I want my macaroni necklace!!

to the person making my gift for me when I get home:

you better not cook the macaroni first!
Otherwise the necklace will be all gooey and wet.
It will will be one big chain of wet noodles!

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

YOU eat the cake then!

I got James his birthday cake. Nothing too fancy but I think he enjoyed it. Happy 31st Birthday James!

I went to pick up the cake this morning at Winco. This is the discount grocery store. I should remember that they are good for normal grocery shopping but when it comes to something special that I need, they are not the place to go. Case in point: the cake that almost wasn’t.

It was just a normal cake with whipped topping. It just needed to make it all of 30 steps from the bakery counter to the register to my car. The bakery guy didn’t package up the cake in its box. He had me do it. I don’t always do well with folding cardboard boxes but I got it closed without the cake losing too much of the gooey frosting. But then, I had to check out and the cashier on duty had obviously taken stupid pills with breakfast. The baker had stuck the cake sticker on top of the box and the cashier in her infinite wisdom decides to try and tip the cake box to scan the sticker! Oh you stupid bitch. She’s tipping it further and further forward, then backward and I’m watching the cake slide in the box back and forth. I’m reaching for it in slow motion, my mouth in a perfect O shape, a funny cartoon sound coming out of my mouth, steam starts rolling out of my ears. She was going to kill the cake! It was going to go splat! all over the register and I was going to have a royal fit. “Hey, stupid, you have fingers and there are buttons on that machine of yours, just punch the code in! Or, better yet, just open the box and flip the code near your scanner!” I wanted to just scream at her. Is it really THAT hard??? I mean come on!!!

(Insert a stamping foot on ground here and an inevitable temper tantrum by yours truly)

She finally realized that what she was doing was not working and she put my cake down on the register, hard. “Oh, I’ll just do it by hand!” She exclaimed. Oh, finally Ladies and Gentlemen, she gets a clue!!! She then proceeds to open the box and says “My, what a pretty cake”. I had to bite my tongue because I really wanted to say “It was a beautiful cake before you got your hands on it.” God, what an idiot. I got the cake home, in mostly one piece but when I got it out of the box, I could definitely tell that there was some previous smooshing going on. I guess I should just let it be…I mean it’s still going to get eaten no matter what it looks like. But geez, is it really that hard to figure out the right way to ring up a birthday cake!?!?

HELLO NECKBONES!

I sure missed you!

Reason 1,666,034 Not to Vote For Bush

On one of the news channels this weekend, Ron Reagan was interviewing some guy on the streets of New York. He had a bicycle with a homemade contraption on the back end that sprayed messages on the sidewalk. I didn't catch the exact messages but I'm sure it was something about voting or voting against Bush or rocking the vote. The guy was calm; he looked very average and very sane. But during the interview, a few police officers interrupted taping to ask the guy for his ID. He was civil the whole time. First the police ask for back up. Then the back up asks for a Sergeant. Then the Sergeant asks for the Chief. After the Chief and about 10 of his cronies surround the scene, they decide to arrest the young protestor. They claim that he was seen spraying the sidewalk (which he was, but not during the taping of the interview) and that the spray paint was graffiti and not washable (according to the protestor, it is water soluble). They arrested him and took the bike into possession.
Um, yeah...see if I was a New Yorker, I'd be pissed that all that manpower and time was wasted to arrest one peaceful protestor. I'd be pissed that my tax dollars are going towards that shit rather than being used to solve real crimes such as murder, rape and robbery. I'd be real fucking angry that the CAPTAIN felt the need to come all the way downtown and arrest one person.
I am trying to figure out how one person could raise such a stink. Why was the police department so hard on him? What the hell happened to free speech?? Who is behind this and why? There is such as crack down on people voicing their opinion in this country. I really fear for this country if this has to go on for four more years!

UPDATE:
The protestor's name is Josh Kinberg and his site is Bikes Against Bush.

Lazy Sunday

Not much going on today. Trying to get ready for my trip but feeling rather lazy. Can't...quite...get...up..from...my...seat...ugg.

So I took some pictures of the cats last night:




For every one picture like this,



I had 5 that looked like this:


and this:



but I was rewarded with a few good shots





Then I took some regular shots, cropped them and fiddled with contrast and brightness in Photoshop. The ones below are the results:







But this one is my absolute favorite:


Good ol' Dan. Always willing to pose. He's my little hunter. I think I really captured something in this one.

A Walk Through Hendricks Park and Owen Rose Garden

James and I deviated from our normal walk around the neighborhood today, instead opting for a stroll through Hendricks Park and the Owen Rose Garden.
Hendricks Park is located high above Eugene. It's prettier when the Rhododendrons are in bloom. But we did manage to get some good shots of the city. And one little pink flower.
Owen Rose Garden is located near the Willamette River. I can't say how many varieties of roses there are because they all look alike to me after a while. We did capture some nice ones though.
We took several pictures and then he showed me the zoom feature. It has opened up a whole new realm of picture taking for me.

City of Eugene from Hendricks Park 

City of Eugene 

Hendricks Park Flower 

Hendricks Park flower 

Owen Rose Garden 

Close-Up 

Close-Up 

Owen Rose Garden 

Owen Rose Garden 

Owen Rose Garden 

Close-Up 

Owen Rose Garden 

Owen Rose Garden 

Owen Rose Garden 

Close-Up 

"We Are Siamese If You Please. We Are Siamese If You Don't Please."

My cat PrincessTG hates me. It’s official. When James and I stop rooming together, he'll petition the courts to move in with him and leave me with weekend visitations. I give him food, water, toys, treats and love and how does he repay me? By running to James and head butting him for attention. What am I, chopped dry food here? At least my other cat, Dandelion is a little more affectionate. He follows me from room to room on my days off but he too likes to stay just out of reach most of the time.

The latest thing is sleeping in the closet. Princess needs a quiet happy place to run to and for some reason he began snubbing the space under the bed and he moved in on top of the suitcases in the dark closet.
 

Look closely at the suitcase. The top is covered in hair. I spent over an hour vacumming and lint rolling my suitcases for my trip next week. I pulled them out of the closet just so that I wouldn't have to clean them again. Boy did that piss Princess off! He's spent the last few mornings rolling around on the hallway floor, the couch, the bathroom mat and just acting like a displaced refugee or something. He just doesn't like when things are out of the norm and when objects are moved around.

The Boys 

PrincessTG 

True Life: MTV persuaded me to give up Mcflurries forever!

I was not satisfied with my dinner last night. For some reason, I was still deeply hungry- at least mentally. So much so that I considered a Mcflurry AND one chocolate chip cookie, although two could easily be crumbled into a big Mcflurry cup but lucky for me, McDonald’s only sells them in packs of 3! I would have been set for the evening.

But then, while channel flipping, I caught True Life: I’m Obese. It was like a train wreck and I couldn’t tear myself away. I was utterly disgusted by what I was watching. I was squirming in my seat. I was literally nauseous. I was not going to go get that Mcflurry any time soon.

I felt sorry for everyone on the show. Amy, who couldn’t take more than a few steps at a time, was getting gastric bypass surgery. Corey, who ate and ate and ate, was trying to be approved for the surgery. And Frances, who was a confident plus-sized model, had boobs that reached to her belly button.

I applauded Frances for being who she is and have the courage to do modeling gigs although I can imagine that it’s absolutely nerve wrecking. Especially when she isn’t going to be in a show with other plus-size models just smaller folk (and on that note, let me say that I really think the modeling show that picked her, even though everyone else was a twig, was just doing so for the camera…the MTV camera…as in, FREE publicity… yeah, I’m on to them). But I do like her spunk and her great fashion sense (was that The Avenue that she was shopping at?). Something that wasn’t mentioned, and I am sure is a problem, is the amount of back pain that she must suffer because of those boobs. She and I weigh the same amount. I cannot imagine having breasts the size of Montana.

I felt bad for Amy, being so lonely and stuck in her house all the time. Lymphedema seems like such a horrible, horrible condition. It’s bad enough that she’s obese but Lymphedema seems like a double punishment. Not being able to bath herself, move more than a few steps in any direction, walk with a walker or ride in a wheelchair, go out to eat on a regular basis.... that has to just completely suck! If I were in her shoes, I would risk death to lose weight. She made the right choice. She's suffered enough.

Corey, on the other hand, does not deserve the surgery. He shoves everything in his mouth like a vacuum cleaner and then he cries when he's at the community pool because he's too afraid to get out of the water in front of everyone. Uh, hello! There is an easier solution than a difficult, life-threatening surgery. He needs to go on a strict diet with plenty of exercise! It disgusts me that he would be approved for a surgery at such a young age (he's 17) and he would eat everything around him because, according to him, "it won't be like this after the surgery". It doesn't have to be like that right now either! I don't know what the outcome was, (the follow up said that he was still waiting for approval after 5 weeks), but I would hope that someone would bust in and make him change his habits ala Dr. Phil. His mother seemed like one of those helpless women who talk as loud as a whisper. She obviously had no effect and no control over him. He needs to go to fat camp for a year or two. Sorry, but I'm just calling it as I see it!

So after watching this whole episode, I was thoroughly disgusted and the thought of a Mcflurry (to sooth the anguish of the monthly visitor) just made me wanna puke. And then, I had to fight James over going and getting one. I couldn't believe that he sat next to me, watched the same TV that I did, and he still wanted to hop over to McDeath's and still get one! WTF?? I really let him have it. I really laid into him and I used the guilty tactic of saying that we spend sooooo much on food (being on the Atkins diet drives the price up because it's all fresh food and not pre-packaged, frozen or full of carbohydrates or weird chemicals... I used to pay around $30 a week for groceries, now it fluctuates between $45-55 a week) and how dare he go and ruin a perfectly good week by grabbing a Mcflurry. It's like one big fucking waste if you ask me. Why spend so much money, to the point of having none left over, if we are just going to hamper our efforts all the time?

NO MORE MCFLURRY FOR ME!!!!

Sometimes an arranged marriage doesn't sound so bad...

It would be a hell of a lot easier to have no choice then to have too many choices to make and feel like I am always making the wrong one. I wish I didn't second guess myself so much.

I don't like this dating thing. It's retarded.

I wished and I wished and I wished for it to happen to me since I was 10 years old and all the other girls in my class (thinner and prettier) were "going out" with boys and writing luv notes and passing them all around. I wished and I wished and I wished for 8 years. And when it finally happened, I have done nothing but make one fucking mistake after another in every single relationship. I don't want to beat myself up so bad and I try to tell myself that each one is a lesson to be learned and that's all that life is, one big lesson to be learned, but damn! Why does it have to be such a struggle? Why Why Why?

Thank god I'm not more popular and prettier and skinnier. I have a feeling that it would be ten times as worse and with maybe double the relationships. I can be thankful for the little things.

Oh pretty lady on the yahoo email login page...

you mock me with your crest white strips smile and your eyes that hint you might have a message waiting for me!

WELCOME, PUNKIN!

You have 0 unread messages.

And you just have to put that in bold, don't you?!?!

You torment me pretty lady. Why can't I get some mail? Can't you send me some? I would love to hear from you, from anyone! Anyone that is except the guy selling male enhancement pumps and the Nigerian dude who wants to share his sweaty desert money with little old me. You could tell me about your day. How is it, standing all day long and smiling at everyone logging in? Why are your lips so red and shiny? What kind of conditioner do you use because I love the fact that your hair is stick straight perfect. That's awesome! No frizz... Yahoo must be paying you the big bucks to get hair and teeth and skin like that. Are you sure that you're not computer generated? Cause the shadows on your body seem a little fake. In fact, everything about you seems a little fake. Maybe a piece of broccoli in your teeth would be enough to let me know that you are real and not just a fantasy You seem a little Stepford Wife-ish...but hey, if you send me an email, I'll pretend not to notice. Pretty Yahoo email lady, I'm down on my knees, please send me some mail!

Last Week,

I lost 3 and a 1/2 pounds from Sunday thru Friday. By Sunday the 22nd, I was back up 4 pounds and now today I am down 2 pounds from that. For those who are really bad at math, which means instead of losing a total of 3 1/2 pounds, I lost 1 and 1/2 in 11 days. Bah!
What is with the damn plateaus? Can't I get a friggin' break around here? I'd like 3 really good weeks of losing weight. Like 7 pounds or something cause Lord knows that the fourth week is always shot to hell with my womanly cycles and all.
I hate to admit this to the world but one of the reasons I did lose 4 pounds in 6 days was the fact that I exercised 9 1/2 hours during that time and I ate very little. Example; I skipped lunch a few days in a row and had vegetable broth instead. Dinner and breakfast were just enough to keep my tummy from protesting. I'll pass on the public flogging however, because I already got my just desserts. The starvation diet works only as long as you can prevent food from going in your mouth. Once you give up and go back to eating healthy, you're screwed and the scale will tell you so. How the hell do those anorexics do it?
One thing that I thought was helping me was the addition of some trail mix to my diet. I started with the healthiest kind I could get in the bulk section of Winco Supermarket. But then a few days later, I added a smidge of the mix that had chocolate chips. I justified this by saying that they are really super tiny chips. The size of sprinkles, if you ask me. And to really get the chocolate flavor, I had to stuff my cheeks with them...this isn't sounding so good for someone trying to change their eating habits. Oh-well!
But after a week with the trail-mix, my body rejected it quite severely. Reminded me of the overdose on sugar-free candy that I endured once or twice (for those of you who've had enough sugar-free candy in one sitting, you know how much it hurts afterwards!). Yes, I said twice. Hey, I'm not always quick to learn! At least I know now the trigger foods that get my tummy and intestines dancing. It's like a night at Studio-54 beneath the churning disco ball and pumping disco music but without all the glamour.
So I am back to eating normal this week with a little over-indulgence too. Hey, it was payday last night and the nummy bears were calling my name. I didn’t completely fall off the wagon, but I definitely got my foot caught in the spokes. The nummy bears only went in after I got my full servings of mandatory healthy food. I had a really good dinner of fresh rotisserie chicken, homemade cracked-pepper dip and yummy veggies. Today wasn’t much better. I tried to do the vegetable broth thing again (hey, I have one measly pound to lose before vacation in a week and it’s the pound that I am determined to lose by any means necessary). I knew I was in trouble when I poured the broth 2 hours ahead of time and was starving by the time my break rolled around. I got a chocolate chip cookie (I’m seeing a pattern with the chocolate here…PMS-ing perhaps?) and a diet coke to balance it out. It’s funny how that works. I mean a lousy diet coke is not going to chase the cookie down my hatch and dissolve it before my system turns it into fat. But somewhere along the way, I got the idea that diet soda is soooooooooo much better for me that it can work miracles. All I have to say to that is: Uh-huh, whatever!

The Definiton of Agony

From WordNet 2.0 :
1. intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain; "an agony of doubt"; "the torments of the damned"

2: a state of acute pain

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
1. Violent contest or striving.

2. Pain so extreme as to cause writhing or contortions of the body, similar to those made in the athletic contests in Greece; and hence, extreme pain of mind or body; anguish; paroxysm of grief; specifically, the sufferings of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.

Examples:
I am in agony because my vacation doesn't start for another week.
Someone thinks that they are in agony because they can't be with the person they love.

I hate to admit it…

But I love reality television. It’s so much more entertaining than sitcoms or constant re-runs of movies. I hate being addicted to TV but it makes it easier to forget when all these shows are on 24 hours a day. Real World, Airline, Survivor, Big Brother, Family Plots, Sell This House, House Hunters, and now Growing Up Gotti.

I caught my first full episode of Growing Up Gotti last night. I didn’t think I could feel sorry for someone so famous with all that money and hair extensions. But I think Ms. Gotti’s life kind of sucks. She’s trying to raise 3 teenage boys by herself. From the looks of it, it’s really hard. Even when you’re a Gotti. Those boys are such little punks. Isn’t there a military boot camp for rich little brats that they can be shipped to? James and I were watching the show and he commented on the fact that they run around wild. He said it had to do with the fact that there was no male authority figure around to keep them in line. I gave him the death stare, as in, “how dare you say something so sexist and stupid!” I tell him that it is totally possible for one parent to raise children without the other parent; they just have to compensate for it.
But low and behold, after the commercial break, when Ms. Gotti has forbidden one son from going to his after-prom and has scolded another son for driving his camouflage golf cart on the street, the audience sees her breaking down crying. She complains to her staff about how hard it is to raise the boys without a father. They don’t listen to her; she has no authority and no control over them. James is all smug, thinking he got me. But I still say that it’s possible to go at child rearing alone. You gotta be tough as nails. And even if you're a Gotti, you might not have what it takes.

Thing I Will Enjoy During My Vacation

(in no particular order, of course)

• Mom's cooking
• A fridge stocked full of free, yummy, healthy food
• A new outfit or two
• A pretty guest room just for me
• No bills to be paid for the week
• A beautiful backyard garden to work in with Dad
• The Taste Of Madison
• Meeting Ellen's new beau
• Being picked up at the airport
• One Smore's
• A special pajamma party (!)
• My mother's devoted attention
• Dinner at Jessica's parent's house
• Spending time with Mom and Dad
• Seeing my brother
• A long country drive (to Devil's Lake perhaps?)

9 days, 223 hours, 13380 minutes, and 802,800 seconds to go!

Another Milestone Down

I made the mistake of going to the mall on Saturday. I wanted to try some clothes on so I knew what size I was. Nothing fit right at all. The size 20 skirt was too big; the size 14 shirt was too small; the size 16 shirt was too big. I felt like Goldilocks or something. I was so depressed that I demanded James stop at McDonald’s on the way home. All I had for dinner was a Mcflurry. I must have been PMS-ing.

But my luck turned when I went to Wal-Mart today. While wasting time, I waded (or is that waddled ?? cause it sure feels like it sometimes) into the clothing racks and grabbed a shirt. On pure impulse, I snuck around the corner to the regular size clothes and snatched a two tops. To my surprise, they fit, where as the woman’s top was too big. Just to make myself feel better, I bought the 1x (16) top from the regular section. I called my mother and cheered because I no longer need to shop in the fat section! It may only be Wal-Mart, but it’s a big milestone for me!

It's kind of like that classic Pretty Woman moment...

where Julia Roberts walks into the trendy clothing store and is humiliated by showing her face inside. But in my case, it's the fat girl stepping inside a "skinny girl's store" and worrying about the saleswomen’s responses.

It's terrifying!

I can now fit in an average 18 size somewhere between the tops and bottoms. From what I've gathered, The Gap sells up to a size 20 (at least online). I have never been to The Gap. And why would I? To be stared down by some obnoxious shopper or saleswoman? Or worse yet, have them come over and ask if they can help me shop...because Lord knows, I must be shopping for a friend and not myself?!? Let me rank that up there with peeing on myself in public or having to buy tampons, and only tampons at the store. It's not something I want to be caught doing.

I am so scared of going into the Gap and Victoria Secret that I am taking a skinny friend along for support. That way, I can at least use her as a cover and pretend I am shopping for her. That will work long enough for me to get in the door and casually look over the clothes for the right sizes. If I see my size, I can relax a little and go try it on.

Geez, all this energy and effort put into what should be such an easy thing to do!

Today I have lost 59 pounds and I am surfing all the online stores for clothes to wear. My mother is a dah-ling for agreeing to take me clothes shopping when I come home in 11 days. I won't use her generosity to my advantage but I must say that there are so many clothes that look good! I have always hated clothes shopping. But losing weight is turning me into a girly-girl. I wanna wear dresses with pretty tights (the kind with the line that goes back up the middle of the leg) and skirts that hike up past my knees and pretty Mary-Janes... I wanna look like the woman that I am. And I want to be noticed. BADLY!

"I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work."

I got my two year raise today. It was more than I expected. At my current schedule, I make $10 more a week now. And that would come out to more than $500 extra a year. I guess that's acceptable. It’s acceptable for someone who doesn't have their college degree yet. I can't imagine working at my current job (or any of my past jobs) for the rest of my life. Each one has really been a means to an end for me. I need the money, I work. I don't need as much money, I don't work. Simple equation.
This job isn't really all that taxing. I don't dread going to work but I don't find myself terribly stimulated by my duties either. I guess it's a job and I should be lucky to have it, especially out here where people sit on the side of the road everyday and beg for money.
My duties were recently changed around and I find that I take fewer calls than everyone on my team. The last two hours of everyday, I average only 5 calls. That’s a lot of internet time. I wouldn’t feel so bad but I think other people are noticing and getting pissed off. I don’t blame them. It sucks to take phone call after phone call when the person next to you is sitting on the internet all day long. I feel bad but it isn’t my fault. The phone system routes the calls that way. I mentioned to my boss that it would be more beneficial for everyone if the work-load was more even among the staff but I’m sure that my opinion doesn’t really matter.

Margarite 1926

The weight is almost over

Well as of noon today, I hit 57 pounds lost. That makes 57 to go. I have never gotten this far on my weight loss efforts before. This feels permanent. I hope that it is. I KNOW THAT IT IS. I am halfway home and more than that, I am only 16.5 pounds from my magical happy weight number! People who have never been seriously fat will not know what this is. This magical happy number is different for each person trying to lose weight. It may or may not be the ending number (in my case, it's not) but it has some sort of significance for the person. My magical happy number is 199.5. Why? Because I can't remember a time in my adult life when I have weighed less than 200 pounds. In fact, I can't ever remember being under 200 even though I probably didn't hit 200 until around 9th grade or so. It's always been a given for me. I came real close to it 8 years ago. I was on Weight Watchers and doing really well for 8 months. I had gotten to 207.5 and then the bottom dropped out when I took on too much stress with work and school. The weight just gradually went back on. I did try again, about 5 years ago and lost somewhere around 30 pounds. But it was really a half-assed effort.

This time, however, I am bound and determined to keep the weight off. When I hit 240, 230, 220, each time I vowed never to go above that number again. I refuse to. I can’t live life in this condition anymore. I have to be skinnier & healthier. I want to be able to walk a flight of stairs & not feel like falling over (which I can do just fine now).

This weekend at the air show, many spectators brought along folding lawn chairs for the general seating area. The newer ones have tags on them that warn of maximum weight allowed. Last year, while searching for camping gear, I remember having a tough time finding a chair that could hold my weight comfortably. There was maybe one type that Walmart carried that held over 270 pounds. This weekend, I had a chance to glance at the tag on the chair next to me. It was designed for a maximum weight of 225 pounds. I can sit in that chair, and many more for sale on the market and be just fine. I don’t have to worry about bending the little stick legs anymore. One less thing that I can potentially break.

Today I hit 56 (56.5 as of 8/18.. this post was started yesterday) pounds lost and my BMI is now 34 (33.9 as of 8/18). I started at 273 with a BMI of 42.8. I'm feeling much healthier nowadays. I have just 4 (3.5 Whoo-hoo!) puny pounds to lose before I go home in 2 weeks. I can do this!

I notice the weight loss in weird places. My neck is longer and I can see my collarbone. My shoulders seem smaller. I have to turn my elbows in to touch my wrists to my hips. I can see my arms getting smaller. My knees seem smaller in size. My 2 favorite parts are my lower back just before it curves out. It is tiny in comparison to the rest of my torso. And when I lay down, I can just begin to feel my hip bones jut out. It's weird feeling my bones again.

1998 study of tree bark