I was working away in the yard the other day when a truck pulled up and a twenty-something young gal got out.  She said there was a dead tree on my property which was a hazard to the Fortis power lines and hence would have to be taken down.

I looked at the tree, which is a giant old Ponderosa pine, likely a couple of hundred years old, and it doesn’t look dead to me.  It’s been here watching the area grow all these years.  A few decades ago it must’ve been surprised to see a power line strung a few feet away from it.

The Okanagan has had some pine beetle damage, and the woman alleged the tree was a victim of them.  I said I was surprised, given the thousands I’ve spent over the years on pheromone traps which are visible on the trees.  As well, I said I had the City’s urban forester out not too many years ago to inspect my trees and he reported they were all in good shape.

I told the woman I have a responsibility to the great horned owls who use these tall old trees and said I have to call the urban forester for a second opinion.  It turns out the woman works for a tree removal company that contracts to Fortis.  If I were her, I’d find a lot of “dead” trees, too.

She handed me a sheet of paper explaining Fortis’ contractor will take down the tree, then it’s up to the home owner to get rid of the wood.  I said there’s no way for me to deal with the amount of wood that would come from a tree that size.  My God, it’s not like I planted it there on purpose.

The urban forester’s coming on Tuesday, and if he says the tree’s good, then I look forward to seeing Fortis in court.  If he says it’s damaged, then I guess I have to see that majestic old friemd go.  I nearly weep at the thought.

But on a happier note, I attended a three-hour workshop on how to make macarons at Sandrine Pastry.  It was tremendous fun, and the time flew.  First we started with making two kinds of macaron cookies, chocolate and plain.

Then we made three kinds of ganache, and filled our baked cookies.  Once done, we divvied it all up, and each person went home with two dozen macarons!  I said I can’t believe I’m the owner of 24 macarons, when they’re like gold to buy in the bakery.

I can see why they’re so expensive, though, and it’s not from the ingredients, it’s just the amount of finicky work that goes into them.  It’s a very precise business, and I’m very glad I have a digital scale as Sandrine said it has to be measured to the gram.

I need to buy a sieve, as the almond flour and icing sugar are sifted.  I also need a few piping bags and tips, as both the cookie and the ganache filling are piped.  We were able to learn all kinds of great techniques and now I want to pipe every stinking food I can get my hands on.

Last month I attended the workshop at London Drugs on how to make photo albums, and now the workshop on macarons.  I have gardening and sewing projects I allege I want to do.  I have all of these gradiose ideas for creative hobbies, and now my goal will be to actually do them.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a two-hour workshop at London Drugs on how to make photo books and albums.  It was quite interesting, and I can see how time consuming something like that could become.  I said to the women in Palm Springs I’d make them each an album, and so will have to get busy getting all the photos together.

I always have these great dreams whereby I’ll attend a workshop or course in the hopes of adding a new hobby.  I still think back fondly on the stained glass making course Denis and I took years ago.  I never made another stained glass item.

Next weekend I’m taking a three-hour macaron-making workshop at Sandrine Pastry, so that should be interesting.  Watch this actually turn into a hobby and then by next year I’ll be double my size.

But you know, lifelong learning’s what we’re supposed to be doing.  I tried to keep that foremost in my mind as I walked into Home Depot yesterday with a broken screen, only to be directed to some kind of screen repair kit.

There was a nice clerk there and he said to me it’s very easy to do, then added, “Are you handy?” and I replied, “Dear God, no!” I said I don’t even have a cell phone because I don’t understand how any of that stuff works.

He explained he doesn’t have a cell phone either, and that being technologically astute and handy are two different things.  He patiently took part of my old screen off, explained how the kit works, and sent me on my way with words of encouragement like, “You can do it!”

Sometimes sewing can have rejuvenating effects.  I have a dress whose fabric I’ve always adored but which is a bit too short.  I finally got out my glasses and Exacto knife and carefully removed the stitching from the hem and now it’s perfect.

I’m currently reading a book on binge eating for the second time, and it’s based on cognitive behaviour therapy.  One of the things I want to do is find something to keep my hands busy so they can’t stuff Oh Henry’s and Mars bars into my maw nightly.

So the search for hobbies one can quite easily do at home with ones’ wee hands will hopefully net something of interest.  Certainly dog petting and cat ear scratching are right up there as constants.

You may recall we used to have an awful lot of vehicles parked around the property.  On the weekend Nicky listed one of his cars, and it sold, so now he has one car, and I have one car, and those are the only vehicles on the property!  If you’ve never been here, you’re reading that and yawning, but I’ve lived here with up to 10 vehicles.

And I think you’ll remember just last fall I had 32 tires stacked outside the garage.  So it’s weird and wonderful to think one day I’ll have this lovely yard to myself.  One day.

But in the meantime I have to continue looking for that activity that will distract me from my heart’s true desire: carbs.

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.

Luke arrived home from Thailand, and has moved into my gramma’s old house in the orchard in Osoyoos.  It’s incredible to think of him living in the house in which I spent so many happy hours.  Of course he won’t be there much, as he’ll be shipping out to the oil rigs pretty soon, but it’s going to be his home base.

I’ve lived here for 24 years, and just this week I realized I need 25 cedars planted along the property line between myself and the neighbour who borders my vegetable garden.  As nice as Pat is, he simply can’t stand anything unkempt.  This is a problem if you’ve ever seen my property.

My house sit on top of a knoll, and around the house there’s ugly asphalt and then lawn and hedges.  However, the area that’s all hill is kept wild, so it’s a lovely profusion of ponderosa pines, bunch grass and Oregon grape.

The lower part where I have the greenhouse and garden is flat, as there used to be a warped old tennis court there when we moved in.  The vegetable beds and greenhouse are surrounded by alfalfa and dandelions.  I get Nicky to weed eat down there once a month so the taller grasses don’t grab my ankles and trip me as I water.

Beside this there is a very tidy house and yard. This house used to be the picker’s cabin that belonged to the O’Reilly’s, the original owners of my house.  Over the years it’s been renovated, and now it’s a nice solid little house.

It sells every few years, and the current owners retired from the Coast, and moved in last year.  The first thing they did was to remove all bushes from the front and had what wasn’t lawn paved.  Their manicured lawn touches my tall bunches of spear grass, and that bothers them tremendously.

A couple of times the neighbour asked if he could put Roundup along the fence line, and I said please don’t.  I’m one of the people who protests GMO and Monsanto, so using Roundup would occur over my dead body.

Last year Pat made the mistake of saying something to Nicky about being surprised the by-laws allow our mess of a yard!  We’ve been here for 24 years, and my goal’s to protect every indigenous plant I see, and here’s some nut from the Coast wanting to eradicate everything I’m trying to save.

Then the other day I was standing down there looking at their yard and wondering what on Earth to do, and suddenly it hit me.  I need a thick, heavy, tall row of cedars along that fence line. That way, my messy yard won’t be a concern any longer.

I took Luke down there yesterday to mull it over over, and we both agreed no-one likes going down there as it’s open to the street.  Now with the line of cedars it’ll feel like a private room in the yard.  I can’t wait for Artie Knapps to open, as I get to race in and order 25 Pyramid cedars.

On top of all of the joy that epiphany brought, I realized I can use Liz’ gift certificate for the purchase.  That way, for the rest of my days on Hall Road, as I enjoy puttering around in the vegetable garden in my underwear, I’ll think of Liz and thank her.

As you know, every ten years the women I was friends with in elementary and high school get together for a reunion.  This year the decision was made to fly to Palm Springs as one of us, Renate, has a house in Indio, California.

The group was originally comprised of eight members, but Liz died, and Phyllis has opted out of the reunions.  So that’s left it up to the remaining six of us to carry on. And carry on we did in fine form as always.

On Friday, the first day there, we went to a funky restaurant called the Jackalope Ranch.  A jackalope is a fictitious creature, half jack rabbit and half antelope.  So they’ve put antlers on some poor stuffed rabbits for decor.  But it’s actually very lovely inside and out, complete with water falls and huge boulders.

Renate’s house has a pool so we spent a huge amount of time in and around it, given the extreme heat at this time of year.  Skinny-dipping was a favourite activity, both at night and in the day as the pool area’s walled and completely private.

On Saturday we said we’d like to see Palm Springs.  We wandered about and I got a darling pair of palazzo pants, as did Mary.  Margaret had encouraged us to have fried avocado at the Colony Palms Hotel, so we decided to do that.

I’ve never experienced such stupid people as those we met on the way to the restaurant.  We asked two store clerks, who didn’t know where the place was, and then I asked a security guard, about two blocks away from the place where it was, and he said he didn’t know!!

In any case, we made it there, fire engine red in our faces from walking in 40 degree heat.  The lunch was great and it was divine to sit pool side while eating.  We drove straight home to Indio and dove into our own pool.

On Saturday night we had steaks, corn, salad and the women enjoyed several bottles of wine.  Due to my recent discovery that wine triggers migraines, I carefully sipped two screwdrivers each evening and for once I didn’t have a whole day ruined due to a hangover.  As we age, we do seem to get wiser.

Sunday began with Mary asking all of us to tell a story, and I told the group the story told to me on Mother’s Day by James of how Liz came to him after her death.  We’ve all suffered through tough times now and so there was a bit of weeping with the laughter over some of our stories.

We headed to a market and I found a pair of sunglasses that are also reading glasses.  Alison had told me about them, and I was thrilled to actually find a pair.  Now I don’t have to put sunglasses over my reading glasses when I try to read outside.

On Sunday night we went to a casino that has a nice restaurant, and got dolled up for that.  I have to say the six of us clean up nicely.  We asked the waitress to take a group photo as we did many times during the trip.

Then on Monday it was time for tearful good-byes, but this time we decided 10 years is too much, and we’ll do this all over gain in five years when we turn 65.

The other day at the gym I was reading a woman’s T shirt, and it said Do One Thing a Day that Scares You.  So the other day I finally decided to try and figure out why my camera battery won’t charge.  I’ve been looking at the camera for months, but was too frightened to deal with it.

However I was forced into it, which is one of the lovely aspects of life.  I went to switch my house insurance, and the agent asked for photos.  I had barely enough juice to take 4 pictures before the camera died, then I took it and the charger to London Drugs.

A poor person there had to help me, and he discovered the problem was the charger.  I got a new one, which I discovered I can’t use, and I was helped with ordering the photos, which was successful.

I returned the next day where a heavy-set woman tried to help me, and didn’t as it turns out, so I have to return again today to see if someone can show me how the charger works.  If they can’t, then I’ll have to go elsewhere.

However, despite the poor customer service, I’m returning to London Drugs for a two-hour workshop on how to make a photo album.

Isn’t that strange?  I hate technology, but signed up for a workshop!  I left feeling particularly proud of myself as it all scares the bejesus out of me.  I have to download their software, put the file of photos I want to work with on my desk top, and arrive on May 26th at 2:00 PM laptop in hand.

But it’s good to learn new things, and I seem to be learning a lot through Neflix documentaries too.  I watched the series, The Inexplicable Universe, which was really interesting.  Some of it’s much too hard for my small head, of course.

And then I watched The Secret, and it made sense following the universe documentary.  It’s based on the best-selling book, and is a workshop about how it all works.  Id’ been practicing the Law of Attraction after reading an excellent book called Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting, but somehow forgot about it.  Funny how you can forget something so important!

So between quantum physics, the Law of Attraction, and Buddhism, I seem to have calmed down quite a bit.  I think an understanding of all of that helps one know it’s never worth it to sweat the small stuff.  Or the big stuff either.

I have two food events on the horizon.  Tomorrow I’m making dinner at mom’s for a group of people, including the Osoyoos museum director and wife, mom’s lawyer and Jerralynn.

I thought for the six of us I’d start with baguettes toasted and topped with bruschetta, followed by seafood casserole, beet salad, asparagus and rice.  Then end it all with lovely strawberry Pavlovas.

Sunday’s Mother’s Day lunch’ll be fun as Liz’ brother James, his wife Julie and her son will be coming to mom’s.  For that, we’ll start with cheese terrine slices on crackers and sweet potato soup.  The main course is chicken strips, potatoes with Dijon mustard sauce and curried carrots.  For dessert I’ll make chocolate mousse.  My idea of total fun!!

I was feeling pretty swish the other week.  Hair combed, makeup applied, dressed decently.  I went to Value Village and was browsing around in the shoe section when a young woman came by with her two-year-old daughter in the cart.  I smiled at the cute little girl, she smiled back, and then she said “gramma?”

I notice when I say something about visiting my mom to a twenty year old they have a really confused look on their face.  They’re trying to add two or three decades onto someone who resembles Methuselah and are feeling a bit scared.  Having been raised on vapire stories, they’re sure my mom and I must be the un-dead to still be walking around.

However as we know, the alternative to not growing old is the pits, so I don’t complain.  Better to just resemble the walking dead than to actually be dead.

Have you ever thought of trying to start a little home-based business, but felt too nervous about how to do it?  On Sunday Nicky said he was going to put an ad on Castanet for computer repair services, and on Monday he had his first customer.  That’s how you start a small home-based business when you’re young.

 Nicky said he was able to fix the woman’s printer problem very easily.  He then took her hard drive home to load something onto it for her, returned it promptly the next day, and got paid.  Now he needs to keep jazzing up his ad in order to get more calls.

I received an order for a wedding in Ontario, so I hand made some fruitcakes and they’re beyond reproach in every way.  I think since I’m off selling to stores I’ll continue making them individually like that as they’re really beautiful. I could win a prize with these.

Have you ever tried heaping scorn and abuse onto companies by using Facebook?  I discovered once again how it brings almost instant results.  The other day my landline didn’t work, so I phoned Shaw and the customer service rep said they’d have a technician out here the next day between 10:00 and noon.

I said to her, but this is my business phone, and actually the only phone I have!  I was lucky Nicky was back from Thailand so I used his cell to call them.  After I hung up I thought what if mom tries to call me in an emergency?

So I posted on my Facebook, then Shaw’s Facebook pages, then sent an e mail to the company.  Soon after my phone starting working (likely a random event) but get this, I received a very apologetic call from some senior person and a long e mail from another person!  Make sure you try it if you want action.  I kind of like social media now.

You know how I love buying stuff at thrift as I hate contributing to the moutains of waste in the world.  But this past weekend I went nuts over new cushions from Canadian Tire.  After 14 years I felt it was okay to throw out the cushions that go on the outdoor furniture.  So I started by getting four new pillows for the chairs, then I thought how nice if the sunroom cushions all matched, too.

I needed a total of six more, and a new bench cushion so really overdid the retail shopping with 11 cushions.  But now everything’s lovely so it’s all good.

Mom came to Kelowna for Easter and we had a lot of fun.  She arrived at noon on Easter Sunday and we had a lovely spa-like lunch of chopped apple topped with sunflower seeds, almonds and yogurt.  I said we have to eat like this as we have three boxes of chocolate to eat later.

We then headed out to Value Village for a bit of fun, and mom found some pants to try on.  The cubicles at Value Village are large enough for a very small woman or child to turn around in, and that’s all.  However as mom’s 89 and slightly decrepit, she said “You have to come in here and help me get these pants off and on.”

So I crammed into the changing room with mom, but of course right as I got one pair of pants off the cubicle door opened.  There were some people standing there looking at us and she and I laughed so hard we almost wept.  I don’t know why, but the thought of the people, the sight, their faces, etc.

One pair of pants fit, and she found a couple of jackets she liked, so we headed home.  I made salmon and onions in a cream sauce and put that into vol au vent shells for dinner.  Mom loves Netflix so we settled in to watch a couple of movies.

The next day we headed off to the Mennonite Thrift Store, where mom immediately pounced on some knick knacks, and then we started to look at clothes.  Suddenly mom said she felt dizzy and had to sit down.  Then she said she felt quite sick and wanted to go home and lie down.

We drove home and mom spent the afternoon on the couch with an afghan and watched some more movies.  I puttered around outside in the yard, checking in now and again.  At one point she’d had an upset stomach and then later developed a headache.

We had soup for dinner to settle her stomach a bit, then drove to the airport to pick Nicky up as his plane was landing at 7:00 PM.  He arrived right on time and said it was a pleasant surprise to see his gramma standing there as well as his mom.  He showed us an angry insect bite on his ankle, but otherwise seemed fine.

Most of Nicky’s trip seemed to involve vast amounts of alcohol and a lot of vomiting, so I said I guess it’s time to dry out a bit back at home.  He went to the clinic and was put on antibiotics for the infected insect bite of unknown origin.  That’s Thailand for you.

The next day mom got up and felt fine so she drove back to Osoyoos.  I was thinking about her symptoms, the nausea and headache, and thought I wonder if it’s due to being 89 and drinking almost an entire bottle of wine the night before?  In our family, from kid to grandparent, alcohol likes to wreak havoc.

After 36 years of constant alcohol intake, I’ve finally come to understand how much my body will take, and I now adhere to that limit due to the pain caused whenever I throw caution to the wind.  My weakened old self is a panty waist when it comes to how much I can safely consume.  Sad!

It was 7 degrees C this morning, and I’m still frozen solid with the furnace on.  But then for fun I checked Toronto’s weather and it was minus 2 so I should stop complaining.  I like to pretend it’s tens of thousands of years ago when the Earth was chilly all the time.  That way, if it ever turns warm, it’ll be a pleasant surprise.

I imagine the bamboo I planted, given its origins are in the depths of the jungle, isn’t all that happy right now.  I got a piece of root from Petra and planted it in the lower yard where I hope to have a screen of greenery to block out people walking by on the road.  Petra said the bamboo grows like mad and has giant leaves, so it should be perfect.

However the very next day when I checked on it some filthy pest had bitten into a bud.  So I got some pesticides and sprayed the hell out of the area, and can see it’s going to be one of those long struggles to have some something like bamboo in my tundra.

Never mind, a gardener’s optimistic if nothing else.  I also planted a gooseberry and a red currant, plus I got a whole bunch of strawberry plants from Petra.  If things work out I’ll have all manner of berries down there as well as my apricot tree.

But wouldn’t you know it, though I see apricot trees covered in blooms all over the neighbourhood, my little tree has maybe ten blossoms!  I shoved some fertilizer spikes into the ground around it, as per the Art Knapp’s staff’s instructions, so we’ll see what happens.

This is one of those situations where you can choose either to laugh or to cry.  You know, like in Breaking Bad where Walter starts crying when he realizes Skyler gave all of their money to the man with whom she’d had an affair.  However when the absurdity hits Walter he starts to laugh hysterically instead.

The other month I’d said to the web designer please remove the Closed sign from my order page.  Time went on, and I thought damn it, I’ve never been this slow in the fruitcake business in the whole ten years.  I went back to my site, and sure enough, it still said closed!

So I e mailed the web designer, and said Um, can you please remove this, as my business has no customers whatsoever.  I felt like crying, but then thought why?  It’s much better to laugh about it, and let’s face it, it’s been a great holiday from baking.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m turning 60, became a Buddhist, or because I’m reading Scientific American magazine, but I’ve noticed I’m pretty “meh” about almost every formerly upsetting situation.

I said to mom I read over two million galaxies have been discovered, of which the Milky Way is just one.  Then when you think of the number of solar systems in each, you can decide either we’re such miniscule specks we’re nothing, or we have to live to our potential, let our lights shine, and be everything.

As I said to mom, who’s coming here for Easter, we’re damn well eating chocolates because we’re all headed to the same place and should try to enjoy today. 

On Saturday I went to a nice man named Sal Caruso’s house to see his garden and purchase some of his advertised plants.  With a name like that, you just know this guy’s gonna be a successful gardener.  And sure enough, when I arrived to his half-acre property I could see he has a mini Garden of Eden there.

He has two giant fig trees which he over-winters by putting a heavy canvas tarp over one, and he has them tucked right against the house and workshop.  I said that might be a project for me down the road, but for now I need something a bit simpler.

Sal has a grove of kiwis, and they’re all lovely and thick, twined up and around a pagoda.  He said they’re relatively easy to grow, as they don’t need any protection over the winter, so I said I’d take two, a male and a female.

I also bought a thornless raspberry and then oregano, arugula and garlic chives, all of which should be in my garden forever.  For now, I see nothing from the arugula, and the oregano looks completely dead, so not sure if they’ll amount to anything at all.

For more challenges, I signed up for a macaron-making workshop at Sandrine Pastry, but they were full until July 26th, so I have to wait until then.  I think that should be tremendous fun, as if I can master them I’ll always have a lovely gift to give to people.  You simply can’t buy them as they’re $1.75 each teensy weensy cookie.

As you know, I’m having the house painted and new railing put around the deck.  A company was in the neighbourhood doing driveways and a guy came to my door trying to sell me a driveway sealing job.  I said no thanks, but pointed out an area where the Ponderesa pines have caused tall heaves in the driveway.

He sent over a special asphalt repair person, and as he was going to e mail me the quote, I gave him my e mail and added, “But I’m not crazy, I just have a fruitcake business.”  I’ve noticed whenever I say to someone I’m not crazy, I usually end up acting it.

Once he sent me the quote of $5,000 I thought I don’t even want more asphalt in my yard, so replied “no thanks, I think I want rocks there and not more pavement.” I guess he wondered why I’d invited him over to give me a quote for new asphalt, but never mind.

The house is definitely a pinking mauve-ish beige, and I’m going to have the front door painted a dark gray/blue for dramatic effect.  Then all the planters will be filled with pink and mauve themed flowers so when people drive up they’ll think they’ve arrived at a little Barbie’s Dream House.

And because I simply can’t keep up to this one-acre property, I bit the bullet and asked a landscape company to give me $200 worth of work per month to help me with overall maintenance.  Otherwise the cute house and yard are all wasted if overgrown like Sleeping Beauty’s castle.