Tampons ( For Fat Chicks Only!)

I wish, wish, wish someone had told me this when I was younger. Since I'm officially "old" now, I feel the need to tell you. And you alone. Well, you and a million other fat women.

Not all tampons work for all fat women. There, I said it.

When I was young, I tried tampons off and on in my late teens. I had very little luck with them staying in. If I had a heavy flow ~at all~, the thing would basically pop out before I really wanted it to. No bueno.

So, for years, I figured it was me. No way would I risk tampons. I would instead, wear the heavy pads and hope for no leaks. It was messy and well, I'm here to tell you, it doesn't need to be that way.

Not all tampons work for all fat women. The two varieties I tried were the ones my mom used and the ones that I tried in the bathrooms at school. They were relatively hard little puffs of cotton. I picture them as pellets that would shoot from my vagina. Not a good thing.

So, one day several years ago, I tried tampons again. The clouds opened and a ray of sunshine fell upon my head. It was a miracle. These tampons stayed...and did the whole "dam up the pipes and collect goodness along the way" job...and they were predictable. It was a beautiful thing! Tampons had become my friends. (For those who really need to know, they are Kotex Security brand).

For years, I've relied upon these plugs o' goodness for my sanity. Then, one day recently, while on vacation, I needed some while at a filling station. They didn't have my brand. So, with naive confidence that somehow my vagina had suddenly learned how to use the hard cotton plugs of old, I gave it a good old college try.

Bullets of bloody cotton were shot from my loins. (Artistic license!)

Not all tampons work for all fat women.

Try different brands until you find the one. You will be glad you did.

Kotex "Classic"

I loooove this SNL video spoofing a new/old product -- Kotex "Classic". It takes me back to the first time I had my period. I told my mom and she immediately went out to buy me a belt and a huge (and it was huge) box of old school Kotex pads. I was a bit puzzled, but gave it a whirl. "Maybe this is what everyone has to use the first time?" I thought. So, I tried on the belt. I was easily 250lbs when I was ten, and the belt was tiiighhhht. Kind of like a rubberband on a beachball, I think. I tried to hook up the pads to the garters and when I'd wear it, they'd pop off. After messing around with it for a day or so, I asked my mom why I couldn't use the kind my sister used...good old stick-to-the-underwear StayFree. They were just as huge as the old school ones, but at least I didn't have to wear the belt which would have been super obvious through my clothes...a horror that no pre-teen wanted to face! I remember the look my mom gave me. It was something like, "Huh, do you think they'll work for you, dear fat child?" without saying a word. My average-size mom was always supportive of me, but when it came to my fat being and how my pre-teen tubby body worked with the rest of the world, I think she had no clue. Suffice it to say, that from that day forward, I was belt free.

Ohhhh, the memories...

I was wandering through the Fatshionista Flickr photo pool (link)and came across this skirt. It's made by Revamped Fashion (link). I looove the idea of reusing / repurposing old textiles, and Revamped Fashion does some fun plus size looks (Etsy link) -- gotta love the TMNT skirt. :-)

But, to get back to the memory at hand -- the skirt above brought back a floooood of childhood bedroom memories for me. Picture the print on the flounce as wallpaper. Yup, that's what I lived in for 13+ years. It was also the sheets on my bed. The patchwork portion of the skirt was my comforter. I lived a Holly Hobbie life! There, I admitted it.

I have grown to expect to see crud at antique stores from my childhood. After my most recent trip to Minnie, I even think that with two years and an unlimited budget, I could recreate my entire childhood home just by shopping at antique stores up there. That actually would be a hoot, wouldn't it?

It's just funny seeing things from the past pop-up in unexpected places. Who knew that my old bedsheets could turn up as hipster fashion?

Sea Monkeys or Artemia Salina

I remember looking to the back pages of the comic books to see the advertisement for Sea Monkeys. The ads basically promised you supremacy over the sea monkey kingdom, but not only would you be their keeper, but they would, in turn, be your friend. And, they'd don gorgeous jewels or bows upon their crowns and show you the beauty of life.

Unfortunately, when it arrived, the sea monkey kit never really fully captured my dream. There were no jeweled crowns or even bows atop each creature, and they never survived to live past their lice-like existance. Worst of all, they never tried to befriend me.

A wee bit disappointed, true, but that didn't really kill the dream. I still have it. I see the kits for sea monkeys and the dream lives. The hours of day dreaming about the little lives that were coming in the mail still keep a smile upon my face. If I had known then what this meant -- "Caricatures shown not intended to depict Artemia Salina" -- my dream bubble may have burst prior to the actual "monkeys" arriving.

Ah, good memories. The photo above shows the Sea Monkey dolls. No water added! Here's the ad that deceived me so:

Horsing Around

  I took this picture the other day while at the step-son-in-law's mom's house. (I should have just said, "a friend's" house...let's keep it nice and generic, shall we? How lame does it look to have a double possession of thrice removal? So, yeah. It just seemed like a stark reminder that childhood does end, it gets overgrown and forgotten in a far away field. Then again, maybe it's a reminder that the wilds of childhood spirit lives! Eh, maybe it's just open to interpretation of mood.

Old Halloween Decos

My sister found these online after I asked her a question about the Halloween decorations we used to have up as a kid.
The first...a true testament to how decorations today pale in the scary factor. You can't find evil like this anymore unless you make it yourself.

This is the face that only a mother could love.

I don't think this was ever my favorite, but the image is burned in my brain. When my sister sent me the link to it, it was unmistakably THE scary witch I remembered.  It's a fun combination of a classic devil face with a crazy, hell raised witch.
According to the site (click here for more), it originates in the 40s. Well, in the 70s she was still lookin' good and still freakishly scary.

The next two I remember distinctly, too. They were funny, hipster, 70's jointed beings. A little bit scary (well, in the case of the witch), but by and large just goofy.

We often hung them on the front of our garage with the arms pointing the way to the front of the house. There was always a giant skeleton out there to help guide the trick-or-treaters.

 

     

The Winds Were A-Blowin'...

Just a quick embarassing story for ya'll:

Yesterday we were out on a wee little ghost town and rock hounding expedition with a friend of my hubby's. Every so often when you're ~out there~ you need to...ahem...use "the facilities". A true call of nature, ya dig? My usual way to accomplish this task when an hour's drive from anywhere with a porcelain god, is to open the side doors of the Jeep to block the view from at least two angles, wait until no one is behind me and then drop the undies and crouch down to pee. A fine and dandy way to accomplish the task at hand...usually.

Yesterday's wind was fierce. I opened the front door and it blew back toward me. Fine, I opened it all the way and figured when I was crouched down, I'd hold the door open. I had to do without the passenger door. Fine. Not many peering eyes around anyway...at least none that I noticed. I let go of the door to drop the undies and a HUGE gust blew...the door slammed shut and caught the majority of my skirt, too. There I am, undies at my knees, my skirt stuck in the door and up around my bum. I try to open the door. No go. I pull harder. No go. Great. Now what? I check the lock. Nope, not locked. I pull harder. No go. At this point I'm fearing that we will need to abandon the skirt in the door when we leave. Ok, I call to Ivan who was quite a distance away.
"Come here!"
He's looking at me through the glass. I'm trying to signal over the top of the Jeep. He gave me a puzzled look and then came over. He's no slouch when it comes to using muscle power, but he had to YANK a couple of times to get it to come loose. Freedom!

Just a crazy situation. I'm so happy to be free!

Miscarriage Memories

I've received several emails about the miscarriage I mentioned in the last post. I thought I had mentioned it before, but apparently not. It was several years ago, so for historical purposes, here's the full story as I remember it...

First off, I didn't know I was pregnant, so it wasn't huge emotional issue for me. As I've grown older and haven't carried a pregnancy to full term, the emotion of it has grown with time.

I was at work when the pain struck me. I sat at my desk and thought, "Crap, this is a really bad cramp." I wasn't a stranger to unusual period behavior, so I thought nothing of it. I hurried to the bathroom to take care of "business". While I was in there, the pain increased and I started to bleed very heavily. Again, I was used to heavy periods, so no major worries aside from the fact that it was a really sudden ocurrence rather than minor bleeding followed by major gushes. So, there I sat in the stall. Passing chunks. (Excuse my ummmm...grossness... it's just the facts, Jack.) After a few minutes, I looked into the toilet to see a white ball about the size of a large egg yolk floating in the blood. I thought, "This looks important." You know, when you have a cancerous tumor that falls ino the toilet, you should probably pick it up and take it with you. So, I reached in an picked it out. Just then, someone else came into the bathroom. Dang. Poor timing. My hands are covered with blood and I need to get out of there with the "tumor." I rushed out of the stall and quickly grabbed some paper towels, wrapped up the "tumor" in the towels and put it in my cleavage. Yes, a perfect hiding spot! I washed my hands and rushed back to my desk. I called my boyfriend and said, "Come and get me NOW." I'm pretty sure my "NOW" was convincing. I did briefly say that I either just passed a tumor or had a miscarriage. I'm sure I said both of those quietly so that my cube-mates couldn't hear me, so chances are, the bf probably didn't hear me either.

Twenty minutes or so quickly went by and my boyfriend was out front and was pickin' me up. I'm sure I had a pretty panicked look so the bf was freakin' out in his own way. Upon the drive back home, I had THE worst pain I've ever experienced. It was akin to a knife being jabbed in my gut and being twisted back and forth. Another chunk of goodness was on its way out. It was a biggin'!

Upon arriving home, I went to the bathroom just off the kitchen. I took the toweled prize from between my breasts and carefully unwrapped it. Now that it was slightly dried off, the "tumor" was quite apparent to be an amniotic sac. Still intact and filled with fluid, I was able to press the bubble to expand the tissue and peer inside to see the tiny little embryo. When it wasn't stretched, you couldn't see through it...unlike the "National Geographic" type photos of embryos would have you believe. In fact, when the sac was in liquid much as it would be within the womb, the fuzzy tissue on the outside of the sac made it look like an off-white jellyfish or something like that. Your sac may be different, but this is what my body developed... I spent a good deal of time peering at the embryo which was maybe the size of a lima bean. It was a very white little creature. The eyes were still slightly on either side of the head. The arms and legs were tiny.

I took the sac and put it in a little Tupperware container and put it in the fridge. (Yeah, I know, kinda gross, but the scientist in me was pretty pleased.) I called the doctor and set up an appointment for the following morning. After calling I went back and forth to the fridge to take extra looks to investigate the curiousity.

Jump ahead 12 or so hours and I'm at the doctor...doing the whole stirrup thing and showing the doc my proud little Tupperware find. I was told that expelling a whole amniotic sac is pretty unusual and she was pretty pleased to see it herself...so much so, that she took it away and I never saw my little embryo again. I did get some good news 'cuz I thought that I spontaneously aborted due to my weight, and the doc informed me that wasn't the case. She's seen women much larger give birth. She said that the real trick with most infertile women is just *getting* pregnant. Oh, another good thing...apparently I had a "complete" miscarriage. When I was in the car, I was passing a big ol' placenta. Oftentimes women have incomplete spontaneous abortions and they need to have D&Cs to remove any remaining tissue. So, all in all, a good experience. In addition, I wasn't treated like a fat freak which is always a bonus.

Later that day, I received a call and found out that I would need a shot. Whee! Turns out I'm Rh negative. So, a shot in the bum and I was pretty much done with this whole situation. I was informed at the time that I would need to have RhoGAM shots anytime I got pregnant to avoid the conflict of blood types that happen with rh- mothers with their fetuses.

FLASH FORWARD. When I was diagnosed with being hypo-thyroid, so many bells went off in my head. While I was pregnant, I was extremely cold. It was a really hot, hot summer, so there was no reason for it aside from the fact that I was probably hypothyroid at the time and the pregnancy was exacerbating it. I suffered from a lot of the other hypothyroid symptoms during and after the miscarriage, but you know, when they're not bad enough to completely ruin your life, you don't pay much attention to 'em. At least I don't.

So, there you have it in a wee nutshell.

Mom's Day

I've gotten off pretty easy these last 18 or so Mother's Days. I haven't had to hunt down flowers on a Sunday afternoon, fight off the crowds at the restaurants, or find some kitschy little diddledoo to give her as a token of my appreciation. Pretty dang easy! I thought, however, that I'd give a little list of credits for my mum this year.

In no particular order:

• She taught me to be level-headed yet fiesty when I need to be.
• She taught me that anything is possible with a sewing machine.
• She taught me to burn the midnight oil to meet deadlines. A certain "I can do it" attitude that shows at the very last minute before a deadline. Oh, and procrastination was a good thing.
• Mom taught me to rely upon her for validation of my creative endeavors. No, not a good thing really, especially since she's been gone for 18 years, but I rely upon friends/family and especially the internet community to do that now. See, this whole website? Yeah, it's all about validation. Well, not *all* about it, but I think deep down it really is part of it. :-)
• She taught me that being honest was essential.
• Mom loved reading and it took away attention from me. Consequently, I'm not really fond of reading fiction. Yeah, another bad thing, but it makes me part of who I am.
• Mom showed me how to be creative.
• While she wasn't much of an adventurous cook (just how many things can one make with hamburger?), she did teach me quite a few things that has helped me out through the years.
• She told me that the kids who made fun of me were the ones with the problem. That they were trying to drag me down to their level. This is KEY. A key *a-ha* type thing. This is probably THE thing that has helped me maintain my sanity and level-headedness over the years.

So, on that note, Thanks mom!

My Little Whirlwind

Monday afternoon, about 10 minutes after we buried kipper near the garden, a tiny whirlwind started about a foot from his final resting spot and swept across the garden and through the yard. I kid you not! Hopefully, it was a sweet release of his life's energy foretelling of Kipper's future endeavors.

End of the Kipper Era

Ashley Kipper died this morning at around 7:30. He had a really rough weekend and I knew it was time to take him to the vet to get the shot to put him out of his misery. He didn't make it to that shot. Instead, he waited until I woke up this morning. I was able to spend some comforting time with him before his passing. I held him, petted him and told him to "let go". He was close to death at that point, taking only shallow breaths, but was able to move. While I was holding him, he motioned that he wanted to be put on the floor. I put him down, laid on the ground next to him and within two minutes or so he took a violent gasps for air. Finally, he took in one giant breath, released it and let go.

I know there are two camps of people out there. Those who say, "he's just an animal" and those who will probably mourn their own pet's passing or potential passing. To the first camp, he was just an animal. But he was an animal that was with me for over 18 years. A long time to have any living creature in your life. Heck, most marriages don't even last that long. We had our own language and our own history filled with silly Kippy stories. He was there on my good days and bad. He jumped in front of the camera often (if you go through the pix of the week, you'll see him from time to time. Here. or Here. or Here. etc, etc) To those of you who have a cat, give them a little pat-pat, and cat nip today. A little nipper in honor of Kipper.

My Fondest Memory of Gerald Ford

...the mocking of him by Chevy Chase in early Saturday Night Live skits. I was young and Chevy Chase falling all over himself while playing the clumsy Pres. Ford was ~the~ funniest thing evah!  I'd like to think that my sense of humor has matured since then, but c'mon, you know it hasn't!

It's been 18 years today.

18 years since my mom died due to complications of emphysema. Complications. Well, basically, she was tethered to an oxygen tube for the last few years of her life. That in itself was a complication. The "complication" that finally ended her life -- a blood clot in her lung.

I was talking to friends of mine today who mentioned something that brought to mind my mom's demise. 18 years ago today. It struck me pretty hard. I don't really know why other than I didn't realize that today was the anniversary. I gave up directly tracking the anniversary long ago -- rather my tracking was simply year specific, not to the day. I mean her death was a significant "life changing" experience. A life's milestone. So, yeah, 18 years. Judging from the memories of that night and the following days, you might think it happened last year. The vividity of the memories are as intense today as they were 18 years ago.

I was her primary caregiver for the last few years, so I was well tuned to the tone of her voice when there was a kink in her oxygen tubes --a certain shrillness to her voice when she called my name in the dark of night or in the day. When her tubes where compromised, she didn't have the faculties to get to the kink. Her lungs were at 12% of normal capacity, so when she wasn't getting a high liter of oxygen supplement, her brain and body suffered from oxygen deprivation. So, yeah, that night, there wasn't the kink in the oxygen, but she was suffering from a lack of oxygen. Simple movements became difficult. We tried calling the doctor whom we had visited the previous day for advice. No luck there. I called an ambulance. Within the short period of time from the call to the time they made it to our place, she was nearly gone. I held her while she tried to breathe. The muscles in her chest and around her back were so very tight. Desperate for breath, her last words to me were, "I'm so scared." So was I. So was I.

There are tons of small details of that time burned in my brain, I really didn't drop many here. I was so young and really wasn't ready for her to go. Aren't parents supposed to die when you're 50? The lucky ones, I suppose. Anyway, it was a tragic end to a remarkable woman's foreshortened life. Yeah, yeah, everyone thinks their mom is remarkable. But, really, she was! She overcame a lot of obstacles in her life and still provided quite the idyllic childhood for me and my sibs. Eh, she wasn't perfect by any means, but you know, her imperfections were perfection in itself. ;-) It was an end that came too quickly due to addiction to cigarettes. She'd probably still be here today if it weren't for the sticks o' death. I do make a point of telling smoking friends or even friends of friends about her early demise. I tell them once and only once about the gory details of her last few years in some small hope of planting a seed that will get them to stop smoking. I know that my seeds fall on the ears of addiction, so there isn't much hope to be had. But you know, a girl's gotta try!

Easy Cheese

I was walking through the cracker aisle at the grocery store when I spotted a little bit of childhood: Easy Cheese!

I have fond memories of this while on our month-long motor-home excursions around the good old USA (and Canada, too!). We’d get a little Ritz, squeeze the cheese and yum! A perfect road food! There was the traditional can variety Easy Cheese and I also remember some sort of tube cheese with a little hole in the center from which the gooey goodness was dispensed. I’m not sure what was going on in the 70s to make it so easy cheese friendly, but you know if you grew up during that time, you had some Easy Cheese, too! And it was good.

 

No time right now...

But remind me to write the tale about nearly dying in the middle of the desert while ghost town hunting...

Weird

So, I was wondering through someone's Flickr photostream. You know, just one of those voyeuristic endeavors that is so easy to do online. It belongs to a girl who's blog I read from time to time. I believe she's from Chicago or thereabouts. So, I'm just flipping through pictures. Some amusing. Some boring. Some pretty dang funny. Then WHAM...a picture of a former co-worker that I haven't seen in 10 years. Suddenly the world seems very small.

Shakin'

I just had a run in with two dogs. They came into our yard and killed our chickens. (The cute little things wander our yard eating bugs, seeds and whatnot.) I confronted them to try to get them to stop and the one pit-bull-mix dog came at me. SCARY. I went as quickly as I could back up the stairs into our house and called 911. Animal Control came pretty quickly, but not until after all of our chickens were missing/dead. Pretty sad, really.  What’s pretty bad is that Animal Control said that the dogs were in custody yesterday for destroying a chair or something in someone’s yard. They’re repeat offenders!  Luckily, the pit-bull-mix dog is apparently the “nice one” of the two, so I wasn't in too much danger. Although if you were going to tell me that at the time the thing lunged at me, I would have told ya bullsh*t! The other one is a collie mix that’s apparently a very bad seed.  Turns out that the Pit bull mix is illegal in our city, so it won’t be back. The collie mix will probably be back at its home ready to do more damage. Grrrr.