Poor Louie with his long coat is suffering from the intense heat we’re currently experiencing here in the Okanagan.  I continue to run around in the yard in my underwear and even at that I’m over-dressed so I can just imagine the poor pets.

Petra, Kathy and I had a nice lunch last week sitting out on the veranda at Harvest Golf course’s restaurant.  It’s a gorgeous setting, and the weather was ideal.  And surprise, they actually have quite a lot of decent things on the menu.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to places where I really had to force myself to order from their dreck menu.

I don’t know what got into me but on Sunday at the dot of 10:00 AM when Sears Home opened, I raced in and bought a stove.  Boom!  It wasn’t really all that sudden, as I’d been browsing on-line for a used stove, and then I thought oh what the Hell.  I then went on-line and perused Sears and picked the one I wanted, then went in and ordered it.

I noticed the majority of the new stoves have these ghastly huge windows that fill almost the entire oven door.  I said to the salesperson I wonder what people do when they get something stuck between the panes, as invariably happens if you bake a lot.  He chuckled ruefully and said yeah, really.

The stove I bought has a very small window, is a Frigidaire and is white, so now I’m in a mess as my old fridge is almond.  Remember almond?  It came after harvest gold and avocado and before stainless steel, which I don’t like.  But as the fridge is still fine I couldn’t see throwing it out right away, so will try to cope with the mismatched appliances.  Cue theme from Deliverance or The Beverly Hillbillies.

One day in early 1999 I was out on a Sunday and on impulse bought a new stove, fridge and dishwasher at Sears.  I remember coming home and saying to Denis guess what I bought at the mall today and him going what? It was amazing, really.  Now that’s what I call shopping.

So these three old friends are now 14 years old, but the stove saw too much action.  It’s the stove where the kids made their vile pancakes from home ec and also the mad food fetishes like deep fried onion rings, crepes, and deep fried calamari.

I started the fruitcake business on that stove.  I actually ran the business from that one stove for quite a while, though I had to use the United Church’s so-called inspected kitchen as a front.  You know, rent the kitchen one day a month, then turn out 500 fruitcakes and act like I did it all there.  The usual.

So it’s a bit sad to say good-bye to the stove, though I won’t miss its cracked ceramic top and filthy horrible oven and cloudy window.  I kind of feel like buying hundreds of pounds of fruit and making even more jam, just to try to push the elements right over their limits.

But as it’s 37 degrees out I won’t do any of that.  Instead Louie, the cats and I will remain inside the air conditioned house and peruse recipes so that we can inaugurate the new stove when it arrives next Wednesday.

Mom held her usual birthday extravaganza in Osoyoos for me on the weekend.  There were 16 people in attendance from the Town Drunk to the Town Mayor.  Jerralynn barbecued skewers of shrimp, pork  and chicken with mushrooms, onions and peppers.  She made a delicious Black Forest cake for dessert.

Because of past experience, mom wanted at least 16 bottles of wine chilled in the fridge, one bottle per person.  Some people don’t drink wine at all, yet all of it and more was consumed.  Jon, the Town Drunk, likely had three or four bottles on his own.  When he left he was incoherent, so I’m guessing he had the non-drinkers’ portions.

Guess what the majority of my gifts were?  That’s right, booze.  I received 7 bottles of wine and Nicky gave me a bottle each of vodka and tequila.  There were also gifts such as a lovely floppy hat, a bath set from the Body Shop, and Luke gave me his old Ipad!

Lynn, who’s lived on the orchard beside ours for the past 40 years, always brings me apricots for my birthday.  As I’m typing this I have part of my mind on the stove as apricot jam is burbling away.  She gave me about 60 pounds of apricots and I’ll need all of them.

When I arrived with my puppy on Friday evening, our friend Jim was there from Vancouver and so were Freddie and Wendy.  Jerralynn arrived after work, and then we had dinner and partied late into the night.  As you know, I come from hardy Hun stock, so my family parties like it’s 1999 all the time, yet I’m too weak for it.

So I’d like you to picture this scene.  My pup and I were fast asleep early Saturday morning when the amplified telephone in my room rang.  I lifted my sleep mask and saw it was 6:19 AM.  Then the orchard workers decided to drive their tractor back and forth under the bedroom windows for half an hour.

Needless to say I packed it in at that point, and got up, though I felt dead tired.  Due to feeling a murderous rage welling up in me I did the old star 69 to get the last number called.  It was David Bruck, Gerry’s middle son.

I left him a steely, measured message regarding the fact there was no message left from him, yet he had called at 6:19 AM so I was wondering if everything was okay.  He called later that day and said sorry many times, but both Freddie and I were miffed.  Freddie’s bedroom also has an amplifed phone, and he also had the tractor experience.

The birthday party was on Saturday night, so once again I didn’t get to bed until midnight, then was up around 8:00 Sunday morning, feeling seriously weakened.  I immediately got one of those ghastly migraine auras I now get if I’m over-tired and had to lie down for a while until it went away.

My pup and I took all day Monday to recuperate from Osoyoos.  Those people reading this who’ve accompanied me there are nodding when I say it’s NOT for the weak.

I don’t know why, but I’d kind of forgotten about shopping at people’s homes as another option for finding great stuff.  If I need anything, my M.O. is always to head to the thrift stores and browse until one day I find the item.

But I’d made a list headed up Long Term, and many items have been on this list for quite a long time.  Then I remembered our local site for finding used goods at people’s homes, castanet.net.  What joy and excitement to be able to cross three items off my list in just one week.

First of all, I’ve been without music, other than a radio, for about four years.  For some reason the stereo system didn’t work, and as I’m incapable of opening a CD case, I certainly can’t figure out electronic problems.  In any case, I had hideous, huge old speakers, so I started by taking those to the Salvation Army.

Then I began to look for speakers on Castanet, and found two nice Bose speakers for $50.  I drove over and bought them from a 15-year-old kid in West Kelowna who tried to explain woofers and tweeters to me.  I just said if sound comes out, then that’s what I want.

Luke hooked up the speakers and of course he had the amp working in no time.  He then gave me strict instructions never to touch the amp, and I swore I wouldn’t.  Then he handed me a flipper (I now have four lined up on the coffee table) and said this is how I’m to play music henceforth.

After that, I found an adorable metal bistro table and two chairs set for $40, which I’ve put down in the vegetable garden beside the greenhouse.  I put a lovely pot of snapdragons on the table, and voila!  Adorable.

Then I got a decorative metal bench for my xeriscape garden, to be placed at the end of the pebble pathway along the cedars.  It was kind of beaten up for $85 but by then I thought oh what the heck, I’ll just pay the 85 bucks to the woman.  And really, where it’s sitting, no-one can even see any of these defects, so I have to ignore them, too.

My stove is 14 years old and a complete mess, so now I’m shopping for one on my new favourite site.  I found an ad which says 1.5 month old KitchenAide stove for which the person allegedly paid $1600 for $600 so I’ve contacted them.  Maybe I can cross stove off my list soon, too.

As the kids and I reviewed my fab purchases, Luke said why would any buy new?  Why indeed, but it sure is great for people like me, as the stuff people throw away is still so nice.  I said to Luke honestly, the only thing I buy new are dogs and food, because the latter just isn’t any good used.

Let’s face it.  I may as well be under house arrest considering the way I have to live.  I have two wardens watching me at all times now that Luke lives here too.  I would never in a thousand years have guessed I’d have two full grown men living with me at this point in my life.

Nicky’s going to be 24 in August, and has never lived elsewhere, and Luke will be 27 in September, and fooled me with his brief exodus to Alberta, and then the recent marriage.  I kind of thought he was out for good once he’d bought into the house in Sylvan Lake with Dan, but no.

So here we are.  One small woman and two huge men who can’t do anything other than work on installing some turbo charger into the old ’92 Civic.  For breaks, they hop onto their dirt bikes and roar off into the hills.  I’m tellin’ ya, I’m getting very, very close to the end of my patience with this gig.

They can’t turn off the lights or keep the driveway gate closed so the puppy will be safe.  All of their many Purolator deliveries for computer and car parts have engendered huge piles of empty boxes, and finally after days of haranguing, Luke deigned to take his own garbage away from the yard for me.  He was pretty shocked at the suggestion, but he did it.

Selling the house has crossed my mind, as a one-bedroom condo would solve an awful lot of my problems.  But then I think of my garden, the dog and cats and think no, surely there’s got to be a way to get these two needy adult children away from me.

Nicky’s refused dinners for about four months now, which has been great.  He prefers a nice couple of bags of McDonald’s or some sushi instead.  But Luke likes my cooking, so yesterday I decided one thing I simply have got to stop doing is cooking.  So I didn’t make any dinner, and just acted casual.

Luke came upstairs at 7:00 and said he hadn’t realized what time it was (being immersed in computer games and all) and said something about dinner.  I said nonchalantly, “I didn’t make any.”  He went “oh” and I heard him make himself a sandwich.  Whether this will work or not, I don’t know.

My last strategy came to me when I heard the cats chasing off the interloper the other night with their caterwauling.  I thought maybe if I bring strange testosterone into this place, it might drive these two males out.  It’s really a measure I hate to take as it’s so drastic, but if I can switch out two unhelpful, dirty males for one helpful, clean one, I may have to try that.

But in the meantime I’ve cheered myself up with the discovery of ripe figs, which I’ve never eaten in my life.  I bought them when the German kids were here, and now I’m into my second box, and love them.  “And if you don’t care a feather or a fig, you may grow up to be a pig.” Remember that song?