bitteroldhag

My God, were you spying on me?

Hmmm. I always thought archangels wore white robes. These don't seem to be wearing anything. If I have to be naked to be an archangel, I'll have to settle for some sort of lower angel that wears clothes. Besides these guys are all thin. Aside from being female, I don't think I'd qualify. I'm still way too fat.

I tried an apple and it didn't work. I tried canned peaches--didn't work. I even have trouble eating an avocado unless I chew a whole lot. Still I think if I chew enough I can eat some canned fruit. I pb'd on banana the other day. The stuff just stuck together in my esophagus even though I chewed it up very well, so no more banana. I will try some other fruits. One thing I did do well on was mixed citrus fruit salad. That went down well and was really good. The citrus is already pretty squashy in the can which helped. But I have very little esophageal motility which causes me to pb a lot.

I buy pizza dough mix at Wal-Mart and make it up. You just put warm water in it and let it rise. Then I divide it in two because there is no way I can eat a whole packet of mix. I freeze half of it and roll the rest out really thin, about 1/4 inch or less. I make the pizza and don't eat the crust around the edges, but the really thin crust goes down. The dogs like the rest of the crust. I can eat about 1/2 of a 8 inch pizza these days. I used to eat a whole medium pizza and want more. Amazing.

Okay, I lied. I'm taking a late paper from a Black student who says he was in jail. He says that he was going 70 in a 45 mph zone and a cop pulled him over. The cop had a drug sniffing dog. He says that the cop asked him if he had any controlled substances. He swore he didn't, but he said the cop went back to the cop car and then back to the student's car and suddenly he had a controlled substance in his car. One learns not to believe student excuses, but this seemed creative and original. So he can turn his paper in late. I'm such a pushover.

I had to attend a boring department meeting today, but next week SPRING BREAK!!!!! And I'm not sick so far. This is wonderful since I'm usually sick on spring break. Of course, I have to grade about 60 essays on break, but what the hell. I don't have to prepare lessons, not that I do anyway. I've been doing this so long that I prepare my lesson in the car on the way to school. Laurend -- What are you doing on birds? Sounds interesting.

Mine is $150 without fluoro. She had to stick me multiple times, but since I've lost 40 pounds, it's easier to feel the port.

I may have been wrong to say that a PB is like vomiting. It isn't. It is undigested food that comes back up. I tastes just the same coming up as it does going down, but I have a lot of slime. I always know I'm going to PB when I have a whole lot of saliva and my nose stops up. I once PB'd 11 times to get up a big piece of pork loin which I had cooked French style. It was my fault for not chewing enough since the loin was so good, I note that my band is tight in the morning so I have a protein drink, but by the evening I can eat quite a lot, more's the pity.

Tonight I made a prime rib. I was a little rare, but good. I just can't seem to eat beef. I had made this great dinner for my brother and mother prior to Mother going to the hospital for colon surgery and I threw most of mine up. I found a larger piece of beef when I threw up. I chewed like crazy and it didn't get small enough. If I can't eat prime rib that I cook myself, my life is over. I find that I can eat pork chops with no problem and my homemade pizza which has a VERY thin crust. But a lot of other stuff causes PBs even when I chew it up to basically a liquid. I think I may need to have an unfill, but that entails driving 2 1/2 hours to Kansas and having the gal poke around in my stomach until she finally finds the port. I have followed TOM's advice about cutting meat to chiclet size, but the prime rib still wouldn't go down. I'm disgusted about that. Prime rib is expensive and my brother and the dogs will get to eat the whole thing. My brother weighs about 300 lbs. He can eat enything. I think I'm going to give up on buying prime rib since I can't eat it. I can't seem to eat much. Does anyone else have that problem. Also I haven't lost a pound in about 5 months. Of course, I don't exercise. I spend enough time taking care of mother and working. Also I absolutely loathe exercise. Meanwhile, my cousin visited today and was terribly proud that she'd managed to get up to 117 pounds! She's hoping to gain to 120 pounds. Life just doesn't seem fair sometimes.

In Oklahoma we actually let them meet every year which is lunacy. I think if they meet every 4 years that would be enough. Maybe every 8 years. In fact, I'm not sure they need to meet at all. I'm a big believer in plebiscites. Let's just have plebiscites every 4 to 8 years. That way we plebs get to have a say.

I lilke the idea of pragmatic libertarian. I may change brands and become one.

This is the best forum I belong to. People are so supportive and I love Rants and Raves. I doubt if I would have been as successful as I have been without you all. Thanks from me too.

Well, I have to call B.S. on this. Of course, they are getting big tax breaks after we have paid them billions. I hate Halliburton. I should know about them since they bought Dresser Industries which bought Magcobar (Magnet Cover Barium Company) which my father worked for. Dresser was at least a little fairer than Halliburton. Halliburton were competitors with Magcobar for years when I was a kid. I don't know what happened, but they ended up owning Magcobar. My mother was getting insurance through Halliburton and every year they'd threaten to discontinue insurance for retirees. That pissed me off so we went for Medicare Part D, just to get rid of the threats. My father worked for about 35-40 years for Magcobar/Dresser Industries and they treat my mother like trash. I say good riddance to a bad company. May they die the death of a thousand cuts in Dubai.

You are right. What interests me is that New Yorkers really don't like Rudy. That makes me think that he's not the wonderful person the news would like us to think. He was awfully callous to his former wives and the NYFD doesn't like him. Maybe we have another little Mussolini on our hands. If I were Republican I'd go for McCain despite his many, many problems. But as a Democrat, I hope the Repugs run Rudy in 2008. That should be a walkover. What do you think?

Lord, my purse already is a lethal weapon due to the number of coins in my billfold. I like paper money. It's light! We used to get silver dollars in Wyoming when I was a kid. They weighed a ton. I just got through paying a whole lot of tax money to the government and the least they can do is try to keep my purse lighter. Ah have spoken as someone used to say in Lil Abner cartoons.

TOM- Once again I agree. We went into this war with lies and we are continuing it with more lies. I am seriously disturbed by the fascism I see in the current government. I personally think we should get out. So we lose. Big deal. We have unconscionably destroyed many lives and we must get out and let them straighten it all out for themselves. We cannot impose our idea of superiority on other countries. The very idea makes me gag. The Neo-cons think that America is the Puritan "city on the hill" for other countries (i.e., the perfect state) and that is just plain wrong. Other countries must decide whether they want to be democracies or not. Some are simply not ready for democracy and I don't think we should force them. We would have a bigger moral talking point if we were a real democracy, but we aren't. The U.S. is a plutocracy and the problem at the moment in the plutocrats are not very bright and a totally insensitive to other cultures and their needs. Well, I have spoken and that's all.

I have my purse which weighs about 20 pounds and I keep my billfold in it. I never use the word wallet though my brother does. Apparently men use wallets and women use billfolds around here.

It never seems to fail that the person in front of me is doing his/her banking for life, so I wait and wait and wait. I'm usually prepared though my purse, which should be registered as a lethal weapon, sometimes defeats me. I have noticed that if I take the old Cadillac to the ATM, I can't get close enough and have to open the door. If I take my RAV 4, it works really well. So I avoid taking the Cadillac. The damn thing is enormous.

I'm having something of the same problem. I will be 60 in late July and I'm not sure what to do about it. Usually I throw myself a big party on my 10 year birthdays. I had a doozy on the 40th birthday and a so-so party on my 50th birthday, but I don't want to throw a party for my 60th birthday. My friends think I should, but I'm just not sure I want to celebrate being 60. I figure I'll be dead in about 15 years and that's isn't something I want to celebrate though I'd rather be dead than really old and sick. A day at the spa would be nice though. One earns that sort of luxury by my age, so I may just give myself the "works" at the local spa. At 60, I don't have the energy to run around and give parties, but I do need the downtime that a spa would give me. For a change, someone would be taking care of me. So I may ask for that for my birthday as a gift from my family. I'd like to have a whirlpool bath, a pedicure, a facial, a massage and maybe a facial peel. Then I'd like to have a makeup artist do my makeup and hair so I won't feel old; I'll feel pretty. I might even like to be encased in mud or whatever other crap they offer.You might like to see if your wife would like a day of total pampering and damn the cost. If it was me, I take it in a New York minute. Just a thought.

Laurend - I can tell you are still learning to teach. I don't give any extra credit. If they don't get the paper in on time, too bad, they don't get the points (though I'm usually easier about this on the first paper). After that, I never, ever take late work despite all the excuses I hear. Students have multiple grandparents die in one semester; they get multiple diseases; they just don't show up. The truth is that they are smoking dope, drinking beer, sleeping or working at low-paying jobs and don't realize that an education can lead to higher paying jobs. I give them 3 free cuts a semester. If they take more than that, I drop their grades according to how many points each day is equal to. We have a strep throat epidemic here every spring semester, but it takes only about a week for a young person to get over strep throat, so after 3 absences, they start losing points. I used to take late papers with the understanding that the student could only get half the points for the paper. I quit doing that when I got 50 papers the last week of school. I have a life too, so they either get them in on time, or too bad. At our university, we train teachers and they are expected to produce. If they don't, they don't get to be teachers. Recently one of our M.A. students who is teaching high school called because they had assigned her 9th grade and 2 senior courses. The seniors did much better on the standardized tests, so they promoted her to teaching all senior classes and some AP classes. She wanted to know what computer programs might help the students with writing and what books to teach in AP courses. That's the sort of teacher we produce. We do not screw around with them. The students you teach are probably English majors. We don't understand science because science teachers never tell us the stories behind the science. If you would tell us the stories, we might do better. I was working on my PhD before I realized that plane geometry is based on the simple syllogism. I wonder why my plane geometry teacher never told us that. I'd have done a lot better if he had. But you are right not to take late papers. Personally, I don't think you should give extra credit. This is college, not high school, and the students either perform or work at Burger King, no?

I am a little worried about your critical thinking ability. I am nearly 60 and am a liberal. I believe that every voter has a say in politics and, yes, political arguments, despite age, socioeconomic status, etc. I also should point out that I have Ph.D. and have been a college professor for 23 years, so I have an inkling of what I'm talking about. I read the news every day. Do you? I think critically about the news. Do you? By the way, what is a Rebulican?

Jack -- You sound like Ambrose Bierce who was a writer in the 19th century. "The Devil's Dictionary" is hilarious. Plus ca change, plus ca le meme chose. Sorry I can't get the little s under the c's. But that's French for "the more things change, the more they stay the same" which you probably already know. I am opting for Obama at the moment though I really like Richardson. I think it might be a good thing for us to have a president who is not from a political dynasty and who is actually intelligent which is why I like Obama. I like Richardson because he has lots of experience and is intelligent though I suspect he's an old line politician. But I'm a major fan of Jim Webb who is tough as hell and doesn't pull punches. He says what I want to say. Too bad I don't live in Virginia. I'm stuck in Oklahoma which has the two craziest senators in the nation according to DailyKos. I agree with the vote. Our senators seem to be from another planet though they do provide a lot of humor for us. After all, a Democratic candidate from here suggested we test books for how well they protect students from gunshots. So they shot at some books and the shooter was so terrible he missed from about 8 feet with a shotgun. I think I could hit the dang thing from 8 feet and I can't shoot a shotgun. But I like the idea that has been showing up on DailyKos about western democratic libertarians. I don't know about the coast, but people on this side of the Rockies just would like for the government to butt out on a lot of issues. We are very independent and not especially community minded, so I think a lot of us are republican or democratic libertarians. My brother, the family NRA mouthpiece, is a republican libertarian, and I'm a democratic libertarian. What do you all think of that idea, guys?

This rapture stuff interests me though I'm afraid I'll be left behind. The thing is that we've always had disease, wars and general chaos so I'm wondering why the rapture will happen now. Maybe God wants us to continue screwing up for long time before he decides to release us. But since many people are already aliens in this world, maybe it is soon. I just don't see why a loving God would leave a bunch of people to suffer the pangs of hell. But then I'm a Universalist and I don't really believe in hell or heaven either for that matter. Heaven to me is rest and death is rest. That would be nice.

I only know about frogs. A student had a mean frog which we managed to give to a male student who promised he wouldn't be afraid of it. You might Google turtles to see what to do. Good luck. Pregnant women are always a little difficult and they should be.

I really don't know where to put this since probably other people have exceeded my great weight loss, but I have now lost 40 pounds and people are noticing that I'm skinnier. One of my fellow professors mentioned that I'd lost a "sh*tpot full of weight" the other day. I was very pleased. I hope to lose 20 more pounds and I'm glad that my plateau has finally ended. My friend in Ohio was going to have surgery on her stomach when the new doctor decided to see how much Fluid she had in her band. It was 11 cc! And that was after her, seriously challenged, doc had removed 5 cc. So she had 16 cc in an 11 cc band. Dr. Rodriguez says we shouldn't have over 9 cc in an 11 cc band. How do these people get through medical school? I have 4.5 cc and have PBs. The poor thing couldn't eat anything or even drink anything. We really must look into those docs who are really terrible with fills. On the plus side, she lost 10 pounds from not being able to eat at all. She says she doesn't care if she gains, she wants to eat something.