green

Good luck to you!

:help: Booze, tranquillizers, antidepressants, and I have my psychologist's phone number on speed dial. And if all else fails,...go for a walk.

You have my sympathy, Wheezy. It sounds like you are going through an unbelievably busy time!

Actually, I stopped growing when I was 11. I got my first bra when I was 9, and my first period less than 2 months after I turned 10. According to medical experts a girl only grows an inch or two after she begins to menstruate. I am 5'6" tall and I am blonde. My parents were both small, slim, elegant brunettes and I felt like the freak of the week when I was growing up. I was not a happy child and thus I find my heart going out to this kid. I suspect that the kid placed an enormous amount of pressure on her parents to have the lipo work; add into this the stress that the family was undergoing due to the father's cancer and you have the recipe for that particular series of events.

Bitter, it strikes me from reading your posts about your life with your mother that you are exhausted and that your emotions concerning your present life and your mother are complicated. This only makes sense; you are between a rock and a hard place and your sib is not pulling his weight, is he? Perhaps some talk therapy might be indicated. You would be able to sort through your feelings, maybe figure out some new approaches to your relationship with your mum, and perhaps learn some distancing or relaxation techniques.... Who knows? It might be worth a shot. (I mention this because my own family life has been a difficult one. I have been seeing a psychologist for some years now and this has been most useful. It really saved my sanity when my mum and my kid brother suddenly died not so very long ago.)

I have a blog which currently has a list of 129 members. Almost all of them who have joined have something they want to sell. My website manager deletes the ones who are pushing pornography.

I live in the heart of a large city. We have a great mass transit system which I use when I don't walk. I never bothered learning how to drive. I do end up waiting to see my family doctor but usually only by half an hour and the same holds true for any specialist. And the shopping, movie-going, etc is great in a big city. I love big city life! One of the problems we do have in this region is really bad smog during the summer months and this is generated in part by people who do drive vehicles. I guess I should mention that I live in a city that does recycle. We have one box for paper, one for plastics and glass, and a bin for all organic garbage including used paper tissues, diapers, and kitty litter. Garden waste is recycled separately and whatever is left over is considered garbage. This is the right move in a city that numbers almost 2.5 million people.

I, too, had heard that Bush had had friendly relations with members of the bin Laden family. It seems that this family is a huge one, numbering well in excess, if I remember my facts correctly, of 50 adult members. They are an extremely wealthy and prominent Saudi family and thus it makes sense that Bush might have crossed paths with them. Big oil was his business, afterall.... Usama is a variation on the name Osama and is perfectly acceptable. I had also heard that all members of the bin Laden family who were present in America at the time of 9/11 were spirited out of the country ASAP and under top secrecy. They were not subjected to the interrogation techniques that many other Muslims who may or may not have had associations with bin Laden and his merry gang of terrorists received. This seems kind of unfair to some of us.

I am very much pro-choice. I do believe that this is an issue that must remain between the woman who finds herself pregnant and her medical support team. Indeed, I am always outraged whenever I hear men weighing in on this issue for this is situation that is life altering for a woman but pretty much academic for men. The truth is that there have always been women who have found themselves pregnant and in the position where they felt that they could not proceed with the pregnancy. Before abortions were legal these women availed themselves of backstreet abortionists or they attempted to do it themselves. Rich women had access to doctors. Their survival rate was much better than those women who were poor. Though I am very suspicious of pro-life cant I did recently read an article in one of my local newspapers that made reference to an article that originally appeared, I think, in Lancet. This piece referred to the negative after effects that abortion seems to often engender. Of course I am aware that this last couple of sentences sound awfully vague. To tell you the truth I read this little piece with a sinking heart because I am resolutely pro-choice. Like Leatha, I have had an abortion. I had this when I was in my early 30s after years of practising very, very careful birth control. I had to practise birth control because it was impossible to find a doctor who would sterilize me. I've always known that I never wanted to have a child. It seems that this may not be the case for many of the women who opt to have abortions. These are women who are simply frightened because they find themselves pregnant at a given moment in time. They are pregnant at a point in their lives when they shouldn't be, and mustn't be. As to where these women stand with respect to the larger issues of womanhood and maternity, these may be very complicated indeed. But the point of legalized choice is this: if a woman feels herself to be so hard up against it that she would resort to a backstreet abortionist or attempt a DIY job, and then render herself sterile or die, well then, isn't it better that a healthy and legally sanctioned option remains open to her?

Hi Blownaway, I am another one who was done by the TLBC gang, the folks who will soon be working on you. Have no fear. This is a very kind and competent group who will be involved with your care. The stitches do dissolve by themselves. I believe that they use surgical glue. Over the incisions they place steri-strips and these will fall off in due course over the next month to six weeks if I remember correctly. I found that the pain from the surgery was easily controlled by the pain medication which they prescribe and I ended up only using half of my prescription. The worst pain came from gas! I spent the three days following the surgery relaxing in bed, reading and napping with the cat. This was a very, very pleasant time for me. I loved having a good reason to lie in bed, I love reading, and the demerol made everything just that much more luxurious. On the fourth day I got up, had a bath, put on day-wear, and was a more or less fully functioning old bat! As for the post-op diet, I found it surprisingly easy to stick with this even though I did go on a pre-op farewell dining tour! I think that one of the things that made it easier was that the regimen called for so many little snacks. It seemed as though I was always hoovering down a little soup or broth or whatever because it was either mealtime or snacktime. Certainly the weight began to come off during those post-op weeks. It was my husband who first noticed and said something to me. I do think that it is a good idea for you to take your mother down to TLBC for an info session and hopefully this will ease her mind about the procedure. Should your mother remain opposed to the surgery you may find yourself between a rock and a hard place. Good luck, girl.

Maybe the stress with Mama Yoda's health has caused him to gain those 8 lbs? And Christmas can be stressful, too.

Bravo, Irish!!!!! :clap2: And welcome home.

When I was growing up rye and ginger was a very popular drink. (Maybe it is an easterner thang....) I only drink wine, Bloody Marys, scotch-rocks, or beer. My husband likes rum and coke and B-52s. Whenever he orders rum and coke and I order scotch-rocks the waiter drops off the rum-coke on my side of the table. Go figure, eh.:omg:

Learning to live without eating is a tough one for us banded ones. :help: There will be some ups and some downs. Don't beat yourself up over the downs. :angry Just come here for support instead, eh.

@Eleebana2: I heard that the fact that Gordon Brown is Scottish may also act against him. Is that true? He certainly sounds like a worthy man.

I feel for your sister and her husband. I think that we are all victims of the greediness of the airlines when it comes to their unrealistic seat configurations. Whenever I have flown in third world countries on old, second-hand aircraft I am always amazed at the amount of seat and leg room that these planes have. It is wonderful! I also remember flying back to Toronto from Amsterdam with an airline that is rumoured to have made every fouth row especially short vis-a-vis leg room. By the end of that flight I was pretty near psychotic!:xena_banana: I think that the damn airline folks oughta hand out tranquilizers as they shoe horn us into our seats. Thanks for letting me vent. As you can see, I feel kinda strongly on the subject.:heh:

The above listed site is another pro-life site. It says so at the bottom of the page.

Bandiva is right, Argon. Get a bed, the best you can afford. A wonderful bed is a fabulous thing! And you do spend a lot of time there, you know.:xena_banana:

Yep, now that I see the picture it's thumbs up on the outfit.

Green is my family name and also a very nice colour. I usually think of myself as Green or by my initials, rarely by my first name which happens to be Alice.:xena_banana:

If you choose the full red velvet skirt you should wear this with a narrow very plain black top. A narrow top will enhance the fullness and the tiers of the skirt. The black velvet gauchos and boots also sound nice and the red shirt paired with the plaid vest would work with these.

My bad, chocolate, and thanx for pointing this out. :embarassed: This was clumsy writing on my part and not at all what I meant to say.

This issue of weight discrimination is a real issue of course. People are much, much nicer to young, slim, good-looking, tall, white people. And being fat is has something in common with those other categories; there ain't much that you can do for yourself without surgery. Fat people do metabolize food differently from thin people. Our systems are more efficient; we get more miles to the gallon. This worked for us in prehistoric times. It's a bummer now. I think that obesity should be recognised as a medical condition and that airlines should provide the obese with an extra seat free of charge. Let's face it: Those seats that the airlines now provide are, due to their greedy desire to pack us in like sardines, tiny and there is no leg room, either. Note that they have chosen these seat configurations although the average customer is growing bigger. Even for a normo a long distance flight is a nightmare. This is the how the airlines seem to like it, not the customers. Outsized customers should be accomodated at no extra charge to themselves.

Ah, the virtuous anti-smoking Nazis strike again! While I think that it is fair to ban smoking from indoor work spaces, taking the battle onto the open street is a bit too much. What about breathing in the exhaust fumes from all those SUVs, etc? Are these not much more deleterious to one's health? And on the environment? These attacks on the smoker have turned into a witch hunt. There are much bigger problems that are being ignored.

:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: I'm gonna tell that to mistah green! So there! Love that mistah Cloe, eh.:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: Hugs and kisses (but nothing involving Green being on her knees) to the both of yer, eh. Smoochies :kiss2: to mister and missus Cloe from green. Hahahahahaha! :o