wisdom have been missed! I loved this for it's wit, humor, syllable count, construction and the game within the haiku . A menu and a game in just 17 cleverly crafted syllables!  Did you select your eleven ingredients? Mine are these:

Corn

Tomatoes

Onions

Peppers

Cheese

Cream

Frijoles

Meat

Rice

Spices

Cerveza 

Chickory expanded our Game Day fun while declining to compete. 

A winning generosity for sure.

Our naturalist Serendipity cleverly wove the GAMES together with her haiku about a Hawk.

House sparrow main course

Sharp shinned Hawk dines well this eve

Warm flesh heats her gut

Serendipity never ducks the realities of nature. In her environs a warm meal is often survival.

As it turns out, Serendipity did not need a TV to know the score. She predicted it.

The HAWKS dined very well.

Amanda showed up with a childhood gaming classic:

Hiding eyes counting

Others running, hiding fast

Shout, "Ready or not!"

What a charming haiku!
I could feel the rush of excitement from here. We all grew up playing hide and seek. Most of us were blessed to repeat the experience through our own children or loaners. Also, in classic Haiku form there are two halves of a whole concept. If you take out the middle line the message is still clear.  Well done Amanda. Alas, the subject was "menu".

Karl  brought home a big score with this recipe:

Embrace principle

Learning Loving Integrity

Fulfillment menu

This is my favorite entry. I love the concept of having a menu for fulfillment of life.

I so agree with him! To organize a life of principles with an eager reach for learning, for loving well, for bringing integrity to efforts large and small IS gourmet living. Remember the game LIFE? Traveling the roads, rolling the dice, filling your car up with pink and blue babies while trying to pay your  bills? In the Karl approach to a life lived well you need not roll the dice. Just take the high road! Unfortunately my favorite haiku is off  count with  8 syllables in the mid line.

Sigh!

I love our Monday Haiku game. I do not love judging.
So I'm taking a cue from the coaches of that other game
I'm sending in a replacement!

Sunday football fun
beer, wings, chips, dips and, more beer!
Cause brown bottle flu

Congratulations KARL, you are our winner.

First February Haiku Monday Game Day

Welcome Haiku-ers to The Game.
Of course there are some who think the Big Game is about  the Super Bowl.
Like that other game, our weekly haiku contest  is eagerly anticipated. I've already received several  foot tapping, harruummppphing  messages reminding me Friday was POST DAY.

After the shock of the Oops win over at Serendipity Do Dah's I spent some time thinking about themes for this week. I finally landed on a subject I thought had not been done and would be fun when  one of my projects went into overtime leaving none for games.

Somewhere, in the midst of this 2880 minute drill, I lost interest in the original theme.

Maybe it got hijacked by all the hype about that other game.
I think the Super Bowl Season is the  Season of Lucre for those in Advertising.
They have reached saturation via every media form possible. Some of that seeped in.
Or, maybe, it was Blowfish  who thinks far more about the food for a big game day than the game.
Or maybe it was his foot tapping, harruummphing impatience over no posted  Game Day Menu for the Pond. It is a well known fact Blowfish  enjoys his food best when he has had time to  anticipate every offering.

Last night I arrived home late. Again. After our normal dinner hour.  Blowfish was so puffed out he looked like one of those WWII mines waiting to explode with minimal contact. Here it was

  Friday Night on Super Bowl Weekend

and there was  no dinner and no menu posted for THE GAME.  Even worse, there was no stocked larder or stuffed refrigerator for him to investigate the mystery of the menu. Alarmingly, he had not been sweetly summoned to fetch in mountains of grocery bags from the Fizz.  Before I got my coat shrugged off he was saying, " Fishy, I've been thinking it sure would be great if you'd make us some of those sweet, juicy, baby back ribs for the Game"

 "Really?
That's so ordinary I thought this year we'd celebrate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

So now you know. 

Our theme this week is 

Menu