I had lunch with three of the members of our special group.  You know the one – the eight of us have known each other since elementary school, and we’ve celebrated turning 40, then 50 together.  With four of us managing to meet for the lunch, it constituted an impressive 50% turnout for the group.

At the lunch I asked Phyllis how she manages to stay so thin, and she said she doesn’t eat after dinner.  I’ve pondered that idea many times in my life, however it just doesn’t work.  So now I’ve found a compromise, which is to keep low-cal snacks in the house, and attempt to talk myself out of eating the bad stuff.

You’re thinking, why does she keep any bad stuff at all?  However, I can easily make bad stuff out of a loaf of bread, a pound of butter and a mixture of cinnamon and sugar.  I’d have to move to North Korea in order to truly be able to keep bad foods out of my house.

I may have mentioned a time or two in the past that I felt like quitting the fruitcake business.  This past week was another one of those times, when I half-heartedly thought I’d better do something for the business, and then wondered why I should bother.

Then the usual happened.  On Friday, I received a lovely e mail from Esther, the owner of Handworks Gallery in Oliver, saying she was running low on stock and needed to re-order!  I was giddy with excitement, and thankfully forgot all about abandoning the torture chamber known as the artisan food business.

Armed with this motivation, I’m going to do another marketing trip south on Friday.  I’ll re-visit the ten stores in the Okanagan currently carrying my product.  I’ve had new signs made for the Okanagan Harvest Cake, and bought adorable tupperware containers for samples.  That way I’ll be assured of a good quality sample going to the customer.

I sent my May newsletter out last week, and got a nice inquiry from Dawn, one of my favourite customers and a faithful reader.  She was confused about one part of the Yorkshire pudding recipe. I have to say, nothing makes me happier than when I hear from fruitcake customers, especially when they enjoy my newsletter, too.

So to expand my writing horizons, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and will be starting to record mom’s life story this Saturday.  Then once I’ve typed the hours and hours of information into my laptop, I can begin to write.  I have a strong suspicion that I’ll need all of the bread, butter, cinnamon and sugar in the house in order to pull off this project.

The beauty of genetics is its concreteness.  I mean, how else to explain why I have quirks similar to my father’s?  My dad liked to use his favourite spoon and fork, and it drove my mom crazy.  Now I find myself hiding my favourite mug in the back of the cupboard so the apes living around here won’t get their clumsy mitts on it.

However, my dad was a true eccentric, whereas I only dabble in it.  For example, after he’d had a stroke he would still drive into the town of Osoyoos.  There he’d be observed slowly dragging himself, and then his walker, out of the car.  It became more and more alarming for the townsfolk, as he became somewhat of a menace on the road.

He had his driver’s license taken away, but being ingenious, he decided it didn’t mean he couldn’t get into town.  Dad simply dragged himself onto his tractor and drove it into town.  Technicalities were no obstacle for him.

I guess that’s why I’m puzzled at people’s reactions to some of the things I do.  Some people looked shocked when I tell them that the dogs sleep under the covers.  I’m surprised they don’t know that’s what dachshunds like.  And who would deny a dog something that’s part of their very nature?

Some people find my habit of running around in my underwear in the summer strange.  No-one can see me here, and I’m certainly not about to put on an uncomfortable bathing suit.  I find shorts and a top make unsightly tan lines, so what does everyone expect me to do?

That my eccentricities should actually hit the newspaper was a bit of a surprise.  On Friday I was browsing the local paper, The Capital News.  I came upon a column about bad drivers in Kelowna, and as I’m always stunned by the driving I witness, I began to read it.  The writer started out by talking about the idiots who continue to talk on cell phones, even though it’s now against the law.

Then, near the end he added, “A few weeks ago, I saw a woman drive by using her small dog as a headrest.  The dog was wedged between her neck and the actual headrest, looking out the window.”  I thought to myself, that can only be one person: Me!

Isn’t that funny?  There I was, minding my own business, driving along with Ricky sitting behind my neck, and I was being observed by a newspaper columnist!  And as my dad would’ve explained, “That’s what the dog likes to do.  You try and stop him.”

I showed the article to the gym instructor, and she said it would be hard for her 150 pound wolfhound to sit on the back of her neck.  I’m sure I detected a note of sadness in her voice as she said that, because let’s face it, who wouldn’t want their precious dog draped about them like a fancy stole?

It’s been a fun week of cooking.  First of all, I made one of my special lunches for my pal Liz and her mom, Liza.  I started with a roasted yam soup, which I didn’t really like, but they both said they did.  We then had chicken salad, made with toasted almond slices and seedless green grapes.  For dessert I made meringue, and topped it with raspberries in syrup and whipped cream.

Today I’m heading down to Osoyoos with a cooler full of food for lunch and dinner.  I tried a new bakery, called Woodfire Bakery, and we’ll eat and review their stuff today.  Being German, we’re nuts for those large pretzels, which are coated in coarse salt.  I bought some of those, as well as a beautiful-looking ‘Munich rye’, so we’ll give it a try.

I’ve been making Bacardi Rum Cake for about 35 years now, and have grown tired of using the standard yellow cake mix.  So, yesterday I made a traditional pound cake (one pound of butter) and forced a mickey of rum into it.  We’ll also try that today and I’ll let you know if that works as a substitute for the packaged mixes.

My brother Freddie, his wife Wendy, as well as mom, Gerry and I will be having a small Mother’s Day celebration.  Nicky seemed relieved when I asked him if he minded that I wouldn’t be here.  Not that he wouldn’t want to do something, but at that age kids are always glad to be left alone.

Unfortunately, I can’t leave Nicky alone right now, as I want him to get busy and find a summer job.  He’s very persnickety about the types of jobs he’ll apply for, and so far only applied at the City and the Regional District, as they pay decently.  To my surprise, he was called in for a job interview with the Regional District.

I have to admit, I pretty much thought it would be a slam-dunk for him to get it.  His friend, Jordan, had the job before him, and Nicky had cleverly mentioned in his cover letter that he was Jordan’s friend.  He therefore whistled as he drove off to the interview.

An hour after arriving home, however, he received a call saying he didn’t get the job.  He was crushed, and has remained in the basement ever since.  This was over one week ago, and I’m asking him daily, “So, how’s the job hunt going?”  He either replies with, “Fine” or “Obviously, as I’m just sitting here, it’s not going well.”

Sigh.  So what better way to take one’s mind off small annoyances than cooking?  I’ve made a pan of cabbage rolls for our dinner in Osoyoos, and have made some devilled eggs to accompany the lunch.  I call it “Freddie’s lunch.”  He and his wife have eaten like this for forty years.  It involves cheese and cold cuts, bread and some eggs.  For fun, I threw in a pack of those nice Campari tomatoes.

For my own Mom’s Day celebration, I spent a few hours over the past days purchasing seeds and bedding plants, and puttering around inside my sanity-restoring greenhouse.  I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to enter a tiny, perfect little cocoon, all nice and warm and filled with colour.  Now that’s what I call the perfect way to find Zen.

My mom was so right when she advised me it’s always best to start shopping by doing so in one’s own closet.  Yesterday I had idely browsed through Winners and my favourite consignment store, and then came home and decided maybe I’d better see what in the world I actually have before adding to it.

I spent several hours trying things on, rather than just looking at them, and I was able to get rid of quite a bit of it.  As much of it had already come from previous owners, it was probably high time.

I went through the 40 tops, 25 pairs of pants, 30 pairs of shoes, multitude of dresses and skirts, and made concrete decisions about each of them.  As usual, I was quite surprised at the number of accidental pairings I found.  Who knew that lime-coloured top was perect with that print skirt.

Some discarded items came with the usual “what was I thinking?” but other things were – hang onto yourself – too big!  Yes, I have finally shed some of my insulating layer of blubber, and have gone from beluga to manatee.  Or, to put it less scientifically, from Kirstie Alley to Joy Behar.

And speaking of Joy Behar, don’t you just love her show?  I love Larry King’s show, too, and over the years have lamented his slow slide into senility.  Though it’s always very funny when guests have to correct Larry, and as much as I enjoy the times his make-up people have sprayed the top of his white hair orange, I was afraid no-one would be able to replace him.

Then along came Joy Behar’s show, and I realized I’m going to be okay.  Now Larry can truly and properly forget the details of his guests’ stories, and I’ll feel fine about it knowing that Joy will be there to fill the void.  Let’s face it – it’s only a matter of time before Larry’s going to have to retire.

So, the giddiness of finding a Larry King replacement coupled with the recent weight loss has helped balance the annoyance of some store manager’s attitudes.  As you’ll recall, last week I’d marketed around the south Okanagan, and sold quite a few Okanagan Harvest Cakes.  However, some places took samples and said they’d think about it.

When I called some of these places back, they had the nerve to say, “no thanks.”  I, being the practiced Fuller Brush Salesman, replied with a pithy, “no problem!” while secretly seething.  That’s got to be hard on the immune system.

These incidents show why it’s important to have a mom to whom you can tell these stories.  My mom instantly disparaged these people’s attitudes, and said they’re just plain naive and don’t know a good thing when it’s presented to them.  I had to agree, because as we all know, mother knows best.

Happy Mother’s Day for next Sunday to all moms out there!

Remember Jack Nicholson’s famous line from A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth”? These were the words I kept foremost in my mind as I did my big Marketing Week.  I decided that Okanagan Harvest Cake and Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars are NOT fruitcake.  So, I kept the dreaded F word right out of the conversation.

And what a successful and fantastic week it was!  I started here in Kelowna, and now my product is in St. Hubertus Winery as well as the gift shop in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, called Grand Snax.

I then proceeded south, and my first stop was the adorable Summerland Sweets store.  Imagine my joy as Karen, the owner, ordered a dozen of each!  Just like the proper Fuller Brush salesman, I had product in the car, so raced out and filled the order right there.

After that, I was just pumped with confidence, and went to the beautiful winery called Dirty Laundry.  You must go if you’ve never been.  They make three different kinds of Gewurztraminer, and as my Summer Serving Suggestion card recommends Gewurz with the cake, it was a natural fit.

I went far afield in either direction, first all the way to Therapy Winery in Naramata, then all the way to See Ya Later Ranch in Okanagan Falls.  In between, I met the wonderful women at Terwilligers gift shop in Penticton.  They were thrilled to see me, as the owner had heard of me from Monika, the artisan baker at Okanagan Grocery.

So after that heady greeting, I was bouyed to try the gift shop in Oliver called Handworks Gallery.  Ta da!  I’m in that store, too.  The toughtest town of all, though, remains my hometown of Osoyoos.  I left a sample with the N’Kmip restaurant, and am hoping they’ll okay the product for their new little upscale store.  It’d be perfect in there.

Once in Osoyoos at mom’s, I had the opportunity to coat my toes in bandages.  I had to look decent for the sales pitches, so was wearing my summer slides, and had forgotten the painful blisters they invoke.

The next day I drove off for more marketing, and upon leaving the Penticton VQA Wine store, was bemused to see that my bandages had come loose, and were flapping like giant false eyelashes over my toes as I walked.

Positive thoughts and vibes are a good way to start attracting good things to yourself, but you always have to do that last little thing – act.  By simply putting new labels on my boxes, loading the car, making a list of places to see, and then driving off and making myself walk into stores, I was able to make almost $1,000 worth of sales in a week!

I learned what any decent snake oil salesman knows, and that is you don’t upset the customer with abrupt language, such as the word ‘fruitcake’, which shocks the sensibilities.  No, I just kept the F word out of it entirely, and as you can see, things went very smoothly.

I think I go on about this every year at this time.  However, I have to say that I’m just amazed by the beauty of spring.  Across the road from us our neighbour, Gibb, has a huge sugar maple tree.  It’s just beginning to sprout leaves, and they’re the most magnificent shade of lime-green.

In our yard the flowering red currant is having a very good year.  It’s an absolutely beautiful shrub that when in bloom looks like it’s been decorated all over with large rubies.  I planted it about 18 years ago, and I’ve never regretted it.

Not the way I regret some of the stuff I have hanging in my closet.  When I think of how much money I’ve spent on clothes I hate, I feel really mad at myself.  What was I thinking?  Maybe I bought all of that because shopping just feels so damn good.

You may recall that I’ve been on a shopping ban for several months now.  Remember last week I scored four great tops at my friend’s work?  Unfortunately that released the inner demon again, and on the weekend I was scouring my favourite stores for God-knows-what.

I certainly didn’t know what I was hunting for, but man, it felt great!  I just allowed my manic inner shopper out and went to Winners, the Bay, Value Village and three smaller consignment stores.  I tried on a lot of stuff, but here is the great news – I only bought one thing!

So when people go on cleanses, and then say they’re more discerning afterwards about what they eat, I can relate.  Now that I’ve been on a shopping cleanse, I’m super picky about what I’m going to buy.  Why knew?  I should’ve done this years ago.

In order to ensure success in my spring and summer marketing campaign, I made a firm date with my mom for being in Osoyoos later this week. Then I made a list of 20 stores to visit on my way up and down the Valley.

This means I have to have my ordering information sheets, the fruitcakes with the new labels, and some sliced samples ready by a specified date.  Otherwise, I say vague things about marketing, but I don’t do any.

So as I prepare for my marketing campaign, please pray for me, as this is the worst, most God-awful thing anyone has to do. If you’re reading this and think “piffle” then go ahead, try.  Walk jauntily into a store, give a rousing pep talk to the manager along with samples, and then watch some moron trample your lofty dreams with a dismissive, “no thanks.”  Now that’s a regrettable situation!

I’m still giddy from the shopping spree suddenly thrust upon me last Thursday.  There I was at home, minding my own business, when I got an e mail from my friend Marilyn.  She was at work, and said a co-worker’s friend owns a chi chi clothing store, and was getting rid of winter stock.

Marilyn said the rack of clothing was at her workplace, and that I should come down and have a look.  Even more exciting however, was the price – $10 per piece!!  Now you know that I’ve been on an austerity program which involves no insane clothes shopping, but this lure was simply too shiny for me to resist.

I grabbed the dogs and sped downtown, trembling and salivating a little bit.  What an incredibly enjoyable hour ensued!  I tried on a few things, and ended up with two jackets (one of which is a Joseph Ribkoff) and two tops.  The tags were still on them, and with tax, bought in a store would have been nearly $800.  I however, paid $40!

That highlight kind of helped to balance the rest of the week, which involved the usual: big meal preparation followed by massive consumption.  Luke just left for the oil rigs today, so it’s been ten days of friends and fun.  For him, I mean.  For me it’s been ten days of high production.

But by now you must surely be thinking: is she ever going to mention the fruitcake business again?  I believe this is part of the yearly pattern.  I work like a manic Sandra Bullock from September onward, only to be blind-sided by my own inertia and ennui every spring and summer.

The good news is that I finally have new orchard-themed labels for the Okanagan Harvest Cakes, and also had summer-themed serving suggestion cards made to go with them.  Armed with that, I should be able to force myself around the Okanagan to various wineries and gift stores.  I’ll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, I have to try not to be so ugly to people who rush up to me and enthusiastically ask me how the fruitcake business is going.  I want to punch them, and tell them it’s not going at all.  Instead, I have to reach way back to junior high school drama classes, and tell them with conviction that it’s going fantastically.

Or perhaps I should try method acting, a la actors such as Marilyn Monroe.  All I have to do is recall the joy of that $10 Joseph Ribkoff and exude that.  Voila, I will be gushing with enthusiasm, bits of spittle forming at the corners of my mouth as I enthuse about the wonders of entrepreneurship.

Nicky’s been in one of those strange food crazes in which he likes to immerse himself.  Who can forget the months of nachos, made with a pound of grated cheese and eaten with half a jar of salsa?

Now he’s making batches of pancakes, and following those with bowls of oatmeal, drenched in brown sugar and creamo.  This is eaten AFTER dinner, as a snack.  I’m continually on a diet, so watch his food crazes with a mixture of envy and fascination.

Less fascinating is the way he takes parts off my car, puts them on one of his derelict cars to make it start or whatever, then returns the part.  It reminds me of how annoyed I still am over his ‘borrowing’ of my camera until he finally lose the cord.  Hence, I imagine myself careening down the highway one day, and realizing he forgot to re-install the brakes.

But I find the philosophy of offering little to no resistance to life’s foibles is the best way to cope.  I shrug.  What can one do?  If you rail against these things, it just causes dissention, but does nothing to stop the annoyances from occuring.

Plus, I like to get along and thereby avoid confrontations.  Nicky, on the other hand, says he enjoys nothing better than to argue, even if it’s just for the sake of argument.  You can see the challenges these opposing philosophies would bring.

 On the weekend we all went to Osoyoos and celebrated some Easter family time together with mom.  On Sunday night I made roasted chickens with scalloped potatoes, baked yams and broccoli.  I used Julia Child’s method of trussing the chickens, then coating them in butter and roasting them on a rack.

Today I arrived home, dead tired from 48 hours of partying with octogenarians. Mom loves staying up late, and getting up early, but I’m a bit too weak for that kind of stuff.  At 85 mom has no problem drinking wine, eating and talking until midnight.  She’s then up at 7:30 feeling great.

Maybe that’s the problem.  Perhaps once I reach 70 my stamina’s really gonna finally kick in and then I’ll have the strength to say no to Nicky.  He’ll be 35 years old, and hopefully will have stopped borrowing my stuff and will be living on his own.

I don’t like to get overly optimistic, though.  Luke came home from the rigs for a week, and the party was on.  I suppose a lot of people would be envious, so I don’t want to complain about all of the kids that have been coming and going in a steady stream since.  I just wish that my generation, the ‘sandwiches’, had a bit more jam.

This afternoon I was slaving away in the lower yard and feeling amazed at the number of rocks that seem to have appeared out of nowhere.  I got rid of wheelbarrows full of them last spring, and yet here they are, as if those rocks were able to reproduce.  It’s spooky.

I have such an aversion to picking up rocks due to the hideous job that I had to do for my dad when I was a kid.  My brother and I often talk about our experiences of picking up rocks for dad and both of us are sure we’ve been affected negatively by it.

We both remember being forced to do it a few times during our teen years.  Both of us remember the same things.  There was the steady speed of the tractor as my dad sat at the steering wheel.  The poor kid had to walk behind it, picking up rocks of a certain size and heaving them onto the trailer.

Dad was constantly peering right and left like an old whale fisherman.  When he spotted a rock, he’d point at it saying something like, “over there, over there!”

Neither my brother nor I could ever find anything under the pressure of dad’s expectations.  So the rock pick-up days were also fraught with terror as we could never see the rock to which he was pointing.

Just like when he’d send us on a mission to the garage to get “that blue-handled axe” or whatever he wanted.  As we walked to the garage, we knew we were doomed.

On top of that, it was always stinking hot, and you were walking in the dust kicked up by the tractor.  Then there was the bending and picking up of those disgusting, huge rocks, and throwing them onto the rapidly-moving trailer.

Perhaps the practice of having kids, especially in their teen years, picking up rocks would do wonders.  My brother and I often wonder about it, and both feel that once you’ve done what’s basically the equivalent of working on a chain gang, you can pretty much do anything at all.

Or better yet, get the kids to become veterinarians.  I just paid $565 to have Ricky’s teeth cleaned.  The dog weighs just 12 pounds, so imagine how little tooth surface could’ve been involved.  But the vet shamed me into having it done by saying the dog had one of the worst cases of plaque he’d ever seen!

After that I simply can’t afford to hire any landscaping help, so am thanking my lucky stars that I was hardened up by dad for life on Hall Road.

One thing I hate when I’m cooking is surprises.  As Denis and I are on perpetual diets, we shun carbs at dinner time.  Nicky, however, always wants a large amount, so I make a vulgar quantity of mashed potatoes, rice or pasta for him.

The other day I called Nicky upstairs for dinner, and noticed that he shunned the mashed potato.  I asked him why, and he said it was part of his ‘body building’ regime.  Now he said he’d decided that vast amounts of protein were required instead.

Two days later I came downstairs to see him eating a gigantic bag of chips, and so I asked how the low-carb diet was going.  He said he’d learned from a UBC prof that low-carb, high-protein diets are bad, and so was back to the combination of food groups.

We’ve grown fairly accustomed to idiosyncratic statements like that from each other.  Though the other day Denis was home for work, and around noon I said I was going out briefly.  He asked where I was going, to which I replied, “Just a quick appointment with the plastic surgeon.”

He looked alarmed, and said, “The plastic surgeon??” and I just shrugged and said, “Botox.”  Honestly, I do not like having that man at home during the week to witness the variety of important appointments I have to attend.

Anyway, I had to get spruced up in preparation for picking mom and Gerry up at the airport.  They’d been in Nicaragua for the past two months, having a fabulous time.  I drove them down to Osoyoos, and spent the night.  The next day I had a brief visit with an old friend.

Remember that group of women I still hang out with after 50 years?  Maryjoy is one of them, and she happened to be in Osoyoos at the same time, though for a sad occasion.  I dropped by and saw her and her mother, and met Maryjoy’s husband Greg for the first time.

Maryjoy and Greg must be married for about 35 years now.  Her mom asked Greg if he’d ever met me before and he replied, “No, but I’ve heard of Moni for all of my married life.”  For some unknown reason I felt quite proud of myself.

To cap off the week, I attended an excellent writing workshop at UBC-O.  It was given by the writer-in-residence, Laisha Rosnau.  We learned about setting, place, and point of view.

Now if only I could get rolfed, go to est or whatever’s required in order for me to release that creative part of myself to be able to write well.  But in the meantime, I have lashings of pasta ready to be topped by pounds of protein.