Mushroom and Zucchini Stir fry with Tofu

My husband ate some sort of chicken dish at Panda Express that inspired this dinner. It rocked.

1 teaspoon coconut oil
2 zucchini, sliced into half-moons
1 carton of sliced white mushrooms
one block of extra firm tofu, pressed and diced
1/4 cup organic flour (or was it 2-4 tablespoons?)
1/4 cup Bragg liquid aminos or soy sauce (or coconut aminos, which I bought last week but have not yet tried.)
1/4 cup water
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
red pepper flakes, to taste

steamed brown rice, for serving

In a bowl, combine the flour, soy sauce, red pepper flakes and water and whisk together until no lumps remain. Stir fry your tofu and vegetables in the coconut oil until crisp-tender. Add your stir fry sauce and bring it to a boil so it can thicken.

Serve over brown rice.

Self sufficiency.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about this cucumber sandwich on a green plate on my kitchen counter, except for the fact that I made it. I got out a cutting board and a sharp knife and sliced the heck outta this cucumber, slathered Vegenaise on Ezekiel bread, and made myself a sandwich. That wouldn't have been possible a year ago. I am proud. I am not going to get anywhere in this life if I don't celebrate the small victories.

Tofu salad

I can't really directly compare this to tuna salad, chicken salad, or egg salad-- but in my mind, it's just as delicious.

1 16 oz block of firm tofu, drained and mashed (not pressed)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 green onion, sliced

1 stalk celery, sliced

1 teaspoon dry mustard powder

1 teaspoon tarragon

1 teaspoon Penzeys sunny paris seasoning

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 cup Vegenaise

Combine ingredients with a potato masher and chill before serving. I ate this with some Ezekiel pita bread, but it's equally delightful over mixed greens, or cucumber and tomato slices.

Taco-Flavored Sorghum!

I started eating and popping organic sorghum just in time for Oscar Night 2013... The love affair has continued and blossomed from there.

I have been including a great seasoning blend lately. It's a recipe leftover from '05 when I had a day off from the bank in the middle of the week, because I worked Sundays, so I could clean house, watch Food Network, and prepare dinner for our best friends. I still wish we could cook more often for those we love-- but maybe this blog connects us all a bit more than I realize.

This fabulous seasoning blend is delicious and addictive. I adore cumin. It adds so much interest to whatever you put it in. I love adding it to sorghum-- I could pop one cup of popcorn and use this amount for all of it, or TWO to three bowls of sorghum, which pops up smaller. Give it a shot!

1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin

Combine spices, add to freshly popped sorghum, and enjoy.

May 10

"The first step is hardest of all.
Once you get your gait, you'll be walking tall."
--You Might Die Trying, by Dave Matthews Band

I fell and hurt my right knee a year ago today. I also realized this morning that the 2005 album Stand Up by Dave Matthews band was released on May 10, 2005. It has one of my favorite songs on it because the lyrics mention gait-- and I've not heard many individuals outside the CP world refer to anyone's pattern of movement with that word.

This has been such a difficult year for me but also one of the best, in it's own way. The recovery from this injury tested me a lot more emotionally than physically, I think.

There have been weeks where every workout has left me in bitter tears. I have logged a lot of hours hating tendonitis pain for defeating my goals, be they lofty, in terms of fitness and running again, or small, like just being able to help out more around the house on non-exercise days. I hate the deep arthritis pain beneath that, even more. But I love who I am now, and I don't think I could have said that a year ago. I love how I'm made, how I'm built, and how I move-- because I have fought so hard for strength and motion and I know the work it takes. I also really know I'm different, and I'm okay with those differences. That's an enormous gift.

I remember my first step with a walker. It truly was the hardest of all, like Dave says. The bike was hard, too. Don't even get me started on the squats. Now I'm conquering the elliptical machine. That's progress!

I was desperate for a good physical therapist on my medical team even before I got hurt. I've never liked any of the previous therapists I have had from the age of two, and now I'm in the greatest shape of my life and improving more each week. I have a great team that helps me be great. That's invaluable.

I've been dreading today's date. I fell then. Things changed on that date last year. I hate change. This injury was a big test for me. I know I'm doing really well in a lot of ways. My relationships to my friends, family, and husband are stronger than ever--and I hope I've learned enough to not be such a pessimist within my future goals. I don't have to dread this date now, or ever, because of Stand Up. I've said it before: DMB gets me through it all.

To hear my strength/gait anthem, click here.

Disability in the Arts and Media - Access, Inclusion, & Accuracy

 This weekend, my husband and I attended a special event for Southern California Public Radio in Pasadena.  It was a very thought provoking discussion that raised a lot of personal and familiar issues relating to my life with cerebral palsy. For a brief summary and bios of who was there, click here.

I am very much looking forward to the release of the film Cinemability, (click here to view and LIKE the film's Facebook page! directed by Ms. Jenni Gold. The sneak preview we got was amazing. The film will trace the history of the portrayal of disabled individuals in film.

I don't know why I was quite so shocked and dismayed that Hollywood, a majorly superficial industry, would rather cast able-bodied people to PLAY disabled characters than actual disabled actors, but wow. It was really disheartening for me to know that the same difficult, often-inaccessible, often-difficult world I inhabit is the one they do. Stages aren't accessible, StarWaggon trailers are hard to get into, and there are no wheelchair ramps to stages on sets built in the '20s or '50s-- way before ADA. Did you know the ADA turns 25 in 2015? It's really not that old. So many of the buildings in Hollywood and at studios, Paramount among them, were built then, far ahead of any sort of regulations that guarantee access. I can't tell you how many times we've had tickets to a concert or a play and had to turn around and go home because there was no accessible entrance. That's always disappointing, not to mention dehumanizing, so I have gotten better at calling ahead multiple times to venues, and learning that some venues are far more accommodating than others. Those are the type of barriers that exist just for disabled actors to get to work every day.

I can't believe the work and dedication it takes for this talented group of artists to even get auditions, and then the additional work they have to do at table-reads to correct jokes about disabled people that really don't turn out to be that funny in their presence.

It takes such strength for these people to continue putting themselves out there artistically, when they are constantly being bombarded with the message that they don't belong, will never really be included, and don't really have a place as a disabled actor. This touched me very deeply because I thought about what it's like for me to write: it's what I do. I don't feel whole without it. I don't even update this blog as much as I should, and that eats away at me creatively. Writing is as essential to my daily life as breathing. That's what acting is like for the members of this panel, and Hollywood doesn't really seem to want to let them do what comes naturally to them.

It's incredibly important that people can see themselves on t.v. and in movies, growing up. I never had anybody to look up to that resembled me in any way, or had the challenges I did and met them on national television. It bums me out that Facts of Life was before my time, because I sure could've used Ms. Geri Jewell as a touchstone for how fabulous my life with cerebral palsy could potentially be. I love Artie on Glee for rocking a wheelchair, but the fact remains, the actor that plays him (Kevin McHale) is not disabled in real life. He gets to leave that chair at work. For those of us in the real disability trenches day to day, that's clearly not an option. I think that casting directors would do well to include more disabled actors just by virtue of the additional depth and empathy that this true struggle can add to an artistic performance.

The main message I came away with? There is not much inclusion for us in the media, and there needs to be more of it. If I have to be the one to write a sit-com where the main character is disabled in a world that isn't, then so be it. I feel so galvanized and called to action by this that I've barely been sleeping, and the words have been pouring out of me like water. 60 million of us live with a disability in this country. We're a part of society. We need to be represented, not stereotyped, and not marginalized. There are stories that need telling on behalf of my disabled tribe, and I'm grateful for this event for giving me the push I needed.

My heartiest thanks to KPCC for putting on this event, and to this amazing panel for inspiring me to fight, and write, on!

Sticks and Stones

My good friend (and fellow soldier in the cerebral palsy trenches) Lisa recently posted on her blog about being humiliated in church by her priest who asked very tactlessly what was wrong with her, in front of a lot of people. Please click here to read her account of this issue and give her some love. This cracked my soul in half because I really know what that feels like. I know so well. I thought about it and realized I have in my memory a veritable index catalogue of every mean or thoughtless thing ever said to me about my walk, my scars, or my braces. Those incidents are just burned in there, for all eternity.

I wonder how many of us carry this baggage with us everywhere we go, and if it makes us guarded somehow in our public interactions with people thereafter.

I also took notice because she expressed her indignance that a man of God could treat her, a fellow child of God, without compassion so blatently and publicly. You would think someone that speaks publicly for a living, on topics like "Love thy neighbor" might think twice before opening their mouth, right? This made me cringe, first and foremost as a fellow cerebral palsy warrior, but secondly as a recovering pastor’s daughter. The pastors in my family were so ruinous and loathsome as human beings that I don't think I'll ever fully recover from knowing them. I've never really understood why I can even partially divulge my long history of abuse to anyone, and they say, “But they’re pastors!”, as though having God as your boss cancels out the possibility that you are a horrible person. I don't think it's uncommon for clergy members to be horribly and deeply confused about how to treat your fellow man or woman, and in fact, I view all religious leaders with a certain layer of prejudice and wariness because of what I've been through. Chances are, it's more common for religious leaders to be abusive or shady, because they know the public won't scrutinize them as readily based on their background. 

Whether or not you have a career as a priest or minister, you should hopefully realize that every one of us has the means to operate from a base of compassion in our interactions with everyone around us. But, I do think that if you put in the time at seminary, and truly feel "called" to a life being an instrument of God's peace, you should try harder to live up to the mandate of Christ-like behavior. Isn't that what you signed up for when you chose that career?

I know kids are mean, but often adults' words have just as much injurious power. We can't let these incidents tear us down, though-- and as hard as it is, I think we have to look deep within to see what these types of things bring out in us emotionally.  I just want to be there for Lisa, and sit with all the things she has made me think about, by having the ability to publish something so honest. That's how I want to be, as a blogger. Thanks, Lisa. I'm a better person because of what you had to say- and I just wanted to shed some further light on this and make sure that people who do this to us are exposed a little bit more. I don't think they should get a free pass to be jerks. 

 I've been struggling with where I want to go creatively, and Lisa's honesty this past week was a great wake up call. Let's not let the ignorance win, okay? I wish I could send you a song-- a musical pat on the back or fist-pump, if you will-- but I'll do the next best thing. I'll leave you with a link to my self-empowerment anthem of the week, by Ms. Katy Perry, also a preacher's kid. Make sure you catch these awesome lyrics in the chorus:

"Throw your sticks and stones,

Throw your bombs and your blows

But you’re not gonna break my soul.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fko7_SV3Lc