Hi All:

I thought you might get a kick out of this. As you all know, my life is one big vegetable patch. I make veggie patties, I made my veggie stir-fry. I eat lots of veggies.

So I buy lots of Zucchini. So this morning, I take my walk and go to the big produce store a few blocks away, to buy some zucchini. I figured I would buy a few pounds, make some every night and this would last me for the whole week. Me and Alan also.

So I see a bunch of nice zucchini, and I pick it up. Then I look over to the other bin and imagine, to my surprise, I see something from LAND OF THE GIANTS. I just stood there in amazement. I had to buy one. I could only buy one because that’s all I could carry home. Just one Zucchini. So I bought a regular one, and my Land of the Giants one.

Here’s the photo.



Have any of you ever seen a zucchini this size?? I know I haven’t. And when I walked home and all my neighbors were standing outside, I hit the big one behind my back in the shopping bag and when they said “hi Melody, what’s up”. I simply said “here’s a regular zucchini, right???” and here’s his grandpa”. You never saw people laugh so hard in all your life.

So for a little while, I hope I made you smile.

Melody

I don't know about that. I think I'd be afraid to eat it!

I'm hysterical!!!

Melody

But I'm not amazed. We grow things this large in Texas all the time. I have neighbors with gardens and they are always giving us zucchinni, tomatoes, etc. I've seen this size a lot. It is our experience that the larger they are, the tougher the seeds are. Since I like steaming vegetables, I always ask for the small ones.

Hope you enjoy it and it's not tough. cute joke.

Billye

Billye:

You should see the size of the squash that grows in my backyard. It's those 3 feet long wonders. But they are not zucchins. This is the first time I have ever in all my life seen zucchinis this size. And the one I took home was the baby of the group. It was all I could do to carry it home.

The others were bigger. I mean, who carries these things home?? You need two pushcarts!!!!

I wish I could have my own garden. Who knows what wondrous things I could grow?? And they would probably speak french!!! lol

...upon close examination you will notice a lighter area in the lower left of the vegetable , this appears to be a perfect outline of Elvis! I saw one similar on ebay.

Thanks Mel. It has been a painful day and at least I am able to still laugh.

HI Julie and Daniella:

How are you guys doing today.

I have a theory about the weight thing. Just imagine if we lived in a small community and everybody weighed 200 lbs. If someone didn't weigh 200 lbs, everybody would look at that person, point and say, 'oh, look at her, she doesn't weigh 200 lbs". And I am only talking about women here, because I don't believe that this applies to the way men think about their bodies. I might be wrong, but I don't think so.

It starts way back in school, when we try to fit in. Imagine being the only overweight kid in a classroom. Of course you are going to get bullied, picked on, named called, made fun of.. Why?? Because you stand out like a sore thumb. I wish we all had the mentality (way back when), to take a good look at ourselves in the mirror and say "Oh, I must lose this weight, I must be healthy, I don't want to get diabetes, or heart disease".

But adolescents do not do that. Adolescents look in the mirror and go "I want to look like Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan".

And god forbid this kid doesn't remotely have the body type to be a Paris Hilton, or a Lindsay Lohan. BUT.... if this kid lived in a community where everybody weighed what she weighed, well, there would be no depression, no "I don't fit in", because she would absolutely FIT IN!!!

We grow up in a society that gives us super models on the tv who weigh no more than 85 lbs and then you have all the informercials for the fat burners, the hoodia, the diet pill, etc, then you turn on another station, and lo and behold, there's a commercial (I saw this the other night and could not believe my eyes), there was a commercial by Subway (it's a fast food deli thing just in case some of you have never heard of Subway). And they have a meat eater's special. It's a gigantic sandwich piled high with meat, etc.). Well, it could feed a third world country, believe me. And there were 4 people in this commercial (all normal size) and the young girl was trying to put the front of the sandwich in her mouth. Believe me, she couldn't have put that sandwich in her mouth if she tried. The whole idea was to send a message to all the over-eaters out there that there was a new kid on the block. A new sandwich, a new way to self-medicate.

We all do not have the same body types. And when the fast food people learn to stop selling these gigantic portions of these foods, and when they again (hopefully) put physical education back in the school (I used to go to gym every day), but when I watched Shaq's big challenge, I listened and he said that only 6% of the schools in the United States have a gym program. Well, I just could not believe it. The show also said that the next generation will not outlive the parents. It's really scary how things have changed in the 40 years since I finished school.

And whether you are an under-eater (like my friend), or an over-eater, like I have been most of my life, I truly believe that it has a lot to do with how we view ourselves, and how others view us. We yo-yo diet, which is really not good for our bodies, but we want to fit in. Why do we want to fit in? because 10 of our friends weigh 120 lbs, and we are the only person who weighs 200 lbs. It's very confusing. It was for me in school, and it was for me with my own mother who was 5 feet tall and weighed 110 lbs. She was one of 10 children and as a kid she was fat. She lost all her weight at age 18 and never was fat again. And then I came along and ruined everything for her.

She took me to hypnotists, she took me to doctors, she put the food in the closet, (I will never forget coming home from school, opening up the linen closet to get a towel and finding loaves of bread hidden behind the towels). I just stood there completely confused and said out loud "Mom, why are there loaves of bread in the closet". We had company in the living room, and she shouted "what do you expect, look at you, you'll eat everything in site".
Now that could not be true, because I NEVER ATE IN FRONT OF MY MOTHER. I ate out of the house so she would not say anything to me. But she just had to throw digs at me. Once, she and I went to Nathans with a friend of her's. I was 22 years old. I ordered those famous Nathan's french fries. I had a french fry and was about to eat it and she knocked it out of my hand (right in front of everybody), and she said "you need this like you need a hole in the head".

I never forgave her. For that or other stuff. But did I stop eating?? No!! I ate even more. It's what I did to cope with what she was throwing at me all the time. Only after I moved out, got my own place, fell in love, did I manage to control my weight. But it was very hard. I did it for the wrong reason. I did it for a boyfriend, to get in a dress, I did it because I had a wedding to go to.

But finally, as I grew up, and got older, I did it for the right reasons.

Sorry to go on and on, but when something clicks in the brain, it really clicks. And mine clicked about two years ago.

And I just made another batch of muffins that are to die for.

When you opened them up, the blueberries just popped out at you. Alan just sighed and looked at me and said "you are indeed the muffin lady".

lol

Melody

I do agree a lot has to do with ones view and self esteem. I do feel people need to focus on themselves and not on others especially if its not a person close to you. People always like to give there opinion. It was such a hard part of my weight gain recovery when people would make weight comments. I think if everyone focused on what they needed to do to be healthy and happy the world would be better. Everyone is different and has different needs. I can relate Melody as my family has many ed suffers. I'm in recovery but health wise recovered. The mindset is daily. Anyhow my mom is anorexic,my gramps is compulsive eater/anorexic,his mom was anorexic. I could go on. You do learn coping mechanisms from family whether negative or positive but I'm learning I have to live my life and using food or weight in a negative way is not the way to find the life I want. I'm sorry for all you have been through. I can remember when I was in the cardiac unit and 40 pounds under my gramps gf said don't gain too much weight. Comments are hard. Have you told your mom how that makes you feel? I hope you can see what I see in you or well hear. Your such a warm,funny,caring person. I would feel so happy for you to be my friend. Hang in there and those muffins sound yummy. I don't know if I told you I got a muffin top pan to make the tops like muffies.

Daniella:

Well said!!!!! I too am so sorry for what people have said to you. It's hard hearing these things.

My mom passed away 12 years ago. She and my dad were both put in a nursing home rehabilition kind of place. My mom, for her emphasema (she had 28 packs of cigs in her purse when I went to visit and she was telling me to go and buy her some). When I opened her purse to show her the 28 packs of cigs, she looked at me and said "OH". I immediately went to the resident psychiatrist on call and inquired "why does my mother keep asking me to go and buy her cigarettes when she has 28 packs (I counted them) in her purse"? He just nodded sadly and said "it really doesn't matter anymore, the nicotine has gone to her brain, it's too late". I had no idea about the nicotine going to her brain. I knew she was there for emphasema because she had been smoking all her life. She was 79 at the time at looked way past 90. Actually, she was pretty nice to me during her last days because I had lost weight when I came to visit her and although I was a large person, I didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

And because all the residents of Ritchie Manor Nursing Home were in wheel chairs and some of them were grandma dumped (that means dumped at the curb and the families just drove off....yes I know, never heard of that either back then), I took it upon myself to take my makeup, and give all the ladies there make-overs. You should have seen these 85 year olds in the wheelchairs with a little eye shadow and rouge and lipstick. They were like new women. I had gone down there with my Sudden Beauty lifting serum. I left it there. They seemed to enjoy the 5 days I was there. I would stay at the motel at night (I was not invited to stay at a nearby aunt's because they never accepted my weight. So I was kind of a left-wheel back then. Didn't matter. I just took a cab every morning to the nursing home to visit my mom and my dad. They put them in one room, and that was not the norm in those days. But they didn't want to break up a family. My father had congestive heart failure and he was on hospice.

Well, I will never forget what happened. My father could not stand my mother's mouth any more (Just to give you an example, when I was sixteen, I bought my mother a house dress for mother's day. She opened the box, took out the dress, looked at the stitching on the waistline and started screaming at me "don't you look at the work they do, this is shabby". I then proceeded to pick up my 5 foot tall mother and put her on top of the refrigerator. And yes, I really did that. She was so amazed that I actually had the audacity to do such a thing, that she couldn't talk for 5 minutes. (a record for her). My father walked in the door, she started screaming and the first words out of my father's mouth was to my mother. He said: "what did you say to her this time"???

So now we are back at the nursing home many years later. I was 48 years old and my mom and dad are in the same room. He is on hospice and was given 9 months to live. He told them "I can't take her anymore, put her someplace else". They put my mother in someplace called "The Sunshine Nursing Home". I was home with sciatica at that time and could not fly down again. Well, they lost my mother. I would call them up every day (my phone bill was $300 a month back then. When the guy from the Sunshine nursing home told me "we can't find your mother", I just phoned every nursing home in Port Richey and finally found my mother. It seemed she ****** off someone in the van and they dumped her some place else. Well, all hell broke loose and they had to return her to my father's room.

And this is exactly what happened. She died in January of 1995. He went off hospice because he actually got better. They made him the mailman of the nursing home and he would run around in his little scooter thing and give out everybody's mail. He was a darling man who had 11 more months of peace. He actually lived 18 months more than he was supposed to live. He died in December 23 of 1995. 1995 was some year for me. Lost both parents, I got Bells Palsy, and my 14 year old went through a glass window and got 75 stitches over his eye. Boy, what a year.

But my father had a good death. The kind of death we should all have. He ate some peach pie, I spoke to him on the phone, I said I love you dad, he went on his scooter into his room at the nursing home. He got off, sat in a chair and died. Then the nurse called me and said (after breaking the news), she said "melody, we had a bit of excitement, because when a person dies, we have to call the paramedics to officate and pronounce the person as deceased". Well, when the paramedic took my father's pulse, it seems he still had one. But no heartbeat. Everybody was freaking out, until some bright person said "oh, this guy has a pacemaker". That was why he had the pulse.

So Daniella, I know full well how cutting some words can be and how people can influence other people. I have learned how to respond to inappropriate remarks. I stood in front of my mirror and practiced what I would say if someone said something stupid, for example "don't you know that you are fat, or don't you know that you are skinny (yeah, I get that too, since I lost weight, now how stupid is that remark?) or even better, when some mean neighbor, who knows full well, that my son has not been home in 5 years and that I do not speak of him to anyone, well, when that neighbor is being a gossip and comes over to me and said "you know, I dreamt of your son last night, why hasn't he come home".? Now really, am I supposed to really believe that she dreamt of my son?

So when anyone says an inappropriate remark (for any reason), I look at them square in the face and I say: "Now why on earth would you say something like that?". Stops them dead in their tracks. And watch the expression on their face. See people (some people) like to say stuff just to be mean. They never expect you to call them on it.

be well hon!!

Melody

P.S. The visiting nurse just came for Alan's IVIG and we have begun to speak french. I love it!!!!!

Au revoir