green

Oh man, I am such a fan of pork! Growing up in a house that was half-Jewish (even though my old man was an atheist and a bacon lover) meant that we were denied pork. Though my father was addicted to bacon and Chinese bar-b-que pork he still couldn't bring himself to stomach any other kind of pig flesh. I adore this forbidden flesh, most specifically pork tenderloin! I have a fantastic French recipe where the pork is stuffed with apples and plums, then roasted. :hungry: I don't actually cook this myself but do routinely get a gay friend of mine who is a fine cook to prepare this on my behalf.:welldone: (I did translate the recipe, though. ) Something which I have never tasted and would like to try before I die is southern bar-b-que. I have read about this and this is not available up here in the frozen but globally warming north. And as fer anything prepared with chilis, count me in. Both of us are fans of muy piquante. Our fridge is loaded with various types of hot sauces thanks to the local multicultural make-up and we always have fresh hot peppers kicking around, too. Garlic is always good! And it separates your true friends from the Anglo-Saxons........

LOL I have been a bad, bad grrl and I can say that size ain't everything. It sure does take a lot of creativity to use that tool effectively.:phanvan But certainly width does count for more than length since afterall there isn't a woman alive whose vagina extends right up to her navel or beyond! And to be fair, I have been told by men that there is quite a bit of difference between us women, too. Some men have told me that they have had encounters with women where they felt like they were astronauts. You know,"....space, the final frontier...." :welldone: One of the good things about the bigger dudes is that they are not going to get all neurotic about size on you. As for the teeny weenies, well, there is alway oral gynecology; they can practice doing push-ups with their tongues.:heh:

Wow! Maybe if they disguised as little NASCAR collectibles.....

Thanx from Green.

What does Kumbaya actually mean? I always been curious and, yes, this is a serious question.

LMFAO about the reality sandwiches concerning the chubby little old ladies, BJean. I have been forced to eat any number of those myself and they sure do taste of shock and humiliation, don't they? I remember running into a very matronly woman who recognised me and introduced herself as someone who gone to boarding school with me.:faint: Ugh! And she had been in a junior grade!:omg: Double Ugh! :think

Denise, you probably are in a plateau phase right now. I believe that both the body and the intellect do go through these periods. When I was living in France and trying to learn French I noticed that I would go through spells of mopping up the language and these would be followed by fallow periods, periods of real frustration for me. Have you been paying attention to your NSVs or are you just relying on scale numbers?

From your measured responses on the various threads in R&R, I must say that I don't think that you are at all self-absorbed. I do believe that Americans as a group have fallen into the trap of self-absoption. This is because your country is both very large with respect to land mass and population and because it is arguably the single most powerful political and cultural entity in the global arena. It would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible not to fall into this trap. And remember that this state of mind is certainly aided and abetted by your media, your political machinery - the politics of spin - and your geography. Unlike Europe, you are not up close and personal with the clamour of competing national egos. For us Canadians it is a little easier, perhaps, to avoid some of the self-absorption which plagues you for we really are a very minor player on the global stage but make no mistake we do have the self-absorption that wealth and, again, the geographical separation from the mess of the rest of the world brings. (Though we may often feel quite smug about our kinder, gentler, more socialized approach to education and health care, we do have an on-going problem with our aboriginal population. These citizens live in truly squalid conditions and have not profited from Canada's prosperity. This is our nasty little secret, eh.) Personally, I think that it would be totally brilliant to launch an expedition into Chile. You know that the tail end of the country touches into those waters which abut Antartica? And that the spine of the country is a continuation of the Rockies? How cool is that!

As a matter of fact I've always wanted to go to Chile. Let's do it!

It doesn't sound like you have been to India or Nepal or, if you have, you've been frequenting a better class of toilet than I have. :phanvan And if you have, I am sooooo envious!:cry

What about water exercise? I think they call it aquobics. This is what a friend of mine who was overweight and had messed up knees was doing.

Karey, I had my surgery done the day after yours and I know that BJean is another Sept 2006 woman. I haven't been weighing myself because I have always had scale phobia ever since I was 25. I know that the morning of my operation I weighed 200 and when I went for my last fill which was in late February I weighed 170. Mostly I am functioning by NSVs. Last summer I wore a size 18W pant and last weekend I bought a size 12P pair of capris without muffin top. Of course sizes do vary depending on the manufacturer and our weight will vary day to day, too, depending on a bunch of small factors. My advice is to enjoy the fact that you are getting slimmer, continue to pay attention to eating carefully and healthily, get physical and move around (remember that walking and housework are also forms of physical activity), and don't get too hung up on scale numbers. This is very good advice. Sometimes I forget it.:cry

BJean, I think I am falling deeply in love with you. I adore leftovers! and I adore a woman who makes a nice table. And you share my sense of humour and my politics. Let us and our hubbies all run away together, eh. We can go visit Carlene, Ms Dad, The Airwayman Dude, Wheets, Laurend, Lisah, TOM, and all the many others whom I have left out. Could be a bunch o fun, doncha think? But we should visit the new lap banders first. They are the ones with the drugz.:heh:

Well, now that I know this I am certainly not going to propose to you! So there. To tell you the truth, one of my closest friends, gay, is a fabulous cook and a great host but keeps an absolutely filthy apartment. (You have to examine the cutlery before using it. And this is the private dwelling where I treat the toilet like a public toilet.) He wanted to invite my mum over and I told him that she had never been to the third world. We sure don't all fall into stereotypes. Before I retired I was building aircraft and was a member of a powerful union. But I never liked country music, did have a subscription to the New Yorker for many years, and blah blah.... You get the picture. Though we can make gross generalisations - this is what sociology, demographics, marketing research, etc is all about - there are ever so many exceptions, aren't there?

Damn, dudes, I was going to visit ND and now I hear it isn't going to be like that?!? Oh well, not all Canadians are as portrayed by the South Parkies. Some of us don't f*#! as much.:heh: (I hope this isn't going to affect the tourist industry....:phanvan ) :)

Nope, BJean, Green never, ever irons. She just thinks about it from time to time. But she also has problems with cooking fer more than one. This comes from years of living alone and after she and her mate hooked up they got into the habit of eating lunch in ethnic restaurants and making their own dinners to take to work. They both worked permanent afternoon shift, not being morning people. Now that I am retired we still fend for ourselves and do eat at different times. We also eat different things. He was raised by a German mother and has a hankering for cold cuts. He also overcooks steak and lamb. I like my animals to still be squealing if I am going to eat meat at all. Otherwise it ain't worth it. We do adore each other but we do live in a strange and quite unstructured fashion. Perhaps this is because we lived alone for some considerable period of time before we settled in together and perhaps it is because we are a pair of adults who have never been responsible for children and so have never really grown up. Anyhow, we are used to it and we like it. And it seems to work because even though we are often on such different time schedules we do seem spend a lot of time together chatting. And when we do feel that we really are losing sight of each other we arrange to go on a trip together. The problem is that making a dinner for two people is still a big challenge for Green. The best dinner parties that I have ever had have been when I have had gay friends staying here. I think I need a gay husband is what!

I loved the Coen brothers' movie set in North Dakota, you know, Fargo....

My brother is a doctor. He was told in medical school that prior to the advent of modern medicine, and this would include the availability of antibiotics (pharmaceuticals which were developed in the 1940s and only started to be available for general medical use in the early 1950s, I believe), more women died in childbirth or of childbirth complications than men died in wars. This certainly indicates that up until the advent of the 20th century pregnancy and childbirth certainly was risky business for many women and that these women did indeed die. That many women are unable to have vaginal births and must have Caesarians would back this up. Figure that you are going to have to have a Caesarian birth without the back-up of modern technology, eh! The baby might survive but you won't. You will either bleed out or develop an unstoppable infection or both.

Thanks, gang, for your replies and no, BJean, your reply wasn't too long - it was just right. Dynamo, I have osteopenia, too, and I was initially really shocked and horrified when this was diagnosed a year ago. You see, my mum went through menopause at the age of 39 and never had HRT. She lived to be 87 and her bones remained in surprisingly good shape as did her skin. I figured that because we are so similar that I, too, would not have to worry about bone issues. Moreover, until a few years ago I was building aircraft, a physical job, and I do a lot of walking. (I tend to be physically restless.) I was aghast to hear the results of my last bone scan: great hips but a thinning spine. Ugh! A grrl can buy a new pair of hips but when it comes to the spine, well, she is sh!! out of luck! Nevertheless, my experience with HRT was very, very brief. For the first 5 years post-menopause I refused to take it because I didn't want to ever experience another period. I am one of those who gets bad, bad cramps. Then I finally agreed and was on it for maybe two years max before the results of the study came out and my doc yanked me off it. Certainly the band is fabulous. I have just returned from seeing my doc and getting the results of my latest round of blood tests. She told me that my cholesterol results are the lowest that they have been in many, many years. I suspect that this is partially due to my reformed eating habits. And I show no indication of any sort of blood sugar weirdness. Even though I smoke and drink coffee and scotch/wine it seems that I am fairly sound from the neck down. Carlene, the question you raise concerning hair loss is very interesting. I have always had very thick kinda frizzy hair. It has been thinning out lately though luckily I did have hair to spare. Nevertheless, I have been wondering about older women and hair loss lately. Walking home from the doc's office today I saw an elderly south Asian woman who was practically bald and this did strike terror in my heart. It would be interesting to find out more about women, age and baldness.

Yah, I need a wife for the domestic stuff! I was such a rebellious little tomboy and an angry brat that I never did learn the Martha Stewart skill set. My clothes never look very nice after their first experience with Green's laundry tecniques. My whites turn less than white and my blacks begin to go grey. I am slovenly about ironing and then excuse myself by saying that I want my clothes to have more wrinkles than my face. :heh: And I bitterly regret that I didn't insist that my mum teach me how to knit, sew and bake. She was a highly skilled woman in all the domestic arts. I coulda learned a lot. I coulda made myself and some lucky man - my dh for instance - very happy. I guess I need a housekeeper (and the cash to keep her :phanvan ).

Plus at least one cat....

Portable phones, the computer, high speed internet, cable TV, two perfumes: Allure & Boucheron, high thread-count sheets, the duvet, linen pants and shirts, Thierry Rabotin walking shoes, automatic coffee maker, microwave, toaster oven, cut flowers for the house, paper tissues in every room, appointment book, daily newspapers, reading glasses, lots of books and a huge hand bag.

A question from Green: how come you all are on HRT? I was on it briefly but then my doc pulled me off it after the results of that massive survey came in, the one which showed that HRT might lead to a greater chance of breast cancer. I do take Actonel, calcium and vita D because there is some sign of bone density loss, though I am not osteoporitic, but other than that I seem to be okay. I went through a very early menopause. I was 41.

I love the Bette Paige look and, Puddin, your transformation is phenomenal!!!! I am glad that you have got those photos posted on a site.

I have often felt like proposing to women for the truth is that I need a wife - and I could get one, too, now that Canada has approved same sex marriage - but our marriage would have to be a sexless one and my husband might find it both confusing and stressful. It's tough enough on him having just one, poor guy.