green

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:

Yup, I can relate. This is why a number of professions, most notably the helping professions, were closed to me. I am impatient and I have anger issues.

I definitely want to go to your part of the world, Kat.

A friend of mine has a son who is doing post-doc work in entomology and he has lived in a lot of exotic bug-infested tropical areas doing field work, places like the Amazon and Borneo. He currently works at a university in Australia. You may well end up living a similar life, you know, and then you can send us dispatches from weird and wonderful swamps, rain forests, and the like.

I have been to Nepal and found it very beautiful. We did this when on a tour which also covered certain cities in India. Going by tour made the experience less strenuous for us because they did all the logistics of humping us from place to place, ensuring we had rooms in nice hotels, and that we got to see and learn a great deal in a short period of time. It was a wonderful trip but it was taxing in that the locals view strangers as walking treasure chests. You simply cannot walk in public without being beseiged by beggars and people wanting to sell you things and all of these people are most persistant. India is a country where timidly polite Canadians learn to get in touch with their inner rudeness. Nepal was very relaxing after this, and is very beautiful as well. The food in both countries was fabulous if you are a fan of Indian cuisine. Both my husband and I do like travelling in exotic places. We want to get as far away from home as possible when we travel. We really do want everything to be utterly different, the food, the architecture, the people and the way they dress and lead their lives, the landscapes. This has the effect of emotionally and intellectually waking us up and allowing us to see life with new eyes. Even when we take one of those all inclusive beach vacations in Mexico we pick a resort which is either in or within walking distance of a Mexican town, not one which is isolated in a hotel zone.

Green promises not to lose her sense of humour until she has senile dementia - then all bets are off because Green herself will be in anutha zone. She was hoping to be put on an ice floe at this point but now that we have Global Warming this will not be an option. :think So much for leaving with dignity, eh.

Nice to hear from you again, Ms Dad. We've been missing you, ya know. P.S. Don't diss the Green, eh. :heh:

Congratulations. Moving from W to R is a really big deal. :clap2::clap2::clap2::clap2::clap2:

I am inclined to agree with Chickie and those posters who follow her. Certainly no child, nor adult for that matter, is ever prepared to engage in the rigors of fighting cancer. This is something which is thrust upon an individual and it is always unwanted and terrible. The thing about cancer is that the patient will be helped by professionals along the awful road which he or she must follow. Bandsters are not in this situation. We choose to arrange to have our hardware implanted and we do receive training in the band rules. From this point on our contacts with our banding team generally have to do with the business of fills and defills and depend upon us taking the initiative to consult with our bariatric team. We are certainly not carefully monitored during our weight loss process. This is our responsibility. It is for this reason that our situation differs oh so much from the individual who is under medical care for cancer. This girl has received the band and she and her mum have likely had training in the bandster rules. As we all know, it then becomes our responsibility to follow these rules. This is why, Michee, a number of us are expressing our distress and concern over this particular case. We don't believe that this kid has yet acquired the maturity and drive to monitor herself and we believe that her mum simply doesn't understand that for the band to be both effective and safe the kid is going to have to be careful about such things as not pushing her food intake and avoiding sodas, junk foods, etc. It is interesting that you view the issues which hook onto this biz of weight control and cancer as being akin. I have got to confess that I have often felt, albeit on an emotional level, pretty much the same way. We all know that cancer can kill but we also know that cancer results when cells run amok; as my body began to grow fatter and fatter I had very much the same sense that my body was out of control, that it was running amok. I found this both humliating and frightening.

Hah hah. Would that the balding pubis resembled a Brazilian wax job but the sad truth that the site is more likely to look like an old geezer's skull. There are an array of the crinklies but these are kinda sparse. Think of a lawn after a drought. You will see a few the odd spears of green poking up here and there. Oh, ugh! Signs of life, I guess....

I have gotten the pregnancy question but it has never bothered me. This is because I went through menopause when I was 41 and because I enjoy embarassing people. And so I would always laugh and announce to them that that ship had long since sailed, that I am post-menopausal and just fat is all. The big pay-off for me was watching them blush and grovel and try to appologise. :heh:

Derbygirl speaks the truth. It is always surprising, painful, and depressing how a change in your life will cost you some of your best friends forever. When I got married I suddenly lost all my single friends and when I divorced the married ones dropped off the map. When I was off work for 3 years because of major depression I lost contact with almost all of my work pals and now that I am retired I am in contact with only three of my former work friends. Over the years I have lost a number of best friends forever and each time I lost one it took me several years to recover from the pain of their rejection of me and my love for them. I often think that it is easier to recover from a romance gone bad. And yup, often they will try to sabotage you before they leave. My last BFF, a single woman, tried to ruin my relationship with my mate.

I asked my doc about this and she felt that it didn't make sense. She said that reflux sufferer is suffering from stomach acids and vinegar is another acid. I haven't tried this remedy myself.

I used to work with a loveable young woman whose husband had a gambling problem. He gambled away their house and left them with nothing. She was a very big woman and, I believe, had some health issues associated with this. Although she worked in a non-traditional job, building aircraft, she dreamed of having a family and a nest. When she finally found her man and got married she was absolutely thrilled and we were all happy for her. She had difficulties getting pregnant but finally succeeded and once again she was so very happy. Her pregnancy was an extremely difficult one and she was told that she would be unable to have another child. Nevertheless she did manage to have a healthy little girl. And again we were all very pleased for her. Her life seemed to be going well and she was content. You can easily imagine her feelings of devastation and betrayal when she lost her nest through her husband's behaviour. His gambling had left them bankrupt. She even had to sell her car. She was unable to forgive him. She and the child moved out and for some period of time shared a place with another single mum. I find myself telling you this story in order to let you know that you are not alone. I saw my colleague's shock and pain and the chaos that her life became and my heart goes out to you. You are in a difficult place right now.

I've never been to Oklahoma which does sound like a beautiful state. In fact the only places in the States where I have been are Florida and New York City. I visited NYC when I was in my early teens and only saw Brooklyn which is where my relatives lived. My parents once took a 6 week long road trip through the States and they absolutely loved it. They found America to be a fascinating country. The idea of a road trip like theirs has long been a fantasy of mine. I figure that the hubby and I will do this at some point in the future. We've chosen to see exotic third world countries while our health is up to it. We do plan to travel in those places which have all the mod cons when we are older and want/need them. This is when we will travel Canada, another country which I haven't seen much of even though I hold the passport. Ironically, my husband got the worst case of food poisoning in Halifax, Canada and we didn't bother to bring our collection of travel meds with us. Go figure, eh....

Although I have never been to Hawaii I have been to a few places in Italy. I have been in Florence a few times and in Rome once. If I were you I would be inclined to go to Italy. The countryside is beautiful and there is, of course, a great deal of culture to see and enjoy and marvel at, something which the old countries alone can provide us. I would love to go back and see more of Italy. The Italians also have a very sensuous and respectful attitude towards food. I ate well while I was in Italy. In fact I prefer Italian food to French. I was living in France at the time. We have a huge Italian community living in Toronto and its suburbs and it was surprising how many Italians I met while I was in Italy who wanted to know if I knew their Canadian relatives. When I was travelling in Italy we stayed in pensiones and did a lot of walking, shopping, hanging out, and went to some of the museums. I suppose that if I were to go back I might end up taking some kind of tour due to my husband's time constraints. In some ways this might be a little sad as it would prevent me from mingling with the local folk. On the other hand I would see much more of those things which are of historical or cultural interest.

Hey, very cool response! :clap2: One of the weirdest reactions I got to my weight loss was when the wife of the cottagers who are neighbours to my parents-in-law came scurrying over squealing that she wanted to see the "half a woman," that her husband had mentioned that there was a "half a woman," next door. This freaked me out because all this time I thought people were paying attention to my personality and intelligence. Silly, self-deluded me. :girl_hug: I did tell her exactly how I loss the weight, however, and then she said that she knew of people who had had that kind of surgery and within 2 years they had gained it all back. Whatever......... This September I am going to have a face lift. It will be interesting to monitor her reactions next summer, eh. :heh:

You sound like a lovely and noble person, Lawanda. It is too bad that your mum doesn't see that. It is funny how often the least appreciated child so often steps up to the plate when a parent runs into trouble. You may wish to point out to her that you are the only one who is there for her. Though she is living with you my advice to you still stands: you must separate yourself from her emotionally. She does sound like she is toxic. I am very pleased that you are treating yourself to the band and that you are a member of this site. Here you will find tons of practical advice and loads of emotional support. As for the band, this is an excellent weight loss tool. Although I was one of the lower BMI folk I am also an old fart; I was banded last September and I am now at goal weight and have a healthy BMI. The band really does work! Enjoy your band, your weight loss journey, and the support of LBT.

Wendy is right. It is hard to believe, I know, but those skinnies really are not seeing your weight issues while they are obsessing about their own unwanted 5-15 lbs. I know, you see I used to be one of those girls when I was in my 20s. You certainly don't have to have a high BMI to suffer from self-loathing. The technical term for this is body dysphoria. I suspect that most women suffer from it.