• #holdtheline2020

    photo credit: my younger daughter

    This morning I couldn’t sleep. When I woke around two (or was it three? the time change has me kerfuffled) to go to the bathroom, my mind started racing. I forced myself to stay in bed for a bit, but eventually I gave up, went downstairs, and fixed myself a pot of coffee.

    I’m worried about the election, friends. The elections, ha! This process I’ve hardly ever even thought about (besides, you know, who I’m gonna vote for) is actually keeping me up at night. The situation in our country right now is truly alarming. Basic principles — every vote counts, majority rule, the loser concedes, and there is a peaceful transfer of power — are being threatened. It feels surreal, but make no mistake: it’s real.

    About a month ago, I took an unarmed accompaniment training. Over the last year, I’ve repeatedly bumped up against the violent underbelly of our culture, and the people who fuel it — the 2A meeting, the youth-led BLM rally, books, the learning tour of Charlottesville, the shouty neighbor, Walk the Walk — and, what with all the hate speech and anti-democratic rhetoric coming from the White House, I thought it might behoove me to ground myself with a few techniques. 

    Then I took another training from Choose Democracy led by George Lakey and, right around that time, I met with a few other local people who had also taken the trainings and wanted to talk about ideas and discuss possible next steps. Someone brought a recently-released manual called Hold the Line to the meeting and, after some discussion, we decided to adopt it as our guide. 

    And that’s how our local Hold the Line team was born. 

    Currently, over a hundred people in our area have signed on. So far, we’ve focused on establishing communication channels with our local media, legislators, district attorney, sheriff, and election officials. We’ve also gathered outside a congressman’s office to ask him to denounce the president’s dangerous rhetoric that undermines the integrity of the elections, and to counter any voter intimidation or manipulation of election results. And we are hosting daily noon vigils at the courthouse from now until whenever. It could be a while.

    What are the lines we are holding, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

    Line 1: All votes must be counted, without interference or intimidation.
    Line 2: Incidents of fraud, voter suppression, or other election irregularities must be investigated impartially and remedied as appropriate.
    Line 3: The true election results must be respected, regardless of who wins. Preserving democracy is more important than any individual candidate.

    It’s basic stuff. But if these lines are crossed, then we’re in coup territory. 

    HTL’s premise is simple: elections must be free, fair, respected (regardless of who wins), and safe. The strategies are also simple: as citizens, we have power and we will use it nonviolently — this is hugely important — to make sure that these lines are not crossed and to challenge them when they are. 

    Last night, one of my son’s housemates sent me a TED talk. I watched it this morning, while the wind thumped against the house and the rest of the family slept. If you’re just now becoming aware of the danger our country is in, this is the place to start.

    I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few months. Maybe nothing? I sure hope so, but I don’t believe it, not for a second. We’re humans, like every other human in the world. Our country is not exceptional (let’s kiss this self-destructive myth goodbye), and democracy is fragile. These next few weeks and months are critical. Voting is not enough. As Van Jones says, prepare to get active, and prepare to get loud.

    Let’s go. 

    ***

     

    More Information

    Hold the Line Basics

    *If you’re local, sign up to be a part of the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County HTL chapter here. We meet Monday nights at 7:30 by zoom.

    *Hold the Line National is also hosting weekly assemblies on Sunday nights at 6:00. Sign up here.

    *The HTL Handbook: read it!


    Other Useful Links, lifted from HTL and other places

    The Street Medic Handbook: zero in on page 9 and 10 for a RIVAL activity to prepare for protests and actions. (I’d like to take a virtual training, too.)

     

    How to Talk about a Contested Election.

    Online Handbook on Nonviolence and De-escalation Guidelines

    A few things I learned from the Lakey training regarding how to handle violence: 

    1) minimize the likelihood of violence through building connections with power holders and thoughtful, strategic planning 

    2) meet violence with de-escalation: sloooow things down and, when in doubt, sit

    3) if violence happens, expose it, contrasting it to the nonviolent protestors.

    Backfire Basics: 5 nonviolent tactics to make violence backfire.

    Protect the Results: sign up for actions on November 4 and November 7.

    Each voice matters!

    ***

    And now the family’s waking up. Gotta go… xo!

     

    This same time, years previous: old-fashioned apple roll-ups, cinnamon pretzels, 2015 garden stats and notes, cheesy broccoli potato soup, sweet and sour lentils.

  • a hallowed eve

    When I learned that my younger brother and his family would be at my parents’ for the weekend, I suggested to my older daughter that she, and the rest of my kids, throw a dress-up party for the little cousins. What with Covid and all — not to mention my kids all going and getting too huge for trick-or-treating — I figured it’d be a fun way to do something fall festive-ish. Plus, it’d give my kids something to do. Social activities have been few and far between, and outsourcing the planning (and the event, thanks, Mom!) to the kids in the name of Family Togetherness seemed the sort of thing one ought not to miss out on. 

    My older daughter jumped at the idea and scurried around buying candy and little toys, planning the activities, and issuing invitations. 


    The plan was for the big kids to run the show, adults not included, and I was looking forward to an evening at home with just my husband after a full day at the bakery. But then, watching my kids dress in their costumes and waltz out the door laden with bags of food and oodles of candy, I suddenly felt left out. The sun was shining and my family was all together without me? No thanks. 





    When we arrived, the kids were tromping around in the woods searching for treasure.






    My kids had even dangled bags of hot dogs and buns from tree branches (that they then had to retrieve themselves). 



    Then: supper at the fire pit! 






























    My husband and I left soon after — it was cold and I still haven’t gotten the hang of dressing for the weather — but my dad built up the fire and the kids stayed on. 



    And now it’s November!


    This same time, years previous: egg bagels, sour cream coffee cake, apple dumplings, chatty time, posing for candy, why I’m spacey, Greek yogurt.

  • brisket in sweet-and-sour sauce

    About six weeks before my son’s 21st birthday, his housemates rang me up. We don’t know what you’re planning, but we have some ideas, they said. One wanted to make a family favorite — tuxedo cake — and the other had just ordered some fancy wine from South Africa and wanted to break out a bottle (oo-la-la!).

    But we need a red meat to go with it, he said. Do you have any steak left over from your steers?

    Sure thing, I said, happy to share the party prep. And I’ll make the sides, too. 

    But then a week before the birthday, I ran down cellar to check the beef supply and — no steak!

    I did have a brisket, though, and a few weeks before I’d seen a recipe in the NYTimes for a braised sweet-and-sour brisket that looked promising. Problem was, when I’d gone back to the link to get the recipe, I could no longer access it. I’d checked with a few friends who I thought might have a fancier subscription than mine, but no luck. Apparently, the recipe was not to be mine, so I let it go. 

    But now with a birthday looming and no steak in the freezer, I circled back. Surely someone had to have access to the NYTimes recipes, right? But nope, not the news junky friends, not the hip bloggers, and not the local university library, humph.


    Feeling mildly desperate, I suggested to my husband that we maybe ought to buy a fancy subscription?

    No! he barked, alarmed. (I have been known to lay down good money for recipes.) So I started to think about other birthday supper options. Meatloaf, maybe? But somehow meatloaf just didn’t sound 21st birthday celebrationy enough. 

    Then, as a last Hail Mary, I put out an SOS on our church’s women’s Facebook page. And wouldn’t you know, within minutes — maybe even seconds? — someone messaged me a screen shot of the recipe followed by a PDF. I quick printed it out before the recipe disappeared again (one can never trust the internets entirely) and did a little happy dance. We’d have birthday brisket after all!



    Turns out, the recipe was totally worth the search. It was easy to make — braise for six hours in a sauce, chill overnight, and then prior to serving, trim, slice, and reheat — and the final product, oh my.




    You should’ve heard the groans. Melt-in-your-mouth tender and so, so flavorful. It was swoony, stuff-your-belly-full good. Between the ten of us, we nearly ate the entire thing.



    Happy birthday, kiddo. We love you!


    Brisket in Sweet-and-Sour Sauce

    Adapted from the New York Times.


    If you have any left over, consider shredding the meat and tossing it, and the sauce, with pasta, a bit of pasta water, and loads of Parm for a quick, fancy-ish supper.


    There’s no salt in the recipe, but — surprise, surprise it didn’t really need any.

    1 6 to 7-pound brisket

    1 medium onion, peeled and rough-chopped

    generous 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

    6 large cloves garlic, peeled

    1 cup ketchup

    ½ cup red wine

    ¼ cup cider vinegar

    ¼ cup soy sauce

    ¼ cup honey

    ¼ cup dijon mustard

    1 tablespoon black pepper

    ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

    1½ cups Coke

    ½ cup olive oil

    Let the meat stand at room temp for 30 minutes before baking. 

    Put everything but the Coke, olive oil, and meat in a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in the Coke and oil. 

    Place the meat, fat side up, in a heavy baking pan. Pour the sauce over the meat, cover the pan tightly with foil, and bake at 325 degrees for 3 hours. Turn the brisket over, cover tightly with foil, and bake for another 2-3 hours. Cool at room temp and then store in the fridge overnight.

    An hour before serving, transfer the brisket to a cutting board. Trim off the fat and slice the meat against the grain (as best you can — the grains crisscross, making it hard to figure out what “against the grain” is, but don’t obsess. It’ll be fine). Transfer the sliced brisket to a clean baking dish.

    Remove the layer of chilled fat atop the sauce and discard (the fat, not the sauce!). Put the sauce in a kettle and heat. If it’s thin (mine wasn’t), reduce it a little. Pour the sauce over the meat, cover the pan with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until heated through and bubbly. 

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (10.29.19), nourishment, the young adult child, growing it out, reading and ice cream evenings, apple farro salad, random, the details, sweet potato pie.