green

Thanx for the kind thoughts. By the way Cloe, I notice that you are now advertising that teenagers suck. LOL Want to share?

So shopping therapy was a total bust except that I did pick up a couple of books that look interesting for 2 bucks each. This is good. I read a lot. I had physio in the A.M. by the 2 physio guys, Mr. Pain and Mr. Pleasure. Mr. Pleasure is the guy that runs the nice machines and Mr. Pain is the guy who hauls my arm into weird and excruciatingly painful positions until I whimper. I have a low pain threshhold so this happens fast. Then I spent the next hour and half walking around, doing a little shopping, until my fill appointment. It has been two weeks since the last one but I have lost another two and a half pounds. This is very good and Green is happy. She now has 5cc in her band. I didn't get a chance to talk about my giant liver because the doctor doesn't do the fills. It is a fill tech who does 'em. Hanging out with the other September children was fun. The TLBC makes us stick around and drink water for awhile after our fills; this is to ensure that we are not over filled. There were a number of us who were sipping our water and yapping. Anyhow, I am now down 15 and one half lbs!

As a Canadian I feel I should say a few words about our health system. (Mousecrazy, for one, doesn't seem to understand it.) Canada's universal health care system works just fine if you happen to live in or near a heavily populated metropolitan centre. It is those people who live in thinly populated rural areas who are under-served. Medical centres housing expensive high tech machines and specialists are far away from these individuals. This makes sense on a dollar and cents level and your business driven style of medical care would certainly not alter this situation for this is one of demographics. You may be interested to learn that those countries - all of industrialised Europe and Canada as well as Australia and New Zealand - who practise socialised medicine spend significantly less per capita on health costs that the United States does. Our costs per capita clock in at about $2000 less than yours. This is because we have removed big business from the equation. Moreover, my brother, who now practises medicine in the States, says that he finds his treatment of his patients constrained by his patients' financial situations. He might not be able to order all the tests and procedures that he would like. This was never a concern when he practised medicine back in Canada. For those of you who believe that the American way is better, have you never considered that you have been on the receiving end of a lot of spin? You have big business and big business friendly politcians who have an agenda that they wish to push who are feeding this disinformation to you. These are people who have a lot to lose.

Yes, to both of the above questions though I wish I could answer otherwise.

Today I have two appointments, physio for my shoulder (which still hurts a lot) and my second fill. I am thinking of shopping therapy....

Today I put on a pair of old jeans, size 16W, from Cotton Ginny and I didn't even have to lie down to force the zipper up! And I don't feel like all blood flow is being cut off to the lower part of my body!! Yippee! I'm thinner than I was last Christmas and way thinner than I was before the operation. Green is in a good mood today.

laurend, I am an atheist, too. I have my reasons for finding it impossible to believe in God but this lack of belief hasn't damaged my sense of ethics. In fact the thoughtful person who believes that this life is it feels a strong desire to be kind to those who are having a rough go at it. A lack of belief in God is not a free pass to behave badly.

I don't see what the big deal is. Up here in Canada same sex couples have the right to a civil/state marriage. No church can be forced to marry a same sex couple. There are some rogue churches that will, however. The Prime Minister who spearheaded the movement to enshrine this right to marriage in law is a practising Roman Catholic, by the way. He simply felt that this was the right thing to do given that our Constitution is set up in order to protect the rights of minorities. Of course this will prove awkward if the polygamists set up their own challenge.... As for the legal rights of unmarried heterosexual couples, the government, and businesses, too, have recognized these for decades now. They are on a par with those of married couples. Though my own relationship is long term we have never troubled to get married and likely never will. I guess we're afraid to jinx it.

Oh! What a drag about the spare skin! I hope it goes away. Still, it is a sign that you have lost a lot of weight. It is an NSV, I guess, though not a really neat one.

In our organisation, Bombardier Aerospace, a front line manager was always screaming at his grunts. Management received a lot of complaints about him and he was required to take an Anger Management course.

Bravo, TOM!

I hate wearing bras and pantyhose. At home I wear neither. When I go out I have to wear a bra, otherwise it looks as though I have a pair of deranged hampsters under my sweater. The kind I usually wear are jog bras. They make my chest look like one giant speed hump but that's okay with me.:heh: As for panyhose, I've avoided wearing them for many years now. I wear pants or long skirts with knee high hose and in the summer I go bare-legged.:biggrin1:

Just tell her that you admire her "communication techniques" and hope to study them at your leisure.:heh: Maybe she'll figure it out, maybe she won't....

Yah, once you get high speed you're gonna love it!

Cloe, you don't sound hick like at all. I am shy about entering shops in strange cities, too, and yet my husband isn't. He will go into a shop even when he doesn't speak a word of the language! The thing is that I have lived in the center of Toronto just about all of my life and so I know it really, really well. All my friends live down in the city and all my many medical appointments are down in the city, too. This means that I do a lot of walking and when I walk I do a bit of recreational shopping. If a store window has a sign that says "sale" then I've got to investigate! A sale to me is like catnip to a cat. LOL (The one thing that pi$$es me off is that it is hard to find great clothes for bigger women.) Toronto is actually quite an easy city to get around in and this is because it is built on a grid system. It makes it a little harder to get lost and if you do get lost or tired then there are always taxis to hail and they will get you back home. The next time you come to town you should give me a call and we can go out together.

Sounds like it's time fer you yourself to be banging a psycho cop, girl! In French, Canada's other official language, one would say, "Quelle horreur!" (In English this means I have an electrified butt plug with your name on it, sister!) Good luck from Green. It is never pleasant when the bullies win, is it? I am on your side as are we all.

Yep, it is and it is open in one of the most funky parts of Toronto. Kensington Market is this immigrant fruit&vegetable, cheese, meat, spices, and fish market quartier that is just off old Chinatown in downtown Toronto. It is south of College Street, west of Spadina Avenue, and north of Dundas. The actual address is 198 Baldwin but that whole area is a nice area to spend time in. There are a number of interesting Vietnamese restaurants on Spadina that are very cheap. My favourite is Miss Saigon. You can order an all in one noodle and bar-b-que meat dish there for under 8 bucks that is yummy and which will fill you up (even pre-band). There is also a couple of great cheese stores in the Market. It is kind of a grubby area but it is very cosy and fun once you relax. And of course there is Tom's Place but like I said in an earlier post, this shop can be frustrating for bigger women because he does tend to stock a lot of mini-sizes. Nevertheless, I have managed to buy some great coats for myself at his sales. I gotta confess that I have never bought anything else for myself except for a couple of linen shirts and those I bought in the men's wear and they were X-tra large. X-tra large, I'm saying.............

You could just openly tape her whenever she talks to you. This might encourage her to kick it down a notch or six.

I went shopping yesterday at a place that was having a big sale. There is a clothing store that sells upscale clothes at a discount called Tom's Place. Tom's store is in Kensington Market which is not a place where you would expect to find an upscale clothing store. Anyhow, Tom periodically has big sales at the Jewish WMCA. These sales are kind of frustrating for me because he stocks small sizes in women's clothes (which really pi$$es me off) but I sometimes get lucky when it comes to coats. Yesterday I bought a $400 (his price) black trench coat for a hundred bucks. The shell is microfibre so it has that floppy look that I like and it is a size 18! It has got a lining that can be removed. This is good for me because my last trench coat is about 15 years old and is starting to fall apart. It also has a lot of stains. It kinda looks like a pervert's coat in fact.:heh: I also tried on another coat that I really liked but I would have needed breast reduction surgery.:phanvan

Yep, I'm pretty sure that they are still alive. I think that they are toxic once they've died but are still raw. I only had a raw one once. Some creep in France forced me to try one while I was at a dinner party on New Year's Eve. I gagged and almost spewed the thing up. It tasted very, very fishy. I'm an inland, Toronto born and raised, kid and never acquired a liking for that taste. In fact I hate the taste and the smell of fish! This caused me a bunch o problems when I was living in France with the Frenchman. He was a great cook who happened to really love fish. He was certain that he could make a convert out of me. This didn't work out but then neither did the relationship.:faint: As for the effects of the bad oyster my husband ate, omigawd! He was so sick! We were there for my nephew's wedding and there were lots of festivities. The dude missed them all. He was running a fever and running from both ends much of the time. I was stuffing him with Immodium and Gravol. His GI tract remained a little wonky for a couple of weeks afterward.

I'll drink to that! :clap2:

Nope, those are oysters and you eat 'em while they are still alive. My husband got very, very sick after eating a bad one in Halifax this summer. Mussels are a shellfish too but you have to cook them first. I find that they taste a lot less "fishy" than oysters.

It's a fashion that belongs to the young and that is why they like it. If you really want to get them to stop it then we should all start doing it. Seeing their parents and their grandparents showing underwear and crack would stop them cold. LOL

But we will see our underwear and we will care. It's a girl thing.

I am due to go in for my second fill. I probably need it. I can eat anything although I am eating much less than I did before I was banded. But I really don't want to get the pbs or the slimes. Ever. What to do?