read write run

Ah, here I am again, having escaped the rigours of selling cinema tickets to people and sneaking a quite Sunday morning before the family gets up to do a quick catchup and visit everyone’s blogs.

Er, no, I haven’t been to see a doctor yet. I did make an appointment, but the pain has almost gone now. Beloved did remind me that I have, basically, been stabbed in the stomach (in the nicest possible way) and that there of course is damage and the pain was really like, well, you know how it feels when you exercise real hard and it’s a muscle group that haven’t been pushed for a while? The next day you’re going up some stairs or using your arms or whatever and it hurts so bad? Well it was like that times about a hundred. Anyway, it’s pretty much gone now, so I went to work on Thursday instead of the doctor. Wish I hadn’t. I was sick as a dog with this rotten cold, lost it totally and yelled at a customer and got a file note for sloppy cash handling. Ah, the fun never stops.

Still, the great thing about my job is the [mostly] nice people you meet. On Friday night I once again met my inspiration, a customer who has had gastric banding. Again he gave me his credit card with no signature on the back, but photo ID and signature on the front and once again he commented that he didn’t look very much like his much fatter picture any more. He’s proud of his achievement. I high-fived him and told him how he’d inspired me. He has lost 37kg (that’s 81lbs) in 2 years. Said it was slow but obviously so happy with the results. It’s great to get reminders like that.

In the good news, Beloved and I have been back in the garden and it’s so fun, planning out all our veggies and things. No sign of germination yet from the seeds I planted last week, and I’m a bit worried about them. You see, it’s been so windy, they kept drying out. I’ve put them in an old aquarium to protect them from the wind and I hope that will help them.

Yesterday we planted some seed potatoes and some chillies. I love having salsa with chillies. Still no sign of tadpoles in the pond but the frog is there, I hear him at night, so hoping he will have some luck with the girls soon.

As I said earlier, the whole family is home at the moment. It’s so wonderful. Radio Boy arrived on Friday night. As usual, I got myself in a state. Especially when I heard the sirens go off very late. We live in a fairly rural area and we have CFA (Country Fire Authority) which is a group of well trained local volunteers who do firefighting and other work around the place. Thing is, if a branch blows over the road and stops traffic, the sirens go off and the folks go down to cut and move the branch. If there’s a car smash, the sirens go off. So there I was, channeling School Buddy’s grandma, (who lived with her family) who was always in a panic if she heard an ambulance and the gandkids weren’t right there ith her. I turned to Beloved and asked him when he thought Radio Boy would be home and he said ‘Oh, anytime now’ and I almost worked up a sweat until I heard the front door and Radio Boy’s clompy boots.

Had such a fun day yesterday. GF got her nose pierced, but then bumped the stud and it came out. Radio Boy asked me to help. H’m. First time I’ve ever had my fingers up someone else’s nose. I’ve never even been that intimate with Beloved! (And I hope I never do!) Unfortunately, the little hole was swollen shut and we couldn’t get that rotten stud to go back where it belonged, so GF has decided she’ll have to go back today and have another try.

Oh, the pain!

Poss and BF got home last night after I was in bed, but I just lay there feeling good, knowing that my family was all here, safe under my roof.

Haven’t done any photos this week. Maybe today when Beloved and I go for a walk. Anyway, here’s a flower

I don’t even know what this is called. It’s a hardy little bulb that comes up all over the place in springtime and I love seeing those little blue faces.

And here is Illya (again)

with an apology for that big angry “don’t link to US” notice in my last blog.

Now I’m coming to visit you.

School holidays are on the way with some private (aka “public schools” here in Victoria, just to confuse people) schools already out. I just don’t get that. People pay all this money and their kids spend LESS time learning stuff. Ripped off.

Anyway, that’s my excuse. One of them. The other being fear. You see, last Thursday, all going good, blah blah blah and I go to bed and as I lie down: PAIN Imagine being stabbed with a red hot knife. Right where the gastric band is. Oh gods. I tossed and turned in bed and every time I moved that pain came back. It was terrible. But when I got up, it went away. So I forgot about it. Sort of. Friday night: same thing. I was up at midnight, surfing the net for “gastric band pain” to see what other people had experienced and I found one. And she didn’t know what it was, either. Nobody seemd to think it was the band moving, though.

I was so scared. Mostly that I’d broken it. I kept going over all my stuff ups and no, I haven’t been particularly good with the diet. I mean, sheesh. If I could do diets I wouldn’t bloody have needed surgery, would I? Yes, your honour, I DID eat a steak on Thursday for my dinner. It was tender as and I cut it into eensy little pieces and chewed each piece fifty thousand times.

Saturday, tried to cheer up. It was a perfect day. Spring was here and Beloved and I planted some tomatoes.

The wire on the ground is chook-proofing. Stops them rearranging the mulch to their liking. If you look very closely to the left of where Beloved is digging, you can see a chook, Sir Boris (a hen, despite the name) is already helping.

We have a few different kinds of tomatoes, Mighty Red, which is just big ones, some Romas, some of those little cherry type tomatoes, one plant of yellow ones and one Heirloom variety: Black Russian

Here’s my Black Russian. He already has flower buds, the enthusiastic thing. I have dubbed him Illya Kuryakin

Because David McCallum is forever my pinup boy. Long ago Beloved accepted the fact that I fell in love with Illya at the age of 12 and there’s nothing he can do about it. He doesn’t mind. He even records NCIS for me. What a guy!

Beloved is digging mounds. Here he is with Boris:

Boris is feeling a bit lonely at the moment. Her “sister”, Sir Morris, has vanished. The world is full of predators and hens are very tasty. Beloved is digging mounds for the seeds that I’ve planted and am hoping will actually germinate.

I did cucumbers, cantaloupes, watermelons, capsicums and eggplant. Yummm! I hope they grow for us. I’ve never had much luck with seeds, mainly because I’m afraid of wasting water, but with Radio Boy now living away from here and Poss only here part of the time, well, water isn’t so scarce. Anyway, it was a good feeling, gettting those tomatoes into the ground and befuddling the chooks so they can’t dig them up and planning for more seeds.

Saturday night: more pain and by Sunday I was feeling downright miserable. As though I’d managed to yes! Sabotage myself so that I, alone of all the hundreds and probably thousands of people around the world who have received gastric banding surgery would be the single one stupid enough to break it and not be able to lose weight.

It was another warm day and we went for a walk in the forest. The treeferns were all unfurling for the spring

and we saw a cute little swamp wallaby, like the ones that live on our road. He was nibbling grass just near the path, but the photos I took of him were crappy, so haven’t included them here.

We walked to a nice little restaurant called Cook’s Corner. It’s super yummy there and I felt relaxed and good and we had lunch and then walked back. I took lots of photos and so did Beloved. He’s having some fun with his camera. I even took photos of forget me nots

because even though they’re a noxious weed here, they’re still pretty.

Well, yesterday I rang the people who did the op and the nurse really didn’t have a clue and all she could do was quiz me on whether I’d been sticking to the diet. But the pain didn’t seem to be any different if I’d eaten or not, gone with food or liquid. She booked me in for an appointment with the doctor on Thursday, but I don’t want to go on Thursday. I’m supposed to work. I want to get my WALL*E t-shirt and save up money for my writing workshop.

Last night when I went to bed, the pain was still there. But not so bad. Kind of like a pulled muscle x 1000. So maybe that’s all it is. I’ll see how I go tonight and hopefully be able to cancel my appointment with the doctor.

Anyway, not working tomorrow, so I can catch up with everyone and see how you’re all going (well, I hope). Right now I have to go and visit Editor and her cute new baby. He’s a whole week old and I haven’t seen him yet! Ah, at least I’m not going to breathe any germs on him and that’s gotta be a good one.

be well, everyone

The last time I wore jeans, real ones (not just denim pants with elastic waists) was in 1987. In the 3 months between becoming a lifetime member of Weight Watchers (which entails achieving goal weight and maintaining it for a certain number of weeks, can’t remember how many) and getting pregnant with Possum.

Happy times.

Since then I have pretty much lived in stretchy pants.

Is anyone here a fan of the catroon Daria? Loved that show. I remember one episode where The Fashion Club somehow got stuck in a mall in the sticks. It was a confronting experience for them all, especially when they came face to face with a bunch of fat ladies in stretchy pants. One of the girls had a severe reaction and had to be reminded that fat ladies wear stretcy pants, but people in The Fashion Club wear leggings, so it was okay because they were wearing leggings.

I fear that Quinn and the other members of The Fashion Club would have a similar reaction if they saw me. Me in my stretchy pants. Sometimes stretched so thin that YES! Oh my gods! She has on pink undies with polka dots on them, I can tell because those pants become see-through when they’re stretched that much. Stretched so much that the seams on the inner thighs get worn to nothing by the constant chafing of my thighs. More than once I have torn them to shreds in my anger and frustration at my fatness.

Last night I split another pair. Oh well, at least it didn’t happen when I was at the shops. It waited till I was home and not far off going to bed.

There are times when I’ve taken those pants and sewn those seams back up again, which only made them more uncomfortable and prone to chafing. Now I throw them out because I know that it won’t be long before I can replace them. With a size smaller.

Here’s to getting thinner.

I haven’t got back on the treadmill yet, but I will. Tomorrow, I think. I no longer have a box of tissues (a big one) as my constant companion, feeling so much better. In fact, my buddy Editor had a baby yesterday and I’m thinking I can actually go and visit them in the hospital without feeling like a sociopath for spreading my germs to the poor little one. Still a bit tired and cotton-woolie in the head, and I have to work tonight, so I’m not going on the tready today because I know that will make me feel tired. So tomorrow, something to look forward to. Yeah.

I’m still eating mushy food. It was Poss’s birthday party on Friday night. Saturday was all leftovers. I ate 6 pieces of pizza (coz pizza is mushy, right?) Now that doesn’t sound at all like a change of eating habits. Except that those bits of pizza consisted of 2 for breakfast, 2 for lunch and 2 for dinner. Pre-op I would have knocked over 6 pieces of pizza in one meal, topped off with a can of soft drink and been looking for dessert.

I know I’m never going to be real thin. I know I’m never going to be one of those girls who has pencils for legs and a concave belly. I just want to be able to walk into a room and not think: I’m the fattest one in here. I’ll just be part of the crowd, and that’s a good thing.

Just had to add this picture of fizzy bubbles. I love the way they make little spirals in the glass. I’m not sure if it’s because the setting I had the camera on has somehow tracked the bubbles, or if it was just trying to compensate for my shaky hands. We had lunch with the in-laws on Sunday, celebrating Poss’s birthday, Father in law’s birthday and Fathers’ Day.

The scars on my tummy are really healing well now. I was a bit concerned about the bit of fishing line sticking out, but Ribs assures me that it is a dissolving stitch and it will be gone soon enough.

I’m just hanging out for my next visit to Adam when he puts in my first shot of saline and the gastric band starts really earning its keep.