green

Ah, grrl, it ain't just Americans who are obsessed with the skinny-thing, Canadians are, too. As for the quote which you ascribed to Rose Kennedy, I have always been under the impression that it was Edward the 8th's wife, Wallis Warfield-Simpson who initially said this. He was the Brit king who, if you will recall, gave up the throne in order to marry his very, very thin and much married and divorced American mistress. They shifted to France after his abdication but continued to be an embarassment to the monarchy. They continued to flirt with Naziism after Britain had entered into war with Hitler. It seems that Warfield-Simpson may have done the world a favour by removing her husband from the monarchy. Rumours are that he was as dumb as a plant as well as being a Nazi sympathiser. She continued to be astonshingly thin up until the day she died. Debates as to the nature of her husband's sexual issues/possible dysfunctions continue. :mad:

I always appreciate your posts and enjoy hearing your voice, Kat. You are wise and kind and experienced. And you are also right: while it is true that many individuals may stray for reasons which are entirely personal and have nothing to do with their loved ones, it is also true that if this needy and perhaps emotionally fraught adulterer happens to choose to dip his d!ck in the wrong well, he will end up by smashing what he does prize the most, his wife and family. This is certainly the risk that all adulterous individuals are up against and this is why society strongly prefers that we don't fool around. All of the major world religions stress the value of chastity outside of the framework of a stable union. A few religions, most notably Islam, do allow for multiple marriages and some cultures have accepted the concept of concubinage. Though this is a crummy deal for women what is acknowledged in these set-ups is that both women and their children must belong in a secure and stable setting. They must be protected. Child support payments and alimony were originally devised in order to protect those women and children who found themselves cast off by careless and callous mates. The problem with any sexual engagement, apart from masturbation, is that it involves 2 people and these 2 people may find that they have very different emotional needs. A married man who decides to have a fling with a sexually very aggressive single woman is likely going to run into grief. This is a chick who is anxious to mate and to settle down. Her clock might be tick, tick, ticking down, you know. A married guy with a wife and kids may indicate to her on some kind of subconscious level that he will make for a stable mate and parent...and thus his allure, eh. Or she might be competitive. Or she might enjoy destroying stable relationships. When I was a single woman I would always run away from men who showed no love for their mates or ex-mates. I figured that a man who was unable to love the other women who had filled his life would be unable to love me. My plan was never to leave and then be dissed. Whether a relationship is going to last a lifetime or just a few hours it is a fine thing to understand that you will be remembered and valued. This brings me to an awfully strange place with respect to Zannie's present situation. Certainly Zannie has been horribly damaged by her mate's behaviour. She may well wish to move on. Should Zannie and her mate choose to resume their life as a couple, she might wish to take comfort from the fact that her husband has never dissed his mistress. A weird and kinda grotesque comment on my part, Zannie, but remember that such a man will never, ever diss you.

Dynamo, I know that you have been struggling with your sluggish (far too efficient) metabolism for a bunch o months now. I know that this has been a real source of frustration for you. (I must confess that I am also a serious fan of the Single Bandsters' thread.) It sure is great to hear that you are currently losing about a lb per week; doing the math this means that you might theoretically lose 52 lbs over the year. Life doesn't generally work this way as we all know: there are the gains and the, um, non-gains. Life and weight and financial investments all do seem to run on The Snakes & Ladders school of progress. I want to tell you that although I now find myself at target weight I am still in the process of psychologically sorting myself out. Certainly my initial weight loss was both easy and very much desired. Dumping enough weight that I was able to move from size 18W to a regular 16 was a joyful experience for me. I am now at the point where I easily fit into a size 10 with room to spare and this is proving to be much more of a psychological challenge than I would have expected. I have not seen this size for decades and I am simply not used to it. I also feel that I am perched in a precarious place. Any inattention to my food intake and kaboom! I will suddenly explode into my 18Ws. This will, of course, take place over night. I will go to bed wearing the 10s and wake up groping for the 18Ws. In short, I sure am not comfortable with being a normo. I suspect that it is going to take me a number of years before my inside meets up with my outside. (Size 10 Green is still a surprise to her mate. My husband is still prone to saying, "omigawd! You've lost a lot of weight!") All of this is because I want to tell you that this biz of weight loss is an exceedingly complicated one and I totally get your post. The lapband has served me brilliantly with respect to the mechanics of weight loss. But the loss of the hated lard is a complicated bit of work for interleaved with the mechanics of successful weight loss are a bunch of emotional issues, issues which have to do with the definition of our own identities. I am in the process of bouncing around with that stuff. The fact that I am presently unfilled makes all of this emotional stuff especially perilous for me.... I really am afraid that I might enter into some sort of self-fulfilling eating jag prophecy. blehhhh!

Yep, that obsession with skinny chicks seems to be largely confined to American and Canadian guys. Men in other parts of the world are far more relaxed about a woman's size and many men adore a "thick," curvy woman. I always feel a lot more comfortable about myself when watching Brit flicks and television shows. There I find thicker, and older women being portrayed as sexually viable. And I am charmed by their imperfect teeth since I, too, have European teeth. I have also heard that the frail, skinny, Calista Flockhart look is not at all prized in black culture - this seems to be a white thang. Certainly Flockhart and the rest of her gang do not look juicy, strong, and healthy. I wonder why we all managed to buy into this notion that extreme skinniness is beautiful. In our remote past this condition indicated that the female was either still a child and thus not ready to bear children or that she was ill and would likely be unable to bear and then nurture children. All representations of womanhood from these prehistoric times depict women as having wide hips, big bellies, and big breasts. In fact these characteristics were exaggerated. It is worth noting that goddess worship was prevalent at this time. Men were both respectful and mystified by the ability of women to procreate. And if you examine historical portraiture you will note that most of the beauties who were painted were obese by modern standards. You will also see that the fashions of previous eras were designed to make women look bulky. There were crinolines and bustles, etc. Watching Bollywood flicks which were made during the '60s through to the '80s is also fun. The Indian heroines are absolutely gorgeous but also quite tubby. Fat is just such a complicated issue....

People tend to describe other people by their most salient features and this is why if you happen to be a white person with a group of black people they will describe you as the white chick. Unfortunately for us normos are the majority and that is why they will describe you as the fat or big chick. Women with big chests will find themselves referred to by the size of the same. This is just what people do. I know that I have pointed out skinny chicks from time to time to my friends. As for your guy friend, he may simply have been disappointed that you didn't eat a more substantial lunch. I have read a number of times that guys really enjoy eating with a woman who eats well - i.e. like a guy - and who is not on the perennial rabbit food diet. One of these articles mentioned that many women when on dates are now ordering steak and potatoes because they feel that the guys like to see them eat. I mention these things to you as alternative explanations. It is possible that you may be a little oversensitive on this issue of your weight. Most people are far too caught up in their own lives to give more than a passing thought about ours. We are the ones who think about our weight all the time. Most other people really don't care all that much except for family. They are the ones who enjoy tormenting and humiliating us by reminding us of our weight problems. :tired I can totally relate to your complaints about clothes. These are not only more expensive, they come in ugly styles, ugly colours, and horrible synthetic fabrics. It is almost impossible to look cute or chic when you are over normo size. It is like all the manufacturers have decided that fat people have lousy taste as well. This is something which has made me mad for many years now. :mad:

Thanks, ladies.

It seems that they feel that they don't need to fix the hernia. Apparently hiatal hernias are very common amongst older folk. I did not have a hernia at the time I was banded, nor did I have reflux. These are all brand new headaches for me, ones which I developed 10 months post-band. As for the big clothes, these are made of linen and I love linen. I simply haven't had the heart to toss 'em. (Linen is just so comfortable in the summer.) In fact I often wear them even though they now give me the Rap Star Crotch look. Today, however, I am wearing a pair of size 10 capris and my crotch isn't down around my kneecaps. Of course it is a lot cooler and I do have the central A/C turned off as well. LOL

When applying an international yardstick to this business of measuring the quality of education available to all citizens of free and democratic countries there are a number of European countries which do perform better than either the United States or Canada. Japan is another democratic country which has a superb education system in place. I believe that you will discover that most individuals who wish to come to Canada and the United States wish to come here for reasons of political freedom, and for economic opportunity. While it is true that those people who come from grindingly poor backgrounds may find our educational systems to be an attractive option, certainly those highly educated families who have immigrated to Canada from such places as the former Soviet block nations are none too impressed by what passes for public school education on this side of the Atlantic. And most Europeans whom I know find our level of general knowledge to be not so hot. In my opinion knee-jerk patriotism was not an appropriate nor profitable response to the discussion on the table here. The initial discussion was about failures within the framework of the current approach to education. No one had any intention of dissing America until you introduced the issue in your above quoted post. And as you raised the issue you will see that I have provided you with my viewpoint on the topic.

I was banded last Sept and am at goal but I have had to have a complete defill due to a recent attack - my first - of acid reflux. This wasn't responding to meds and when I had a series of upper G.I. X-rays it was discovered that I also have a hiatal hernia. So I am currently running on empty until everything gastric settles down. :phanvan My challenge at the moment is not to gain back the weight which I have lost. I do think that my stomach has shrunk significantly and that my new eating habits have made a permanent difference but I sure do miss the sense of security which my band provides. I really miss my training wheels/hall monitor and am really looking forward to getting refilled. :help: I can say that I still fit my mini-clothes (I was defilled a couple of weeks ago, I guess) but I am glad that I didn't chuck out my big grrl gear. :paranoid The upside of all of this is that I have learned that my stomach has shrunk and that I really have learned how to monitor my food intake. As to how long this good behaviour will last without my band, I dunno.... I will keep you in the loop. :ranger:

And doggie bags are wonderful. They mean mo' meals with less work. :car: Love that microwave.

My husband noticed when I had lost 11 and the rest of the world started noticing when I lost about 20.

Tell them that you are on a new diet, one which seems to have worked for some women you have met. And you figure that you are going to give it a shot.:car:

My comments concerning infidelity may well be unpopular and unwanted but I feel that I may as well wade into this topic. I do believe that people are unfaithful for many, many reasons. While it is true that some individuals may be shallow, careless of the feelings of those close to them, and greedy for sexual experiences, most individuals engage in outside relationships for any number of other reasons. I have known at least two men who had chosen to fool around on their mates because they were sexually inexperienced when they first fell in love and settled down. After some number of years their sense of having missed out on a vital "masculine" part of life began to grind these men down. In one case the wife, my good friend, sent her husband over to seduce me while she was out of town. At the time I was a single woman and according to her husband, once he confessed all, they figured that my friendship was expendable. I had, while I was single, had a few sexual relationships with married men. To tell the truth, I was the perfect "other woman." This is because I was happy with my lifestyle and had no desire to steal anyone's mate. Because I was alert and interested as to what was going on with these men, I learned that these were individuals who deeply loved their wives and kids. Much of what constituted these adulterous affairs consisted of friendship and psychotherapy. Indeed, I really did feel like a sex therapist. There was only one instance where the individual wanted to jump ship in order to live with me, something which I was absolutely against. Ugh!! for me because I had no desire to settle down. In all other cases the adulterer was profoundly attached to his mate and to his family. I found this deeply touching and this is why I would be unable to cast my mate adrift if I were to learn that he had been sexually unfaithful even though I would be left feeling terribly hurt and jealous on the short term. What many people don't understand is that people are often unfaithful for reasons which have everything to do with their own private issues, pains, and insecurities: infidelities of this nature may have nothing at all to do with you. Please listen to me: I have been both the wife and the other woman. At the moment I am a wife and have been for the past 22 years. I tell you this because I would like you to know that I am not biased in either direction.

One of my closest friends is a public school teacher. She is a single woman in her 50s who has a caustic sense of humour and is very well read. She was teaching 1st graders in an inner city school for quite some years. Most of her kids came from Carribean families and all of them were the children of immigrants. She found that some of her students learned more easily than others but she was both charmed and amused by her kids. The big city stressed her out, however, and so she quit her job and left town. Since then she has been teaching small town white kids who come from economically depressed backgrounds. She has found this a much more unpleasant experience. Many of her charges not only seem to have problems with learning, they are also socially dysfunctional. She has said to me, "Green, these kids are really mean to each other. I never saw that kind of cruelty when I was teaching immigrant kids. They were sweet little kids!" She has also found dealing with their parents to be a nightmare. These are individuals who are entirely unwilling to take any responsibility for their children's problems; instead, they become abusive and blame the school and the teacher. She sees these children when they are beginning their school careers. She reckons few, if any, will complete highschool. She doesn't see any that are university bound. And yes, up here in the Province of Ontario all students are shuffled on to the next grade regardless of knowledge. This has been the case for decades. Years ago I met a woman who had to really fight hard to have her son repeat grade eight. My friend is now counting the years, months, and days until her retirement.

I am interested and want to read more!

It would never occur to me to diss you for cheating on your mate. People are unfaithful for a wide variety of reasons. Human behaviour is complicated.

Anna, I am sorry for having misread part of your post. Thank you for drawing my attention to this.

I guess I want to say is that these adultery babies are in the way of a Freudian slip. These babies are planned accidents. I sure do feel for these children but not for those individuals who carelessly, selfishly, and thoughtlessly set about with setting their little lives into motion

I must confess that I find this pregnancy business, an issue which seems to invariably crop up in these infidelity stories, to be both weird and suspect. I am inclined to find it to be a cop out. The truth is that if both individuals are anxious not to be trapped by an unwanted pregnancy they can and will take care of business. In general, birth control does work. I was meticulous about this throughout my sexually active life. I had one failure when I was in my early 30s (I was in a stable relationship with a man who wanted to have children at the time) and I dealt with this by having an abortion. It is possible to engage in sex without "accidentally" getting pregnant if both participants are willing to do the work. Accidents will happen and one did happen to me but, nevertheless, I am still of the opinion that few unwanted pregnancies happen by chance. This is why both men and women must engage in birth control practices independently of each other if this truly is of importance and this is why neither of them can rely upon their partner to take care of business. We are inclined to think that it is women who trap men into relationships through these unwanted and unexpected pregnancies. In my case the ugly situation worked the other way around. Nevertheless, the message is the same: if you don't want to be hung up you will take care of business. Is that such a difficult lesson to learn?

I'm thinking that this would be a fabulous idea. I know that there is a food section on the site.... :help: Do any of you other posters have any ideas as to where would be the best place for Z's wonderful recipes??? Write right now! :ranger: I sure do want to read your recipes and maybe we will get some suggestions as to the best way to present them on this site. I am also thinking that you could create your own website for these and then create a link, part of your signature perhaps, which would allow all of us to enter into your recipe book. I am old and blonde which = cyber stupid and so I will leave my suggestions up to you and you can figure out if they are of any use. :heh::heh::heh::heh::heh:

My experience of my school education was the reverse from that described by the individual who has posted above. Although I was educated a long time ago the system in the province where I live was already moving into the direction of that come hell or high water egalitarian mess that it is today. I was quite a bright kid, especially in the areas of literature, history, geography, social studies, and languages - the artsy arena - and I spent my school years trapped in the humdrum of classes pitched to the median student. I was left blind with frustration, rage, and boredom. I did a lot of my learning outside of school. This was long before the arrival of internet, and I was very lucky that my father was an intellectual kind of guy and that he enjoyed teaching his kids. At the time when I was finishing secondary school there was much work being done in my province in order to integrate Special Ed kids into the mainstream school system. My teenage reaction to this was one of vivid bitterness; while I could understand the logic of bringing the Special Ed gang on stream I simply couldn't understand why the nerds and their special needs were being abandoned at this time. It seemed like a willful waste of human resources. Britain was still engaged in a practice at the time when I was young, an ethically distressing one I now realise, called streaming. This was all about their junior schools sorting out their students at the age of 11 or 12 years old in order to determine which of these students would be able to proceed on to the academic (=university-bound) programmes and which would be consigned to the trade programmes. Streaming is a practice which has long since been discontinued and certainly the mature Green finds this practice as being altogether unfair, immoral, and elitist. What I did find entrancing about this practice when I was an alienated teenager was that this cruel system did acknowledge that smart people were also of value and should be nurtured. I will mention that over my adult years I have seen north American society lurch from bad to worse. While people are prepared to recognise and pay homage to athletes and the raft of talent which constitutes Hollywood, supermodel-ville, and Bono-musician-land, it would appear that this same sense of respect does not extend to those who are, well, smart, and who have gone on to achieve in the field of academic endeavour. Democracy and the principle of egalitarianism are all about giving everyone the same shot at success. No one should be held back because of class, race, or religion and this is just about the best gift which we who live in the United States and Canada can offer to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, education beyond a certain basic level should not be considered a universal right. It is something which certain people win through a lucky constellation of good genetics, interest, and hard work. It would never occur to most of us to demand the right to work as models, athletes, or actors. We all recognise that those individuals have received extraordinary talents. I am aware that I am going to sound awfully harsh but it sounds to me that your son, only4me, has received some degree of care from the educational system in your jurisdiction. Certainly your child's teachers seemed to be standing up for him even though he did present with some social difficulties in class. This indicates that they both like and value your son, and that is a wonderful thing for any parent. I dunno..... Perhaps your school system is unable to present your child with a graduation diploma for a number of reasons apart from the academic issue which I discuss above. Perhaps your child, a child who still does present with some social issues according to my reading of your post, is considered by the school authorities to be someone who must continue to go to school for this reason. They might figure that he is just not sufficiently emotionally mature and so cannot launch himself successfully out in the work world with his HS diploma at this time. It is very easy to feel anger on the part of someone whom you love. Have you discussed this issue of his emotional maturity and ability to survive real-land with his school?

I grew up during the traditional 1950s when there was a sharp division of duties between men and women. Men were expected to work and women were expected to be homemakers. It was true that as a little kid I took great comfort in the fact that our mum was at home for me and my brothers, that dinner was prepared and on the table at the same time every evening and that we could come home for lunch. I believe that young children do require routine in their lives; I think they find it reassuring and calming. My mother was a terrific homemaker. She knew how to cook, bake, make preserves, sew, repair, knit, clean, and tend to the garden. I don't think that she enjoyed being a SAHM and I think that her other talents, the ones which she valued more, were wasted. She was bright, organised, charming, and creative, and I think she was bored senseless raising children and looking after a house. In short, that she was a SAHM was great for my brothers and myself but not so hot for her. However, that was the '50s and she didn't really have a choice. Now women do, and this is a wonderful thing. At the same time the economy has radically changed and fewer families have the choice to have a stay at home parent. And the truth is that some women aren't psychologically built to be patient and nurturing parents of young children; some men do much better at this work. It is a wonderful thing that our society is progressing in the direction where this can be recognised without prejudice against either parent. Certainly young children do need to feel secure, loved, and protected. It is arguable that daycare may not satisfy these needs simply because there are too many children with like needs. A child undergoing an emotional crisis may feel that he or she is being lost in the shuffle. A nanny, a parent, or a granny is probably a better option for very young children if such an approach is possible. At the same time, this isn't an ideal world and children are now being raised with much more care and attention than was the case in any past era. And yet our ancestors survived and often thrived and went on to do many extraordinary things with their lives. My hunch is that raising kids is a crap shoot. Giving them your love and attention, consistent discipline, and encouraging them to enjoy life and learning is probably about as best as anyone can do. There are other factors and these are entirely outside of your control: these have to do with genetics and with peer group/social pressures.

I bet that a lot of us would be interested in reading your cookbook, Z. Have you posted any of your recipes here?

I was raised on healthy food and skim milk. I never tasted soda until I was in my late teens because when I wasn't at home I was in boarding school, another junk food-free zone. When I finally did try it I was really shocked; I thought it tasted horrible. This proved lucky. I never acquired the addiction to the stuff that so many people seem to have. I was also really late having my first Big Mac experience. I was 35 when I ate my first Big Mac and fries. Now, those I enjoyed. I am inclined to believe that when parents raise their kids on good food the kids will often carry on with this style of eating in adulthood. Both of my brothers along with myself continued to prefer quality food as adults. One of them went on to become a superb cook. Two of us had problems with weight because we were so very fond of what was on our plates and because our genetics favoured weight gain. (This is why I love my band.) I suspect that sometimes children are not properly fed because their parents run out of time and energy by the end of the day, possibly because they themselves are not eating healthily. It takes time and good organisational skills to make good food for dinner and to pack good lunches for the kids to take to school. I also suspect that most people know very little about food and nutrition. I have always preferred good food but I have learned a helluva lot since being banded. This is because I now scrutinise the nutritional content list on all prepared foods. This is a real learning experience and often not in a reassuring way. One of the things that I have learned is that most vegetable soups and pasta sauces are pretty much devoid of vita C as well as just about every other nutrient. :omg: Learning how to eat properly is a challenge. I think that this should be taught in schools but more importantly, no junk food should ever be available in a school cafeteria. I think that all parents should lobby their local school boards about this.

Thank you for writing about your son. Certainly he has had a rough time and of course you yourself have been sharing in his troubles. It strikes me that your child is now stuck in a place where he has a number of factors working against him with respect to weight control. He has severe breathing issues and this will interfere with his level of physical activity. He is also on a number of drugs which cause weight gain. (I was briefly put on an antipsychotic and watched, with horror, my weight skyrocket.) It also seems that you are a bandster member because you yourself have weight issues due to the beautifully efficient metabolism, the very tool which was so useful for survival in primitive times and which, ironically, causes modern folk to end up with the problems of excess weight. This is also something which is hereditary. Your son may have inherited your metabolism along with his other hassles, the ones which lead him to suffer from weight control issues. Who knows? Certainly your child is in a very different situation from that of the young girl who has been the topic of discussion on this thread or, indeed, from the case of any pre-teen or child who is only just entering into her teen years with a weight problem that is neither hooked up with other medical issues nor a case of serious morbidity. In the case of your child his weight issues are both the cause of pre-existing medical conditions and the result of these; and your son's weight problem will seriously erode his health if this is not checked at some future point. All of my heart goes out to you and your boy. He sounds like a champ - I love the "rubber band'" request - and you sound like one, too. It certainly sounds as though the Nemours Children's Hospital will have criteria in place which ideally will assess the medical needs of the child and the maturity of the family before deciding whether the child should be banded or not. I am sure that none of us who were engaged in discussion prior to your post had no intention of dissing people such as you or your son or, for that matter, those young people who are morbidly obese. Weight issues of this nature are medical issues. We were more concerned about this particular kid who had already undergone a year of liposuction/liposculpture while she was still a preteen. Now she has hit the news again because she has been banded at the very young age of 13. The kid is nowhere near 100 lbs overweight and neither she nor her mother seem to have a firm fix on the bandster's role in responsible food behaviour. It was at this point that a couple of other bandster mums waded in to say that all good mothers do insure that their kids learn proper nutritional habits. Knowing proper nutritional habits is never a guarantee that one is going to remain slender, of course. I have superb nutritional habits. My downfall was portion control. I was a healthy fatso, eh. :heh: