Be Here Now: I'm Playing the Game

I got a chance today to catch up with my friend Alethiah, who is a freelance writer. Like me, she is participating in NaNoWriMo, probably more successfully than I am so far. I sorta got her started on Facebook, just like my friend Cyndie got me started. As we were talking, she shared with me a silly story about a conflict that arose on Facebook all because of the rules of a virtual game there.

I have to admit that I have already forgotten the name of the game--all I can remember from her description is that it was some sort of farming game. You ask Facebook friends to be your neighbor in the game so you can unlock items in the game, buy more land and receive gifts from them. Apparently part of this game is stealing crops from your neighbors' farms.

So the story begins with someone playing this game with her, let's call him Larry, sending a message to all his neighbors, including Alethiah, demanding that they stop stealing his crops.

(I could already tell this story was going in a bad direction.)

Larry's message resulted in a series of posts back and forth amongst the players. First, someone tried to explain to Larry that steal crops was just part of the game. Larry replied, saying that neighbors could only steal crops if they were about to go to wasted. Someone else responded that that was not how the game was played and if Larry wanted this player to stop stealing crops, then Larry should not be his neighbor. So Larry let everyone know he deleted this player. Then Larry got into it with another neighbor, alleging that this neighbor was stealing all of Larry's prime crops and not giving Larry the chance to do the same when he comes to visit their farm.

Image by MASON(alex555) via Flickr

The long and the short of it is that Larry ended the discussion by informing all the neighbors he was not longer playing the game, removed them all from his Facebook friends list and accused them of being "out for just themselves" and having "bad gameplay."

(I told you this was silly, right?)

Well I started thinking about this story after Alethiah and I hung up. A thought occurred to me that maybe I was told this story today because there was a lesson being reinforced in the hearing of this story. So I took some time to reflect on the story and it's possible meaning...

I know this might be cliche, but many people have referred to life as a game. In fact, some people believe that the act of playing games is a way for children to learn about life. All games have rules and sometimes, to win at a game, you need to work together with other people to achieve this goal. Some people really get their feelings hurt when they don't win, suspect that others are cheating or don't understand the rules and how to use them to their advantage.

Taking this another step further, I sought a connection to my own situation.

I could say that when I started playing this "game of life" I didn't know that chronic pain was going to be part of it. By all accounts, I continue to have every reason to rail at the gods, and anyone who will listen, about how unfair this is. There is a part of me that doesn't want to play the game by this new rule, chronic pain. After all, in so many ways, chronic pain interferes with my "gameplay" and holds me back from advancing like most other people can. I guess if I wanted to, I could complain, take it out on other people or try to change the rules of the game. And I guess if I didn't get what I wanted using these strategies, I could just give up, stop playing, turn my back on my "neighbors" and walk away blaming the gods, other people and the game for my problems.

But here is something that I know, that Larry might not.

Life is all about change. There truly are no guarantees in life, and I know from personal experience that the rules, and the game itself, can change at any time, for any reason. The secret to my success is simple: go with the flow, be flexible and embrace change. Following this simple advice is what keeps me in the game, and in the end, that's what it is all about: being in the game. I know I can't get the good stuff if I am not playing the game.

So thanks Alethiah, and Larry, for reminding me of this today.

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Be Here Now: Rediscovering the Crock Pot

It's hard to prepare and cook meals when you have fibromyaglia. Between the intense use of my hands to wash, chop and prepare ingredients and needing to stand to access the sink, refrigerator, stove and oven, I've avoided cooking in favor of quick prepare, heat and eat refrigerated and frozen meals from the grocery store for quite some time now. That is until I rediscovered the crock pot, thanks in part to the Sandra Lee series of Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker recipe books.

Last night we enjoyed Tomato-Garlic Chicken, using some of the last zucchinis that are still growing in my garden. The great thing about the Semi-Homemade approach to cooking is that a lot of the prep work is eliminated when you use mostly ready-made foods from the grocery store with some fresh ingredients. A lot of the additional work in traditional crock recipes, like browning the meats and other intermediate steps, are streamlined or eliminated. Literally, all I had to do to make this meal was slice two zucchinis, open a couple of cans and jars, wash, pat dry and season some chicken and layer everything into the crock, turn it on and wait for dinner. Yum!

Here is the recipe, with my own Trader Joe's twist. Let me know if you try it and like it.

Image via Wikipedia

Tomato-Garlic Chicken

• 2 zucchinis, sliced in 1/4 inch thick rounds
• 1 cup Trader Joe's chopped sweet onions (refrigerated section)
• 1 28 ounce can Trader Joe's Organic Tomatoes Diced in Tomato Juice
• 10 Trader Joe's Premium Peeled Garlic cloves (refrigerated section)
• 12 pieces of Trader Joe's frozen chicken breast tenderloins, defrosted
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 jar of Trader Giotto's Piccata Simmer Sauce
• 1 can of Trader Joe's Organic Tomatoes Tomato Paste
• 1/2 cup of Trader Joe's Olive Tapenade Spread

1. Using a 5 quart crock pot, combine zucchinis, onions, diced tomatoes and garlic.

2. Rinse and pat dry chicken pieces. Season with salt and pepper and place into the crock pot on top of the vegetables.

3. In a bowl, combine the Picatta sauce, tomato paste and olive tapenade. Pour over the chicken.

4. Cover and cook in LOW for 4 1/2 hours. Serve over one of Traders Joe's shelf-stable 90 second microwaveable rice blends or Trader Joe's frozen microwaveable penne.


Enjoy!

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Be Here Now: A Musical Memory

Today I was out in the bonus room behind the garage tending to Sir Hiss, the backyard kitten I caught humanely with an animal trap last Sunday in the hopes that I can socialize him and turn him into an indoor cat. To help Sir Hiss with this transition, I have turned on the radio in the bonus room and let it play 24 hours a day. I decided to tune it to the only classical station on the FM dial, Classical KUSC, fm 91.5, in the hopes that music will help me tame this savage beast. (Yeah, he's not that savage and not really a beast either.)

So today as I was playing with Sir Hiss using the cat dancer toy, I heard a song come on the radio that had the effect of propelling me back to my childhood. Once again, I was in the family room of my childhood home on Alonzo Avenue, near the built-in cabinet that housed the record player and my father's collection of classical LPs. I vaguely remember playing some version of cowboys and Indians, probably with my younger brother and perhaps one of the younger sisters. This piece of music, the On the Trial movement of the Grand Canyon Suite, is the musical re-creation of the mules plodding down the trail to the bottom of the canyon. In my flashback, I see myself riding a broom around the room pretending to be on the back of a horse.

Here is a version I found on YouTube of the piece being played on The Lawrence Welk show, which is another blast from my past (my apologies if the video portion does not play smoothly):




I have heard that smells can bring back memories. For me, I find that music often has the same effect. Was it coincidence that my memory was of playing as a child at the exact moment when in the present I was playing with a kitten?


Have you ever relived a memory when you have tasted, smell, heard, felt or seen something in the present? Leave me a comment and share your sense-related memories...

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