The Impacts of Eating Disorders and Tico Time
Yesterday we were waiting for the local guys to come measure to put up the eave troughs. Tico houses do not come with gutters and this rainy season has been so intense we have had water in the house once and been very close a few times.
When we had the pool installed a year ago the gently sloping backyard draining to the back left corner disappeared. The pool is high and takes up much of the backyard so it's gutters and French drains now. More money flowing out.
The funny bit is Jim and I good naturedly arguing and betting on how late they'd be. Appointment time? 8 am. Actual arrival time with no word or phone call? 10:45. Not quite a new record, but close.
Today they showed up only ten minutes late, but I suspect it's because they know they'll be getting the moolah at the end.
It's kind of like when we used to play the football betting squares at work. Picking a number and going with it.
Damn, I am getting cynical.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday I went back to that old tried and true, baking all of my own bread and bakery items. I am finding I'm reacting randomly to commercially baked goods so it's time.
Baking, making a large pot of chili with local fresh chorizo from scratch. It takes time. I've forgotten how much literal time it takes. I used to do this routinely when we were QF. I used to cook from scratch all the time. Now I'm just as content to eat a carton of yoghurt, a banana and a pack of crackers, even as I know cooking would be better.
I just don't obsess over it.
Which leads me to someone who does, Lori Alexander. I have to wonder what's going on there. Why all the reams of words about food? Fat??? The only people I've known through the years that focused on food like she does were people with crazy eating disorders.
You may not remember me talking of my friend Chloe. This was back in my very locked up posts from my old church. She was one of the thinnest people I knew, with ideas about food much like Lori's. Many, many times her husband Mark ended up at our house eating dinner because Chloe either didn't make dinner because she claimed not to have money for food (but she had bought antiques for her house), or she was serving up some weird tiny organic thing.
We once went to a dinner party at Chloe's house with ten other adults and she served tiny portions of very odd organic recipes. We said nothing, ate what was on offer, but went on home quickly afterward and had a second real dinner.
Don't get me wrong. It's not organic I have a problem with. I mostly eat organic here. With the allergies I tend to do better with organics.
I don't tend to do well with stuff like cashew mayonnaise and homemade meat substitutes and things that do not taste good. I don't do well with things that just taste bad. Chloe's cooking was just bad, and worse. I would eat small portions, never complain and then skeedaddle out to real food. I believe in butter, real butter, spices, onions of all hues, garlic, coconut sugar. Everything under the sun within moderation that tastes good, and, hopefully, does not contain too many harmful chemicals.
But as time went on, and Chloe and I spent more time together as friends I started to pick up on something else besides her crazy ideas about eating and foods. The fact that she was pretty severely bulimic. The summer we spent together traveling it was impossible to hide. I got to see how it impacted her moods, see her consume huge quantities of food before disappearing for thirty minutes to an hour, straight into the restroom. I saw it all, even as she tried to hide it.
She'd eat three huge plates of whole grain pancakes and bananas, rush to puke, showing up red faced to call Mark to pick a fight with him over the most ridiculous things. I tried several times to talk to her about it, very unsuccessfully, because she denied it. Later I found out it was sort of an open secret at the church. Others knew, and she was judged, and pretty clearly shunned for it. No help offered, no nothing.
We used to be close, close enough that once I was shopping near her house and suddenly became convinced she would kill herself. I rushed over. She had the gun out. I was right.
It's hard being close friends with anyone suffering from an eating disorder, because, let's face it, so much of socializing seems to revolve around food. Joannie and I always went out for coffee or lunch once a week or so. Our various church things had food at them. Chloe turned up her nose at all of that, saying the same silly things Lori Alexander says about women's groups and fellowships, about how they are gossip factories or sinful. I think, in retrospect, Chloe could not handle her issues with food consistently enough to risk attending and exposing her problems. Which is really unfortunate because being real and sharing problems is one of the main benefits of such gatherings with friends.
I fell out with Chloe about 18 months before I left my old church. She called me up one day and demanded I chose, her and our old church the way it was, or continuing on going to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship events with my other friends. I had to gently point out that friends don't make friends chose between them and theology, but no, I would be continuing to attend TACF events in our area. She never spoke to me again. Frankly, it was kind of a relief. Friendship with her was taxing and draining.
A couple of years ago I got word through friends that Chloe, who did not believe in doctors and medicine, had gone to the ER with a migraine and found out she had end stage cancer. She left being given a few weeks to live if she did nothing. Instead of spending time with her loved ones, she spent her remaining days going from faith healer to faith healer until she could never walk or control her body. She died quickly.
I have to wonder just how much the years of her eating disorder impacted her health. Would she had never developed uterine cancer had she gotten treatment for the bulima? It had to stress out her system.
Mark very quickly remarried to someone who was 180 degrees different than Chloe. Plus she's pretty chubby. Chloe must be rolling in her grave over that. So much time wasted on so much stupidty, and she made her husband so miserable with her antics over the years. What a waste.
When we had the pool installed a year ago the gently sloping backyard draining to the back left corner disappeared. The pool is high and takes up much of the backyard so it's gutters and French drains now. More money flowing out.
The funny bit is Jim and I good naturedly arguing and betting on how late they'd be. Appointment time? 8 am. Actual arrival time with no word or phone call? 10:45. Not quite a new record, but close.
Today they showed up only ten minutes late, but I suspect it's because they know they'll be getting the moolah at the end.
It's kind of like when we used to play the football betting squares at work. Picking a number and going with it.
Damn, I am getting cynical.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday I went back to that old tried and true, baking all of my own bread and bakery items. I am finding I'm reacting randomly to commercially baked goods so it's time.
Baking, making a large pot of chili with local fresh chorizo from scratch. It takes time. I've forgotten how much literal time it takes. I used to do this routinely when we were QF. I used to cook from scratch all the time. Now I'm just as content to eat a carton of yoghurt, a banana and a pack of crackers, even as I know cooking would be better.
I just don't obsess over it.
Which leads me to someone who does, Lori Alexander. I have to wonder what's going on there. Why all the reams of words about food? Fat??? The only people I've known through the years that focused on food like she does were people with crazy eating disorders.
You may not remember me talking of my friend Chloe. This was back in my very locked up posts from my old church. She was one of the thinnest people I knew, with ideas about food much like Lori's. Many, many times her husband Mark ended up at our house eating dinner because Chloe either didn't make dinner because she claimed not to have money for food (but she had bought antiques for her house), or she was serving up some weird tiny organic thing.
We once went to a dinner party at Chloe's house with ten other adults and she served tiny portions of very odd organic recipes. We said nothing, ate what was on offer, but went on home quickly afterward and had a second real dinner.
Don't get me wrong. It's not organic I have a problem with. I mostly eat organic here. With the allergies I tend to do better with organics.
I don't tend to do well with stuff like cashew mayonnaise and homemade meat substitutes and things that do not taste good. I don't do well with things that just taste bad. Chloe's cooking was just bad, and worse. I would eat small portions, never complain and then skeedaddle out to real food. I believe in butter, real butter, spices, onions of all hues, garlic, coconut sugar. Everything under the sun within moderation that tastes good, and, hopefully, does not contain too many harmful chemicals.
But as time went on, and Chloe and I spent more time together as friends I started to pick up on something else besides her crazy ideas about eating and foods. The fact that she was pretty severely bulimic. The summer we spent together traveling it was impossible to hide. I got to see how it impacted her moods, see her consume huge quantities of food before disappearing for thirty minutes to an hour, straight into the restroom. I saw it all, even as she tried to hide it.
She'd eat three huge plates of whole grain pancakes and bananas, rush to puke, showing up red faced to call Mark to pick a fight with him over the most ridiculous things. I tried several times to talk to her about it, very unsuccessfully, because she denied it. Later I found out it was sort of an open secret at the church. Others knew, and she was judged, and pretty clearly shunned for it. No help offered, no nothing.
We used to be close, close enough that once I was shopping near her house and suddenly became convinced she would kill herself. I rushed over. She had the gun out. I was right.
It's hard being close friends with anyone suffering from an eating disorder, because, let's face it, so much of socializing seems to revolve around food. Joannie and I always went out for coffee or lunch once a week or so. Our various church things had food at them. Chloe turned up her nose at all of that, saying the same silly things Lori Alexander says about women's groups and fellowships, about how they are gossip factories or sinful. I think, in retrospect, Chloe could not handle her issues with food consistently enough to risk attending and exposing her problems. Which is really unfortunate because being real and sharing problems is one of the main benefits of such gatherings with friends.
I fell out with Chloe about 18 months before I left my old church. She called me up one day and demanded I chose, her and our old church the way it was, or continuing on going to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship events with my other friends. I had to gently point out that friends don't make friends chose between them and theology, but no, I would be continuing to attend TACF events in our area. She never spoke to me again. Frankly, it was kind of a relief. Friendship with her was taxing and draining.
A couple of years ago I got word through friends that Chloe, who did not believe in doctors and medicine, had gone to the ER with a migraine and found out she had end stage cancer. She left being given a few weeks to live if she did nothing. Instead of spending time with her loved ones, she spent her remaining days going from faith healer to faith healer until she could never walk or control her body. She died quickly.
I have to wonder just how much the years of her eating disorder impacted her health. Would she had never developed uterine cancer had she gotten treatment for the bulima? It had to stress out her system.
Mark very quickly remarried to someone who was 180 degrees different than Chloe. Plus she's pretty chubby. Chloe must be rolling in her grave over that. So much time wasted on so much stupidty, and she made her husband so miserable with her antics over the years. What a waste.
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