Has your own stupidity ever paralyzed you?  That’s how I’m feeling right at this moment, totally paralyzed.  I opened an envelope and out fell a bill for just over $600 for an ad!  I stupidly had read the terms of the contract wrong, and had purchased what I thought was one year’s worth of ads, and it turns out it’s per issue!  Excuse me while I got outside and scream for a minute.

Besides screaming, I find singing helps most things go along more smoothly.  I have actually composed a booklet of songs, just for the dogs.  Most of them are actually just for Arnie, such as Phantom of the Okanagan (sung to the tune of Phantom of the Opera).

“Look on the bed, and there you’ll find

The dachshund of the Okanagan’s there

He’s in your mind.”

By the way, if you’ve never seen the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Phantom of the Opera, you’re missing something.  I bought tickets for the four of us when the kids were about nine and twelve, and we were all completely blown away by the experience.  When the chandelier swings over your head and crashes into the stage, you know you’re in for the ride of your life.

My brother-in-law Martin commented that he didn’t really like musicals, as he said most people on his street don’t burst into song spontaneously.  Denis dryly muttered, “Try livin’ at my house.”  He’s very used to having the theme from Green Acres sung to him at the drop of a hat.  I particularly enjoy purring Eva Gabor’s words, “I just adore a penthouse view.  Dahling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue.”

I had a crazily busy week with the fruitcake business, and it’s just going to get much worse.  I had a lovely comment, “nice read” on one of my blogs from a stranger who stumbled onto my site by accident.  I felt happy about that.  I also got orders from Comox and Victoria, so feel my fame is starting to spread.

Not that fame can go to a person’s head if one has to deal with this.  I got up and there was Nicky’s pile of laundry, with a note printed in capital letters on top saying, “DO NOT OVERDRY THESE CLOTHES.”  He’s quite a vain little individual, and thinks he knows a thing or two about the care and maintenance of clothing.  Though he realizes he doesn’t know how to do it himself, he nonetheless thinks he knows enough to give proper instructions to the maid.

As I load the washing machine, I burst into a happy rendition of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island.  Like screaming, singing truly is a wonderful form of therapy. 

For seven long years I spent every summer toiling in my mom’s fruit stand.  It was called Schiller’s Fruit Stand, and was right beside the Super Valu in downtown Osoyoos.  I started at age 13, and mercifully when I was 19 mom decided it was her last year after 20 long summers.  However, during those seven years when I was there, I worked ten hours a day, six days a week.  When I mentioned this factoid to my children, Nicky replied drily, “Good for you.”

This was explained to me as actually being very leisurely, as during the summer, my mom worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day.  My grandma was in her seventies, and was cooking several dozen jars of jam in an un-air conditioned house every day.  These were trucked to the fruit stand and sold.  My grandpa, in his eighties, helped prepare the fruit, and my dad worked out in the orchard.

It was therefore unheard of that one would complain about their cushy 60-hour a week job.  Plus, there were some happy moments in there.  For one, the Sun Rype delivery guy was always a hunk, so once a week I was able to flirt outrageously.  Then, there were the lunches of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and afternoons of ripe cantaloupes filled with soft ice cream.  Did I mention I was a bit of a butterball even then?

Because mom thought peach fuzz detracted from the appeal of the fruit, all peaches had to be wiped of fuzz prior to being artistically placed into a basket.  The cherries were arranged into a kind of a dome, all stems pointing down, and thus invisible.  The jars of jam were all polished and placed on dusted shelves.

And then there were the riotous phone calls to Mrs. Toke.  The Tokes grew tomatoes, and as the summer wore on, the tourists’ appetite for local tomatoes would grow to a fever pitch.  They would shop at the Super Valu, then walk by our fruit stand on their way back to one of the motels lining the lake.  Of course, they would stop in for some local fruit and the prized tomatoes.

Every few days, a panicked phone call would go out to Mrs. Toke for more tomatoes.  Often they would also be low, and Mrs. Toke would say they really didn’t have any.  It was the phoner’s job to convince Mrs. Toke that somehow tomatoes must be deliverd, and she in her nasal voice would whine, “We can only try.”

And thus is has become the battle cry for people such as my pal Alison and me.  When the chips are down, we will say, “We can only try.”  And as I now feel the weight of the fruitcake season pressing down on me, I try to meditate on this mantra.  When I think about the phone calls I still have to make, the samples I have to deliver, and then the unending task of packaging before me, I just thank God for Mrs. Toke.

When I hear programs about de-cluttering our lives I chuckle as I realize I would have to commit murder in order to be successful.  For example, I was just phoned by Nicky and told that he’s locked the keys in the car.  I’m now on standby, as if he can’t break in with a coat hanger he’s informed me I’ll have to drive to the campus with the spare keys.

Luke thought he’d lost his passport, so this engendered a week of searching (on my part).  Then, last night some nut in a stolen car careened into our rental house, so Denis says, “Phone the contractor.”  Not, “I’ll phone the contractor.”  If there are calls to be made or forms to fill out, I must do them.  What’s funny about it all is how much I fear and loathe this responsibility.  But, as the TV character Maude used to say to her husband, Arthur, “God’ll get you for that.”

As it’s fall, the catch phrase at the women-only gym is ‘setting fitness goals.’  I’d hate to tell them that mine are as simple as having the inner strength to continue going three or four times a week.  However, when you see how large they’re making wine glasses these days, I often say, “Thank God for my biceps.”

I had some marvelous news from Buy-Low Foods.  They’re going to carry my product!  They have a total of 16 stores, 14 in BC and two in Alberta.  The person with whom I spoke said he would let me know the numbers this week.  Of course I am ga ga with excitement about it, and lie on the bed, allowing numbers to roll around in my head.

But then I’m brought out of my fanciful reverie by someone’s cry of “Can you do my laundry?”  Nicky is particularly persnickety about grease stains on his polo shirts, so points them out so that I’ll be sure to apply stain remover prior to washing.  Once again, he doesn’t apply the stain remover, but directs me to do it.

It’s amazing how many things I have to do, whether I hate them or not.  Take my ad on google, for example.  It nearly killed me to go through the steps of writing the ad, then choosing the keywords.  However, I did it, and felt fantastic when I saw it posted.  If you google ‘fruitcake’, you’ll likely see it.

I have great hopes for this ad, as I would eventually like my business to be solely mail order.  As much as I adore begging store managers to buy my product, and as much as I love serving hundreds of dollars worth of samples to recalcitrant customers, I think it would be much easier to simply receive orders via my site.

I had better watch the time, as I must drive Arnie to and from the vet’s every two hours.  He’s having his blood sugar levels monitored due to his diabetes.  It’s funny how one becomes inured to tedious tasks.

Other than a couple of hot weeks in July, it hasn’t been much of a summer in the Okanagan.  This weekend was okay, around 27 degrees, so shorts and t shirts were fine, but it wasn’t as hot as it’s been in years past.  I remember August 31, 1997, when Prince Di was killed, as a very hot night.  We were watching a video, after having heard on the six o’clock news that the princess had been in an accident.  We thought it was minor, so after popping the movie out at 9:00 PM we were shocked to hear that she had died.

Today is Labour Day, and it’s a bit overcast.  I guess it’s probably better for the poor kids heading back to school.  I always felt sick inside on Labour Day, and would spend the day moping about, feeling gloomy.  It always marked the end of the two months of complete freedom I experienced at my grandparents’ house.  I could stay up as late as I liked, sleep in until noon, spread my Barbie, her house and clothing from one end of the house to the other, and order strange foods.

One of these foods was both peanut butter and strawberry jam in the same jar.  Do you remember that?  They would also buy chips, Pop Tarts, sugar-sweetened cereals and cookies.  None of this stuff ever appeared in our house.  As well, it could be eaten all evening long in the living room, in front of the T.V.

Yesterday I came home after a night in Osoyoos, and marveled at the beauty of the apples on the trees along the highway.  They were twice the size of tennis balls and very red.  Someday, when it’s all paved over and we’re buying apples from China, we’ll think back on the beauty of what was, and wonder what happened.

When I arrived home I decided that I’d better start to package some of the baked fruitcakes and make room on the shelves for more.  I made two cases of 24 each, and put them on the closet floor in the basement kitchen.  I sighed, and said to myself, “only 148 more cases to go.”  Should I just shoot myself now?

Have you ever tried to get blood out of a dachshund?  It’s very hard, in case you’re wondering.  The vet told me that Arnie would have to spend a day there so that they can draw blood every two hours and monitor his sugar levels (he has diabetes).  I told the vet that Arnie hates him and his clinic, and therefore I would have to drive Arnie back and forth every two hours.  The vet then suggested that I could it myself with a blood sugar monitor.  I thought this was a very cost-effective idea, so decided to try it.

Tomorrow I will be phoning the vet to book a day of blood sugar testing in his clinic.  I didn’t get one drop of blood out of the dog, but instead caused a terrible ruckus.  I have a strange feeling that the vet often suggests these types of things to owners, knowing that in the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back.”