Bi And Large

OK, so here I am!

Quiet, I know. But I am busy! (whine whine whine. Like I'm ever NOT. Maybe if I wasn't so lazy, I wouldn't be behind all the time, and then I wouldn't be so rushed. Not to self: consider this idea some more.)

I'm sick AGAIN, and Iris is too. So far, just a cold. But influenza type A has been going around my office, so I am trying not to get that. Today I felt terrible, came home from work, made strong tea from fresh ginger, sculled the entire cup until I was pouring sweat, and went to bed. I am attempting to burn it out!!

Speaking of work, I am more convinced every day that seriously mentally ill people are somehow drawn to our practice. I do so much nodding and smiling to crazy people (like the one who drinks colostrum every day, or the 'knife grinder,' or the delusional one who thinks she is a licensed MD when she isn't, or the one who rants about how baby formula makes people gay. Good times!) I am starting to feel sane by comparison. Not ALL of my patients are crazy. But damned if the majority of them aren't a few synapses short of a neural system, if you know what I mean.

Iris turned THREE on Tuesday! I can't believe three years have gone by since she was born. It sounds so cliche but it really does seem like yesterday. She's so big. She is excelling at all she does, growing like a weed, and makes me so happy. She definitely has a strong personality and a mind of her own, but if we can channel it well it will serve her well in life. I love that baby girl! She had a cupcake party at school, and that night when we were all home we did presents and pin the tail on the donkey and cake. I made an angelfood cake with whipped cream - gorgeous!

The beginning of the year is a good time to get that pesky health care deductible out of the way and I have been running around to the optometrist (pick up the new specs tomorrow, thank God!) the dentist, the endo, the psych. I should really go see my obgyn too. So working that into my weekday work schedule when it's not like I can take time off has been interesting. Good to get it all done, but challenging.

My parents arrive from California tomorrow! Mom finally got the brace removed from her leg a couple weeks ago and now has a velcro boot on. They will be staying at a hotel this time so she won't have to go up and down my stairs, but still they are coming. I haven't seen them since Amy's birthday in August I think, which is a long time! We'll celebrate Iris' birthday and Dad's birthday and have a good time together. So, I will be scarce the next few days as well. And going crazy while I try to get my sick self motivated to clean the house. Wish me luck on that one.

Anyway more posts to come when I have a minute to do so! Until then...

We're showing some pink.

In honor of Valentine's Day, of course. Enjoy!

Wow. Well, it has certainly been an interesting week behind the scenes at this blog. Funny what people do seem to think is appropriate.

ANYWAY, while I continue to work to clean things up and make this site more secure, why don't you go and take a look at some lovely fat positive Valentine's Day E-cards that can be sent here?  Have a browse and send one to your favorite fat person today.

Just a few gems from the past couple days, to show you what I live with.

This morning, I woke up and stumbled out into the kitchen looking for coffee. I kissed Pete good morning and Iris piped up from the breakfast table over her Cheerios, mid-smooch, "What IS this, some kind of wedding???"

Last night we were eating dinner and she was contemplating her cucmber. She ate a cucumber seed and asked if they were healthy to eat. We said yes and then started to talk about how funny Iris is, that at 2 she thinks about nutrition (and enjoys ice cream, too!) She chimed right in with her own thoughts: "You know what would be really healthy for you AND good? Radish Vanilla ice cream." Ummmm maybe not so much on the good. And probably not the healthy either, but she does get the concept!

My favorite moment:

An hour or so ago, Amy and I were snuggling together. We were talking about Martin Luther King, Jr., and about who he was and why she had the day off tomorrow. We talked about segregation, and about how black people and white people couldn't live together, or get married, or take the bus to school together, or even eat in a restaurant together. And that was wrong, so this very smart and brave man MLK started speaking out about it, and he got the laws changed. And then someone who believed black people didn't deserve to be like white people was so very angry about it that they shot him and killed him. But we remember what he did for our country and his good ideas about all people being treated equally, so we have a holiday to remember. Amy thought about it for a minte, and then she started to say, "Well, I know that sometimes, black people..."

And I braced myself for a stereotype. Because really, we do live in a pretty white rural suburb, even if her school is ethnically mixed. And she is only 5, and maybe she has picked up on midwestern judgement and racism. What would she say? Sometimes black people steal? Swear? Shoot guns? Smoke marijuana? Go to jail?

"Sometimes, black people are the President."

I smiled and nodded. And I admit, I cried just a little. Tuesday is going to be a truly excellent day.

OK, so it's actually Jan 16th. And in Australia, where it counts, it's Jan 17th. What MATTERS is, last night was the FIFTEENTH, and after dinner I was kind of crashing out, and Pete was being very kind and giving me a foot rub, and it suddenly hit us that it was our anniversary. Oops.

Neither of us had remembered, which is sad but is way better than ONE of us remembering and not the other. We've been married for nine years! And legally married, according to the Australia government and our de facto status, for a decade now. That's a long time, especially when you are in your early 30's.

Amy broke out her Easy Bake Oven and very kindly baked us some sugar cookies to celebrate with. I had some lava cakes in the freezer (thank you, Target) and we cooked those up and had quite a nice little celebration. So it turned into a nice evening. And we got to celebraate with our two wonderful girls, who make the marriage really a complete family after all.

Yeah Yeah, I know, the entire continent of N. America is feeling the artic air chill this week, and everyone is complaining about it. But around here, we like to say it's "cold enough to brag about," and I think we damn well earn that right. Today I saw a national news story on CNN or somewhere about the nation-wide freeze and it had a photo of people bundled up in SUPER heavy down parkas with fur trim, like they were running the Iditarod or something. The caption? Something like: "These brave souls ventured out in 20 degree weather Wednesday."

BITE ME.

Twenty degrees? Ha. That's t-shirt weather out here, ya pansies.

It's cold enough here that the news stations like to do fun tricks on camera. Mostly this involves taking a coffee cup of boiling water outside, tossing it up in the air, and noting that (depending on wind) it comes down as either snow or a chunk of ice. Yeah. It's THAT cold here! And guess what - this isn't unusual for January for us. We thrive on it. Tuesday morning the actual temp was -19F / -28C, with a windchill about 15 degrees colder than that again, and the schools weren't even running late. Everything just functioned like normal. Even my 90 year old patients came in to work without a second thought, and I didn't even feel like I had to zip up my parka on the way in. This morning it was about -15 with a -25 windchill and I swept out the garage because I was motivated to clean. I kind of regretted not putting on an extra layer of pants, because my legs were cold where I had frostbite a few years ago after about an hour outside, but otherwise it was fine. You do acclimate.

Even so, tomorrow is going to be pretty damn bitter, and I am guessing a lot of things will be shut down to keep everyone safe. I looked at the list of school closings tonight and as of about 10pm, there were already over 300 schools on it for Thursday morning. Check out the National Weather Service's warning for our area for tomorrow:

"914 PM CST WED JAN 14 2009

...DANGEROUSLY COLD WIND CHILLS TO PERSIST...

BITTERLY COLD ARCTIC AIR COUPLED WITH NORTHWEST WINDS NEAR 10 MPH
WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILL READINGS FROM 35 BELOW TO 55 BELOW ZERO
OVERNIGHT AND THURSDAY MORNING.

SOME IMPROVEMENT IN THE WIND CHILL VALUES WILL OCCUR THURSDAY
AFTERNOON AS WINDS DIMINISH SOME AND TEMPERATURES RISE...BUT WIND
CHILL READINGS ACROSS THE REGION WILL STILL BE NEAR 25 BELOW ZERO.

WIND CHILL READINGS WILL DROP BACK DOWN TO 30 BELOW TO 40 BELOW
ZERO ACROSS EAST CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA AS WELL AS WEST
CENTRAL WISCONSIN THURSDAY NIGHT INTO FRIDAY MORNING AS A
PERSISTENT NORTHWEST WIND CONTINUES IN THESE AREAS. "

Yeah. Fifty-five below zero. That's about -50C. And that's pretty damn cold. I am 99% sure that the girls won't have school tomorrow, and even if they did I am not sure I would send them. We've been driving Amy to school this week instead of having her walk down the street and wait for the bus and get frostbite. I know neither school is letting the kids go outside all week. Even so, just running from the car to the school, both girl's hands and cheeks are pretty red. I don't know yet if either my work or Pete's will be open either. It's going to be an interesting morning!

All I can think is, I am so grateful for this home, that it is well insulated, and that we put in new triple pane windows a couple years ago. I wish there wasn't a bloody huge open gap arund the front door blowing cold air in, but what are you going to do. Now, the water heater exploded at Thanksgiving, and we were told when we bought the house in 2005 that the furnace was on its last legs. Yesterday both the vacuum and the coffee pot finally died after many years of heavy use. Please, please, please let the furnace hold out through the next few days at least!

Hello, hello, it has been a while. Guess what? It's blizzarding again. Raise your hand if you are shocked. No? No one? S'alright, a snowy winter is better by FAR than a subzero and dry winter, so we are happy. Snow is fun to play in when it warms up enough to be outside and it insulates well. We just have to hunker down through these windstorms. What's up with that? Must be some weird El Nino year or something.

Well my biggest update is that my mom had (another) surgery on the 7th and her metal cage has come off! Only 4 months later :D She was getting all kinds of infections and the leg just wasn't healthy what with the metal poles all sticking through it and everything, and the bone seemed to have become fairly solid, so they took it off. She currently has a soft cast soaked in antibiotics on and is being fitted for a walking boot. It's a lot of hassle but hey, she has kept her own foot - that is HUGE and something no one ever thought possible! Not only has she kept it, she will be able to walk after all the reconstruction, so it will all be worth it. She really struggled mentally and emotionally with having the huge cage around her leg for so long, so I am pleased for her.

She and my dad are coming out here later in the month and supposedly buying this condo down the street. Then in the spring they will sell their place and look into buying another condo near my siblings. I suppose they can just travel the country visiting kids! I am looking forward to seeing them, it has been a while.

In other news only 2 more weeks until Iris turns THREE. Doesn't it seem like I just had her? I swear, I just had her. It seems like just months ago that we were at the hospital meeting her for the first time, it does. But no... on the 27th she will be a big three year old, and she doesn't let me forget it.

Anyway I have laundry to fold and a kitchen to clean before I head in to work, so I will give up on rambling typing and watching the snow fall with the dog snoring on my feet (much as I do love it!) and make my way into the day.

Last night as I was browsing through all the interesting tidbits of news that the internet offers me, I came across an piece that really intrigued me. It comes with the exceedingly not charming title, "Heavy Hosties Given the Heave-Ho" and can be found in its entirety here.

So what's the deal? Well, from the article:

"India's national airline, Air India, has come under fire after sacking ten female cabin crew members for being overweight. The crew had their employment terminated from the carrier's domestic arm, AI Domestic, this week, after being declared 'medically unfit for duty'...

"Now, if you are just ten grams over, it’s goodbye,” Sheila Joshi, 51, one of the hostesses, told the press. "It’s ridiculous: weight is not an infectious disease. This is not a modelling job; we are not working a catwalk."

The maximum permissible weight for an 18-year-old and 152cm tall airhostess is 50kg [110lbs] while one between 26 and 30 years of age of the same height has a limit of 56kg [123.5lbs.]"

OK can I get a rousing WTF from everyone? I mean seriously? OK, I will grant that perhaps if you are, say, my size - I have wide ass hips and airplane rows are narrow - running around a plane might not be comfortable. Sure. But firing employees that get over 110lbs? Good grief!

The worst part?

"Female cabin crew allege that male pursers, who also work the aircraft cabins and who face the same physical challenges as the female hostesses, are not made to conform to a particular weight standard. "Last year, an obese flight purser got stuck in the aircraft toilet and its door had to be dismantled to free him," an air hostess told the Times of India newspaper. "We have male flight pursers who weigh over a hundred kilos [220.5lbs.] If there is an emergency on board they would hamper the rescue operations rather than help it," said another."

Ohhhh so now it all becomes clear. Men can look like human beings; that is, they can come in a variety of shapes and sizes just like normal people. But women have to look like dolls. They must be physical representations of helpless impotent fantasy, rather than strong able and normal humans, because 'we' like to look at them that way. Again, can I get a WTF. This just drives me up the wall. One of the things that bugged me most about this article was that the dismissed female employees brought their case to a judge, and during the trial he made the comment,

"Statistics reveal that overweight persons face constant challenges to their emotions which include remarks from strangers, discrimination at work, lower self-esteem and poor body image," the judge said." But instead of using that obvious evidence of entrenched discrimination as a reason to rule for the hostesses, he used it to rule for the airlines (!!!) - because airlines have to stay competetive and who needs that kind of drama? It just boggles my mind. I can't see any judge anywhere saying, oh, well disabled people face rude comments from strangers, so companies shouldn't have to hire them. Or any judge ruling, you know, black people often face discrimination, and that can affect their self image, so stay away from them if you want to stay competitive. And yeah, I know, I KNOW someone is now going to bring out the really tired argument that disability and ethnicity are totally different than size, because you can always lose weight. But I'm so over done with that. Because yes, you can go on a diet and lose weight, sometimes. A little. But study after study after study has taught us that size is preset, and there just isn't bloody much you can do about it. My 400lb ass isn't going to magically turn into a 123lb AI hostess figure any time sooner than your local immigrant friend right off the plane from Nigeria is going to turn snowy white. And here's the thing - with the fact that I am in good health thrown in, why SHOULD we? We should we all kill ourselves to be exactly the same as each other or live in shame and disgrace? How silly. Telling a healthy fat person they need to lose some weight? Is that really much different than telling an African American person that they need to "act white?" Really?

Companies CAN and DO hire (and fire) whoever they bloody well please. But, even in a democracy, I don't think they have every right to when it's not based on ability and performance. I think making decisions about someone based solely on their looks is discrimination, and we have laws against that for a reason. Should we, as a society, work towards a future where everyone is judged on their own personhood, talents, and character instead of outward appearances that they can't control? I think we should. Stopping employment discrimination is one of the first steps we have to take forward to get there.

It's a brand spankin' new year, and aren't we all thrilled!! May it bring joy and prosperity to all of you, my dear readers and lurkers... and to us as well. We're ready for it!

I messed with my photos and I think I have them all updated. I have so many photos of both girls I gave up trying to put them in separate albums, and made one album for both girls. There's a bunch of photos in there, and with the exception of a few I loved from the Disney trip earlier in 2008 they are all taken in the last few months. So now I feel all up to date! Woot!

Christmas was excellent, if mellow. We didn't travel this year (no money, definitely can't afford Australia, and my mom is in hospital, and my brother is with his inlaws this year, and it just wasn't worth it.) Anyway being just the 4 of us was nice and relaxing. With kids that are 5 and almost-3, Christmas is chaos no matter how you slice it, but at least we didn't have to put them through day after day of fancy dinners with 50+ relatives they have never met before. We had a tree, and some gifts, and a warm home, and snow outside, and it was great. Santa brought a tank of guppies to Iris, and hermit crabs to Amy, and they are the girl's pride and joy. Both of them have done really well taking care of their own pets too. Iris feeds her guppies one small pinch of food twice a day, and doesn't bash on the tiny tank or anything. Amy adores her crabs. She has only been pinched once - on the lip! It was sad because hey, she got pinched. But it was kind of funny too. She was hanging out with this crab swinging off her lower lip. APPARENTLY she thought the crab should sit on the couch with her and watch tv, and she was holding it right against her cheek to snuggle with it, and the crab didn't seem to like that. Who knew??? Otherwise, she has done great, and the new additions are all thriving.

New Year's was more blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing, because I was back at work that week. Our fantastic neighbours invited us up for snacks and drinks, but they had to cancel last minute with a sick kid (We know how that goes!) We ended up going out for pizza, and using some money my parents had given us for Christmas to see a movie together. The girls stayed up to midnight no problem, and Iris was ticked there were no fireworks in our backyard (even though it was like twenty below.)

The only other thing going on is we are still sick!! We have the virus that came with grappling hooks and made its home here for a long time, because it has been well over a month and maybe longer. Judging by the symptoms of sudden onset fever, headache, aches and pains, and a cough with some chest pain, I am guessing flu. But dang. I had a temp over 100 still last night, and none of us are feeling well. We've had 2 weeks to rest and take care of ourselves. What gives??? It's not debilitating sick or anything, just background sick, but it sure doesn't give up easily. I've heard through talking to patients and friends that what's 'going around' this year lasts 6 - 8 WEEKS. Can that be true? Ugh.

Anyway! Upward and onward with a new year. I for one am happy to see it arrive, and I hope it brings wonderful things and happy memories. Here's to 2009!