green

Very good and appropriate in 1785! BUT WE ARE LIVING IN 2007! Times do change.:phanvan

Yep, I think it was written by Desowitz. He is very accessible to the blondies.

Woohoo for you! I just went through a bunch of my clothes. I am giving away many, many bags full. Congratulations, Paulax!

Well, that is one woman's abortion story. Here is mine. I was 32 years old and living in France when I found out that I was in the early stage of pregnancy. Though this was back in the early 1980s abortion on demand was available in France. This procedure required that I make an initial appointment with the medical staff at the local hospital in order to ascertain that I was pregnant, that I arrange for several tests to be completed as even early stage procedures were done under anaesthetic, and that I book an appointment for the procedure itself. Now, France is a socialist country and it - because it is concerned about its dropping birthrate - is also is child friendly; this is to say that there are many government programmes in place in order to assist all women who wish to keep their babies. Pre and post natal care is free as is all health care in this socialist state. Paid maternal leaves are generous and jobs can be guaranteed for up to three years. There is a national system of pre-schools which any child can attend for free once he or she is toilet trained and there are also government run nurseries for the very young. One has to pay for the use of these but the cost is not large and they do allow a new mother to drop off her baby for a few hours whenever she needs a break. Of particular interest to the foreigner is that all infants born on French soil have to right to be deemed French citizens. Now, all of this information was laid out in a booklet which was given to me at the time of my initial meeting in order to arrange for my abortion. Government law required that I be given this information before going through with the abortion and that there be a ten-day reflection period from the day of the initiating appointment to the day of the abortion itself. Of course there is nothing as sensible or as humane as this inside of North America. Here we have a bunch of right to lifers who are usually also right wing in their political beliefs; these folks are saying to pregnant women that they should have their infants but they are not providing a clear-cut social framework in which child raising becomes an attractive option for the middle class. We are, afterall, aware that the poor are the least likely to opt for abortions. They've got nothing to lose by having a bunch of kids. It is the middle class who finds themselves compromised; there are careers, medical bills, etc..... Right wing Christians don't bring anything to this debate other than to say that they consider that this act is heinous. As for FunnyD's experience, well, this was definitely a very weird and a very bad sad experience. I am reminded, though, that there are lots of pseudo-choice clinics operating where pregnant women go expecting that they will receive the abortions upon which they have decided only to find that they have been trapped in a series of delays until it is too damn late.

My bathroom came with sufficient space beside the toilet that we were able to place a piece of furniture there. This is a small, rather tall, three-tiered table, I guess one would call it an occasional table, which was made in China out of yew wood probably during the 1940s. It is very simple, quite attractive, and oddly out of proportion to western norms. It was also quite cheap. Anyhow, the top surface is devoted to toilet lit, an ashtray, a lighter, and a clock which faces the bathtub. Toilet lit describes any reading material which can be read in sound bites: my Big Book on the domestic arts is there along with a book containing a series of essays on modern Jewish life, a history of the bathroom, a book covering plastic surgery techniques, a medical guide to home remedies, and a layman's guide to understanding music. These are all books that I do periodically read or at least plan to read. Magazines and newspapers show up from time to time. I save real lit for bed. Fortunately the bathroom lighting is excellent for reading. This works out well because I occasionally like to read while in the tub. Tub reading only occurs when I have got the time and I am 40 pages away from finishing a book. I have a brightly coloured hand painted (I painted it) chair beside the tub. This is large enough to hold an ashtray and a lighter and my reading glasses, etc. I am pretty good at working the hot and cold water taps with my stubby yet muscular toes. Though I still smoke it has been decades since I drank while reading in the bathtub. When I was in my 30s I used to drink Armagnac or Cognac while loitering in the tub. This was excellent fun. As you may know, to properly enjoy brandy it should be warm and this is why it is traditionally served in those balloon glasses. The theory is that the drinker wraps his or her hands around the glass. Well, those glasses float real nice in a warm bath....:girl_hug: As fer folding laundry or wrapping presents, Green is dreadful at these activities. Her husband, a man who was raised by a German mother, is brilliant at folding. Green just rolls stuff up into little bundles and then shoves those little bundles into drawers. And her wrapped presents look like nasty squashy toadlike bundles.:omg:

(Well, I know I shouldn't say this but if you want to see texts in need of editing take a gander at the Christian site..... )

Haha! Green missed out on all of that when she was young; she was too busy rebelling! :heh: That's why she had to buy the Book. This is a big book and forms part of her collection of toilet lit - you know, the books you read in the bathroom.:girl_hug:

Pima fibres are the longest and therefore the strongest. Pima cotton is very durable and least likely to wrinkle. Egyptian cotton is next best. This is what my learning how to be a real woman and homemaker book sez. There doesn't seem to be any policies on what to do with my uterus, though. Har har.:faint:

My sheets are between a 400 and a 500 thread count. I have one pair which are a cotton-silk blend. I like a sateen finish and what I have heard called a 'crisp hand.' You don't get that with a silk-cotton blend; the sheets tend to feel a little mushy, especially if the room is hot. And, speaking of that, I am with laurend: I like to slide into a cool, clean bed. This always reminds me of diving into sweet lake Water on a hot summer day. There ain't nuthin like it! Um,...bliss.... And I am one of those who has to read in bed.

Nope, I still have a phobia about the weigh in. In fact the only times I do get a weigh in is when I go to TLBC for a fill and that is because I am fascinated by their hi-tech scale. The thing gives you a full read-out including BMI and your ideal weight given your height, age, sex, yadda, yadda.... I've been functioning pretty much entirely on NSVs: compliments, how my clothes are fitting and what sizes I can now buy. I prefer to work this way because pounds don't have any visual reality for me and yet knowing that I am carrying a lot of them is going to upset me. This is why I gave up on weighing myself when I was 25. If I weighed 200 lbs, but could fit into a size 8 and have the blood pressure of a baby, I wouldn't care. It is the NSVs which count for me. And, by the way, here is one change which will really lift your spirits while you are suffering through your tedious pre-op diet, now that I am banded I find that I do eat much, much less than I did before I was banded and I find that I don't miss the nosh. The appetite is no longer there. This has really freed me up and it is this which has helped me lose weight. Of course you must work on reassessing your eating patterns during your recovery period and this can be quite interesting. I have never been fond of soft drinks and I do like water so I kinda lucked out there. I've also never been too fond of using prepared foods but since being banded I have become fussy about looking at those Nutrition Facts labels with which our Canadian prepared foodstuffs come supplied. I learned that those great tasting Gardenay soups, the ones I lived on during the full liquid phase of my recovery, are fairly empty of the vita Cs. Eggs are loaded with the Bs. I've learned to avoid the frozen lo-cal dinners, a staple when I first graduated out of the mushie stage; they are low on calories and they are low on nutrients, too. Of course this new found hobby of mine has often put me between a rock and a hard place. This is because I really don't enjoy cooking - just eating. In the pre-band days I ate a lot of roughage-rich carbs, cholesterol rich protein (i.e. cheese), and fresh vegetables. Healthy but very fattening, especially when eaten in big quantities! Now I eat a lot of those little tins of tuna that Cloverleaf produces, the seasoned ones with the pop tops, yogurt, tzatziki, baked flatbreads, poached eggs with old cheese and salsa, avocados with fresh vegetables and a home made vinaigette, and stir-fries. I also occasionally make pasta with fresh vegetable but now this meal will last me two to three meals instead of just one. It is also easier for me than for most lap banders to tinker with my eating habits. My husband works second shift, I am retired, and we have become comfortable with fending for ourselves. This has turned out to be a long post, hasn't it?

I just saw episode 2. It was ace!:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

Don't get ticker obsessed, grrl. This business of losing weight is a combination of a whole lot of things or so it seems to me. For sure there is the poundage loss thing but there is also the sudden drop down into smaller sizes, the realisation that you simply are not eating as much as you were before, and there will be an array of other NSV signs. You will notice a difference in your stamina, flexibility.... Your doctor may comment on your BP or say something in the way of 'oh, wow, you've lost quite a bit of weight lately.' This is what my doc said the last time I saw her. I had to remind her that it was because I had the lap band surgery last September and not because I have cancer or whatever! LOL All of this is to say that you will get plenty of feedback from other sources than your scale during your weight loss journey. I should tell you that I don't own a scale and until the morning of my operation had refused to step on a scale and look at my weight since I was 25 years old. Yep, I had gone for over 36 years without knowing how much I weighed! :heh: Anyhow, when I walked into the operation I wore a size 18W pant and yesterday I bought a size 12P pant. I was totally flabberghasted and so I have been wearing 'em today just to make sure that I wasn't in a cheap dream over the first nice weekend of 2007. And yah, they still fit! (woot)

Cool, very cool.

I read an interesting book, one that was friendly to Greenish-blonde readers, eh! about a year ago on tropical parasites. I read about Chagas - ugh! - among other things and I also read about all the many unpleasant diseases which are spread to us via mosquitoes. The author contends one of the problems that global warming will bring us northerners will be an extended mosquito season. I also read many interesting things about intestinal worms. According to the author it was malaria, recurring bouts of yellow fever which served to quarintine the port cities, and the fact that all the poor folk, be they white or black, in the American south had intestinal worms which crippled the southern economy until the second half of the 20th century. It seemed that those poor folks who lived in the American south were just too chronically depleted due to parasites and bouts of malaria to be able to reliably work the land. Northerners chose not to invest in the south as a result. And by the way, there was a type of primitive butterfly which I ran across when I was in the little Alps (les Alpilles de Provence) of Provence. They were white with a coloured patch on each wing. My boyfriend told me that they were primitive insects and these patches were their solar panels. To demonstrate he stood in front of one and when it no longer had access to the sun's rays it stopped moving. Have you heard of such creature? I found it kinda extraordinary....!

Thanx, Wheetsin, for reminding us that the Quiverful movement was essentially racist. You may be interested to hear that Hitler instituted a like policy with the same racist intent. All healthy blonde attractive Aryan women of breedable age were expected to do their patriotic duty to their country by producing as many babies as possible.

I have just read the above two posts and found them to be very interesting. I don't much about you, Fluffy, but it seems to me that the life that you, your husband and your kids lead is a healthy, interesting, peaceful and responsible one. I know that when I was a young kid I used to dream of living in the country with lots of animals around me. You and your family are evidently very happy and very successful and this is how life should be for all of us. And lizrbit, it appears that your stand on individual reproductive rights approximates my own: it is up to the owner of the uterus to decide how she chooses to use it. It really is no one else's business. And now the modern demographics on reproduction in the affluent west further indicate that environmental footprint left by those couples choosing to have large families is more than cancelled out by the couples who are choosing to only have one child or are opting out of having kids altogether. It strikes me that there are two major groups of individuals who concern themselves in this business of other folks' reproductive activities. One of these groups is the right-to-lifers, a right-wing group whose membership is largely drawn from various Christian factions, and this gang would like to see women robbed of choice and thus over the control of their rights over their own bodies. The second group of individuals, unlike the first, may be said to come from across the political spectrum; these are those individuals who are distressed by the numbers of women who are unable to care for their children by reason of drug addiction, alcoholism, poverty, poor physical or mental health, violent/unstable family relationships but persist in having them irregardless. The right-to-life gang are anxious to see abortion made illegal. Many, but not all, of those individuals concerned with the issue of what they view as irresponsible fertility would like to see more of those women take advantage of abortion as an option.

Compliments are nice, especially when you mean them.

Personally, I am a fan of pure white pure cotton high thread-count sheets; nothing in my house is less than 400. You can get 'em for a reasonable price if you shop smart.

Many women do not believe that a division of fertilized cells is a baby, but only that it has the potential to become a foetus and from a foetus a real live baby but only provided that this initial division is left uninterfered with. The women who opt for abortions have simply no interest in committing the resources of their bodies, a considerable commitment let it be noted, in order to satisfy someone else's system of beliefs. We do not feel that editing out a division of cellular material is on the same level as infanticide and we do not feel that we should be punished - by virtue of being held hostage to our bodies - for being born women. Those individuals who are left feeling uncomfortable with the concept of abortion do have the option of not travelling down this road. As you must be aware, the question of exactly when life begins and when that burgeoning life might trump the needs and desires of the individual who was already here varies depending upon one's definition as to when that cellular activity must be saved. Laurend (in earlier posts) has already provided much interesting information - as viewed through the lens of the various scientific disciplines - on this point. As for myself, I find the arguments that abortion should remain legal on the grounds that women will be victimized by rape and incest to be absolutely specious. The plain and simple truth is that women both wish and need to have control over their own bodies if they are to have the same physical freedoms as men. Otherwise we may as well embrace the Christian veil or the niqab - it really doesn't matter which. The double standard will demand that women who are not prepared to have children abstain from all sexual activity while men are free to f88k their brains out. And a woman who makes a mistake in this harsh and judgemental society will quickly discover that - unlike a man - her body doesn't belong to herself.

Wow! I was banded at TLBC last Sept and didn't know that Dr. Joffe had left. When did he leave???? And now Nisrine! :faint: She was both charming to deal with and beautiful. This is all very weird. Dr. Yau is a fine surgeon. I think he was the one who installed my hardware and he is still a young man...years of surgery work left in him, eh.:clap2:

Yay for you!:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: This is fabulous news. Do you think of your new self as a thin grrl or a big grrl? My friend who was shopping with me noted that I went immediately to big sizes rack even before I told her that I still feel fat.

Gaffer, I just had a look at your website. Those butterflies are amazing and they are beautifully mounted. I note that you are an entomologist. I went through a period of regretting that I had not studied entomology in uni - I find bugs both interesting and beautiful - until I realized that I wouldn't be able to handle the field work. I am absolutely terrified of reptiles!!!

When I was banded last September I wore a size 18W pant. Today I bought a pair of capris in size 12P. I cain't believe it! :faint: I still feel like a tubbykins. Weird, eh? Now I guess that I am going to have to get up the confidence to give away my big clothes.:omg:

Carlene, I always value your posts. They are literate, well-researched, always interesting and often humourous. I have learned a lot about the United States (and about early Christian history, too) from you. Thanx a bunch, kiddo.

Well, Cho's disturbing behaviour had been noted by a number of people who had come in contact with him and had been brought to the attention of senior personnel at VT; he had been detained in a psychiatric facility but was ultimately released. I am inclined to think that this was a result of a conflict between his civil liberties and commonsense. I do find myself wanting to agree with you. For sure those who are mentally ill might - depending on the degree and nature of the illness - not be capable of safely functioning in an unprotected environment. It seems that Cho had been seen as crazy and had shown an obsession with violence for years. It really is a tragedy that he wasn't stopped before all of this happened.