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Posts tagged “photo”

and hope’s a reptile waiting for the sun

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on February 5, 2014

In Hiding

Lui et Elle

O Mistress, Mistress,

Reptile Mistress,

Your eye is very dark, very bright,

And it never softens

Although you watch.

 

~from Lui et Elle by D. H. Lawrence

 

 

February

The cold grows colder, even as the days

grow longer, February’s mercury vapor light

buffing but not defrosting the bone-white

ground, crusty and treacherous underfoot.

This is the time of year that’s apt to put

a hammerlock on a healthy appetite,

old anxieties back into the night,

insomnia and nightmares into play;

when things in need of doing go undone

and things that can’t be undone come to call,

muttering recriminations at the door,

and buried ambitions rise up through the floor

and pin your wriggling shoulders to the wall;

and hope’s a reptile waiting for the sun.

 

~from February by Bill Christophersen

 

Source: Poetry (February 2002)

 

 

 

*****

 

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

 

this happiness may not be joy

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 29, 2014

happy in shades of violet

 

joy may be a more demanding mistress, requiring a novice’s passionate heart. but in this place of vulnerability and willful trust, i have found a happiness. is it less than the joy of the soul? or are they really one and the same? more likely they are both pieces of my puzzle.

 

i will carry on, fitting the jagged pieces together; not working logically from the outside edges in, but tinkering with those infuriating center fragments that alone make no sense.

 

 

*****

 

Photo and text by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

Unmarked

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 12, 2014

No Flowers

 

I know flowers to be funeral companions
they make poisons and venoms
and eat abandoned stone walls
I know flowers shine stronger
than the sun
                                     their eclipse means the end of
times
but I love flowers for their treachery
their fragile bodies
grace my imagination’s avenues
without their presence
my mind would be an unmarked
grave.

 

 

~from The Spring Flowers Own by Etel Adnan

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Yo Ho Ho Ho! A Christmas Cake and a Bottle of Rum

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on December 23, 2013

Christmas Cake

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

  

1. Melt three quarters of a stick of unsalted butter in a cast iron skillet. If you only have half a stick, use that plus a quarter of a stick of salted butter. No one needs know and this is not a sign that things are going to go badly.

 

2. While the butter is melting get the brown sugar out of the pantry. When reaching for the sugar, knock the chia seeds on the floor. Since you didn’t close the container all the way last time you used it, you will need to sweep up the chia that’s now all over the floor. Which is about as easy as sweeping up feathers. Also yell at the dog because she is playing in the chia on the floor. Kick the uncooperative chia under a counter or stove. Add the brown sugar to the butter and do not burn it. Trust me. It’s bad.

 

3.  Arrange the pineapple pieces on the butter-sugar concoction. Bear in mind that this will be the top of the cake and you may want it to look “nice” and not at all like a crazy-quilt.

 

4. Sift together the dry ingredients. Wonder why you have to sift anything ever. Wonder about the freshness of the baking powder. Dismiss that thought. It can’t be that important.

 

5. Beat three quarters of a stick of unsalted softened butter until light and fluffy. Revisit item number one regarding the unsalted butter. Since you probably neglected to set the butter on the counter to soften, you may want to employ the  microwave. Remember the idea is to soften it though, not to melt it. Good luck with that.

 

6. Gradually add granulated white sugar. Remember that you used the last of the white sugar the last time you baked. Consider the options: honey or raw sugar. Go with the raw sugar. How different can it be?

 

7. Add room temperature eggs one at a time. No, you didn’t put the eggs out either, but you did have the foresight to put them in warm water when you started this. So you’re good to go.

 

8. Add vanilla and rum. When measuring them assume that the cap to the vanilla is half a teaspoon and the cap to the rum is one teaspoon. Let someone else prove otherwise. Taste the rum for freshness. This is much more important than the baking powder. Oh and speaking of baking powder, never substitute baking soda for baking powder or vice versa. Just trust me on this one.

 

9. Mix in half the dry ingredients. Since you didn’t get out the big mixer (too much trouble) and the hand mixer only operates at fast and very fast, you will now have flour pretty much everywhere. Still easier than getting out the big mixer. 

 

10. Mix in pineapple juice. Since it comes in a six ounce can and you only need four ounces, you now have something to add to your test rum.

 

11. Mix in the rest of the dry ingredients. You will once again be misted with flour. But you don’t have to clean the big mixer. 

 

12. Pour the batter over the pineapple topping and bake. Every dish in your kitchen is now dirty so if you don’t have a dishwasher, now may be a good time to run out and get one. Or just enjoy your rum and pineapple juice. And the fact that your kitchen smells like a tropical heaven.

 

Also, you might want fortify yourself since you still have to flip that sucker out of a hot cast iron skillet onto an appropriately festive, and probably delicate, plate. You’ll be fine. Oh and any of the pineapple that sticks to the pan will have it’s place handily outlined on the top of the cake, but remember you’re dealing with hot butter and sugar so use a utensil for goodness sake.

 

Later, when you think what’s that smell, and not in the good way, it may be the clean iron skillet that you set on a hot burner to dry. Take it off immediately.

 

The recipe I use is from Smitten Kitchen and really is delicious.

 

No dogs were harmed in the baking of this cake.

CAUTION

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on November 10, 2013

Caution

 

“The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay crisp and crackling beneath his feet. Picking one up he marveled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives.”

~Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling

 

*****

 

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

 

Last Seen

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on September 20, 2012

Last Seen 
“Your silence will not protect you”
~Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches 

Last Days of Summer

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on September 10, 2012


Last Days of Summer Image 1

Notes on the Coming Apocalypse(s)

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on July 1, 2012

Don't worry, the roaches and I will be around for a long, long time.

Don't worry, the roaches and I will be around for a long, long time.

    
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the apocalypse–actually make that the apocalypses. Not that it’s a new obsession. My theory is that as soon as we had something to lose, we started worrying about someone taking it away. Growing up, I heard lots of talk about THE Apocalypse, but that was mostly on Sundays and the idea that Jesus might be a zombie almost never came up. But nowadays it seems to be apocalapooza* with possible supernatural annihilation coming from all directions.

   
Zombies are a popular possibility, as even my co-blogger has noted. And of course we are constantly at risk of attack from vampires and werewolves. (Except Alcide, he’s clearly on our side–but I digress.)  It’s a good thing we have the government keeping us safe from the bogeymen. I’m just assuming that the presidential monster killing mantle got passed on after Lincoln, but I haven’t seen the movie yet so I’m not sure. And speaking of presidents, apparently we Americans expect our president to take care of all sorts of invasions, even those from outer space. 

   
Yahoo!, with its usual helpfulness, is here to help us prepare. Recently they listed apocalypse-proof homes in their real estate section.  They were a bit pricy, especially for the end times when funds will be in short supply (I assume), but it’s good to have the pointers anyway. Which brings up the question: what will I need for the apocalypse? Canned food, safe water, durable clothing, garlic and silver, and, maybe most importantly, several good pairs of reading glasses. After all, what’s the point of a good apocalypse if you can’t enjoy it?

   
*I think I just made up a word! 

 

   
Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

The Beginning is Happiness

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on June 23, 2012

    

Is there a sound? There is a forest.

What is the world? The word is wilderness.

What is the answer? The answer is the world.

What is the beginning? A beginning is happiness.

What is the end? No one lives there now.

What is a beginning? The beginning is light.

What makes happiness? Nothing.

What makes an ending? What does not.

What is her skin? Her skin is composed of strange clothing and clouds of butterflies,

          of events and odors, of the rose fingers of dawn, transparent suns of full

          daylight, blue loves of dusk and night fish with huge eyes.

                                                                                                     Max Walter Svanberg

 

~from Trouble Deaf Heaven by Bin Ramke 

   
Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez  

At Dawn

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on May 9, 2012

 

The spider, juiced crystal and Milky Way, drifts on his web through the night sky

And looks down, waiting for us to ascend …

At dawn he is still there, invisible, short of breath, mending his net.

 

~from Spider Crystal Ascension by Charles Wright

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

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