These lights were in the River House restaurant we went to on the Mississippi River near Cape Girardeau.
https://ceenphotography.com/2018/11/13/cees-fun-foto-challenge-lights/
Overhead: CFF Challenge, Lights
3 Replies
Touchy Subject, for dVerse Poets
Touchy Subject
My soul, once slippery as an seal,
that eased as easily as an eel
to heaven and back, a wave worn path,
like slippy-sliding in the bath,
has grown rough ridges that jerk me back
into the mosh pit with the pack.
We flail with elbows, boot tips, knees—
all of us caught within the squeeze
of what we hate and knock against,
beat fist and teeth and cock against.
It’s like a cageless, viral zoo,
this rough world we’ve evolved into.
The whole world’s in each other’s viewing,
killing, ripping, tearing, chewing.
We touch the keys to tear asunder,
ravage, rape, ransack and plunder.
These same hands that could stroke the keys,
pound and punish, grab and seize.
We Tweet or Snapchat, Facebook, Skype,
barely touching as we type.
We are so constantly in touch
that we do not consider much
that in our constant online dealing,
we should give more thought to feeling.
We cannot feel a handshake’s squeezing,
warm and tender, pressured, pleasing,
when we’re too far away to touch.
We cannot feel so very much.
We feel with organs meant for thinking,
and make connections without linking.
Those of us who predate the text
tend to fear what’s coming next.
A simple touch could end the world—
all of us pulverized and hurled
into a place where nothing lingers.
No tongue, no lips, no questing fingers.
https://dversepoets.com/2018/11/13/tuesday-poetics-touch-me/
How Spreading Fake News about Haile Selassie led Me to Ramar’s Incredible Green Chile Enchiladas
Oops.. I’m far away from home and find I don’t have the photo of Haile Selassie and me in my computer’s photo album, so I’ll just use the single photo of him above and describe the one I wanted to use. In the photo, I am standing next to Haile Selassie with one hand on his shoulder and the other one pressed against his chest. Below is the little vignette I wrote to go with the illustration with which I was going to introduce the recipe. Phew. I’ll run the photo when I get home. Someone remind me, please? In the meantime, I’ll team up his photo with one of Ramar’s Incredible Green Chile Enchiladas which, although it seems highly unlikely, do actually have a link to Haile Selassie. Intrigued? I’ll explain.
Spreading Fake News about Haile Selassie
When I was en route to Ethiopia the second time, this time flying back after a visit to my parents in the states, I stopped off in London to see my friend Deirdre, who’d been my roomie in Australia as well as my 5 month traveling companion between Australia and Ethiopia a few months before. While in London, we went to Madame Tussaud’s where she took a photo of me with Haile Selassie’s wax effigy. (photo unavailable but upcoming.)
A year and a half later when I moved back to the states, a reporter from the Cheyenne, Wyoming newspaper came to interview me about my adventures in the year leading up to and during the beginning of the revolution in Ethiopia. As she looked through my pictures to find one to go with the story, she picked up this photo and asked where it was taken. I told her Madame Tussaud’s and she asked if she could take it to run along with the story.
The next day, she called me back and said that her editor had requested that she once again ask where the picture of me with Haile Selassie had been taken. When I told her, she asked me just who this Madame Tussaud was and when I said that it was the name of a famous wax museum, she let out a long breath, “Oh, I thought it really was you and Haile Selassie.” When I asked if she hadn’t questioned why I’d have my arm around him and my hand on his chest, she said, ‘Yeah, that’s what we were wondering about.” And that’s how I avoided spreading fake news about Haile Selassie and me.
And this is the long way around explaining where I got this wonderful recipe. That reporter, Ramar Gorby, ended up becoming a good friend and it was she who first made this recipe and shared it with me.
To read recipe and see illustrations in a larger format,
Click on first photo and arrows.
12 scallions, cleaned and sliced into small slices, white and green parts both used. (You might not use them all, depending on your preference.)
1 lb. grated cheddar cheese.
2 1/2 lbs. chicken breasts with all fat removed.
Velvetize by cooking in chicken broth on top of stove. (Just the chicken. You’ll use the rest of the ingredients later.)
Combine and heat in a saucepan on stove: 1/2 cup of sour cream, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup (if you wish, substitute cream of chicken soup for one of the cans) and one 7 oz. can of Ortega diced green chiles.
Deep fry each of the 12 flour tortillas, one at a time. When bottom side begins to get golden, flip over and fry other side. If they bubble up, press down with tongs.
We don’t want this to happen!
Remove with tongs and hold over pan to allow excess oil to drain back into pan.
and draining fried tortillas
Cook remainder of tortillas, stacking all on end to drain.
Set dishwasher to work.
Put one tortilla on plate. Arrange chicken down the middle and top with sauce.
Sprinkle scallions over meat and sauce.
Top with grated cheddar.
Fill pan with enchiladas and if you wish, put a narrow stream of sauce down the middle of enchiladas and top with scallions, grated cheddar and black olives.
You can store covered in refrigerator and heat uncovered at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes to serve later.
Or, if you want to serve them immediately, place uncovered in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and enchiladas are golden.
Ramar’s Incredible Green Chile Enchiladas
*12 scallions, cleaned and sliced into small slices, white and green parts both used. (You might not use them all, depending on your preference.)
1 lb. medium or mild yellow cheddar, grated. (You probably won’t use it all.)
*2 1/2 lbs. chicken breasts with all fat removed. cut up into bite-sized pieces and velvetized in boiling chicken broth until totally white. Be sure pieces are totally white and tender.
*1 small can of diced black olives
Combine and heat in a saucepan on stove:
1/2 cup of sour cream
2 cans of cream of mushroom soup (if you wish, substitute cream of chicken soup for one of the cans)
1 can of Ortega sliced green chilis
*12 flour tortillas, deep fried in hot vegetable oil. If bubbles form, push down with tongs. When one side begins to turn golden, flip over and fry other side. When they begin to turn golden, hold over fat with tongs to allow excess oil to drip off , then stand on end over several layers of paper towels to drain. Blot off excess oil that collects at bottom.
Lay one tortilla on plate, spread a line of chicken down the middle. Cover with a line of the sour cream, soup, chile mixture, then scallions and cheese. Roll and put seam down in a large cake pan. Repeat until all tortillas are rolled and lined up in pan. If you wish, drizzle a line of the sauce down the middle of the enchiladas and sprinkle cheese, green onions and sliced black olives on top of it. Put in uncovered in pan in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted. If more time is needed before serving, turn oven down to 150 degrees.
May be made ahead and stored covered in refrigerator. To finish, preheat the oven to 350°F, uncover the enchiladas and place in the oven while still cold and bake until the cheese is melted and the centers are warm, about 20 to 30 minutes.
Leftovers are good warmed up individually in a skillet with a little oil, turning so all sides brown. I also like them cold.
Enjoy.
A Magical Maven of Mexico
I must reblog this story of the incredible woman, Neill James, who did so much to support and built the magical Mexican community that I now call home. Thanks to Antonio Rambles, for both telling her story as well as the stories of all of the lakeside writers on Riberas Authors. Follow him on his blog or on Facebook if you want to see more.
https://riberasauthors.com/2018/11/11/ajijics-grand-dame-neill-james/
Family Reunion, Off the Grid
Click on first photo to enlarge all.
My sisters and dad and I.
Patti and I under the rose trellis.
This is my dad and I in front of a cabin in The Black Hills.
Family Reunion, Off the Grid
We find the key to the lake cabin
there where it always was above the eaves trough,
enter that family space deserted for so many years
and claim our old rooms.
Bring in firewood piled on the porch thirty years ago
and draw together at the trestle table
over dinners gathered
from the ice chests in the trunks of cars.
Dependent for so many years
on cell phones, e-mail and Facebook,
we grow listless over the loss of cell tower and wifi,
fall back on family videos from the far past,
and having exhausted that sparse shelf,
resort to family albums, dusty with accumulated years.
Over those cryptic signals from the past,
we begin to remember more,
and recall scraps of ourselves
that give a meaning to the name of scrapbook.
With no single screens possible,
we draw together over simple common images.
Dad in the neighbor lady’s hat,
sis in diapers and my mother’s heels,
my tea towel sarong and doily hat,
Mother, young enough to be our granddaughter,
in a stylish hat tipped down over one eye,
Middle sister standing triumphant at the top
of the slide she later fell from the top of—
a past truth I might have never known
if not sealed up, like this,
away from the wider world
and those parts of ourselves
that keep flying off to it.
I take her hand, grateful for her survival.
Just the two of us, now,
everyone else sealed up in this peeling album.
We put them to sleep again as we close its cover.
In the morning, restore the key,
nestle the “For Sale” sign more securely
into its mooring place and divide to our separate worlds,
the box of videos under my arm,
the family scrapbooks under hers.
The prompt words are past, video, listless and dependent.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/ragtag-tuesday-past/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/13/fowc-with-fandango-video/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/listless/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/your-daily-word-prompt-dependant-November-13-2018/
Words from a Dying Snowman
Words from a Dying Snowman.
“What lights your world may bring about another creature’s ending.”
For Daily Inkling’s prompt: Words of wisdom from a Snowman in ten words.
Sunday Trees, Nov 12, 2018
Purple Passion
Chrysanthemums: FOTD, Nov 12, 2018
For Cee’s FOTD
Generational Angst
Generational Angst
She could not quench her anger over all the agitation
caused by her father’s ire, or her mother’s castigation.
Their home life was a parody of what a life should be.
They were a group of separate “I’s.” There was no “us” or “we.”
He surveyed his daughter mainly from afar.
The only time she deigned to talk was to usurp the car.
She was so disrespectful he could barely hold his tongue.
Why was it so difficult to converse with the young?
She’d thought she’d have a daughter to fuss over and dress.
but when it came to this one, she was driven to confess,
her daughter lately gave no sign that she had once adored her.
Rather, all the indications were that she abhorred her.
Her mother dressed in mom jeans and her dad tucked in his shirts.
Then looked askance when she appeared in bandeaus and short skirts.
When they tried to speak her language, it only caused distress.
TBH, they had not a clue, and she could not care less.
This is the modern family. The parents sorely vexed.
The daughter is embarrassed, her mom and dad perplexed.
Why can they not communicate? Where is the veneration
that seems to be missing in this modern generation?
Parents cannot understand because they don’t recall
all of the resentment, embarrassment and gall
that they once felt for parents back when they were teens.
This disdain from their daughter was passed down in their genes.
This too shall pass, I’d like to say. Give it a little time.
The year will come when being parents will not be a crime.
Her growing up and having kids will be the end of it.
You’ll be her heroes once again when you can baby sit!
Words of the day are quench, parody and castigation.
It seems that Daily Addictions is no longer publishing prompts, so if someone knows of a daily word prompt not given below, please leave a comment for me in this post with a permanent link to that prompt. (One that will work everyday)
Here are today’s links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/rdp-monday-quench/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/12/fowc-with-fandango-parody/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/castigation/
