Fill it up. Plug it in. Go to work. Come home to dinner.

We all need to use our crock pots more, and I’m saying that as someone who uses hers all the time.

Most people know about chili in the crock pot, so I’m not going to give you a chili recipe. I’m just going to give you all the other ones my household loves. We’re covering the non-soup/stew recipes and non-pasta recipes here.

Waltonen Family Meatballs: Buy a package of frozen meatballs, your favorite bbq sauce, and a jar of grape jelly. Mix equal parts jelly and bbq sauce in the crock pot–enough to cover the meatballs. You can either put the frozen meatballs in and let them warm up in the crock pot during the day, or if you’re in a hurry, put them in pre-thawed. In my family, we have these plugged in all day on major holidays to snack on.

A whole damn chicken or turkey breast: That’s right. Use whatever kind of rub you like. I alternate between a savory mix of garlic, thyme, rosemary, s&p, and sage; lemon slices, s&p, rosemary; and peri-peri spices. Leave it in there all day. When you’re ready, the bird will be resting in its own juices. Serve it whole or shred it. I tend to get quite a few meals out of this: the first dinner, a soup, and tacos or enchilada meat. The one drawback: the meat is so tender that you will have a problem keeping it all together if you want to platter it. You’ll also have tons of chicken broth, useful for soups. If you slow cook root vegetables too (in the same pot), you can easily make a stew or chicken pot pie with the leftovers.

You can do any kind of meat you would normally bake in the crock pot. I do all my pot roasts this way.

Beef roast: coat lightly in s&p, flour, garlic, and a touch of ginger. You can cook the root vegetables in there at the same time. Leftovers easily become beef stew.

Pork tenderloin: Mix peach preserves, a bit of mustard, a pinch of crushed red pepper, s&p, and brandy (optional). Pour over the tenderloin.

Kalua pork: You can make a perfect Hawaiian delicacy with three ingredients. Coat a giant pork roast in liquid smoke and sea salt. Cook it all day. Shred. Serve over rice. (Save the broth. You can use the leftovers for pork tacos, enchiladas, or pork stew. This flavor works particularly well with a tomatillo pork stew, which you can also make in the crock pot.)

Caribbean Pork. Mix 4 tsp nutmeg, 4 tsp cumin, 4 tsp salt, 3 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4tsp ground red pepper. Coat a tenderloin or roast in it. Cook it all day. Serve with mixed fruit (mango, pineapple, etc.) mixed with 1 T chopped cilantro, 1-2 tsp lime juice, and cumin.

Speaking of pork, you can make carnitas and carnitas soup with the leftovers. Or try Vaguely Vietnamese Pork Tacos.

Then, try:

Garlic Pesto Chicken in a Creamy Tomato Sauce

Balsamic Glazed Chicken Legs (for these and the garlic pesto chicken, I always put another servings worth of chicken and the marinade in the freezer for a quick meal a few weeks later)

Red Beans and Rice (this recipe isn’t for the crock pot, but it works well there. For perfect beans, start by covering the beans in a lot of water. Leave them in the crock pot overnight–unplugged and off. This will soften the beans so they are perfect after you add the other ingredients, set it to low, and head to work)

Chicken Shawarma (I add oregano and a bit of curry powder to this recipe; I cook on low all day, not using as much water as the original does. I also make Shawarma Rice. I serve them with sliced cucumber & safeway tzatziki cucumber dressing on pita.

It’s Christmas time, so I’m getting ready to make lamb. Usually, I just coat it in a mix of garlic, mustard, and balsamic vinegar, but this year we’re trying this recipe for Persian-Spiced Lamb. I’m altering it just a bit–we’re doing a leg and doing it in the crock pot!

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As some of you know, in the summer, I was in Spain at a narrative health conference. The talks are all addressed to professionals–doctors and teachers talking to doctors and teachers. I participated as a teacher, but listened as a chronic pain patient.

The conference was really interesting, but I kept finding myself frustrated. There were all of these techniques–aimed at letting the patient tell his/her story to the doctor. In other words, instead of just having a doctor actually listen (and take the time to, which is sometimes the hard part), there were “activities” to force it.

And then someone in the audience would ask how they could streamline the activity–you know, to save all that time of listening.

There was also a lot of emphasis on art therapy, which I am behind to an extent, but the idealism at the conference annoyed me sometimes.

One of the organizers asked, “wouldn’t it be great if your doctor put away his diagnostic tool and got out a guitar?”

I leaned over to Melissa and said, “I would punch my doctor if he did that.”

I believe in holistic care, and I mix Western and Eastern techniques in my fight to feel better.

But hey, there’s literally bile in my stomach. And my discs are “desiccated.” And so on. Laughing makes me feel better, but it won’t fix my stomach lining or discs.

That said, stories are immensely important.

After watching me give a couple of presentations in the last few years, a woman suggested I do one woman shows.

“Well, I sort of do–just in shorter form with stand-up comedy.”

(This woman also seemed relieved when she learned I’m originally from the South: “Oh, that makes sense. I was trying to figure you out. I’m normally suspicious of charismatic people, but you always seemed so nice. You’re just Southern.)

This woman is right. I am nice. I am charismatic. I should do a one woman show.

And so that was on my mind when I saw the call for The Storytelling in Health conference this summer in Wales.

I sent them an exploratory email: hey, I could do a regular panel on this, or I could come in as a chronic pain patient and give my narrative–in stand-up form.

And so that’s what we’re going to do.

I’ll have 45 minutes, including a Q&A.

Thrilled. Terrified.

Wondering if a bunch of medical professionals will know they’re supposed to say, “break a leg.”

 

I can’t get over why reporters can’t get over voter hypocrisy.

There have been several moves Trump has made that could already be called executive over-reach or “pay to play.” Reporters interview voters/supporters and say, “But didn’t you say this was wrong? Why is it okay when Trump does it?”

The answer: “Well, what he’s doing is going to fix all these things.”

There is no admission of what the truth is: it’s okay when Trump does it. It’s not okay when Obama/Hillary does it.

That’s all.

We’ve all seen the videos of voters being read Hitler’s quotes and being told Trump said them. They love the ideas!

We’ve all seen the videos of voters being read Obama’s policies and being told they’re Trump’s. They love the ideas!

We are all guilty of this, to some degree.

For example, Republicans say they believe in small government decisions, favoring the state over the country, the city over the state, except of course when the small government passes pro-marijuana, anti-discrimination, or gun control legislation.

Generally, I’m a federalist, rather than a states’ rights person. I don’t think my rights should be different in different states or that I shouldn’t be able to ship wine to myself from one American place to another or that a lawsuit against someone basically falls away if they move across a state line.

But I love it when California tells the rest of you to go f yourselves sometimes (although of course I want the whole country to get more progressive, so we don’t have to be different) and, during difficult Presidencies, I tell foreigners that I’m from California when they ask. It automatically makes them like me more.

My hypocrisy is absolutely glaring in another way right now.

I believe in empathy, in Rogerian arguments, etc. And yet I cannot yet empathize with Trump voters. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to do so with those who are attacking people, who are threatening the Islamic center in my town, who are making me and my friends and my students angry and afraid.

Americans (and humans) have problems upholding their principles; no wonder we elect people without any.

 

Today I came home from lunch with Melissa to find a few copies of our book at my doorstep.

We’re proud of this–twenty great assignments, with rationales and tips for integrating them into your classroom.

Melissa and I also both wrote a chapter.

Buy yours here or here.

Many years ago, I was surprised to see a couple of wild turkeys wandering around downtown Davis.

Then, when my backyard shared a fence with the cemetery, I discovered their main hangout–among the graves. The city had to put up a warning.

The cats were fascinated by the turkeys, who would often jump on to our roof. Mahahes would do his bird call to them, but I think he didn’t really understand that if they got close to him, he would be fighting something his own size or bigger.

Now, our turkey population is estimated to be about 80. They’re stupid and aggressive (like alt-right voters). They’re attacking people and prompting 911 calls (like alt-right voters).

The city council is figuring out what to do.

In the meantime, they’re providing experiences that are uniquely Davis.

A few weeks ago, I was crossing the quad. A couple of people were doing tai chi. A turkey was right up on a small Asian woman. He followed her through the moves, swinging his head to follow her arms, surprised when the arms would swing back toward him. She and her partner (and I) were trying very hard not to laugh.

And failing.

Trump: “China is laughing” at us.

Trump: “I have the best brain.”*

Trump: “I think I know more about foreign policy than anybody running.”

[Taiwan calls. Trump the takes call.]

China: Um . . . you’re not supposed to do that.

Diplomats and all the rest of us who follow politics**: Um . . . doesn’t that threaten 40 years of policy?

Trump: It’s Taiwan’s fault! They called!

China: We’re not actually that upset about it. We know you have no idea what you’re doing, Mr. President-Elect. [not subtle tittering]

Thus, the prophecy is fulfilled.

Conservatives tell Democrats to stop freaking out. They say we can only be upset if we’re upset at Obama’s and Hillary’s foreign policy decisions.

Democrats stop rolling their eyes long enough to point out that this wasn’t a decision so much as a gaffe & a logical consequence to someone getting a job he’s not prepared for.

Trump’s team: Umm, no. We totally planned that. This was well thought out. You know, even though Trump said it was Taiwan’s fault–it was in the plan all along.

*I wanted to paraphrase these lines too–but there really wasn’t a way to dumb them down any further.

**This statement doesn’t take a side in the dispute–it just acknowledges there is one.

 

A few weeks ago, I published this on Facebook, but it’s another useful paraphrase:

Republican story: Obamacare is awful in every way. We’re gonna get rid of it and give you something better.
The story I’ve lived through: Republicans do nothing to help people get care for years and years. Millions and millions uninsured, sometimes because of pre-existing conditions.
Republican think tank comes up with a plan to cover everyone.
It gets implemented in Mass.
Republicans don’t want it to spread.
Obama basically uses that plan when he has to compromise & not give us a single payer option.
It gets called Obamacare.
It gets called evil.
Republican states sue so they don’t have to cover their poor people, even though the plan will SAVE them money.
They bitch, while my family and friends finally get healthcare.
Their new leader says it’s the worse thing that’s ever happened to America.
Their new leader gets elected.
He googles Obamacare, admits that most of it is awesome.
He and Ryan are going to “keep” a lot of it, but do some interesting things that will likely make premiums go way up.
They pretend to save us.
(Remember when they didn’t didn’t care about this problem at all? It took Obamacare to get them to DO ANYTHING.)

 

I also recommend my recent post/manifesto, if you haven’t read it yet.

Today is Thanksgiving, and I’m having trouble giving thanks.

It’s not that I don’t have things to be thankful for. I do. My friends, my family, my job, my waking up this morning, etc.

Still, it’s hard this year to celebrate this particularly American holiday, because it’s hard to be American right now.

Thanksgiving is always difficult, politically. The shadow of what the settlers and the American government have done to the people who shared the first feast hangs over us, especially this year, as our government stands against Standing Rock.

Thanksgiving creates political problems in another way–as we overeat in the company of those who have just voted in ways we find just plain silly or downright evil.

And today I think back to how Thanksgiving in its modern form came to be.

After the Civil War, the country was divided. A woman wrote to President Lincoln, suggesting that we have a national day of Thanksgiving–an American holiday–to bring us together.

It worked, for a while, for some.

We’ve been divided for quite a while. It’s hard to remember that we didn’t say “red state” or “blue state” in the 20th century. It’s hard to remember that the American flag used to belong to all of us. In the early 2000s, it became synonymous with Republicans. Even under Obama’s leadership, when I was feeling very American, it would have felt weird to fly a flag. I would have been worried that it would signal that I was conservative.

It pisses me off that they somehow took the flag.

So today I need to be really clear about what I’m thankful for.

I’m thankful that, through fate alone, I was born here and now.

I’m thankful that more Americans voted for Hillary than for a demagogue.

I’m thankful that the vast majority of this nation is not on his team.

I’m thankful that the vast majority isn’t trying to drag the rest of us back to the fifties. The vast majority believes in equal rights, in women’s right to work, in women’s right to say no, in women’s rights to be on juries and to direct juries from the bench, in non-christians’ rights not to be forced to pray in school, in religious freedom to practice religion (while not demonizing people who pray differently or who have different sexual desires and identities), in the fact that black lives matter to, in fighting white supremacy.

We are not the silent majority.

We are the loud as fuck majority.

They want to go back in the past.

We are moving to the future.

We’ll win.

This is #21stcAmerica.

It’s ours.

Post (election of) Trump Stress Disorder

I have PTSD. I was diagnosed a couple of years ago when my living situation with a family member triggered me–heart rate problems, flashbacks, high blood pressure, nightmares.

My living situation is different now, and I’ve done extensive EMDR therapy with a psychiatrist who specializes in treating this problem.

I’d been having a much higher level of anxiety in the months leading up to this election, but so was everyone else. All of my doctors report their patients having problems with this. But I still didn’t think that what was scaring me could happen.

It happened.

It has taken me a few days to admit that I’m being triggered. My heart rate is way too high, I’m having flashbacks, my blood pressure is way up, and I’m having nightmares. Today, I was listening to the news and sending an email, and suddenly I realized that I was unwell. I didn’t know if I was going to throw up or fall down. Luckily, I was able to recognize it as an anxiety attack and get through it before it was time to go to school.

Stress is, of course, a trigger, but there’s simply more to it than that.

I feel physically unsafe, both for myself and my students. I’ve lived through Bush, and while his policies scared me, I wasn’t scared of his supporters in a physical way. I am currently afraid of some of my fellow Americans–mostly because I know they don’t see me as American–only they count when they talk about Americans. I’m a race traitor, I’m a woman, I’m an ally, I’m an atheist, I’m a progressive, I’m an intellectual.

But it’s even more personal than that.

My PTSD, if I may diagnose myself, is being triggered because of long ago traumas.

 

Slow dissolve.

Pensacola, Fl. My mother’s apartment.

I am barely 18.

I am technically between homes, having moved my stuff out of my grandparent’s house the day before (long story). I hadn’t been living with my mother, mostly due to her abusive boyfriend, Don: racist, redneck, sexist. His son had praised Hitler in our one conversation. Don had once told me he was glad I was carrying to term, since women who got abortions should be shot. My mother, solidly pro-choice, had sat silently.

I am getting ready for bed; I’m in a T-shirt and underwear. My infant son is resting quietly.

My mother’s boyfriend appears, screaming and drunk.

“There isn’t room in her life for both of us,” he says.

And then he comes at me.

I run out the door, luring him away from my son, who is now screaming. I hide in the bushes. I pray.

The landlord comes and chases him away.

My mother makes excuses. For him. To me.

The next night, he comes over. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but you ARE A BITCH.”

My mother wants us all to watch TV together. Don was just drunk, she explains again.

I have no car, no money, no license, no way out, until she takes me to move into my great-grandfather’s bedroom (two hours away) the next day. He had just died that morning, and decisions had been made.

I don’t want to watch TV with him; I don’t want to pretend he didn’t attack me. My mother insists. I call her sister, who tells my mother that I should be allowed to nurse and read quietly in another room.

I had never been physically attacked before.

Whenever my mother and ex-stepfather would drunkenly scream at each other, when I was younger, she would take me aside after, explaining that calling a woman a bitch was the worse thing you could say.

“Don’t ever let a man treat you this way.”

Flash forward to this boyfriend, him attacking me, and her behind him, quietly saying, “No, Don, don’t.”

 

This is what I flash back to. This is where the nightmares are coming from. Racist, sexist, violent, hate-filled people who don’t think there’s room enough in their country for all of us. I am physically afraid of them.

This time, my mother isn’t even saying, “No, Don, don’t.”

She voted for him.

 

On Facebook, I see different people excusing themselves from responsibility of what happened.

“Oh, I voted for a third party in a swing state, but it’s the fault of people who didn’t vote at all.”

There’s more than enough blame to go around here, people.

It is the fault of those who voted for Trump because they loved him.

It is the fault of those who voted for Trump even though they could see him for what he was.

It is the fault of those who said, “he says what we’re all thinking.”

It is the fault of those who said, “Oh, he doesn’t mean x; he’s just saying that for votes.”

It is the fault of Trump, who is a psychopath, in the full clinical definition of the word.

It is the fault of anyone who ever let that psychopath think he wasn’t one.

It is the fault of those who voted for third party candidates, esp. in swing states.

It is the fault of eligible voters who didn’t vote, esp. in swing states.

It is the fault of the media who gave Trump so much free air time.

It is the fault of the media who harped on the emails.

It is the fault of the media who didn’t equally harp on all of Trump’s scandals.

It is the fault of voters who listened to a single kind of media without doing any fact checking.

It is the fault of conspiracy theorists who kept spreading lies about Clinton.

It is the fault of those who spread lies about America–that crime is up, that the economy is completely down, that Sharia law governs whole cities here, etc.

It is the fault of foreign interests, esp. Russia and Wikileaks, who tried to take down one of the parties. And succeeded.

It is the fault of the voters who let them.

It is the fault of the electoral college system (and the primary system).

It is the fault of Clinton for not being perfect, for making mistakes, and not dealing with those mistakes well.

It is the fault of those who kept insisting that Clinton and Trump were equally bad, were equally dangerous for America.

It is the fault racists.

It is the fault of sexists.

It is the fault of religious bigots.

It is the fault of nationalists.

It is the fault of the homophobic.

It is the fault of the selfish.

It is the fault of the anti-science people.

It is the fault of very religious people who are so against “sharia” law, but who intend to make our laws based on their faith.

It is the fault of those who are uninformed.

It is the fault of those who don’t understand how economics work.

It is the fault of all those who don’t understand their own privilege.

It is the fault of those who don’t understand history–who don’t know that it was the extremely high tax burden on the rich that made the 1950s so awesome for (heterosexual white male) middle class people.

It is the fault of those who don’t see parallels between what is happening now and what happened in Germany, who spent the last eight years saying Obama was Hitler only to go on to elect their own demagogue, who actually is one.

It is the fault of the Republican states who have changed voter rules (and the Supreme Court who let them), making it harder to vote in all kinds of ways.

It is the fault of the first Americans, who, despite George Washington’s advice, established a two party system.

It is the fault of my family members who are continually taken in by that party to vote against their self interest.

It is the fault of other of my family members who only vote in their own self interests, and believe that everyone else on this planet, unless they’re family, should be completely on their own.

There.

It’s basically everyone’s fault.

Can we please FIX IT NOW?