Dear So and So

[emily_in_nc]

Aww, that sucks, Eden! Any reason you didn't run screaming out of your house at the jerk since you saw him do it, or were you too far away? Too bad you couldn't get his license tag #, but hopefully the cops will find the low-life scum.

[Eden]

He didn't stick around very long - by the time I made it out the front door (in my socks...) he was already at the end of the street... I only saw his plate for a second so I only got a few of the numbers. I think I did stand in the middle of the street and say bad words at him - but not terribly loudly as he was already too far away to hear me...

My husband got the bumper banged out and put back on good enough that it doesn't show too much (besides the missing paint at least) stays on and doesn't hit anything - though he says there are some parts that were destroyed underneath. The hanging wires were the horn, but it was OK once he reconnected it.

This actually is par for the course around here.... I don't have a driveway, so I have to park on the street. We've lost 4 mirrors over the life of the car and no one ever owned up to any one of those. When we had a truck we actually did catch someone who hit it - probably only because he had a little sports car. He hit our parked F250 hard enough to wedge that little car right underneath and he couldn't get free.... The guy was high as a kite, but he was insured and they did pay to have the big old truck fixed - they kind of had to, he stoved in the grill and crumpled the front fender enough that you couldn't open the drivers side door.

[lph]

dear sweet cat,

i know you are just so beside yourself with joy that i actually came home and fed you at 1 am instead of forgetting your evening meal, and you are having a swell time lying upside down in my lap playing with ny necklace and purring your heart out.. but i'd really like to go to bed now, please. cant you just go somewhere and be boring?

one-handedly yours,
your human

[Catrin]

dear sweet cat,

i know you are just so beside yourself with joy that i actually came home and fed you at 1 am instead of forgetting your evening meal, and you are having a swell time lying upside down in my lap playing with ny necklace and purring your heart out.. but i'd really like to go to bed now, please. cant you just go somewhere and be boring?

one-handedly yours,
your human

Awwww, how sweet

[jelee1311]

Dear husband, thank you for the icepack for my leg,the understanding when I didn't want to go to your friend's birthday party even after I dragged you through 3 hours of pumpkin patch helll. Thank you for coming home from the party and cleaning up dog puke so I could go to bed,and cleaning up more dog puke(don't know what in gods name he ate) this morning so I could go to work. Thanks for picking up our daughter after your nasty,cold,muddy,wet CCX race and then asking me how my day went and actually listening. I'm sure I don't say it enough thank you

[Owlie]

Dear body--
Please tell me that this bout of the sniffles is because I haven't cleaned the apartment for mumblety mumblety and not because I'm getting a cold. I'll be plying you with hot tea and miso soup in the meantime...

[channlluv]

I know you're the head of the entire medical system's weight management program, and I know you're in charge of all of their weight management drug studies, and you're the guy in charge of their bariatric surgery programs, too...so I really, really was hoping for more helpful advice from you than, "At your age and with your genetics, the best you can hope for is to level yourself down to 180. You're a pear. You're very clearly a pear, with some apple overlay, but that apple fat will fall away quickly. This around your hips and thighs, this hangs on. I really don't have a program for you. I wouldn't recommend any of the drugs on the market right now. There just aren't any that I think would work for you, not with the heart disease in your family.

You might consider becoming a strict vegetarian. And by that I mean eating mostly vegetables and some lean protein. No processed foods whatsoever. Barring that, I think your best solution is gastric bypass. Not lap band. The success rate just doesn't impress me. I think you should go with gastric bypass."

I said, "But that's permanent."

He nodded and said, "Yes, but this is a disease you're going to have to deal with for the rest of your life. If you were diabetic, we wouldn't take you off your meds as soon as your blood sugar stabilized. I've seen a lot of people in your condition (morbidly obese) get a new lease on life after gastric bypass."

I left his office feeling horribly discouraged. He told me I seemed to be very well-educated on diet, supplements, exercise, and all that, and that I should be grateful I don't weigh more, that it's only because I do eat so well and exercise so much that I don't weigh much more than I do. I'm in that class of people who were built to survive the starvation times back in the days when humans were still hunting and gathering. Great.

I barely contained the tears as I sat in his office listening to him telling me I have no hope of getting down to my ideal weight. The best I can hope for is 180? Really?

He made the point that my weight hasn't fluctuated all that much, even though I've had periods of little or no activity due to injuries, and periods of lots of activity when I'm actively training. My diet doesn't change all that much. I'm stabilized at 225 - 230. That's become my body's set point.

Can you imagine?

Then I saw this really hateful blog post on Marie Claire's site. It was shared by a Facebook friend. Basically this NYC fashionista declared that fat people shouldn't be on TV, that she's uncomfortable watching a fat person walk across a room, much less get intimate on TV (some new show calle Mike and Molly or something), and why don't we just step away from the donuts and "do us (skinny people, I guess) all a favor and go for a walk." She doles out a bunch of standard diet and exercise advice, and asks people whether or not by posting this if they all feel this way, or is she just being a jerk. She got a lot of responses, all negative and in the "jerk" column, but still, I got her message.

So I came home yesterday and did an hour on the treadmill, some of it while crying -- try catching your breath between sobs at 4 mph and a level 2 incline. Today I swam half a mile. I'm feeling better. Some.

Still...gastric bypass? How am I going to fuel a century with a gastric bypass?

Ugh.

[Veronica]

Why read stuff like that? It's just not productive or healthy.

I know you have a lot of health issues and you want to weigh less, but sometimes you just have to accept your body as it is and make the best of what genetics gave you. Do the things you love doing and that make you happy. Stop worrying about some ideal weight. Love the life you've got.

As long as we live, time passes by
And we won't get it back when we die

Bowling for Soup

Veronica