green

It does sound like you have got some irritating parents-in-law on your hands! :paranoid It is probably best to stay out of their reach. Anyway you can avoid the bar-b-que tonight?

You might want to pay close attention to the nutrients component of Lean Cuisine and other frozen entrees now that you are banded. I started doing this and found that a lot of prepared meals may be low in calories but they are high in sodium and low in vitamins, minerals, fibre, and the other good stuff. I am not a cook but there are a number of things that you can make on the stove top or in the microwave or eat fresh which will be tasty and healthier for you. I guess my favourite microwave meal is two beaten eggs with milk (eggs are loaded with vita Bs, protein, vita E, selenium, the omega oils and have only 70 calories per egg), a finely chopped tomato, a little salsa, and some cheese. Put this in a bowl and nuke it, then eat. Oh, yah, season to taste. I also keep around the house those little cans of Clover Leaf flavoured tuna; these come in such flavours as spicy peanut satay, dill&lemon, and have a pop top lid. They are low in calories, taste good, contain protein, and although there is some cholesterol it is better than eating a bag of chips. I also eat a lot of tzatziki which I buy from the store. I don't have much of a sweet tooth and this is a thing which the Greeks do with yogurt; they mix it up with garlic and slivers of cucumber. If you can get over your fear of the stove top you might consider getting into stir-frying fresh vegetables and chunks of expensive beef/pork tenderloin or chicken. I use the expensive stuff because it chews up nicely in my mouth and because it tastes better. The leftovers nuke up nicely the next day. However, if you cannot get over your fear I would suggest that you make a point of chopping up fresh vegetables and adding these into every item which you microwave. I say this because I shocked to note that even Gardenay soups (which allowed me to survive the full fluids weeks post-op) are surprisingly devoid of the vita Cs, etc. I have to say that I really was surprised when I began to study those nutrient info labels! I also rely a lot on salads and I often incorporate chick peas into these. They are a good source of complete protein when combined with cheese and they are fibre rich. I add diced onion, red, yellow or orange pepper, and fresh parsley, dill, or coriander. I make my own salad dressing by mixing together dijon mustard, cider vinegar/lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Because I like spicy I add a bit of hot sauce. And when the season is right I substitute avocado for chick peas. Avocados are kind of fattening but they are loaded with nutrients. As for the salad dressing, I learned how to make this when I was living in France. Olive oil has the good kind of cholesterol, and both apple cider vinegar and lemon juice are good for you, they say. The sweetness of the balsamic vinegar cuts the acidity of the dressing and the dijon mustard binds the vinaigrette together and gives it zest. This dressing takes 2 minutes to make and is less fattening, less expensive, and pretty much free of additives. Another lazy thing which my husband and I have gotten into is that we buy these pre-roasted chickens which are available in our local supermarkets. They haven't been deep-fried and they don't come with the Kentucky crust. We buy 'em, put 'em in the refrigerator, and eat 'em cold. This works out well for us, particularly so because I like white meat and he prefers the dark. It is another source of protein for the non-cook, eh. I know that this is an awfully long reply to your question, grrl, but I am anxious that you understand that surviving on a diet of Lean Cuisines and Healthy Choice Meals is probably not going to cut it. We are subjected to those Campbell Soup ads which mention that their soups contain full servings of vegetables when in fact nutrition-wise they are lacking. At the same time I, while I am not phobic, do not derive any joy at all from cooking. Eating is where I was at! It strikes me that you have got to figure out a new and creative way to deal with your food issues, one that does not necessarily mean that you ever have to go near a stove. I have provided you with a few of my thoughts. There are other things which you can do in order to get your food needs in order. Eating a lot of fresh fruit is one of them. You will need your Bs, and your proteins, of course. Beat an egg or two and then nuke it, and buy those pre-cooked chickens. This should cover most of your nutritional needs. And do what most of us bandsters are doing, take your vitamin supplements as well. I take the chewies and because I live in a northern climate I take an additional 1,000 IUs of vita D. I think my answer is really boring but I hope that it helps.

I had a FIL like that once. I finally lost it with him and pounded my fist on the table and bellowed "you are not my father! I don't have to take orders from you!" He was shocked but after that we got along quite well. My MIL from that era ragged on my about not ironing my husband's shirts. I was working as much as he was and I said so. And then I pointed out that he wasn't handicapped as far as I could see. (To tell you the truth I hate ironing and never do it. I just tell people that I want my clothes to have more wrinkles than my face. :heh:) It does seem to me that you are having difficulty standing up to the old man and so perhaps you should stay away from in-laws for awhile. On the other hand, ask yourself what would happen if you did stand up to him. Would there be a fight? Or would he simply process the new information? Remember, the in-laws have more to lose if the relationship between themselves and your young family goes sour. Maybe you figure out a strategy with your husband? This is just a suggestion.

Bandiva, I think that you are doing very well with your weight loss. It is supposed to be a gradual loss because that is better for your body - it gives it time to adjust - and you have lost a lot of weight, you know. 62 lbs is an impressive loss and you should be feeling proud, grrl! I am so sorry to hear that your mum's cancer has spread. This is going to be a difficult time for your family and you have all my sympathy.

Bravo for you, nume! :clap2: I know a number of people who became really good friends with their exes. I was good friends with my ex after the dust settled and his wife (now widow) is one of my closest friends. In fact she and I will be going to a gig tomorrow afternoon which another one of my exes (who was a really good friend of my ex-husband, also a musician) will be giving. It's a small world up here in Greenland.... *wink* Your husband sounds like he will be a fine friend and you will be free to find yourself a man who will care for you the way you want to be cared for. This will be a good thing.:biggrin1:

I don't see that it is any of your FIL's business what you do with your time and how you choose to spend it. If he is worried about his wife then he should be making the time to go bicycling with her and not shovelling this chore off on to your shoulders. Perhaps you might point out to him that you, too, work hard and this time which you have to go on outings on your bike are special to you since they combine exercise and a break from the family chores and cares. You might explain that you look upon these times as your physical and emotional renewal periods and that you are not prepared to share them at this time. You might also indicate to him that if he were to go bicycling with his wife these trips would be healthy for them physically and good for their relationship. Certainly what he is asking of you is not fair given that it is a fight to get the old girl off her couch and up and on her wheels.

And, oh yah, happy Pride to everyone,......eh.

It's gonna be Pride weekend up here in Toronto, and this will be the culmination of Pride Week. Tomorrow will be the day of the Dyke Parade and on Sunday afternoon the big Pride Parade will take place. The final parade is now such an accepted part of Toronto life that it routinely attracts between half to 3 quarter of a million people who come down to watch the parade and participate in the party. This means that there are a lot of corporate floats now, a fact which I personally find weirdly amusing. I like watching the marriage of drag queens, cod pieces, and corporate interests. And I live to see the day when Mickey meets Pride. The parade is still pretty good, though; in between the floats you will see many people marching who belong to such groups as PFLAG, gays with AIDS/HIV, and with them are groups which have ethnic, religious, political or small town affiliations in common as well as a shared sexual orientation. And then there are the naked gays, the leather boys and grrls, the dykes on bikes, the bears. These groups also make their own representations in the final closing parade which will finish off Pride week for yet another year. To tell you the truth the Pride parade has become a major institution in this city. The Mayor always makes an appearance and it seems to be that this may be becoming the new norm for the Premier of our province. The downside for us oldtimers is that we remember the days when the parade was a much more local and thus informal event. We could hang out, watch the parade, and then jump in behind the float which was playing what we figured was the most danceable music. The experience was both intimate and fun for us. Now, with between .500 and .750 of a million watchers there are barricades, cops, and the experience is very much changed. Tough luck for us but my friend who used to march in those first Pride walks told me that these would consist of a group of 20 or 30 persons marching down a sidewalk, ducking the garbage and insults which were being hurled at them. This was a long, long time ago. Now the major streets of the core of this city are blocked off to traffic and there is a raft of cops standing guard over the festivities which both recognise and celebrate its most deviant citizens. This is very, very cool, doncha think?

A very big bummer. This woman sounds like pure evil.

And as for the wonderful laurend, as I have said before, you are one of the finest dragon-slayers whom I have met on-line, grrl. You will continue to do what you have to do with respect to the dragons and you will continue to keep those of us who have ears to hear educated and up to date (as much as we layfolk are able) on the latest in your arena of scientific research. Speaking personally, I find your dispatches as a scientist and an atheist from the land of the Bible Belt and the home of creationism to be most interesting. This is foreign terrain for me and is, quite frankly speaking, a kind of topsy-turvy land. All that seems normal and that is taken for granted where I live is challenged where you live and, I guess, is vice versa. Let me explain. I am almost 58 years old but evolutionary theory was taught as the norm when I was a kid. And although my parents, a Jew who was an atheist and a Christian who hadn't troubled to get herself confirmed until she was in her late 20s, had me and my brothers baptised Anglican/Episcopalian this was primarily in order to satisfy the social conventions of the the time. During the 1950s everyone was supposed to have a religion. Why, they even asked for this on employment applications at the time. Though my parents were not at all religious I did spend a bunch of years consigned to an Anglo-Catholic boarding school but this was because I was a wild child and because, I suspect, my father had social pretensions. Certainly I paid them back for my exile. I went through a six month period of religious passion and I hassled them with promises of their torment in Hell if they didn't shape up and listen to me. I also brought serious disgrace upon them when I was summarily expelled in my final year for smoking marijuana, something which the daughter of an Anglican prelate had taught me. I should mention that this kid, a kid who came from a family bristling with clerical types, had been expelled from a number of schools before she washed up as a student in my school.... At the end of my street is a Catholic church which serves the Portuguese Catholic community. On important holidays the street is jammed with cars and sometimes there are parades of folk which walk up this street. I find these displays of devotion interesting and not at all threatening for they are also displays of a community and its culture. For me it is a cheap and charming trip to the streets of Portugal. Around the corner from this church is a storefront mosque and this doesn't bother me either. The street is certainly clotted with worshippers on Friday but this storefront mosque is on a business street and it has had the effect of calming down the neighbourhood. One block down from the storefront mosque is a Baptist church which has been there forever. In fact this church had long ago built a highrise retirement home in order to house their ageing population. They came to a point after some years where they ran out of Baptists and this was when they opened this home to other Christians. And then to other old people. Now Baptist towers houses a number of young kids who are going to university and who need a place to stay. I read about this in one of the local newspapers. The reporter said that the kids and the old people find value in each other. This is a splendid thing. I tell you these stories in order to stress that my environment is one which is kinda loosey-goosey with respect to the question of one's belief or disbelief. There is this polite, possibly typically Canadian assumption that you believe or disbelieve in whatever and I will do the same. Indeed, when it comes to our pamphlet people, the way the business of conversion Canadian-style works is that they wave their material in front of your face and when you smile and respectfully tell them that it is not for you they smile, apologise, and withdraw. I suspect that we figure that there are multiple ways to get to Heaven and multiple ways to avoid it, too. This is why we/I find your tales so interesting. Keep on posting, you dragon-slayer.

Bwahahaha. Maybe we Rant/Ravers should mount a wholesale invasion of de site claiming that we wants to get obese and we wants to know the recipe because we needs de help. :heh: (We could claim that we need de recipe because we live Africa and Bono's aid money isn't filtering through the corrupt dictatorships.....or is that too twisted?....?) :rolleyes

Destructive joking is one of those strange behaviours which men tend to indulge in more than women. It is a mean and belittling way to behave towards the people you love, your wife and your kids, and it does a lot of damage to its victims. At the same time the perpetrator can say, if he is called up on it, "what? I was only joking!" This is passive-aggressive behaviour, nasty behaviour which flies under the radar. We women have our own arsenal of bad behaviour, by the way.... Although my husband and I have a relationship which really is pretty terrific in most ways he will get into those moods where he does the joking thing and of course his jokes are never funny and never nice. When I challenge him on these he starts out by claiming that he was only joking but when I begin to push a little bit he does admit that he was aware that he was being mean to me and he apologises. The truth is that sometimes I have had to push back quite a lot before he will back off and admit that his jokes were anchored in anger and other negative feelings. Anger and resentment are bound to crop up from time to time in relationships and the language which women and men use to convey these feelings while seeking to avoid a full out direct confrontation tends to be different. Men and women have their own ways of chipping away at each other and often they are not even aware that they are inflicting damage. These behaviours are those passive-aggressive behaviours and the first step is to identify them as hurtful stuff which gets under your skin. The second step is to sit down with your mate and tell him or her that when he or she behaves in such a manner you feel belittled, demeaned, and hurt, and these are the reasons why. And then you must lay out these reasons in a cool, calm, and easily understandable manner. You might be interested to know that my husband who is 9 years my junior had for years been silently seething with humiliation whenever I would make a point of mentioning our age difference. He wanted us to be viewed as equals, you see. As for me, I just wanted to have everyone calm down with respect to their speculations. Passive-aggressive behaviour is always a sign that the perpetrator is unhappy about the way the relationship is going and is anxious that something be changed or repaired. It can be something minor or something more serious. You might also be interested to learn that it was my husband who taught me how to do all of this. The sad truth is that although in many ways I am a smartie pants I have always been a hot head and I was not all that successful in my personal relationships. It was my husband who has taught me how to calm down, analyse my emotional damage, and then distance myself from it and deal with it like a thoughtful adult. Adult dogs can be taught new tricks and I am hoping that old bitches, for I am almost 58, can learn new tricks, too. :heh:

It is difficult making real as opposed to virtual friends after one hits a certain stage in life. My gang of off-line friends is shrinking, that's for sure.

When I was younger I had this fantasy of finding an orphen to settle down with. I do have problems with my in-laws and it has taken me many years to educate my husband that we have to come first as a unit. His family was used to him being single and to, well, owning his free time. He now recognises this but his sister sure can't deal with it and blames all his tensions with his family on me. In fact she recently ripped me a new one and then hung up before I could rip her a new one. The touching thing is that my husband was horrified by the way she treated me and wants nothing more to do with her, ever. His parents, oddly enough, are the only people who do now kinda get our relationship. I sometimes suspect that this family has problems because we have never married even though we have been together for over 22 years. This does strike me as strange. We are so happy together and have been together for so long and his sister is married but has been in the middle of an ugly divorce for the past 5 years.

Marjon, of course Green is on your side on this debate. She believes in recycling.

Nume has a different issue with her mate. In her earliest post she mentioned that he had been gay but had chosen to lead a straight life because he, like nume, is a devout Christian. I am one of those individuals who has been paying some attention to the results of research on male homosexuality and these results overwhelmingly indicate that homosexuals are born that way. Just as I, a heterosexual, would be entirely incapable of sexually committing to a Lesbian relationship, even though I have a number of fabulous dyke friends and some of them have made me the occasional offer, so a gay male will have great difficulty being sexually responsive to a woman, even one whom he loves very, very much. This is not his fault; the individual who fights his sexual orientation is fighting a war against his own nature. I will also mention that learning that homosexuality is nature and not learned behaviour didn't surprise me. I come from a very tolerant family and I have always had gay friends, as had my mum before me. Of course I would often ask them when they first had an idea that they were different from other boys and they would always answer that they have always known that they were different...and then say, "oh, between the ages of 3 and 5, I guess." This alone indicates that homosexuality really is not a choice, I think. As to nume learning to make friends with her own body and getting in touch with her own sensuality, I think that it is important that she should - we all should for this is what gives us confidence, pleasure and inner peace - and I love lizrbit's advice. Nume, you should sleep naked and make a point of surrounding yourself with a few small things which give you physical pleasure. I am quite a fan of music, scented candles, nice bath oils and soaps, and high-thread count sheets. You are another Canuck and so you probably know that you can buy most of this stuff at a reasonable price by shopping at Winner's (TJ.Maxx/Marshall's for you Americans). Opting to take a bath instead of a shower can be another great way to slow the world down and connect with yourself. This can be especially fine with a glass of wine, some candles, and maybe a little music. Now, my next suggestion may be kind of controversial. You may be happier if you move out of the marital bedroom and set up your private little space elsewhere. Your bedroom has been the source of disappointment, humliation and pain and it is also a shared space. It sounds to me like you need your private space. This would be a place which would be fresh, new, and uncontaminated and you would own it. This would be the place where you would have your music, your bed with its fine sheets, your decor, and where you can sleep naked, and know that you have your privacy, your thoughts, and your peace. You would not have the stress of worrying about how your mate is going to respond to the new you.

Marimaru, you look absolutely beautiful! I am so touched and so pleased by this photo and I am a big cynic.

You all know my take on the American health care system from other posts which I have made on this site. Up here in Soviet Canuckistan and over in there in European Common Marketstan we have universal health care. This is covered through the tax base and yet these health care countries save a minimum of $2,000 per capita per annum in health care costs. How do they/we do it? Well, they/we cut out the middleman/the businessman. This seems to save everyone in these countries 2 grand per head. And these are healthy and market-driven economies!

This is a very powerful post from an insider in the business of health care and this is why I have troubled to quote this post as a preface to my own remarks on this subject. It strikes me that each one of those individuals who is on the front lines of health care imports his or her own personal sense of ethics and this is challenged on a routine basis as part of the job. This must be a particularly stressful environment in which to function. Bubble has described her experience as a newbie of dealing with an elderly woman whose pain was so insupportable that she was prepared to offer up her wedding ring, if that was what it took, in order to be helped out of her misery. That the patient was Catholic and that the church has a strict caveat against suicide made this woman's request all the more powerful, and her pain all the more dreadful to imagine. One of my father's European pals was a doctor who ended up immigrating to Canada. I remember overhearing him talking to my parents about the treatment which he customarily arranged for the new borns of his patients, those new borns, that is, who were grossly ill-favoured to live. He told my parents that he had the nurses put 'em on an intravenous Water and sugar solution. This meant that there were no attempts to keep these ruined creatures alive. The water and sugar solution would not sustain life but would keep them hydrated and allow them to drift gently off into death. He certainly figured that this was a kindness to everyone concerned and it seems obvious that the nurses were compliant if not in agreement. He was comfortable with his set of ethics and those nurses how carried out his orders were either on the same page or they were afraid of losing their jobs. This is all old history. I was very young at the time. Many of the individuals who choose to go into the health care arena may well be people who find the notion of acting as angels of death to be so deeply disturbing as to be impossible. This means that these individuals can not and should not be called upon to perform an abortion nor to assist in a much desired suicide (euthanasia). Their response may be prompted by their ethical stance or by a simple squeamishness but it doesn't matter. If you can't do it, you can't do it. Nevertheless, let us look at the old and terminally ill Catholic lady who blind-sided the young Bubble. The woman was dying and she was in torment. Bubble couldn't kill her off. I couldn't, either. (I always send my husband off to the vet when our animals are terminal. I can't deal with life and death! Well, death and death....) It strikes me that the health care profession may well need such hired gun-slingers as Dr. Kervorkian in order to assist such individuals as the elderly and terminally ill Catholic lady who had confronted the young Bubble with her big request. A woman who found herself in such pain that she was willing to give up her wedding ring and her chance for heaven in order to obtain relief from her physical pain is a woman whose torment is such that she has lost all connection with all the rules and beliefs which make up her life. I find thinking about this woman's situation deeply painful. I cannot imagine how the on-going exposure to these challenges must affect those individuals who work in the health care field. I do find, however, that there is a need for the gunslingers. My husband and I have often passed through those dreadful points of emotional terrain where we have had to acknowledge that we have to take an animal to the vet in order to have it euthanized. Of course each time this happens the effect upon us is dreadful and I behave badly for quite some period following the death. And I am never, ever able to take the animal to the vet. I stick my mate with this job. But, the thing is that this has to be done with animals who are in distress and sometimes this should be done with humans who are in distress and who are capable of asking for some kind of help because they find that they are drowning in pain and that they are losing grip on their own sense of their self-respect.

@BJean, I can't speak any other foreign language other than French but I could pretend to be your exotic help when I come to visit you. This could be beaucoup de fun. :heh: @Juli, I am fond of strong coffees - this is the result of living in France for a few years - and I love iced coffee but I don't like sugar in any of my drinks. This is why I have never liked soda and this is why I drink my coffee and tea without sugar. I have learned that you can make a fabulous iced coffee by using an Italian espresso caffe, and then adding ice and milk. This could be useful info for any bandsters who want to get away from the sugar/aspartame-thing and this is why I have mentioned it. The other thing I learned from living in Europe with a coffee freak was that all good coffee has to be made out of 100% arabica coffee Beans. Robusta beans are inferior. I have since tried coffee which was a robusta-arabica blend and the coffee was not nearly as good.

I started gaining weight after I hit menopause at the early age of 41. Like my mother I gained all my weight on my torso and this means that my legs and arms remained relatively normal sized. My mum used to say that she looked like a pregnant spider and that is how I gained my weight, too. So of course over the years I would get lots of people congratulating me on my pregnancy....! My payback was to tell 'em that that I was post-menopausal and just fat. It is always fun to watch people squirm. But to tell you the truth I wasn't offended by their comments for the truth was that I did look pregnant and these folks were just trying to be nice. I did have a punk street kid snarl at me that I was fat one time when I was walking home. My reaction time was a little slow that day because what I wanted to say to her was, "so what! I'm old and I am post menopausal. People gain weight. That's life." To tell you the truth, in general people were pretty careful not to disrespect me on the basis of my weight. The only person who was beating me up about my weight was myself. I got to the point where I just couldn't stand myself. The band has been a very good thing for me.

Nume, I was done at TLBC but I have heard that Dr. Cobourn is wonderful and that he is a real dish. You will be in excellent hands. I am very pleased that you are going to get yourself banded. It is one of the nicest things that we overweight women can do for ourselves. I was banded last Sept and at the time I weighed 200 lbs and I was on a one way track to gaining more. Now I weigh 154 and my BMI is finally in the normal range. I think that the loss has been very healthy because it hasn't been too rapid. Congratulations from another Canuck, eh. And you are worth it. We all are!

Yes, I do wash windows!

I use Mapquest to get around my city. It is a big city and it is useful to be able to orient myself whether I am going by public transit or my husband is driving. And there are a number of one-way streets. Mapquest indicates these and this can be valuable info when we are taking the vehicle.

Oh yah, Green is gonna go to your house, too. This is gonna be her banded blonde ambition U.S. coffee tour. :biggrin1: She is hoping to experience some of that true bar-b-que, too. :hungry: You can't get that up here and she has never tried it! By the way, she is a very good guest: she is clean, gives her hosts lots of privacy, helps around the house, and never stays too long. Lousy cook, though........:phanvan