You may recall I had said Luke was using Kelowna as his home base for his job on the oil rigs.  He was here for three long weeks in January, then left for Manitoba with great fanfare.  One week later, he was back!  Two days ago, he left for a rig in Saskatchewan.

In between, I’m stocking up on groceries and planning menus, as it’s just like old times.  I have the two boys making their usual demands for meals, and I, the most insane human on Earth, am doing it.  Why?

I guess basically they’re just lucky, as I do love to cook and bake.  So I’m glad to have the opportunity to try new things.  Some don’t work, like the deep fried fish balls I made the other night.  A childhood friend’s mom in Osoyoos made prize-winning fish balls, but she’s dead, so I don’t know how to find Mrs. Stodola’s excellent fish ball recipe.

Today Elsa, an old friend who used to live in this neighbourhood, is coming for lunch.  I’m very excited and made spicy carrot soup for the first course.  Then I made chicken salad comprised of roasted sliced almonds, celery, green onions and chicken.  To accompany this I’m making a quick cheddar cheese bread that has to be served hot.

I also made a batch of chocolate mousse, and put it into five individual bowls.  This caused quite a stir as Nicky saw them and asked if he could eat one.  I said sure.  But then I could just feel him wanting the rest of the bowls, all the way from downstairs.  However, to his credit, all were intact this morning.  Not that Elsa and I will need the four remaining bowls, though you never know.

Like the food consumption, another thing that never changes is the eternal losing of things, and I always get called in for the search.  The other day Luke went mad because his cell phone was missing.  However it was in the most favourite area of lost things: wedged into the couch cushions downstairs.

But it’s okay.  One day I’ll look back wistfully on my three decades of parenting and miss them.  But for now, I do have to laugh at the image of any ‘dating’ on my part in this living arrangment.  Can you picture canoodling on the couch with someone, as Nicky opens the fridge door and says, “We’re out of milk.”  It just doesn’t compute, does it?

I’m kind of excited about taking a bunch of old VHS tapes of the kids and us over the years to one of those joints that turns them into DVD’s.  I cut the ad from the paper years ago, and checked to ensure they’re still in business.  They are, so I’m going to drop 10 tapes and 2 trays of old slides.

The slides are interesting.  One full tray is of my marriage to Stanley in 1980, and the second full tray is of my marriage to Denis in 1985.  I’m going to have them put onto separate DVD’s and then I said to mom, I can watch them whenever the urge to couple hits me.  It’ll help remind me that marriage and I are a poor match.

But I’m a prize-winner as a caretaker of my children, parents, family, friends and pets, so that’s a bonus for them.  And shouldn’t we all concentrate on those things at which we excel?