I left my heart at the Daiso next to the $2 bento boxes.

Forgetting about the horrifyingly full flight from Minneapolis to Seattle, my latest trip to Vancouver was sparkly from beginning to end. The Cute Canadian Geek met me at the airport, and then we spent the 30-minute cab ride to his place holding hands and gazing at each other - the way any good trip should start. Highlights of the trip included:

Movie and Snack Night: We cuddled up to watch Vincent Price in the classic, Last Man on Earth, while sampling Canadian snacks I’ve never heard of. Ketchup-flavored chips? Aside from the scary radioactive red color, they are actually really addictive. Bacon and sour cream chips? Heaven! Cheezies? According to CCG, the original Cheetos. I also fell in love with the Coffee Crisp and Mint Aero chocolate bars.

Waterboy and Watergirl: CCG got roped in to making some deliveries for the day job, so he and I jumped in to what is, quite possibly, the filthiest delivery van on the North American continent, and delivered water bottles around the greater Vancouver area. Those suckers are heavy! Phew! I was so buff afterwards….

Sushi on the Cheap: On the delivery route, we stopped for lunch at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Yes, you read that right, my little Midwesterners: all-you-can-eat sushi. And get this: it was $11.95 per person. I about died right there in the restaurant. Then I explained to Jeff that my favorite tempura roll in Minneapolis often runs $15-17 - just for one roll!! He couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. So I had my fill of cheap, tasty sushi while the gettin’ was good.

Taking Up the Trade: CCG taught me how to use his tattoo machine and then turned me loose on a poor, defenseless grapefruit. I have to say, I enjoyed tattooing much, much more than I expected to. It’s really too bad about my horrendous lack of drawing talent… Later on, CCG was practicing with stencils, and put two beautiful blooms on my right lower arm, then he colored them in with permanent marker. They were really lovely, and I wish they had lasted longer.

Dinner in Chinatown: We headed to Chinatown to meet up with a former co-worker and current grad student (archival and library sciences studies!), Stephanie, for dinner at Hon’s. I tried rice congee for the first time, and CCG got his first meet & greet with someone in my circle of friends. Face to face, that is. His initial shyness was beyond adorable, but he told me later that he was certainly the lucky guy to be seated at a table with two cute girls. Aw….

My Personal Chef: I’m so spoiled…. Over the course of the weekend, CCG made me chicken baked in a Chinese chili sauce (referred to as “Cock Sauce” because of the rooster on the bottle), a homemade corn dog, and bacon prepared with the top-secret family recipe. Yum….*drool*….

Oops: I accidentally-on-purpose missed my Sunday flight so that I could spend one more day with Yummy McAdorable Pants. We headed right over to Richmond to cruise the Asian malls. This is where I was introduced to:

Daiso!: Heaven….a heaven of chopsticks, bentos, cutesy stationery, crazy pet toys….and everything is $2 each. Sigh… Here is Yummy and I just moments before entering Daiso, at which point rainbows shout out of my mouth.

The Plan: Together we filled out his passport application, and mapped out the details of The Plan. The Plan to get him to the US and to me. In sticking with The Plan, CCG will be down here by mid-March, or sooner if we can manage it! Crossed fingers, please!

Taking Up the Trade (Again): After some begging (just a little bit, really), CCG managed to convince me to tattoo him. Despite my reservations, I went again and took the needle to him and gave him what he wanted. Behold….my first tattoo:

I can’t wait to have him down here with me in Minneapolis…

Fat Friday - Pretty in Ink

Image via Big Fat Love. Photographer: Debbie Pond.

Looks like I’ve been doing it wrong.

Pic comes from this link.  Don’t drink anything after clicking the link, or it will be all over your monitor.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Postpartum Crazy Diet (do not attempt, even if it is under medical supervision.).

Right. So…how’s tricks, FatGrrl Readers? See below for the new fatgrrl.com squee!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. As you all know, I’ve got a brand-spanking new baby at home, and it’s hard to type with a squalling, gassy (but very cute) small person in one arm.

Plus, I have come down with a case of The Postpartum Crazy. (Yes, I’ve been talking to my doctor, if you’re wondering. I may be crazy, but I do know when to ask for help.) What makes it so bad is that part of the crazy is manifesting itself as me just pretty much not eating unless I force myself to do it (plus some other anxiety issues). Add that to all of the barfing/not eating weirdness during my last three months of pregnancy, and my eating habits have been thrown all to hell. Fortunately, I am married to a man that Gets It. He keeps bringing tons of fruit home, since fruit is the only thing I’m eating with any regularity. That, and he tries to remind me at least once a day that I really need to try to eat something.

I’ve dropped so much weight postpartum. At my two week checkup, I’d lost thirty pounds. That was my entire pregnancy weight gain. In two weeks. And I’ve lost more since then, to the point where my husband looked at me a few weeks ago sans shirt (I had just gotten done feeding the baby) and went “Damn, you’ve lost weight. I can see your ribs.” And he wasn’t saying it in a “Yay! You’ve lost weight!” tone, it was more of a “Holy shit, you need to eat, because you’re dropping it way too fast.” tone. (And I’m still Morbidly Obese according to the BMI chart, y’all. I carry my weight in my hips and ass, so it’s not like you can see bones there or anything.) I’m glad that I married a man that sees ultra-rapid weight loss not as a good thing, but as a cause for concern because my skin can’t handle the loss. Everything on my body pretty much headed south, which isn’t great for my already shitty post-pregnancy self esteem.

Unfortunately, almost all of my non-fat friends don’t get why I’m not particularly happy about losing so much weight so fast. The general consensus is that any weight loss is awesome and I should be thrilled. Bzzt, wrong. I’m NOT EATING. It’s unhealthy to not eat (or to have two bananas as your total daily food intake for three days in a row), no matter if you’re a size 6 or 36. I have three kids to chase after now and my health is going all to hell. I’ve turned into a giant walking petri dish ever since the c/s and I have had infection after infection since I gave birth. I know it’s because of the lovely combo of no sleep and no food (that, and hospitals are just gross and germy and I’m sure I brought some germs home with me). It’s simply not healthy. People have started saying that my coloring is even more ghostly than normal, and I glowed in the dark before I started The Crazy Diet, so now I’m so pale I’m looking like a zombie. Lovely. (Also, braaaaaaains! BRAAAAAAAIIINNNNNNS! Maybe that’s what I need to kick-start the eating again? Some tasty, tasty brains?)

I just don’t get why I’m supposed to get excited about an effect of severe Postpartum Anxiety/Depression. I’m getting a really unhealthy relationship with food going here, and I don’t like it.

So what do you guys think?

~Ellie

PS: If you’re going to play Fat Hate Bingo in the comments, be prepared to have your comment deleted or severely mocked. Just putting it out there. We’re okay with dissenting opinions, but you have to come up with something more clever than “Fat people R gross!!!!!11!!eleven!!”

The End of the Road

Today marked the last session of my Body Image Group. We spent the session completing quizzes and exercises we had done at the very beginning of the group as a way to see all the progress that we had made. Honestly, I hadn’t expected much. Yes, I’d seen some improvements, but I’m a long way off yet from the sparkles and glitter that I expect to come with good body image. (Perfectionist? Who me?)

But I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’ve actually come a long way. Over the course of 10+ weeks I’ve managed to maneuver myself towards a kind of neutrality that I have never experienced with my body. I may not be seeing the sparkles and glitter, but neither am I soaking in an acid bath of revulsion, guilt and shame. It feels damn good to climb out of that hole, I have to say.

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in one of the exercises. I posted the first sheet a couple of months ago, and I think it’s kind of amazing to see the differences. I guess I was wrong again….you can learn to make peace with your body. D’oh! This wrongness is turning out to be a recurring theme in my recovery. I can roll with that.

Hello there, NY Times readers. Would you care for some fat?

Things are abuzz in the Fatosphere over the recent article that appeared on the NY Times website. And of course, my vanity is all abuzz, too, over the photo of me featured there and the shout out to this site. Is anyone timing this? I’d like to enjoy my 15 minutes of fame while it lasts.

Anyway, I wanted to send out a Big Welcome (har-har) to all the visitors - old and new alike! - to FatGrrl.com. We like to get with the chit-chat here, so please feel free to browse around and drop us your thoughts.

Adipositively Yours,
Morgan & Ellie

Oh, Canada.

I’ll be spending the next few days in Vancouver, up to no good with the Cute Canadian Geek. Everybody behave while I’m gone.

=^_^=

The Teen Scene

There’s something about Young Adult fiction that I don’t often find in the (supposedly) more grown up adult market. The young characters have an inexperience about them that I find really appealing. That doesn’t mean they can’t be jaded; but they don’t seem withered either. I enjoy the nostalgia of watching a different pair of eyes navigate emotional landscapes I’ve already had to wander through. I want to know how it will turn out differently for them. Here are my latest escapes:

Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse (known as the Twilight Series) by Stephenie Meyer

Aside from the fact that it features devastatingly beautiful vampires, the main character Bella is someone I really like. She and I both spent the majority of our upbringing propping up our mothers, and Meyer hits it dead on in the book: the tangled sense of responsibility, resentment, and guilt that comes up when you are 17 and the only adult in a house full of grown-ups.

Tithe and Valiant by Holly Black.

I like faerie tales - you know, the Seelie and Unseelie kind of faerie tales - and while Black did a decent job with Tithe, I’d say skip it and go straight to Valiant. Overall, it’s a much more satisfying read.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. I’m just getting started with this one. Will keep you posted!

Fat Friday - FatGrrl Fucking Rocks out Loud (and on parade, of course)

Check out this piece from the Utne reader!!! While it is a lovely article, and definitely worth the read (and worth a Fat Friday nod)… I’d like to point out the ultra-sexy model with the excellent rack featured in the article is none other than our very own Morgan.

Undying adoration can be left in the comment section.

*MWAH!*

Fat Friday - Wishing You an Inspired New Year

Image courtesy of Portland’s BroadArts Theater, a non-profit organization creating artistic events that celebrate the impact women and minorities make as we all work together to create a more equal, peaceful, compassionate and just society.