I probably don’t have the courage of my convictions.  I sent everyone on my newsletter list a terrible set of photos of Costa Ricans harvesting sea turtle eggs, then felt sick with nervousness about it.  I find I prefer hiding from contentious issues rather than attacking them head on.

The same thing with the change in business direction.  As you know, after Christmas I said I wasn’t going to sell fruitcakes wholesale any longer.  However after that announcement I decided it was far better to hide than contact the store owners and let them know.

One of my readers waltzed into Discover Wines last week and approached Tracy the owner, and said, “As Moni Schiller’s no longer making fruitcakes for sale in stores, I wonder if you’d consider trying mine.”  Tracy promptly phoned me and asked if that could be true.

I said, “as a matter of fact, I was going to contact you about that.”  And you know I was.  I was just waiting to be in the right frame of mind for delivering that horrible news.  So maybe it was better for that reader to have let her know, as God knows what might have occurred.

Tracy was pretty upset about it all, and I think not just due to the number of people who’ll freak in December when they blithely ask for a fruitcake to go with their wine, but also because she had to hear it from someone else.

I’m a very bad person, what can I say?

And now I have to add bad cook to the list, as I made a brisket the other night that was so horrible it was kind of scary.  I had Petra, Larry, Kathy and David over for dinner, and pulled the brisket out of the oven and when I put it on the plate and tried to cut it I knew it was a disaster.

When a brisket is done properly, it’s a very juicy, tender cut of meat.  I always layer it with thick pieces of lard and these melt into it over the hours it’s slowly roasting in the oven.  With the pieces of garlic tucked into slits made in the meat, the whole thing makes the house smell really good.

But if it’s made poorly and stupidly, then the meat’s completely dry and stringy, it can’t be cut worth a shit, and the whole dinner’s a ruined mess.  They all had to say, “oh no, it’s good,” but come on.  The roasted potatoes, asparagus, mashed turnips and carrots and tossed salad all turned out well, so that saved the evening.

I wore the floal palazzo pants I bought in Palm Springs and man, are they comfortable.  I wish I had more, but will just have to wear these to every summer occasion possible.  Maryjoy got a pair as well, and she agrees they are com-fy.

So while I run around in palazzo pants, write a weekly blog and monthly newsletter and post on Facebook, I find my favourite thing of all to do is to hide.  I like to scream out an extreme position, then retreat.  It must be because my astrological sign is the crab.