green

Sounds like the BBQ tour is gonna take me right to Carlene's house :hungry: and it sounds like I'm gonna bring Jack of the Pacific along with me! :biggrin1: Neither of us will eat you out of house and home because we are lapbanders.

What used to creep me out about it was the emotion that would be automatically attached to it. I never did get it and always found myself faking it. It really was a very creepy experience for me now that I look back. Ugh! Kumbaya! Up there with clowns.:cry Who would have figured, eh.:faint:

That sounds divine. I have to tell you that I am a bacon freak and one of the things that my mum used to do as a weekend treat is to cut bread into cubes and fry it in bacon fat as part of our weekend breakfast. She also used to wrap her Christmas and Thanksgiving turkeys in bacon. It cut down on the work of basting the bird and the bacon was a treat for those of us who were loitering in the kitchen while the bird was being cut. Even now, post band, my husband will occasionally fry up a bunch of bacon. I like to use some of this when I make myself a small salad using avocado, onion, a tomato, and a homemade vinaigette. I also use it when I am microwaving an egg and tomato scrambled-thingy. As for my husband, he likes bacon in his potato salad - no longer an option for me, alas.:think

Laurend, if your apology pivots entirely upon the blood sports in which we routinely engage on Rants & Raves, then I certainly should offer my own apologies for my quick temper and my tendency to rely on my potty mouth.

Your avatar is pretty good.

LOL The thing is that I remember warbling the Kumbaya song when I was just a teenager, too, and although I was kinda swept up in the moment in the way teenagers are I never, ever really got it. I didn't know where this song came from and I had no understanding of its significance other than it appeared to be favoured by hippies, nuns and other anti-warriors. I just knew that although the lyrics were insanely repetitive and didn't really seem to make a point it was one of the good songs. I actually didn't like it all that much at the time. (And ohmigawd I can't believe that I am wandering down this path!!! I think that I am having an acidless flashback right now!):faint: Ugh! I vividly remember those Kumbaya circles, some bearded guy strumming on an acoustic guitar, and the rest of us, bearded guys and long-haired grrls, soulfully whining the words to Kumbaya.:phanvan Those were the days when I had to mask my natural cynicism. Urgh!:cry

Spend time with your mum. Talk to her. You will discover that there is much that you will want to know about your family history and about how her life was when she was young. My mum died two years ago. I miss being able to ask her questions about her life. Maybe you and your kids/grandkids can figure out some way to video some of these sessions. Don't spend this time mourning her death for you will have ample time later. Enjoy this window of time which is available to you. All best from me.

Well, you have got me to thinking and drooling and I do have a passport! The husband does have holidays in the near future and my bro lives in Virginia. This could be a bunch o fun. The great white north blonde ambition b-b-Q tour!

You don't have to buy two gifts from the registry. If this individual plans on going to both events, something which Green personally believes to be an act of insanity (but then she hates weddings and bridal showers), she can bring a bottle of good or goodish champagne to the shower as a gift and scan the registry for her choice of wedding gift. Afterall, sez Green, we have to ask ourselves what weddings are all about. Are weddings held in order to round up family and friends in order that they may all watch and assist in celebrating the new couple's marriage or are they held in order to garner cash and other material objects? Wedding registries were established in order to assist puzzled attendees who rightfully desire to honour the new couple with gifts. Treat them as that and if you can't afford the list of stuff available, give 'em high quality booze, a pair of special glasses to drink it from, and tell the couple that you wanted to be original and give 'em a special, romantic gift. (You can toss in some flavoured condoms if you like.)

This is truly dreadful news for this family. Cancer is a particularly brutal disease, and it is especially painful to hear of a young child going through this torment. It is painful for you to receive this information about your co-worker's small nephew and this pain which you are suffering is much worse again for the family of this child. My thoughts and sympathies are now with you, this family, and this child.

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

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

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

Thanx from Green.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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