In the days when TV brought a maximum of four black and white channels into the house, I was sometimes reduced to watching The Wide World of Sports on a boring Saturday afternoon.  It always started with the same scene as they showed someone winning an athletic event while another person crashed.  The voice-over was “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”  This was what came to mind last week as I received a rejection from Chatelaine.

Yes, it’s true.  I should be crushed, but I actually felt wonderful because of how nicely Monda Rosenberg, the food editor, did it.  She took the time to explain that there are so many space constraints that not everything fits into each issue.  So who knows, maybe next year I’ll get lucky.

She ended her e mail with, “They are totally outstanding and believe you me I have tasted a lot of fruitcakes in my days.  Even judged them at the CNE.  Just remember that you make one of the best tasting fruitcakes in Canada.”  So how in the world could I be upset?

I’m far more upset by having three males acting like sloths around me all day.  I wouldn’t be surprised if fungus started growing on them from lack of activity.  The other day Luke got up at 11:00 and said he’d power wash the small deck for me in preparation for staining, to which I replied, “Too late.  I’ve already done the second coat.”

Denis came home from work and said, “I’m going to start on the windows,” to which I replied, “Too late, I’ve already washed them.”  Recently he was bothered by an errant elm tree and cut it down.  He’d hauled up the branches and said he was going to rent a chipper.  I realized I’d be living with the tree debris until after the Olympics, so simply phoned the yard waste removal company who came and hauled it all away.

“Too late” is a refrain often heard by the three men.  Of course they’re absolutely thrilled by it, and would only be frightened to hear it at dinner time.  Last week I made really delicious butter chicken, which Luke decided needed to be followed up by homemade donuts.

I’ve never made donuts before, but Luke found a recipe on-line and they were actually really good.  We ate them hot, dripping in oil and slathered in icing.  And this after a day of low carbs and heavy exercise!  Oh well.

Now I need to get serious with my on-line marketing, as increased web sales are my goal for this tiny business.  If I could sell 3,000 fruitcakes directly to customers, I’d be very happy.  Of course I’d hoped Chatelaine would be instrumental in making this happen, but that would’ve been too easy, wouldn’t it?

Grocery and household shopping has now become an epic event.  I go to the Real Canadian Superstore for the bulk of the stuff, such as paper towels, staples like tomato sauce, milk, eggs, yogurt, etc.  However, I don’t like their meat or vegetables, so I get those at a small independent store called Lakeview Market.

Then I must go to Costco because they carry Squirrely Bread, which is made from sprouted wheat and not flour.  I also get bran bars there.  The family likes the bread at a Germany bakery downtown called Tripke’s, so I go there for their beautiful flax seed bread.

However, only Safeway carries the fat-free creamo, so I have to go there now as well.  Then, add Buckerfields for the pigs’ ears and munchies for the dogs, and Nature’s Fare for my many nutritional supplements.  Did I mention the wine at the licquor store?  Needless to say it involves a day a week to hit them all.

This is precisely why I say to Denis that I have absolutely no time for any frivolity such as getting a job.  He’s had the unadulterated nerve to suggest this from time to time, implying the fruitcake business is a bit crazy.

When these insulting moments have occurred in the past, I became quite livid.  Now, however, I just sigh deeply and slowly shake my head as I sadly say to him, “I would love a job, but unfortunately I simply don’t have the time.”  How I used to work outside the home over the past 25 years I do not know.

Right now I can barely keep up with watering the flowers and vegetables, never mind cleaning the house.  I’m wondering what’s going to happen when I realize that I’m running a growing cottage industry that has a firm customer base.  Every year I’m surprised by that, so not sure when I’m going to accept it.

In three months I’ll be up to my neck in glace cherries, and wondering why I neglected to bake.  I’ll be crying on the phone to the box manufacturer, and begging the label company to rush the order.  Under duress I will scream profanities at the family for making inane requests.

Even now I’m getting orders in dribs and drabs, and these are still due to the Province article that appeared at the end of March.  Should I have the great luck of appearing in Chatelaine Magazine, I can only imagine what’s going to happen.

Meanwhile, there’s Yorkshire pudding to be prepared to accompany tonight’s roast.  As soon as I sign off here I’m going to look up some recipe sites for a quick dessert.  Certainly there are priorities one must have in life, but for now, mine is to while away the time with food-focused activities.

Denis’ idea of home ownership is to ignore any renovation and maintenance issues.  After several years of mentioning that I think the deck needs staining, he decided this was the year that it would finally happen.  Last weekend when I asked for the hundredth time when the event might occur he said, “next weekend.”

A few days later mom and Gerry were by for a visit, and as we were all assembled out on the deck I proudly told them about the impending deck maintenance project.  Denis piped up with, “Oh, um, I’ve got a hockey tournament next weekend.  But I can do some of it between games.”

So imagine the mood I’m in as I type this blog.  I’ve just spent two days in the blazing sun working like Octomom during flu season.  To add drama, it ended last night with me stumbling backwards and cutting the bottom of my foot really badly on a sharp stone edge.

The bad mood began on Friday morning when I woke up with a horrible stiff neck.  It got worse when I went to the store and bought the stain.  I never know where to find anything in Rona, and even when I find stuff, I have no idea what to do with any of it.

The saga then continued on Saturday when Luke, Nicky and I took turns using the pressure washer to blast the old stain off the deck.  This took several hours.  Then we applied some wood cleaner with a mop, and rinsed the whole deck.  By this time my biceps were shot and I needed a large glass of wine.

On Sunday morning we were ready for the actual staining, and after a day in the sun I was ready to kill someone.  I believe I am done with it, and am hoping that Mr. Hockey will apply the final coat.  If the deck burns down at this point I will not care, as I am very close to needing hospitalization.

Besides a sun burn, I have a cold sore and the aforementioned stiff neck.  My foot hurt so badly last night that I had to take two Tylenol.  I have a weird pain in my throat that I am sure is some type of malignancy.  Have I mentioned that I’m a hypochondriac?

Next week should be somewhat better, as I have two deliveries of Okanagan Harvest Cake to make to the south Okanagan.  That means a trip to visit mom and Gerry, and the opportunity to drive through the most beautiful scenery in the world.

As you know, I was just in Germany and it’s a beautiful country.  However, whatever they have there is, in my biased opinion, dwarfed by the majesty of the Okanagan Valley.  And now to top off all of that beauty, there is a lovely, newly-stained deck in East Kelowna to add to it all.

I’m humming kd lang’s song because I’m this close to getting into Chatelaine Magazine!  I sent an e mail to the food editor reminding her that she’d invited me to contact her in May or June of this year.  She sent a brief reply thanking me and said, “we will look at it for this fall.”  Can you believe that?!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed and praying to the God of Success for this to come to fruition.  We all recall the hope of City TV, don’t we?  So just because something may happen we know it doesn’t mean a thing.  However, I have to say I’m completely pumped by the possibility, and this has helped motivate me in several ways.

For starters, I cleaned the sun room in preparation for the coming season, and this involves at least an hour of vacuuming on one’s knees.  Further degradation on behalf of the house involved me doffing my attire and using both Comet and CLR to scour the interior of the basement shower.

I’ve also frolicked around the garden like an overweight gnome, planting 17 different varieties of vegetables.  The dahlias I’d put into the greenhouse sprouted nicely and I’ve planted them around the house.  I’m thinking that all of this positive karma has got to help the business.

However, in terms of actual fruitcake production I must say I’ve been rather remiss lately. ‘Lately’ being a slightly misleading term meaning the past four or five months!  Also, I’m hiding from my web designer because he asked me to do something technical for the newsletter.  It’s funny, isn’t it, how one can come within a hair’s breadth of success, and then sit there, immobilized.

Once again, food comes to the rescue.  Rather than do the above, I prefer to cook and bake for family and friends.  I discovered that Luke’s pal Ryan Higgins will work for food.  In exchange for assisting Luke in digging the sixth bed in my vegetable garden he’s been here nightly for dinners.

Then Dan, aka The Boarder, showed up from Calgary for the weekend.  He and Luke impulsively went off to Osoyoos to stay in mom’s guest house for the night.  However when I showed Dan a pot roast I’d bought, he said he would postpone his return to Calgary by one day and would definitely be here for dinner tomorrow night.

While the kids were out digging yesterday, I decided they needed fortification, so made granola bars and date squares.  My rationale was that both are fairly healthy.  Unfortunately, this rationale completely went to my head, and before I knew it I was bloated.  It turns out there’s an actual limit of rolled oats that the body will accept.

And now with the house in some semblance of shape and the yard up-to-date, I do hope I’ll snap out of this avoidance thing.  And speaking of which, remember my pledge to write a book or two this year?  Maybe I should aim for a page or two a year and I would actually realize my goals.

Denis is a very lucky man.  That’s because I received a positive reply to my apologetic phone call and e mail to Urban Fare.  I’m very excited about it all, as I spoke to the bakery manager of the Yaletown store, and she’s already placed an order for this fall!  So, I have had to re-think my former position on Denis’ imminent demise.

I sent a letter to my relatives in Germany, and told them that photos of our visit would be forthcoming. Then today I got the sweetest e mail from one of the younger cousins, who is distantly related, but we don’t care.  My mom is an only child, so as I say to everyone, we’ll take all of the relatives we can get!

One of the dearest things I saw in Germany was a tiny cemetary for royal dogs.  It was part of the castle at Landsburg.  This is in a really beautiful part of southern Germany, and we strolled around on a lovely sunny day.  We toured the grounds of the castle, and after walking through a rose garden we came upon eight graves of the royal dogs.

We heard a lot of beautiful dog ownership stores from our relatives.  One of my mom’s cousins, Ursula, had a dachshund named Seppel.  She said when he was 14 he had become quite ill, and she knew his death was imminent.  On the morning of his last day, she said she woke up and had to search the whole house for him.  She said she found him under a buffet, tucked in the far corner.

Because she was unable to pull him out, and due to his labored breathing, she said that she lay on the floor as near to her dog as possible.  After a couple of hours, she said he breathed his last.  That’s just a small example of the incredible people our dear relatives are!

And speaking of breathing one’s last, I’ve had a terrible fight with compulsive eating.  It started innocently when a good friend told me about fat-free creamo.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  I thought it had to be an oxymoron.  But I found it at Safeway, and it sadly started me on the road to hell.

You’d think that starting the day with fat-free creamo would lead one to a committed day of dieting, wouldn’t you?  Unfortunately, something inside me just snapped as I decided I was owed a whole bunch of calories.  Rationally, I knew I wasn’t, but who can understand the subconscious of the mentally deranged binge eater?

Maybe it was the incredulity at not having gained weight while in the land of the Wiener Schnitzel.  Whatever it is, I’m hoping the God of Willpower will make it stop.  And really, it’s just another example of mind over mind.  Just a few days ago I was wishing Denis ill, and now here I am, making him a delicious dinner of curried chicken.

Denis has done a lot of asinine things since we got married, but this one takes the cake.  As you know, I’ve been touring around the south of Germany with Nicky and our relatives.  I left a list of things to do, and not do, but I guess around here it is Opposite Day whenever I’m gone.

For example, on the list I wrote not to water the house plants, as I’d thoroughly watered them the day I left.  So when I got home and looked over at the plants by the large living room window, I wondered why in the world they looked so sad.  Surprise!  Some complete numbskull had drowned them in water.

Far more importantly, though, on the list I wrote, “Please check phone messages and return calls as necessary to let them know I’ll be back on May 8th.”  Imagine my surprise to have received an exciting message from the buyer at Urban Fare.  She said they’d changed their mind, and did want to order!

As it was #1 of 15 calls, I assume it came early on in my two-week absence.  I asked Denis if he’d called her and let her know, and guess what?  He didn”t.  I really and truly, honestly and completely understand manslaughter.  Something in the mind just clicks over, and there you are, standing over a corpse.

Not sure if I am able to rectify the situation, but have left a pleading and apologetic phone message, and as well I sent an e mail. That, plus the general filth in the house, garbage not set out for pick-up, flower beds around the garage left without water, etc., has put me into a terrible mood.

On the trip I read Augusten Burrough’s hilarious book Running with Scissors, and found solace in the character of Agnes Finch.  She lives with a total lunatic, and is so worn down by his antics that she eats dry dog food from the bag.  When the kids cut a hole in the kitchen ceiling to put in a skylight she is unmoved.  Oh, to be Agnes Finch!

Until I find that kind of acceptance, I’ll have to bury myself in the photos from the trip.  Our relatives were so kind, as we were driven all over the place and shown so many beautiful things.  We took a side trip to see one of Ludwig II’s castles called Herren Chiemsee.  As well, we were treated to Schwabian fare which has added about five pounds to my carcass.

The flights coming and going were living hell, as I’d expected.  Can anyone seriously sleep while sitting upright in a cramped seat?  I was quite surprised, though, to receive food as well as free alcohol.  Another piece of humanity was the unlimited amount of free movies.  I watched Burn After Reading, which I just adored.

The trip was a really great experience, and Nicky now loves Germany and his relatives which was my goal.  Now I just have to figure out how to work my way through feelings of hostility while remaining prison-free.

A good alternative career for me would be car sales.  Just now I sold our grey van without breaking a sweat.  I sealed the deal with a nice man, then phoned Denis at work.  I asked him for how much he thought we should list the van.  He said, “I dunno, maybe $5,000, but we’d never get that for it.”

He then added gloomily, “On a lot, you’d only get $2,000 for it on a trade-in.”  I said, “Would you take $4300 cash?”  When he said he would, I said, “Well, I’ve already sold it!”

Ain’t life grand for Denis?  It’s his van, and I listed, showed and sold it, and all he had to do was clean it out.  I think it’s wonderful that his life is filled with surprises like that.

We had a 1966 Chev Impala that I smartly sold a few years ago for $6900.  Same scenario.  Denis, long-faced, said some co-worker had offered him $5000 for it.  I laughed and said, “Watch this.”  I listed it on a classic car site and a nice man from Tacoma flew up, bought it, and drove it home.  Unfortunately, it was winter, and when he e mailed me later he said the Snohomish Pass with summer tires was quite the experience.

Now I’m on the look-out for an older Honda of any make.  I had a 1982 Honda Prelude from when it was new until 2005.  I still see it being driven around by the people who bought it.  You simply cannot kill a Honda.

Wild unpredictability is what it’s always like here at 3321 Hall Road.  Two weeks ago I thought I was going to try and live within my means, and here I am, shopping for a car!  Not that I need more shopping after the weekend I just had.  It wasn’t my fault, though, as I needed it as a sedative for my nerves.

On Friday morning Luke woke up and said he had a terrible pain in his lower right abdomen.  I told him it was probably appendicitis, and when the pain continued to get worse I drove him to emergency.  It’s funny, but our car practically steers itself there.  Kelowna General Hospital Emergency ward, here we come again!

Sure enough, it was appendicitis, and Luke had an appendectomy on Friday evening.  I guess because that caused some sort of nervous prostration I found myself cruising the aisles of my favourite clothing stores all weekend.

I ended up with two pairs of pants, three tops and a pair of sandals.  Tomorrow Nicky and I leave on our two-week trip to Germany, so I decided that I simply needed some new clothes.  While packing, I’ve hidden my suitcase from the dogs by putting it out in the sunroom and running back and forth.  They get really upset when they see it so I try to protect them from all that stress.

Nicky and I are flying from Kelowna to Vancouver, Vancouver to Amsterdam, and finally Amsterdam to Stuttgart.  The whole sojourn begins tomorrow afternoon around 3:00 PM and ends at 5:00 PM their time on Saturday!  I will be feeling very, very sick by then, I can assure you.  However, as I want the schnitzel, spaetzle, strudel and riesling, I have to be willing to suffer.

Once again, I was bitten in the buttocks by those foil-covered chocolate Easter eggs.  I’d made the mistake of buying a gigantic two kg bag at Costco, as I wanted to have enough to make a decent-looking basket.  I bought a bag of purple coloured grass and a matching purple and pink basket.  I then added the chocolate eggs and of course it looked adorable.

Sadly, though, one by one those eggs started to call me.  The worst of it is that the chocolate is of the cheapest quality, largely comprised of wax, sugar and flavouring.  As a rational person I understood that, but every evening around 7:30 lunacy would take hold and then the eating would begin.

Sigh. And so it goes in the dieting world.  One step forward and three steps back.  I finally threw the last few chocolates out, and am now back on the plain yogurt and apple for breakfast.  Tuna packed in water and mixed with low-fat mayo on lettuce will be lunch.  A piece of chicken and some veggies with no butter will follow for dinner.  Is it any wonder that diets fail??

Besides being phobic of diet food, I have claustrophobia, so was particularly disturbed by the story Nicky told me of being stuck in an elevator.  He was out on Saturday with his girlfriend and a bunch of other people.  They got into the elevator at her apartment building, and at the fifth floor it suddenly dropped half a floor, then stalled completely!

He said there were 11 of them in the elevator, and apparently it said, ‘maximum 12 persons.”  As soon as the elevator stalled, he said the fan stopped working so they all started to feel mighty hot.  At this point I would’ve been screaming and acting like a maniac, so I can only admire them for remaining calm.

The so-called emergency phone turned out to be a prop, and didn’t work at all.  The resident manager didn’t answer his phone.  So, they phoned 911 and the police and fire department came!  They couldn’t do anything either so they had to call out the elevator mechanic.  Finally, after 45 minutes they got out of there.

In that instance I suppose I could’ve practiced visualizing myself down in the garden.  Recently I did some research into bee keeping, as wouldn’t bees be fun?  It turns out that it’s fairly complicated, and you absolutely have to accept getting stung.  Also, if the hive grows too large the bees can swarm, and I imagine the neighbours would frown on that.

To work off the recently-acquired stomach, I had quite a bit of fun in the garden.  I planted asparagus as well as radishes and garlic.  I bought raspberry, blueberry and black currant bushes.  Now if I would just stick to eating that stuff I wouldn’t need to search stores for items of clothing that say, ‘stretchable.’

I don’t think anything makes me madder or want to cry harder than technology.  The only thing that even comes close is the reflection of my haunches when I’m sitting on the bed, putting on or taking off pants.  I guess it’s the powerlessness in both instances that causes so much frustration.

My sister-in-law Margaret is a marketing maven, so she’s always suggesting better ways for me to use my site.  She said I simply have to get onto Twitter, which scares the bejesus out of me, and she also said that I should be doing a monthly newsletter.  Bravely, I decided to try and start with a bulk mail-out as a first step.

It just sounds so simple, doesn’t it?  Follow the instructions of Outlook Express and then go ahead and send to everyone in your address book.  Sadly, this is just a cruel joke and doesn’t work at all.  After trying a few times I had to e mail the web hosting company, which caused its own set of difficulties.  ie, who is the web hosting company??

Once I’d found them, they sent a complicated set of instructions on how to set up a newsletter.  Step One: Enter your User Name and Password.  I just sat there, incredulous at the level of difficulty of the question.  I don’t know about you, but I have dozens of User Names and Passwords, and certainly haven’t committed any of them to memory.

I wisely decided that I’m completely incapable of doing any of the setting up of the newsletter and conveyed this to the genius web designer.  Unfortunately, he has sent me a list of questions that almost pushed me over the edge.  I read them over, swallowed hard, and e mailed back, “Look, I need a stiff drink and then I’ll work my way through them and get back to you.”

The only reason I’m putting myself through all of this hell is that a newsletter will be another chance to communicate with the world.  I’m even more ga ga about writing now that I’ve finished first-year creative writing at UBC Okanagan.  Plus, it really helps to write to some kind of a deadline.

Without a deadline I find that days can go by and I haven’t written a single word.  I had hoped that motivation would magically descend upon me and allow me to write a page a day.  How I thought this would happen, I don’t know.  I’m currently working on this idea: now that creative writing has ended, why not use that time to write?

Instead, however, I’m sure you’ll find me barefoot out in the yard, willing some plant or other to grow.  Or, maybe you’ll see me browsing the aisles of a grocery store, begging for inspiration for the day’s dinner.  As tough as this sort of thing is psychologically, it’s a picnic compared to what technology does to me.

It’s Mojo’s ninth birthday today!  We got her when she was eleven weeks old and she was the cutest puppy ever.  Unfortunately, she turned out to have the IQ of a small soap dish, so we endured a thousand dollars worth of damage in her first year.

I still think fondly of the designer jeans she chewed.  Actually, now that I think of all the carpets that were replaced it was probably a few thousand dollars’ worth of damage.  Oh well.  I try to think of all the joy she’s brought us.

I’m also trying to put a positive spin on the almost daily visits to the grocery store.  For example, I’m telling myself that daily shopping is very cosmopolitan.  Unfortunately, hauling Chinese-grown vegetables home from the Superstore doesn’t quite have the cache of browsing a farmers’ market in Paris.

But shop I must.  I have two people living at home who use mixing bowls for their cereal.  Even the regular toaster is too small – the four slicer must be employed.  They nicknamed it ‘the quad’ several years ago.  Nicky will decide to make sandwiches, and turns to Luke, “I think this calls for the quad.”  He should have his hands on hips and be wearing a cape when he says it.

The other day Nicky put five eggs into a bowl, added a heap of creamo, then poured this into a frying pan that held a quarter of a pound of butter.  He accompanied his scrambled eggs with toast thickly spread with butter.  Although I raised my eyebrows a smidge, I’ve learned that if I say anything it leads to no good, so I keep my comments to myself.

In any case, I prefer to concentrate on the nice bit of business generated by the Minding your own Business column in the March 30th Province newspaper.  I hope you saw it.  If not, here it is: http://www.theprovince.com/Life/Turning+fruitcake+haters+into+lovers/1443414/story.html

I received both telephone and on-line orders, and hopefully these people will become regular customers.  As a result of the heightened adrenalin that day, I sent assertive e mails to the local winery store managers.  I pointed out that I know there’s a ‘buy local’ push on everywhere, I am local, hence…..

Thankfully it remains sub-arctic out, so I haven’t done a thing in the yard.  See how this ‘make lemons out of lemonade’ attitude is working?  No, really, I’m happy not to be able to garden because it gives me so much more time to buy groceries and make dinner.