It was The First Quarters birthday earlier this month, so The Square came together to make him Blueberry Birthday Pancakes, and generally hang out.

Now, these weren’t any ordinary pancakes. For a start The Third Quarter found the recipe on the internet. I’m not usually a fan of internet recipes unless they have been heavily endorsed by someone I know (there have been many bad cooking disasters with internet recipes), but The Third Quarter was sure about it so sweet as.

This recipe, though? It had buttermilk in it. Perhaps that’s what made it awesome, but when I sniffed the buttermilk (having never encountered it before) it smelt pretty rank. The Third Quarter asked if it was off, The Fourth Quarter said it was fine. So we used it. Just as well we did, because the pancakes we’re brilliant!

We ate them with Bananas and Feijoas, with cinnamon and sugar, and maple Syrup. SO. VERY. DELICIOUS.

In the end we made multiple batches (going back to the supermarket to get extra ingredients) and spent the rest of the morning lounging around enjoying the winter sun, and admiring The First Quarters new umbrella:

Lazy mornings filled with good food and good friends really are to be savoured and celebrated. There should be more of them, too I think. You can never have enough days that feature buttermilk and blueberry birthday pancakes :)

Lately I’ve been trying to quit spending ridiculous amounts on lunch (oh lunch, how I love you so!) and so I’ve been bringing leftovers in, and heating them. At work, our microwave is on top of our fridge. On our fridge, there are many, many fridge magnets. Poetry fridge magnets. Kiwi slang specific poetry fridge magnets.

You can see where this is going. In the two minutes a day I spend in front of the microwave, I managed to create this:

Ahh fridge magnets. Indulging bad poets everywhere. :)

- Mabel Wharekawa-Burt.

Earlier this week there was Hikoi to protest the lack of Maori Seats in the new Super-City local government. There was some protest at work today, too. Why did Maori feel the need to do this? They aren’t special, there are a billion other cultures within Auckland now, do they all need special seats? What a waste of time, they said. We’re all New Zealanders now, they should be represented just like the rest of us.

I carefully ignored this kind of talk, not wanting to get into a debate out of my league. But I wish I hadn’t kept quiet. I wish I had spoken up.

The Hioki wasn’t just about the seats. It was about Maori being heard, and having a voice on the new council. It was about preserving the culture, and the history. It was about preserving the native culture unique to New Zealand, in modern society.

Oh, sure, Maori aren’t the only minority in New Zealand. Not even by a long shot. But we are the only ones native to New Zealand. No where else in the world will you hear the Maori Language spoken. No where else will you find the Maori history, or the culture. Sure, New Zealand is full of other cultures. But all those other cultures are native to somewhere else, another country, another island, another place. Those other cultures thrive both here, and in their native country. And all those other cultures haven’t fought in New Zealand like the Maori have. They haven’t been discriminated against in New Zealand like the Maori have. They haven’t had their New Zealand land taken away, or been punished for speaking their language in New Zealand like the Maori was. They haven’t had their culture turned over to the tourist trade, like in Rotorua. They haven’t fought like we have, and continue to do.

I’m not getting down on the other minorities. Many of them have fought their own battles, I’m sure. And we welcome them to New Zealand, and respect them and their culture in their own right. It is not a case of us or them. It is a case of preserving the culture unique, and native to New Zealand.

Liz messaged me, after reading about it on the news. She said she was proud to be Maori. Proud that we, as a people, were out there on the streets being heard. That we were fighting for the right to preserve, and live the Maori way in New Zealand, and fighting for fair representation on the new council. That we weren’t taking the removal of Maori Seats quietly. And I was proud too, to be a part of that movement. I was also proud that there were Non-Maori in the hikoi, supporting us, and our voice.

Still, I wish I had spoken up at work. Some debates are worth getting involved in. Even if you can’t explain it as eloquently as required. Sometimes it’s just the standing up that counts.

Every now and then The Fourth Quarter will have something random for us to do. Last week it was the 2009 edition Release Party for Threaded, a design magazine. I wish I’d known about Threaded before, it’s a design mag which aims to extend student design visibility across schools and potential employers. This means that it relies heavily on contributions (which this year were brilliant. I devoured this years edition!) and sponsorship to get itself out there.

I love the determination that’s required to get such a magazine up ad printed and out in the world. That’s not an easy thing to do, and after listening to people praise the gorgeous editor in chief Kyra, I could see why it was so successful. She’s brilliant, really, she is. And think that her brilliance quite clearly shines through the magazine. And there aren’t enough brilliant New Zealand design mags out there at the moment, so hurrah!

I also love that The Fourth Quarter knows all about these things. The release party was filled with gorgeous and design-y type people, and the party itself was particularly fancy. The space had gorgeous hardwood floors, and big glass windows. There was fantastic wine and all the colours of Nutrient Water for those not into alcohol. There was a pretty decent dj, and all in all, it was brilliant to be there.

It was also pretty easy to spot the odd one out. I was prolly the least design-y person there. You can tell this because I’m the only one grinning like an idiot instead of rocking a proper ‘design’ face.

Still, I met some incredibly cool people (like the fantastic Katie) and got to hang with people I hadn’t seen in a while (Hi Lucas and Jas!) and all in all, had a fantastic night out. Hurrah for The Fourth Quarter and his clever arty outings :)

I don’t often talk about my cat. We don’t got for walks like I do with Quinn, and she’s not quite as personable as Quinn is. But as the nights have gotten colder she’s taken to sleeping on my bed, which is only a little unnerving (she’s quite heavy, and the first time she jumped up I got such a fright cause she’s so heavy! Easily 5 times more so than Quinn).

And lately, she’s been hanging out with us before bed. Especially when we’re all hanging out in the lounge with the fire going. She’s even taken to to playing to playing with the newspaper like she did when she was a little kit (though she’s quite old now, 8 years even.)

She’s rather sweet, and the more I hang out with her, the more personable she becomes.

She can be so charming when she wants to. :)

A while back I got The Boy Burn Out Paradise City. In truth I probably got it more for me, than for him. When I was at uni we would spend hours at Bunny’s house playing Burn Out Revenge on his xbox and handy projector with the compsci crew (think half a dozen geeks who I went through uni with). And I had a GREAT time, I loved take downs, and crashing into cars to score money (I know, it made zero sense, but was loads of fun!)

Paradise City is a bit different in the way it’s laid out. Events now appear at intersections instead of from a menu. You get license that is upgraded as you complete events (the slate of which is wiped clean as you ascend to a new license level), but the novel thing about this is that if you have a webcam you can put your OWN FACE on your license. They also give you the opportunity to take a new license photo after every successful event.

Okay, so perhaps this doesn’t add to the game play or anything, but for someone as camwhorish as me taking a new stupid license photo every time I won a race provided no end to the giggles. In the end, the novelty wore off (think 100+ events) and I stuck with one license face:

Brilliant, no? Sometimes it’s the silly little add-ons that make a game. I wouldn’t say buy it just because of the silly add-ons, but Burnout Paradise City? Even without the photo-taking is pretty awesome. I’ve passed many hours while The Boy games racing around the city. It’s a fun game that easily passes the time :)

As it comes into winter and the days are getting shorter and colder I find I’m turning into one of those people who can’t stop eating. Particularly comfort food. Heavy comfort food. I think it’s because of this that I can’t stop making and eating this pie. For serious? It’s the best pie in the WORLD!

It’s Spinach and Feta (made SO GOOD with Sun-dried Tomatoes). And I’m addicted. So much so that I must’ve tweeted about it at least a dozen times. Easily every time I had a piece (which has been many.) And it’s ridiculously easy to make. So much so that I managed to fit the recipe in a 140 character tweet to @loadsoflaundry:

@loadsoflaundry 8 eggs, 2pkts spinach (drained), 1 pkt feta cheese, 1 jar sundried tomatoes. Mix. Bake in puff pastry at 200C for 30-45mins.

Amazing, no? I don’t usually cook, and I’m not usually very good at it, but this has turned out to be the easiest thing ever to make. What’s more? I’ve taken to writing my name on it, in pastry. So I can claim the whole delicious brilliant best pie ever – cause it has my name on it. :P

The great thing about The Square is that we are all prepared to go out and just do things for the sake of doing them, all spontaneous like. In this case, we all danced around in the moonlight (which came about because The Third Quarter mentioned that it’s something we hadn’t done, after she sang the song in one of our singstar battles).

So, the rest of The Square went up One Tree Hill, and pulled funny faces and posed, and were also camera whores. We also danced. In the Moonlight. For The Third Quarter. I totally <3 The Square right now :)

Just Miss is brilliant. I love her blog, where she’s always super (super) honest and generally cuts right to the chase. She blogs about Boobs, and her post about her poor hamster cracked me up no end (it shouldn’t have, really, but it did. That’s just how Just Miss rolls).

Her tweets are pretty brilliant too (You can find her as @JustOneMiss) though I don’t often get all the baseball references. I did discover a bunch of cool hash tag movements to follow though.

Anyway, she went on a blogging holiday and I wrote a guest post for her, when I was getting all proud about Rarg (in a delighted way, not a ‘this is my hood, bitch!’ way) about being a perfectly ordinary blogger. You can read it here, so give her (and me!) some love, okay? XD!

This month, Steve’s Orienteering Challenge required a bit more forethought than last month. But I kinda enjoy the randomness, so after convincing The Boy to be enthusiastic with me I got a bunch of crazy photos for my entry!

The May challenge was thus:

1. The Many Faces Of Steve

(Print out a mask of Steve’s face and wear it whilst doing something fun)

This one just kept getting better and better. At first I thought riding a canon was pretty awesome. And then I was up climbing in the trees of a forrest, and that seemed more awesome. And then SURFING through the trees? That pretty much topped it. Pity video entries aren’t really accepted . . .

2. Play The Game

(Get a photo of yourself playing a (non video) game)

By the time we got to this one we were both exhausted from the weekend we’d had. And it was raining. I opted for a copped out version:

3. Street Sign Mad Libs

(Insert the blanks with a Street Sign: “Sometimes, I like to ______ in my ______ .”)

We went through the street map, and tried to find some funny versions. The funniest ones, unfortunately, were always something like a 3 hour round trip. We opted for the dirty local signs instead:

Another amusing way to pass the weekend days :) I wonder what next months challenge will bring . . .