The plastic surgeon said there would be ‘redness’ after lasering off a few unsightly age spots.  However, I now realize that’s one of those sneaky medical terms, and that the real term should be ‘weepy lesions.’  I arrived looking normal, and left looking like the walking dead.

To everyone’s amusement, I had already booked myself into a Twitter workshop put on by the people at www.connectingkelowna.com.  The lasering had happened the day before, so when I arrived at the workshop I was in full weepy lesion mode.  I kind of felt that I should hold my arms stiffly out in front and walk vacant-eyed, searching for human victims.

Instead I said to the people sitting on either side of me, “Sorry about this, I just had some laser treatments.”  They, of course, looked horrified and silently doubted very much that looking like that happened on purpose.  Needless to say, once the workshop ended I beat it out of there.

Besides making an ass out of myself by looking silly, I also pulled off a major e mail faux pas with my inaugural newsletter.  It took weeks of upset e mails back and forth to the web host before I could even send one.  Then, I sent it with all the other people’s e mail addresses visible.  Oopsies!  I had to send a second bulk e mail apologizing.

So, I don’t think there should be any wonder at the amount of baking I’ve had to do in order to keep my nerves under control.  Today I made a beautiful banana bread, and I think I should include this recipe in my next newsletter.  It’s so wonderfully moist that there’s only half left as I write this.

Something wonderful is going to be happening on September 8th, and I am just ga ga with excitement about it.  Mike Roberts of CHBC-TV is going to come here and do a story of me for his show called Roberts on the Road.  Once a week his show profiles local people doing interesting things.

It was so funny when he called yesterday, because of course I was thrilled, but then he said, “How about next Tuesday?”  I was just flummoxed as I was standing there looking like acid’s been thrown onto my face while being offered something so valuable and important for my business.

I said something vague like, “Oh dear God.  Could we postpone it a bit?” And he was kind enough to offer me September 8th.  That at least gives me time to hopefully return to normal, no longer roaming the streets of Kelowna looking for a locked mall that I can keep bumping into as I search for human meat.

When I got up this morning I found a bag of brown sugar on the counter.  I saw that its corner had been chewed open and I suppose some of the contents eaten.  Then I saw the large Dairy Queen bag beside it, and figured that the kids must’ve gone into some trance-like eating fest prior to bed. 

Along with Nicky’s ridiculous whey consumption, they weekly consume four gallons of milk and a half gallon of creamo.  I’ve found that almost no amount of food that I make is too much.  The other day I made pounds of beef chow mein, and while making it I thought that I’d made enough for a small lion pride. 

 However, the three of them tucked into it like wild hyenas, devouring every last noodle.  I’m not sure where it’ll all end for them, but I’ve been avoiding over-eating.  The reason is quite simple: my friend Alison is coming at the beginning of September. 

As well, when she’s here we’re hoping to get together with a number of the women with whom we went to school.  Some of them have been my friends since grade one, such as Alison.  So there’s absolutely no way that I can be seen at such an event fatter than a bloated Texan at a pig barbecue.

 None of this is easy, as I insist on cooking and baking.  For example, I made fabulous chocolate chunk and reverse chocolate chunk cookies for the web designer.  The former were made with large pieces of Callebaut chocolate, which I always have on hand as I use it in my fruitcakes. 

Can you imagine having kilos of chocolate in your house at all times?  It is hell. But whenever I think of grabbing a huge hunk and cramming it down my throat, I think of how annoyed the women will feel if I show up thin.  Surely to God that’s worth more than a few minutes of enjoyment.

And this week I’ve experienced so much frustration that I’ve wanted chocolate more than ever.  I’ve been trying to do this idiotic newsletter since God knows when, and I finally wrote it.  Then I proudly went to send it, and got a message back that it couldn’t be delivered!  I nearly wept. 

Then I signed onto Twitter, not knowing a damn thing about it.  Margaret keeps trying to tell me how to do stuff with it, and I keep asking her things like, “Do I want to follow people, or be followed?”  She is getting to understand that machinery and I do not mix.

At this point I think that all I can do is imitate that kid from the movie, Oliver.  I’ll just have to go to businesses with a fruitcake, and offer it them, saying pathetically, “Please, sir……”  Maybe if people just meet me and eat the product I can get out of this horribly painful, and very frustrating social media stuff.

Except for the terrible expense, it’s kind of nice having two boys.  Right now they’ve gone off to Mission Creek together to a secret swimming hole.  It makes for an idyllic picture, doesn’t it?  However, as Luke told me that he’d seen a mother bear and two cubs there the other day it doesn’t make me that happy. 

Denis’ youngest sister Margaret and her son Brendan were here for the week.  Brendan was along for the bear-sighting the other day.  It was ironic as of course they raced off on their bicycles without bothering with helmets, and Margaret was worried about that.  Little did we know as we sat here with newly pedicured feet that the kids were metres from a completely different danger. 

We’d gotten a taste of a wasp’s ire an hour after she’d arrived from
Victoria on Monday.  I said to her “Let’s go down and look at the vegetable garden,” and she said sure.  We were looking at the Brussels sprouts and Margaret was remarking that she had no idea that was how they grew.  Suddenly a small wasp flew out of the broccoli with ferocious purpose. 

It flew straight at me and stung me at the top inside of my arm.  Not being satisfied with that, it proceeded over to Margaret where it stung her on her wrist, under a bracelet!  We were both saying really bad words about the wasp as we scrambled our way up the hill and back to the house for baking soda. 

I made a paste of that and we soothed our wounds.  For the next three days we each had a huge raised red area that was hot and then itched intermittently.  Any wasp sightings caused huge spasms of paranoia.  I’ve been stung by wasps before, but this poisonous little wasp’s sting was the worst bite I’ve ever had. 

Worse than the sting of that, though, is the pain of having to learn stuff about what Margaret says is called Social Media.  She showed me how to makes links in these blogs, and helped me with my newsletter.  We looked at my web page together and she made suggestions on how to improve that. 

But you know all too well what I’m like.  The moment I start to think about something hard, like my web page, or ugh, ‘social media’, I start to google new recipes.  I then e mail people from whom I haven’t heard in a while.  Right now, for example, I’m making plum jam and thinking I’d better stake some of my dahlias. 

At some point, though, the pain of the procrastination will become too great, and I’ll realize that Margaret is right.  I’ll then have to mound a plate with brownies and promise myself a pair of pumps when done.  Then, and only then, will I slog my way to business success using this new-fangled medium.  Why does all forward movement have to be so damned painful?

In the unbearable Okanagan heat I’ve been keeping myself happily occupied in an air-conditioned house by making tons of jam.  I made some very attractive-looking jam from the yellow and red variety of cherries called Rainier.  Last Wednesday I went to the Farmer’s Market and got some very ripe apricots.  I made deep orange-coloured, tart-tasting jam that is to die for, especially in mid-winter.

Here’s the secret to keeping jam tasting as fresh as the day it was made.  You must store it in the freezer.  Don’t make icky freezer jam, but make regular, old cooked ‘Certo jam’.  Then when cooled, put the jars into the freezer.  When you thaw one you’ll swear it was just made that day.

I also found a wonderful solution to those pesky single servings of food that are leftover from time to time.  For example, I’ll make four chicken breasts and then Nicky decides not to come home for dinner.  In our house, once something has been prepared for a meal and then not eaten, it is poison.  So in the past I would find myself throwing perfectly good food into the garbage.

Now, however, I freeze everything, and then every couple of weeks Luke’s friend Ryan comes and picks it up!  At this rate, Ryan owes me I don’t know how many hours of hard labour in my garden.  He thinks I’m doing him a favour by giving him homemade food, and yet I am benefitting from the guilt-free garbage disposal and free help.  In my defense I’d have to say he’s the one who said he’d work for food.

Speaking of food fetishes, Nicky is into this silly whey thing.  He buys gigantic vats of vile-smelling powder which he mixes into mammoth-sized mugs of milk.  Thanks to this stupid new fixation, we go through at least 16 litres of milk a week.  He’s also at the gym like a lunatic, pumping iron, and I’ve noticed that he is indeed quite muscular.

Sadly, though, he’s muscular and lean, and not fat, which is irksome.  He drinks the whey powder and milk at least three times a day, and then eats platters of food that should turn him into Perez Hilton.  The other night he had two fully loaded hamburgers with a gigantic helping of potato salad and several cobs of corn on the side.

If only I could eat like that!  A nice woman at the gym bummed us out horribly the other day.  She said she’d accompanied her husband to the diabetic clinic where she learned that weight control is 90% diet and 10% exercise.  We all wondered aloud what the hell we were doing busting our glutes at the gym day after day.

But then I can only imagine the nightmare of not going to the gym, plus having no willpower in the dead of winter.  The apricot jam will be calling, and some nice warm buttered toast slathered in jam will just hit the spot perfectly.  Unchecked, Kirsie Alley the Second would emerge, and that’s definitely not good.

Those of us of a certain age will remember the hypnotist known as Reveen.  He used to tour all over Canada, even hitting the little town of Osoyoos in the late 50’s.  I know this because my brother’s best friend, Stu, told us about it at a party at my mom’s on the weekend.

Mom had invited 16 people for dinner as my brother was in town.  The boys and I had driven down separately for the party.  Uncle Freddie is their favourite uncle, and as usual, they weren’t disappointed with the visit.

That’s because whenever my brother and Stu are together, just reminiscing isn’t good enough.  Instead, they decided to try out one of Reveen’s tricks.  My brother, aged 63, put his head on one chair, and his heels on another, body suspended between.  Then Stu commanded, “stiff as a board” and climbed onto Freddie’s stomach and stood there!  There was roaring, screaming, high-fiving and general hilarity.

Two weeks earlier for my birthday at mom’s, Denis had come along as the kids were home to take care of Arnie.  So now Denis had to stay home while the boys and I went to Osoyoos.  I drove off early to help mom with dinner prep, and the boys arrived a couple of hours later.  Their harrowing tale of the drive made me wince.

They said that at one point speeds of up to 160 km per hour were reached.  My sister-in-law just looked at me pityingly because her two girls are in their 30’s.  They also said that before they left their dad was singing at the top of his lungs.  I said, “He’s giddy because he’s all alone in the house.”

Sure enough, he phoned Osoyoos later that afternoon asking mom for “my lovely young wife.”  We all then decided that he had probably started drinking very heavily the moment the kids went down the driveway.

But that’s just the way things are going to have to be with Arnie deaf, blind and requiring two insulin injections a day.  We will have to tag-team events and basically I think Denis is pretty damn good with the idea.

I’d been praying for inspiration, and speaking of good ideas, I finally found one.  I decided than an area in which I might get some good response is in corporate and convention gifts.  Without marketing outside of my website, somehow I’ve been the fortunate recipient of some big corporate orders, such as Nokia.

So imagine if I start actively networking around the business community and marketing to businesses.  I actually started at a Chamber event last Thursday, and it felt really promising.  Impossiblist? Maybe.

I’m really starting to question whether or not Botox is even worth it after the day I had today.  Denis and I were outside, he was uncharacteristically cleaning the gutters, and I was cleaning the windows.  We heard sirens, then saw a fire truck race past us down Hall Road towards the seniors’ home at the end.

As a huge fire had broken out in West Kelowna yesterday, I felt bad that emergency personnel were being taken away from that for what I assumed must be another heart attack at the home.  A few seconds later a second fire truck raced by, followed by two fire department pick-ups.  I said to Denis, “I guess we’d better pack.”

Sure enough, within about ten minutes a plane carrying fire retardant was circling over our house and appeared to be heading for Mission Creek Park.  The bird dog, which is the guide plane, came in and pinpointed the area for the bomber.  He made a few runs, some of them making the entire house vibrate.  In any case, I was vibrating, feeling sick and trying to figure out what to save.

The phone rang, and it was Denis’ employer, telling him among other things that Hall Road was on evacuation alert.  Because he works for the Department of Transport he was being called out to help with the highway closure in West Kelowna.  When he hung up I screamed, “On evacuation alert? Again?”

As you may know, we were evacuated in 2003 for the Okanagan Mountain Park fire.  So when I thought of that happening all over again I just felt defeated.  Nonetheless I dutifully picked up some mementos, photo albums and Christmas decorations and started to photograph every corner of the house.

When the employer calls, Denis jumps, so he had gone off for his silly job.  I was at home, on evacuation alert, with Frick and Frack.  As I was packing the stuff into my car, Luke told me nothing was going to happen.  I pointed out that if the house burned and people asked why I hadn’t packed and I said because my son told me not to, I would be classified as insane.

To help me, Luke and Nicky decided to walk down Hall Road to see what was happening.  Not long afterwards I saw the fire trucks leave, and then the kids returned and said the fire was totally contained.  Later in the day when I acting nervous because of all the smoke, Nicky asked if I was “trippin’ out.”

I find that being near the children during a crisis helps bring everything into perspective.  I compulsively cleaned the windows of the entire house to take my mind off imminent disaster, and they went to the creek to cool off.  When they came home we found that we were all in far better spirits.  I was able to stop frowning, and so mercifully will be able to justify future Botox treatments.

It’s my birthday today, though we had a celebration at my mom’s in Osoyoos on Saturday evening.  It was just a small party of nine people for dinner.  Unfortunately, due to being impulsive and imprudent, I accidentally imbibed too much wine and felt like death on Sunday.

So imagine the pain of getting into a vehicle in full blazing sun and temperatures in the 30’s.  When Denis and I got home we saw that in the 24 hours we were gone an awful lot of food had been consumed.  Remnants were left of the usual groceries, but there was evidence of take-out from the Greek restaurant in Rutland as well.

I just looked at the counter filled with dirty dishes and debris and told Denis I had to have a nap.  When I got up the dear man had washed everything and the kitchen was pristine.  Surprise!  When I got up this morning the entire counter was filled with food debris and dirty dishes again.

Can you imagine how unhealthy it is to be filled with murderous rage day after day?  The only thing that helps me survive is knowing that I don’t have to drive off to a job.  Instead, like Lily Munster I can hand everyone a lunch on their way out the door.

As a result of my new life of caring for others, I think I could easily run a small group home for the mentally disabled or the elderly.  I mean, really, what would be the difference?  The folks with whom I reside can’t make their own food or clean up after themselves.  They’re unable to recall what day of the week it is.

To placate myself I’m having lunch out with my friend Kathy from the gym.  It’s going to be wonderful to actually go to the gym this morning as well.  The Monday class is a killer combination of step and weights.  That should sweat out a lot of nasty toxins.

I had a pleasant e mail the other day from a nice woman who had ordered wedding favours in 2006.  She said her second son was getting married and they had all loved my fruitcake so much for the first wedding that they wanted it again!  Something like that can really brighten a day.

To cheer me even further, the four of us are going to our favourite Greek restaurant, Yama’s, for dinner.  The kids and I already know we’re having the calamari because it’s absolutely fantastic there.  The tzaziki is so heavily laced with garlic that you can easily stun a panhandler at five metres.

So here I am, aged fifty-five, hence older than Madonna, yet younger than Cher.  Sadly I have ten times their cellulite and one millionth of their income.  However I have the pleasure of being on the couch at 7:00 PM, freed from doing gyrations on a stage.  That’s gotta cheer a person up.

When I went downstairs the other day I found the phone book shredded into hundreds of pieces.  Luke and his friend Ryan Higgins were sitting there so I asked them what had happened to it.  Luke said he’d seen someone rip a phone book in half on TV, so he tried to do it, but couldn’t.  He then acted incredulous when I informed him that I actually needed the phone book.

This is merely a very small example of the types of things I’m subjected to on a daily basis.  On Canada Day I was leaving in the morning to go to Osoyoos to visit mom and Gerry and spend the night.  I left a note of things for Denis to do, one of which was to water the vegetable garden in the morning.

Luke was leaving for Calgary that day to visit The Boarder for a few days, and I’d helped him find a small bag for his clothes.  Nicky was off work on the 1st, but said he was working the next day, July 2nd.

I had a lovely time in Osoyoos, beginning with a gourmet lunch provided by mom’s friend Jerralynn.  We then had dinner out at some friends and watched the spectacular fireworks.  It’s hard to believe but true.  This is one of the best shows in all of Canada.

When I arrived back home on the afternoon of July 2nd, I saw Nicky’s car.  I went downstairs and asked him why he wasn’t at work and he said that no-one was there so he went home.  I came upstairs and saw Luke’s bag with his toothbrush and clothes sitting near the entrance.  I asked Denis if he’d watered the vegetables to which he replied he hadn’t.

I relayed this story to my friend Kathy at the gym, to which she asked, “How do you stand it?”  I said, “Because I don’t work outside the home.”  If on top of helping three brainless males I also had to organize myself to go to a job, I think I would go over the edge.   I used to do it, but how?

Besides babysitting adult males, I think another ideal job for me would be recipe-tester.  I’ve noticed that some recipes sound good, but when made, are less than wonderful.  This recently happened to me when I tried one of Martha Stewart’s Cookie of the Month recipes.

They were called strawberry shortcake cookies, and involved fresh strawberries.  Now imagine making quite a stiff cookie dough, and then trying to get diced, juicy strawberries incorporated into it.  It doesn’t work well.  The on top of it all, there was only half a cup of sugar in the whole thing, so they simply weren’t sweet enough for anyone’s taste.

So if you have any witless males that need watching, or want any recipes tested, please contact me.  I am an expert.

You may recall a story that I told you about when I was a young child, merrily skipping barefoot through the orchard.  I stepped on a bee, got stung, and came into the house saying, “I just got stung by a bee.” To which my dad angrily replied, “You watch out for those bees!”

My dad was a lover of all animals, and he certainly wasn’t going to have a flat-footed, clumsy brat stepping on a bee, thereby killing it.  So I wasn’t in the least bit surprised this morning to see a bee sitting kind of dazed on my chest of drawers.

I shook my head and chuckled to myself, as today is the twenty-year anniversary of his death.  Only my dad would take the trouble to remind me that every stinking bee on Earth is important.  So of course I grabbed a glass and a piece of paper and risked life and limb.  I got the bee into the glass, took it outside and away it flew.

Another really influential male in my life has been Dr. Wayne Dyer.  In the 70’s I read his book Your Erroneous Zones and it really helped me a lot.  I saw him on public television last night, and he did it again.  That man is a raving genius.

Here is something he asked us to ponder.  He said you know how easy it is to face a task and automatically think to yourself, “this is going to be hard.”  But he suggested that we should practice thinking differently.

 As an example of why we should give it a try, he said to remember times when something unexpected happened.  He asked if any of us had ever been thinking that we really would like to get some money when something unexpected happened and we received money.  Many peope nodded as they could relate to that.

He said when you’re pondering some task, consider the unexpected in that you have a fifty-fifty chance of it going either way.  In other words, it may indeed be hard or easy, but you don’t know in advance because we can’t foresee the future.  You can think, “this is going to be hard” or “this is going to be easy” so he said why not pick the second thought and go with that.

Hence as I look at the basement kitchen and try to cajole myself into baking, I’m going to have to think, “this is going to be easy.”  Experience tells me that it’s not, but what the hey, there’s no harm in trying a new approach to things.  Remember Julie Andrews singing “just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down?”  Now where is that bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry that I bought the other day?

It’s the first day of summer and my delphiniums are looking absolutely gorgeous.  I’d love to include a photo of things like that in a newsletter, but don’t understand yet how to do it!  I can grow beautiful delphiniums, make really delectable souffles, write reasonably coherent blogs, but cannot for the life of me understand technology.

Last night I made one of the family’s favourite meals.  I made chicken souvlakis, roasted potatoes and Greek salad.  Just because I was in the mood for some baking therapy, I made a dear little butter cake for dessert.  Then I iced it and put sprinkles on top.  I decided a tiny corner wouldn’t hurt.  Sometime within the next hour something inside me snapped and I ended up eating the majority of it.

I woke up intermittently in the night, feeling quite nauseous.  When next I’m being whisked to the hospital with a kidney stone, I will reflect back on the cause.  Note I’m not going to try and reflect on it until the crisis hits.

Today is Father’s Day so in honour of it I’m making pork chops in a delectable whipping cream and white wine sauce for dinner.  Tempting fate, I’ve got a pan of brownies in the oven.  I figure one won’t hurt anything.

My vegetable garden has proven to be a bit of a disappointment.  The radishes were woody and the lettuce is bitter!  Vegetable growing is proving to be a bit of a puzzle.  It’s probably better to stick to producing baked goods.

As an experiment, inside my greenhouse I have two big pots, one with a bottle-neck gourd and the other with a cucumber.  It’d be great if these turn out to be great honking vines winding their way beautifully around the inside.  So far it looks promising.

Less promising are my efforts regarding fruitcake production, even though I keep telling myself how much I’m going to love it this year.  Luke and his friend Ryan, the kid who works for food, hooked my TV up to cable so now I can watch Martha while being Martha.

Last year I had the TV, but it was only hooked up to a DVD player.  I tried to watch some episodes of Trailer Park Boys, but realized one needs shows with a lot of talking and little action.  If all of the funny stuff is happening and you’re head-down chopping fruit, then you miss the whole point.

The weather changed this afternoon and there’s a wind and a bit of rain which could fell some of my tall delphiniums.  I recall this always happens the moment they’re at their full height and glory.  They’re too beautiful to cut, so maybe this is nature’s way of saying ‘go ahead.  Put some gorgeous delphiniums in a vase and enjoy.’