Trailer Park Karma

In My Other Life, I'm Followed By Sperm Banks

Used to be the phrase "I'm being followed by" most often ended with a scary description of a potential serial killer. Or an ex-boyfriend. Or if you're REALLY from the backwoods, your Uncle Eddie.

But now, being followed is a good thing. Now, you want to be followed by hundreds -- no, thousands -- of "people" even if you don't know them. And you usually don't know them, but you really dig having them follow you.

Isn't social media fun? (That's a rhetorical question.)

 I'm not that good at keeping up with tweeting, which is too bad because time is everything on the Internet. Do you ever feel like we're all racing each other digitally? It's nothing new -- I'm glad I've worked online long enough to have figured out how to shrug a big "Meh" when I see others speeding along in the effort to get that "hot news" out there.

Anyway, I'm living that new sort of lifestyle where every move (not just mine, but those of my loved ones, too) is documented somewhere -- online, via text message, tweeted, or otherwise posted for all the peering world to see. I know it drives some people batty, but it makes perfect sense to me. I have no idea why.

The other day, I was tickled to find I'm being followed by a large, well-known sperm bank.

I've never benefited from a sperm bank. My offspring came to be as a direct result of the planned collision of his father's gamete and mine. We've got plenty of gentically-based eccentricities to prove it, too. No mysteries here. But I've slogged through the last decade of my life (more, actually) writing about it -- first, about my own death-defying attempts at bringing a live child to bear, and later, about how others could do similarly, or not. If that sounds boring to you, well... well. Hm. Huh. But to some folks -- millions, actually -- it's damned titillating stuff, that baby-making biz.

That reminds me of a few years back when an awesome opportunity for promotion was declined by the magazine I worked for at the time. A hotshot marketing company (from NYC, I'm sure) proposed a Sperm-Mobile, riding around the country, emblazoned with the magazine's logo -- chasing after a giant balloon egg that would be towed by another vehicle. Aside from the necessary purchases of a specially-shaped and customized car, a truck, and a pretty unique balloon, in addition to any required licenses for screwing up traffic in large metropolitan areas, I found the idea delightful. The publisher did not. The magazine folded two years later.

Another funny thought about My Life As a Fertility Marketer (as if that fact alone isn't silly enough) -- just about a year after that magazine died, I was snarkin all over another Infertility Biz happening when word got back that someone was wondering aloud through the ether about why I wanted to "hurt the industry"... The rush of power was as good and sustaining as a Mountain Dew.

So it makes sense that the sperm bank would follow me. After all, over there I write about the industry that they help keep rolling [in dough]. And you know how Twitter is -- Big Company throws a few wads o' cash at the nearest starving writer to run around the Internet and make social media connections, next thing you know you've got a treasure trove on your hands, linking thumbs with everything from cross-country truckers to lovers of cheap wine to women who are frantic to become moms.

Turns out that they're all one and the same. What a wonderful world...

Fairytales at Home

My idea of a fairytale is pretty far down the potholed road from where it started.

On my grandmother's dresser -- well, I guess it's mine now -- is a five-year-old towheaded girl in a sundress, posing on the bench in front of an upright piano, smiling earnestly into the camera's eye.

She was a true believer in fairness, beauty, and happy endings. 

She played that piano by ear. For those of you not in-the-know, playing 'by ear' means unable to read music, yet able to clearly and with relative ease pick out the notes heard (and sometimes seen) inside the mind. When that little girl heard or thought of a tune, any tune, she sat down at the upright that lived first in her grandparents' home and later in her sister's room and picked it out, chords and all.

Eventually she had a little repertoire going, but she steadfastly refused lessons. Her mom knew better than to keep offering to pay for piano lessons -- she was a pretty stubborn kid, and her mom knew how to pick their battles. That's why the girl had no desire to sit next to anyone and be told exactly where to place her long fingers on the black and white keys. Her godmother had said she could be a surgeon with those fingers.

Nine years later, she sat next to the piano in her big sister's room, getting the third degree regarding their previous night's juvenile exploits. Someone was tinkling the keys in a repetitive pattern while a nervous foot tapped elsewhere. For once, she wasn't the perpetrator of Bad Doings. Try telling that to a parent who'd already seen most of the worst a kid could dish out. She was sentenced to grounding in her room for a month. The piano was given away.

She never went to medical school either.

Nearly 35 years later, I climb into the mismatched sheets and pull the hand-me-down boxstore comforter over my legs. The black perma-crinkled polyester nightie seems more fitting now than it did when H#2 gave it to a younger woman who was determined to have a baby. It's comfortable, no easy feat in this Land o' Constant Temperature Fluctuations. Besides, even if the thing has no shape at all, it does have spaghetti straps. And she still has nice shoulders.

Sitting against a bank of pillows, side-by-side with laptops opened, we say hello. He continues peering at gibberish-y code on the screen as his hand glides to my back.

A pinch.
"Hey!"
"It's a pimple," he says quietly, his other hand resting on the keyboard.
"Are you sure it's not a mole?!"
"No. Either way, it's okay," he reassures, returning fully to his work.

Most real stories are far better than fairytales.

For Your Own Good: Mira Dessy Rescues Biscuits & Talks Vitamins

Folks know I'm usually pretty good for a returned favor. This post is a bit like that because it's tootin the horn of a friend who started this whole Trailer Park Karma mess, sort of.

She doesn't know it, but Mira Dessy's always-on-target-uber-good-for-you cooking is what led me here. That, and that personality of hers. She's just so damned friendly to begin with, the really genuine kind, and then her head is so crammed with data bits about what food will kill you and which will cure what ails you. Anyway, on a particularly beerful Saturday night a few months back, Mira published one of her recipes for making good use of eggplant, and I wanted to try it, but I didn't have all the ingredients. I NEVER have all of the things that Mira uses! Then I was overcome by one of those moods of mine, and I just had to prove that I could make an edible (if not healthy) version of her Eggplant Fritters -- and Trailer Park Karma started germinating.

So, it's payback time. 

Listen up. Mira's going to be speaking on Saturday, February 20, 7 PM at Romano's Macaroni Grill in The Woodlands about Vitamin D & Your Healthy Heart: The Why's & How's.

I asked Ms. Certified Nutrition Educator a few questions about her Vitamin D gig:

Me: Okay, I know everybody has their particular opinions (to which they're entitled, sure) about folks here in The Park and our idea of what's good eatin. Truth is, we're not all raised on corn chips and beer. Some of us even eat vegetables almost every day.

So -- you're going to be talking about one of my favorite vitamins, that being Vitamin D. I like it because it's so easy to get. We all love milk in my house.
But really -- a whole hour to talk about one vitamin? Can't you just hand out a nice list of what to eat and be done with it?

Mira: Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, helps our bones and brains and stuff. Even helps protect against different kinds of cancer. Doesn't mean we get to run around butt nekkid for that all important sun exposure. Sure ya gotta get enough sunshine but eating the right foods is important too (and it's more than moo juice.) Come on down, eat, drink and listen to learn how much you need and how to get it.

Me: You know, I really appreciate when an expert such as yourself speaks plainly to me, Mira. But frankly, I'd rather run around butt nekkid. If I did, and I kept drinking milk, too, would I get an overload of D? I know that can happen with some vitamins -- you get too much of a good thing and your brain cells fry faster than they were when you were ingesting strange chemicals in high school. And wouldn't that almost be like getting cancer anyway? You get too much vitamin D in your body and then everything goes to hell in a handbasket...

Mira: Running around butt nekkid is only gonna get you a really bad sunburn (well, that and mebbe a ticket for indecent exposure.) Unless yer taking prescription vitamin D, it's purty tough to get too much cause our bodies cain't hang on to it (that's why we need it so much.)  And that sunburn yore gonna get will cause cancer. But if ya don't got enough vitamin D, you are at a higher risk for breast cancer, colorectal cancer and even brain cancer. Nasty stuff. Better to get the vitamins, come to the lecture, and find out what ya really need to know.

Me: Wow, Mira, you really do cut loose when addressing a topic that floats your boat! That's good to know -- sometimes when you're writing about Ezekiel flour and cane juice crystals over at your blog Grains&More, I feel so unworthy of calling myself a 'cook'. But then, you did just recently rescue some biscuits and proceed to write about it like you were telling everybody about how you'd accidentally dyed your white lingerie pink.

I may not be making my own flour anytime soon, but I can definitely hang with a girl who knows how to take scrap food and make it into pie.

How to Eat When the Chips Are Down (or Gone)

Most of us here – even in The Park – know what we're supposed to eat, how to prepare and eat it, when to eat it, even where to buy it. But sometimes, life turns out to be different than what your mama hoped for you. You still have to eat.

Here are a few tested survival tips, known by residents here at The Park and college students alike, on how to eat when the cupboards are bare:
 
Skip breakfast.  Sure, it's all kinda wrong – your poor bod's been starving for eight hours (or at least four, if you stayed up doing Beer 'n Laundry) and everyone says that Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal of The Day. But I bet you can push that 7 AM cereal bowl to 10 or even 11 AM if you try. And –  voila! – you've just had brunch and you're good 'til late afternoon!

Eat cereal.  Speakin of that bowl o' brunch, cereal is fortified enough anymore to pretty much make a complete meal all by itself. Enjoy it often, for every meal even, preferably with milk.

Eat popcorn.  Might not be able to afford the nuke-able kind (heck, maybe you sold your microwave – like Loydene used to say about her appliances, “WalMart'll take anything back in any condition. They're like money in the bank!”), but you might be able to squeeze out a buck for a bag of the old fashioned variety. Cook it on the stove in a skillet with a tablespoon of oil and a tight fitting lid, medium heat. Fills you up just before bed, so you can make it through to that late-morning cereal brunch.

Drink more water.  You never drink enough of it anyway, so you may as well use this time o' wantin to create a healthier habit. It'll fill you up and flush you out. Remember – you'll die of dehydration long before keeling over due to starvation.

Drink more coffee.  Sure, this contraindicates virtually every healthnut reference on the Internet and cable TV, but do it anyway. It curbs your appetite like crazy. It's crazy-cheap, too, given the other things you like to drink. Of course, with all that upped water intake, you better be sure to have plenty of bathroom supplies.

Smoke'em if you got 'em.  Along similar lines as the caffeine, nicotine's an awesome appetite fixative. I'll not recommend that non-smokers start puffin' (I know I won't) but if you're already strung out on cancer sticks and can manage to tolerate those really cheap versions, or if you have some other regular source from which to borrow those little Boxes of Death, do it. Your lungs may suffer, but your stomach may forget to grumble.

Eat what others won't.  Know anyone who dislikes sandwich fixin's? Get them to agree to put aside the stuff they can't stand, like lettuce and tomatoes on fast food burgers, and there ya go: salad for you. Back in the day, even I was loathe to ingest food that was pre-nibbled by my own little one. When times are tough, a quick dinner-table reminder to my 10-year-old to “use a fork, don't spit it out” is all that's necessary for me to secure seconds.

(and here's more pretty painted floor to distract you... the painter is for hire, btw...)

Hybrid Steak: When Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year's, and Mardi Gras Collide

There come those auspicious dates when worlds and time are locked on a collision course destined to upset the most insanely organized calendar.
Get over it.

Oh, sure you could try to make it to each and every related shindig, but really... why? So little faith that next year's Grand Holiday Event won't come again? Oh, right. Well, look, if you die before the next Big Day, I guarantee you won't be giving that calendar a second thought.

SO - just smush it all together. Hybridize it. All the cool geeks are doing it. Just ask the The Editing Biologist. Of course, he'll mostly just tell you about e coli and flies, not so much food, but you get the idea.

Man, was I ever glad that I was in a cooking mood when I realized that three biggies were all happening at the same time this year: Valentine's Day + Chinese New Year + Mardi Gras.

 {What, you don't have Mardi Gras in your trailer park? I am so sorry. Truly. For the uninitiated, mardi gras is a slice of rich cultural history to be enjoyed with wanton frivolity and gleeful gluttony just prior to engaging in the austerity of the Christian Lenten season. You ain't gotta be Cajun to dig Mardi Gras, especially if you bringin' yo cash to spread around the celebrant's streets.}

Even more auspiciousness abounds: this Naturally Occurring Multi-Cultural Holiday Explosion just so happens to have fallen on the heels of food stamp benefits dispensation to my lucky household. More clarity on that another time, but for now just know that I am pretty well stocked after a pretty long dry spell.

A Prime Tenet of Trailer Park style is making do with what you've got on hand. And as any good cook (or even bad ones) know, unless you've done some planning, it's damned near impossible to have everything you need on hand for some recipes. What were the chances that I had everything I needed -- without wandering out into the cold drizzle -- to meet my urge to create a Cajun/Chinese/Love-oriented dish that would also warm up my kitchen by way of the oven?

Turns out, chances were pretty damned good.

Red meat & oven cooking = Love
Hot spices & pepper sauce = Cajun 
Hoisin & soy sauce = Chinese

And so I present you with: Hybrid Steak.

{The photo at right is NOT Hybrid Steak,
but tofu with ginger, served at our local buddhist temple
to celebrate the New Year.}->

Hybrid Steak

1# tenderized sirloin tip steak

cajun seasoning rub

quarter thick-sliced yellow onion

1/2 c unsweetened chunky peanut butter

1/3 c hoisin sauce out the jar

1 tblsp soy sauce

1/2 c hot water

2 tsp hot sauce (like Tabasco)
........

Preheat your oven to 325.

Pour yourself a nice glass of red wine.

Set up your roommate's girlfriend's glockenspiel that you're planning to learn how to play before the next church service.

Take that Dollar Bin tenderized sirloin tip steak and rub it with about a tablespoon of cajun seasoning powder.

Now -- I wanted to make my own rub, but remember that Prime Tenet of Trailer Park style? I had the concoction by (Name Withheld Pending Signed Advertising Deal), but did not have a chief ingredient in Cajun food: cayenne pepper. Sigh.
Use what you got.
And not a tablespoon on each side. For a 1# steak, should be only one tablespoon needed to coat the whole thing, front and back.

Lay it flat in a shallow baking pan. Put onion slices on top.

Pour a second glass of red wine.

Make your sauce: Combine the other ingredients in order in a bowl until smooth and blended. It should be thick but pourable.

Tell the dogs to move out the way. Better yet, go feed them now so they'll stay out of your way. (Someone's been feeding them from the kitchen counter.)

Spoon the sauce on top of the steak. You could save some of it for dipping other meat for grilling or broiling (like chicken legs) in at a later date, or just go whole hog and dump it all on there, like I did.

Stick it in the oven, uncovered, and cook for half an hour, while you have another glass of wine.

Serve slices of Hybrid Steak (which is now coated with a thick gooey spicy sauce) over rice for authentic Chinese Cajun effect. And since you're also catering to St Cupid, g'head and throw some green beans on the side -- true love means never wanting your sweetheart to have a veggie-less meal.

And realize that after the wine's gone, you're probably not going to be mastering that glockenspiel tonight.

For Your Own Good: Almost-Dr Offering Stuff to Pregnant Ladies

This in a Public Service Announcement. Yes, out of the kindness of my heart, I will from time to time be posting appeals to your heart, mind, and soul. Maybe your wallet. This time, it's all for the good of Pregnant Womankind.

The other day, I received a note from a very kind Ph.D. candidate seeking participants for her dissertation research. She's looking at how pregnant women evaluate magazines and magazine content specifically targeted at them. And she's waving [pheremone-packed] incentives to lure them to her online survey.

{Word to the wise: It pays to suck up to the Blog Writer. In this case, the mere utterance of "huge fan of your blog" was all it took...}

So I interviewed Megan Hopper (said "Huge Fan") to find out just what she had up her sleeve:

Me: You're doing a dissertation on pregnant women, who (we all know) are the world's biggest magazine readers.(I mean what else are ya gonna do when you're knocked up, especially when you're at the bitter end of the whole ordeal and need every possible tool in your kit to take your mind off the waiting and worrying, and it's not like you can just get drunk like you can when you're not pregnant...)

Anyway: What on earth made you want to survey these women? Don't you know how hormonally-loaded they can be?

Megan: I decided to focus on pregnant women for my dissertation research because I feel like they are a very undervalued segment in our society. Often I hear couples (and men in particular) saying "We're pregnant!" Well, no actually SHE is pregnant and is the one who is responsible for taking care of her body and the human life that is growing inside of her for nine whole months (give or take).

Also, I feel like pregnant women bear the brunt of many jokes in our society. Whether it be about how hormonally loaded they are, or how much weight they are gaining. The mass media in particular go after pregnant women and love to point out all of their flaws. We need less jokes and more recognition of the amazingly important role they are playing in our society.

Plus, I just had to get to know a population that is constantly having strangers touching their bellies a little bit better!

Me: Okay, Almost-Dr. Megan, you've done a bang-up job of kissing up to the Pregnant Women of the World -- how many of them do you hope will take your survey? On that note, how long will the survey take them? I mean, what if someone's taking your survey and their water breaks? Is it one of those hours-long questionnaire that they can save and come back to, or is it just a quick thing?

And hey -- you're not a medical doctor are you? Are these poor pregnant ladies going to be asked a bunch of questions about their fundus measurements and their glucose tolerance tests and things like that?

Megan: I hope to get 600 pregnant women to take the survey because I feel the more, the better to really make my results mean something. It will take about 35-45 minutes to take the survey. I know that seems like a long time but most of the survey asks for pregnant women to give their opinions about the magazine layouts they see, so most of it should be aesthetically pleasing. If their water breaks while taking the survey, I hope that they either praise the survey for making this happen or do not place any blame on the survey for making this happen!

No, I am not a medical doctor, so the pregnant ladies will not be asked any questions about measurements and blood levels. They will be asked to rate their confidence level in their current health care provider and in the place in which they plan to deliver the baby, but that is about it in relation to the medical field. I hope that the questions they are asked are fairly easy to answer and possibly even fun! I also hope that they realize through the process of taking the survey that their opinions and feedback matter and deserve to be heard.

Me: Well, I imagine if anyone would enjoy rambling on responding to questions about their personal opinions, it will be pregnant women. But I also happen to know that if any group of people is always chompin at the bit for a good deal on everything from diapers to deodorant, it's that group.

So let's cut to the chase here, Ms. Communications Doctoral Candidate From The World Renown Mizzou: Are you tossing any tasty tidbits into the pie for survey participants?

Megan: Yes, I certainly am! Each pregnant woman who participates by taking the online survey will be entered into a raffle to win one of three $50 gift certificates to Amazon.com. Also, any of the pregnant ladies who take the survey and reside near Columbia, St. Louis, or Kansas City, Missouri can contact me if they are interested in earning $20 to take part in a short focus group discussion.

Besides the obvious perks of possibly winning a gift certificate to Amazon.com, I hope that each participant will feel a sense of importance as well as a sense that they were able to let their voice be heard and recognized. I hope that their participation and the subsequent analysis of the findings will lead to a greater recognition of pregnant women and a better understanding of their unique standpoints while serving such an integral role in giving life.

All in all, I think this is a good deal, folks. Now, you won't find ME going and getting knocked up just to get my hands on a $50 Amazon gift certificate (though I have vague recollection of doing other, sort of related things for that chance before...) but if I was With Child, there's almost nothing I'd like more than kicking back with a glass of N/A vino, exactly-and-no-more-than three chocolate covered cherries, my son's bunny slippers and my Disney PJ's on, rapping on a keyboard about JUST what I think about magazines' messages to ME.

Thank you, Ms. Hugely Fanatic Almost-Dr. Megan Hopper from the Department of Communication at the University of Missouri for bringing the real voices of readers to the attention of publishers. Go get 'em, Grrls!

[For the record, The Editor disavows all involvement with this post.] (Probably because he's progesterone-deficient.)

Breakfast, From the Little Horse's Mouth

If you have warm memories glazed with maple syrup of breakfast time from your childhood, you might not want to spend the night at my house. Or you may want to at least get out before the natives wake up.

The cat gets fed first. Then the dogs. What happens next in our fluid household depends on too many variables to list. If you're a creature of habit and comfy with that incarnation, you might think of an early morning visit to my house along the same lines as visiting the zoo. Amusing place to visit and observe, but...

Some things remain the same. My giganto laptop looms over the kitchen table, a parking spot for signs of life -- unopened bills, articles waiting to be read, doodled napkins, eyeglasses, a basket full of unprocessed film and Scout badges, and the occasional Lego decor. I try to focus my foggy attention on four to 10 open browser tabs, chirping tweetware, a nagging timeclock gizmo, and piles of email. A blank Notepad blinks back at me.

The Roommate mumbles and pours himself cup after cup of coffee in between cigarette breaks outside in the cold rain.

Bring on the breakfasting preteen.

You might not know from the noise my household generates on a typical weekday morning that there's only one child living here. It may help to know that he's socially precocious.

He's already had at least an hour's worth of shooting and slicing creatures on his PC, and now it's time to fuel up for more homeschool chaos. [Editorial input from The Preteen: I was merely running, jumping, and crashing into buildings.]

My sisters and a handful of friends know that almost nothing tenses my shoulders like breakfast sounds. Especially those emitted by preteen boys. Especially when the boy truly enjoys his food.

Today in response to my usual "Please eat with your mouth closed," plus the added nicety, "You sound like a horse. A small, cute horse, but a horse, nonetheless," I heard, "Well, mom, didn't you just say that it's a pigsty in here? I'm a horse in a pigsty!" Smile.

Here is my little horse's version of snackable fruit, or 'How I Learned to Feed Myself At the Age of 10 Because My Mom is Always Working', delivered in streaming consciousness style:

First, I took a slice of apple and put it on a small plate in the microwave for 20 seconds. But I should've put it in for 10 because the apple began to sizzle. When I took it out (at 20 seconds), I burned my finger really easily. You have to let it cool off for at least 10 seconds.

When I took a bite, it was all soft and very moist, too. It kind of tasted like you took a whole apple and baked it, but that was just the texture. The taste was more like a baked squash with green apple. The kind of apple that I used in particular was green. You can use any kind of apple.

It mainly tasted like a warm, soft apple.

I next tested a green apple cut in half.

When you put the apple in the microwave, place it cut side up. Take the stem off, because it could catch fire. If it starts to shrivel, that's natural.

I nuked the half apple for 55 seconds. You'll notice some juice bubbling out -- that's okay. The peel will be browning a bit, too. Let it cool for about a minute before touching it.

If you don't have time to bake an apple, you can always just put it in the microwave. It's a good alternative. I haven't tried a whole one yet, but I estimate that it would take about two minutes. 

{This isn't horseapples, but in case you're wondering what a stick of refrigerated butter looks like after being nuked, here ya go...}

 

Football, Cows, and Losing Your Real Mind

And now for a moment of sanctimonious heresy: I hate football and think that it's a symptom of societal ills that are so huge and widespread, I don't even want to get into it.

You might think that's very un-Trailer Park of me. Not so. All you gotta do to develop a deep disgust towards the game of football is grow up in a place where related prowess in children is more valued by institutions (and the parents who support those places?) than any other kind of talent (like in, you know, math, science, writing, and other such silliness...)

Bitter much? (Okay, and my sister Martha could tell you about the time when I carried the ball the wrong way, but I'm over it.)

Yesterday was The Big Game. I'm not talkin Friday Night Lights (and no, my dear Long Island NY Friend, it ain't really like that here.) That would only plug up the two-lane in front of the stadium for an hour. The game I'm talking about created snarls on the highways all through town, thanks to the drunken fans playing bumper cars. Fortunately, by 11 PM they were all face-down somewhere (unlike when the kids' games are over... they're intoxicated but still on the road with mama's car.)

While all that multi-gazillion dollar ruckus was ensuing, a favorite blogger of mine was posting another of his calming perspectives on this thing we call Reality. I like how Kenton Whitman can get a dig in without inflicting pain. Much.

I'm trying to learn that whole "gentle" thing, really I am, but Kenton lives in Wisconsin, where apparently being surrounded by all those peaceful, big-eyed dairy cows translates to an inner contentment that rolls off a tongue tainted with a serious case of the Gentles. So when I start bullying my own Republic-blooded self about how I'm too damn caustic (our cows have long sharp horns and live to be eaten), I step back and pat that inner self of mine on the head with a little forgiveness.

My editor calls Kenton "a player" who's ultra in-tune with the idea that nothing matters anyway, so we might as well enjoy. [Editor's note: Did I really call him 'a player'?] Yes, you did, in a good way.

So, yesterday Kenton connected Farmville, that fabulous Facebook timekiller, with what he calls Realville. Both are games that we play. Except for my friends who shall remain nameless here, we're mostly secure in our knowledge that Farmville is computerized simulation. The catch is that we think Realville is for real.

Now, the idea that what we think of as real isn't really real is not just hard to grasp. It's scary. That's probably the biggest thing that stands in the way of 'getting it'. I mean, most of us have a few friends who can talk a good game in this arena after five tequila shots. But when they wake up the next day, all that big-headedness gets washed right down the toilet as they find themselves confronting what "real" REALLY means.

No, I'm talkin about feeling it all the way down to your molecules. Pretty terrifying. What if I lose my mind? Well... yeah.

Then there's the part of the game where you start actually LIVING like you GET that this isn't real. Holy cows.

Okay, to back off of sounding like a philosophy undergrad here, here's a piece of Kenton demonstrating the idea of Farmville versus Realville: 

"Dollars have no real value unless you and I agree they do, and yet people starve and die for lack of dollars. Daily, we deal with problems that have more to do with human convention than with actual realities."

Then he rolls the post up with:

"What would happen if we saw the nature of this Realville game we’re all playing, and began to question some of its rules? [yada yada yada - but all good] Or might we find a certain liberation if we recognized the workings of the game, and began playing with a sense of adventure and curiosity?"

My friends, I think the universe is telling me that it's time for me to play football. And not even fret about which direction I'm running.

{And if you must have Gamefood... here ya go: Real Skillet Popped Corn.
Okay, maybe it's only as real as everything else, but it tastes better than the even less real kind you nuke or, heaven forbid, airpop.}

Happy Nutella Day & A Poem About Camping

I didn't make this up. Nor is this the first event of its kind. I'm talking about World Nutella Day.

If you're not that into food or eating, then this probably seems ridiculous to you. We're okay with that.

Who's "we"? The legions of Nutella worshippers around the world, that's who. So far, we number more than 7k on the related Facebook page.

The World Nutella Day folks want pictures and recipes, stories about how worshippers are honoring this little Food Deity du Jour.

 

Well, guess what?  

It's not that I didn't know... I've been waiting for this day for months now. Really. It's just that times have been so tight, the pantry's been laid to waste and -- this is the truth -- the best things are the first to go.

That empty jar o' sweetness has been lying in wait for sometime now. There you have it. Tangible evidence of the complete and utter lack of control I have on my household -- EVEN in the kitchen.

So fellow Nutella Lovers of the World, I offer only this: you can do a whole lot of things (and I'm not just talking food recipes here) with the gooey, rich, warmly-colored ooshy-gooshiness. But the first thing you gotta do is hide the jar.

And as The Boy just pointed out, IF we had some, he could put it on his breakfast pizza to make it yummier.

And there's a lovely segue to a poem I wrote, not specifically for the occasion of World Nutella Day, but it comes to mind this morning because a jar of Nutella is one of the World's Most Perfect Road Trip Foods. Just add spoon.

During last Christmas break, the Editor and I up and decided to hit the road and attempt camping with what little we had -- pretty smart idea during the coldest part of the year!

If it weren't for Nutella during that trip, I wouldn't be rattling on my keyboard today.

Without further ado, I offer...


Camping, Early In A Relationship


We'll take a drive to the desert.

You waffle between 'car camping' and hiking with a bottomless tent,
even mentioning cheap motels here and there.

A hammock, you say, to sleep in! You must have a hammock.

There are no trees in the desert, I say.

You scoff, there are trees, you've seen them, do I want proof?

State parks are safer than national, I offer,
because the space is less vast and the staff more plentiful.

Then there's the guns, you excitedly interject.

What guns?

The ones that you're allowed to carry in state parks, and you'll be having one, all right. For fishing.

Being Buddhist Is Hilarious

Telling folks I'm buddhist is always good for some mild entertainment. I try to reserve it for just the right moment in time or point in a relationship, preferably when humor will be welcome.

It's pretty funny, being buddhist.

Anyway, without killing that topic altogether in my usual rambling fashion, I'm cutting straight to the chase now because that rare-yet-invited thing known as 'work' is beckoning.

That's a real buddhist thing, you know: getting right to the meat of a discourse.

Oh, and that whole not-eating-meat thing? Not so true.

So this morning, I want to tell you about how I sometimes meditate. Not that I only sometimes meditate. In fact, I meditate all the time. No, that's not why the incoming jobs have slowed to a crawl, though "the recession" has certainly been an incredible vehicle for emphasizing my practice. Meditation isn't what a lot of people think -- it's not always done sitting, it's not even always silent, and you don't have to close your eyes.

I call it "dishwashing zen" and I'm not the only one who does it. Google it. I didn't coin the term, but I'm glad it arose out of the muck of my brain cells before I read about it. Like a whole lot of other serendipitous life events, I think dishwashing zen is better when you stumble upon it, rather than seeking it.

Actively pursuing the results of zen is a lot like sweeping the driveway. I mean, it's OUTSIDE UNDER THE TREES. Of course, if you're my neighbor, Randy, you like doing that a lot.

Anyway, what I meant to say was that this morning, I want to tell you about How It Sometimes Is When I Meditate. Yes, I can think of a lot of other ways to say that more gracefully. But I plan on cutting to the chase here, and my Editor's timetable is often different from mine, since he doesn't have a crew of living things breathing down his neck, constant reminders of how little he's doing for them. You know, achieving a pleasant state of consciousness has got to come easier when you're life's like that... Me, I learned years ago from sister Martha and the other FOOs (Followers of Oprah) that the only time a mama can get any real peace is to be awake when nobody else is, whether that's at the beginning of the "day" or after they're all asleep.

So here's to reading and chanting before the sun. Except that I hardly ever do that, which reminds me of what I was going to write about this morning.

The problem now is that the work I mentioned earlier? It's done waiting on me. So are the dogs, the cat, and The Boy.

I'll be back.