Remember that old rhyme? “Cross my heart and hope to die.  Stick a needle in my eye.”  How about sticking a wooden meat skewer into your eye?  It’s kind of a hard thing to do normally, but this is how I did it.  After I put on mascara I like to separate any eyelashes that are stuck together.  I use a wooden meat skewer to perform this delicate operation because it has a nice fine point.

If this point is applied to the eyeball rather than the eyelash, however, things change in an instant.  What has started out as a beauty routine ends in a medical emergency.  Luckily, after an hour of tears streaming out of the eye whenever I opened it, it seemed to recover and I was okay.  I was relieved that an eye patch wasn’t going to become part of my daily attire.

Last week I converted another fruitcake hater, so am another inch closer to Fruitcake Heaven.  Wendy McLellan of the Province interviewed me a few weeks ago for the Minding your own Business column in which I’ll be featured on March 30th.  In passing, she said that she was actually a fruitcake hater.  Of course I told her I was sending her a fruitcake, and she said, “Please don’t.  I will not eat it.”

Imagine how thrilled I was to receive her e mail last week saying that she had been forced to open the fruitcake when she had guests and no other dessert.  She wrote, “It was DELICIOUS” and said I had made another convert.  These types of e mails always seem to come in the nick of time, as I’m daily on the verge of packing it in.

Seriously, every five minutes I’m deciding that this is a hare-brained idea and that I should just stop it.  Then I’ll send out a few e mails to stores, feeling sure they’ll reply that they hate my product, and sure enough, either an order is placed or kind words are conveyed.  The nice owner of a new store in Courtenay called Brambles said she adored my fruitcakes and will be ordering them again.

Oh fine.  I’ll keep at it, but marketing is a daily struggle.  If you look at my home page, you’ll see that Steve, the brilliant web designer, has put up a nice ad for Mother’s Day.  Google Ad Words always sends out very good advice and I’d received an e mail regarding Mother’s Day marketing.  What better for a mom who has everything than one of my fruitcakes?

In case you think I’ve totally forgotten that Easter is yet to come, I can assure you that thanks to Martha’s mag, I have not.  I studied the section on how to decoupage blown-out eggs, and seriously considered purchasing the recommended ostrich and emu eggs.  Then I imagined cutting out the teensy tiny shapes, applying glue to them, then painting the entire finished product with glue, and suddenly felt all motivation drain from my body.  It’s probably much better to use that time to search out beauty treatments that do not maim the recipient.

Sunday was unfolding like an ordinary day.  Little did I know what the fates had in store.  I was merrily reading away, when the phone rang, and it was Luke.  He started out casually, saying he and his girlfriend had decided to part ways.  He then reminded me that he was waiting to be re-called to his job, and said that he was paying a lot of rent in Calgary while waiting.

This was the lead-up to what we’d feared, but expected.  Yes, Luke is moving back home again!  My adorable baby boy is coming back into his sainted mother’s arms.  However, the baby’s grown large, and the mother less saintly over time.  Fortunately, we’re all quite philosophical about it, and really, Luke is feeling bad to have to do it.

Kids these days seem much younger for their years compared to us.  I got my first apartment when I was 19.  It was at the corner of Hemlock Street and 10th Avenue in Vancouver.  I lived there for five years, and though I’d visit my parents and grandparents a lot, I didn’t return home to live.

The old apartment building’s still there, and I love to see it when I’m visiting Vancouver.  I enjoy thinking back to the days when I learned how to cook.  It started with the ability to bake frozen chicken pies and then progressed slowly from there.  I literally didn’t know how to make a damn thing.

I certainly wouldn’t have been able to learn how to cook from my mom, as she didn’t cook at all while I was growing up.  My dad cooked, but he was a very sensitive person.  Hence, if one asked, “What is it?” of his food, he would reply snarkily, “It’s a what-is-it.”

You can probably guess that my dad was the type of person who enjoyed being alone.  He admired the actress Greta Garbo, who’d expound in her Swedish accent, “I vant to be alone.”  My dad, being of a very succinct nature, would just say, “Garbo” and this would be the signal that he wanted to be by himself.

Around here, with Denis and Nicky, and now Luke added, I can say, “Garbo” all I like.  In response I will hear, “Gumbo?  Sure, I’d like to try that.  When is it ready?”  Meanwhile someone will ask me where the mayonnaise is while looking right at it, while another person will tell me one of the animals has vomited.

However, it’s hard to keep a euphoric person down, and Friday is the first day of spring!  Today I’m off to stock up on groceries in anticipation of Luke’s arrival.  Room will have to be made in the yard for yet another vehicle, and with any luck we’ll soon have one of them back up on blocks.

Imagine how wonderful it was for me to get positive feedback from a stranger who had stumbled onto my blog!  Dawn is a really nice woman who lives in Edmonton, and who was searching for fruitcake when she came upon my site.  She read my latest blog entry, and took the time to e mail me.  She also placed an order for her daughter’s wedding, which was really fantastic.

In my last blog I’d maligned the drivers of PT Cruisers, VW vans, those with veterans’ plates and anyone with a plate from Alberta.  Dawn e mailed me a witty reply to let me know that Albertans thinks it’s actually the British Columbians who are in her words, “the worst.”  Who knew?

You know how loathe I am to contribute to the recession by behaving conservatively.  However, I do think my cookie mania has showed me that homemade gifts really can be appreciated.  So far I’ve sent out peanut butter/chocolate chunk, double chocolate, white chocolate chunk and oatmeal with chocolate chunks and pecans, and no-one has protested.

And when you think of it, no-one is interested in some mass-produced ‘objet’ from China.  Not that there’s anything wrong with their stuff, it’s just that people no longer have the room for yet another fairy statue.

Have you ever received a new item, only to carry it from room to room, desperate to find a small space for it?  Inevitably I’ve had to start to treat my stuff just as a museum does.  I now rotate things.  I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but God help me when my mother finally dies.

I say finally, as my mom just turned 84 and is still in better shape than people twenty years her junior.  This Friday I’m going to Osoyoos as it will be Gerry’s 94th birthday.  I asked mom if he’d swum in the pool during their two-month sojourn to Nicaragua these past two months.  She said, “Oh yeah!”  ie what do you expect from this spry gentleman?

To prevent the trailer truckload of articles coming my way in twenty years or so, I decided that from now on I’m going to give mom and Gerry only stuff that they can actually use.  So this week I’m going to make several gourmet meals and then label and freeze them.

Mom said she wouldn’t even make toast for Gerry while they were in Nicaragua, as she said she refused to ‘cook’ while there.  They ordered in breakfast, then went out for lunch and dinner.  So to prevent absolute culture shock for Gerry, I do think the best remedy is for mom to be able to go out to the freezer and bring in a nice bouillabaisse or else some coquilles St. Jacques for their dinner.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but lately I’ve been busier than the Pillsbury Dough Boy with cookie production.  I have a wonderful cookbook called Home Baking, published by the Robin Hood company.  It’s filled with the most fantastic cookie, cake and bar recipes.  Why someone who’s always on a diet owns something like that I’ll never know.  Maybe it has something to do with my sneaky and evil subconscious.

Last week I got a phone call from a reporter at The Province.  I’d totally forgotten that last October I’d submitted my company profile to a regular business column called On the Move.  The reporter interviewed me about the business (which will appear in the March 30th edition) and asked if I’ve ever thought of making anything else.  I told her that I make killer cookies, and that customers have asked me if I make anything other than fruitcake.  I said that I always lie and say no.

So this is where the sneaky and evil subconscious comes in.  Now I’m thinking, “hmmmm, I wonder if I should make cookies?”  I mean really, now that I have two commercial-quality cookie sheets which I recently bought at Home Sense, the number of burned cookies has gone down dramatically.  Maybe I could stand the tension of cookie making.

I guess first of all I’ll have to see what The Province column brings in terms of orders.  Besides that, the Kelowna Wine Museum is going to feature my Okanagan Harvest Cakes at their Neighbourhood Nosh event this Thursday.  Hopefully locals are not falling for this new “the sky is falling” philosophy and therefore not buying unnecessary things.

Even Oprah is touting a new-found penchant for modest and conservative consumption.  Yesterday’s Oprah show was inspirational, as it was all about simplifying one’s life.  She had people on who were shopaholics and who were vowing to stop because they just had too much stuff.  They had a woman on who has more pairs of shoes than me!

As much as I agree with it all, the lure of spring fashion proved to be too damned strong.  Do you remember how many pairs of pants I have?  Me neither, but now I have three more.  Why??  I don’t know what happened.  One minute I was carefully browsing the clearance items at Winners and the next thing I knew I was at the till with pants and shoes!

I think a lot of my problems could be solved if clothing stores would barter.  For example, I would happily trade them two fruitcakes or four dozen cookies for a pair of pants.  In general, the world would probably be a much happier place if we got rid of filthy money and replaced it with maniacally decadent baked goods.

An interesting thing that I forgot to mention about Kauai is that it’s overrun with wild chickens.  Many of the roosters and even some of the hens are very beautiful.  We asked some of the locals where all the chickens came from, and heard two very distinct stories.  One was that in 1992 they were blown in by a typhoon.  The other story involved Philipino immigrants who brought them in for cock fighting.

Another adorable thing that one sees all over the island is the PT Cruisers.  Why they’re the vehicle of choice there, I don’t know, but as the highway speeds are mostly 25 – 35 Mph I believe that has something to do with it.  Here in BC I treat the PT Cruiser like any of these other dreaded signs of inane driving: the V.W. bus, anyone with license plates that say Veteran, or any plate from Alberta.

The trip to Kauai is by now a distant memory and I’m wondering if I actually went.  If I tell people I’m just back from a trip to Hawaii they search my face and arms for a tan, and I can see their disappointment.  I feel like I’ve let them down by not being as brown as a nut.  Couldn’t they just be happy that I meet half of their expectations, ie I am a nut?

An interesting concept occurred to me this week as I was doing some baking for a loyal customer in Toronto.  She’d asked me to make her some Totally Decadent Fruitcakes in the style of my early years.  At that time, the cakes were mixed by hand, and I made them in smaller batches.

When I returned to that very artisan method of baking, I realized that most of my creative joy comes from being very small and hands-on.  It’s great to have the capacity to make 200 fruitcakes in a day, but I’m re-thinking my original goal.  If I make and sell only three thousand fruitcakes a year, and if they’re all made in this way, I think it’ll be a win-win situation.

We know home-made products, or those that taste home-made, are hard to find.  Therefore, I think over time I’ll find those loyal customers who want a gourmet product that’s been lovingly made.  Maybe I’ll be one of the last fruitcake artisans.  How sad to imagine a Christmas season filled with only Mrs. Willman’s crappy fruitcakes!

Oh well, I can’t worry about that now.  I bought super huge and gnarly pig’s ears for the dogs, and they’re too massive to be cut by garden snippers.  I found the axe and am going to head out and cut them into manageable pieces.

After that I have dinner to prepare, and as we know, after 24 years at 365 dinners a year, it does become a bit of a challenge to think of something new and interesting to make.  But hey, that’s what we food artisans do!

You know how it’s a sign of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result?  Tonight is probably the third time in my life that I decided I wanted to make Hungarian goulash.  Every time I’m sure paprika tastes different than it actually does.  Although it looks gorgeous, I just tasted the goulash, and went “oh-oh”.  I obviously don’t like paprika.

For Valentine’s I made a beautiful dinner, which was greatly appreciated by Nicky and Denis.  I made Swiss cheese and crabmeat-stuffed chicken breasts.  These were accompanied by roasted potatoes and broccoli topped with sliced almonds sauteed in garlic and butter.  I’d asked Denis if he wanted a chocolate souffle or a chocolate mousse for dessert, and he chose the latter.

In the afternoon I decided I should make a batch of brownies for Margaret and Brendan.  Denis was on his way to Victoria for his course at Royal Roads University, so I had him deliver them.  Sadly, three brownies didn’t fit into the tin, but somehow found their way down my gullet.

Needless to say the diet has been totally shelved.  As wouldn’t you know it, there was still quite a large amount of mousse sitting in the fridge, calling me.  Because my gluttony knows no bounds, and because I’ve been off chocolate for several weeks, I appear to be what could be described as “dangerously out of control.”

To take my mind off it I strolled through the mall.  Conspiring against me was the nice hearing impaired woman who works at Shoppers Drug Mart.  She’s the kindest human, but for some reason had a whole stack of boxes of Lowney’s maraschino cherries on a trolley.  This panicked me, as I thought they must be destined for the garbage bin.

I quickly grabbed a box and raced to the till.  That night, after having eaten both rows of the box of Lowney’s maraschino cherries, I decided that I need to get some kind of a grip on myself.

I think boredom might be rearing its ugly head, and that can’t lead to anything good.  This week I simply have to get busy and phone the stores that carried my product to see how their sales went.  I must also try to figure out how to bust into the winery gift stores in a big way with either the Okanagan Harvest Cake or the Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars.

If I would just do what I have to do, I wouldn’t be bored.  However, I prefer to fritter away my time, then act surprised when nothing’s happening.  It’s that insanity thing I alluded to at the beginning.

Last time I was away and came home from a trip, the entire inside of the fridge was coated with the contents of an exploded Orange Crush can.  Yesterday when I returned home from Hawaii, the inside of the fridge looked fine.  However, the rest of the house is absolutely filthy.

Nicky proudly told me that he and Denis partied like wild hyenas all weekend.  Apparently Luke decided to come home for the weekend from Calgary, and brought Dan (The Boarder) with him.  So I guess the four of them were just having a testosterone ball, as I see every scrap of frozen food was eaten.

I was going to return to the gym today, but instead must wield a vacuum and then a mop to get this place into shape.  Mostly it’s the several pounds of pet hair that need to be removed from the wood floors.  For those of you about to call the health department, please be assured that my commercial kitchen is hermetically sealed in the basement.

I’m proud to say that Marilyn and I ate like monks while in Hawaii, so I lost a few pounds and gained a tan.  We tried to walk a lot, and found that on Kauai the beaches go on for miles and miles.  We saw several seals sunning themselves on the sand during our walks.

Kauai turns out to be quite an interesting little island.  It’s the oldest of the chain of Hawaiian islands, and as it’s quite tiny, is easy to navigate.  One hears Hawaiian spoken there quite a lot.  The island is dotted with tiny towns, though there are two larger centres.

We went to an outdoor market at Kapa’a and I bought a Polynesian flower themed apron.  I thought that would both be useful as well as a nice memento.  Next winter when I put it on while baking fruitcakes I’ll feel nostalgic for sun and sand!

I tried to snorkel in front of our resort at Poipu Beach, but the current was really strong.  At one point I had one hand on an outcropping of lava, and the other was holding my underwater camera.  As I tried to take pictures of the fish my body was horizontal, just like in the cartoons.  I knew if I let go I’d be swept away.

Much tamer pursuits involved lying by the pool, barbecuing insanely thick steaks, and browsing through stores.  I felt extremely moderate in my purchases as I only got two dresses, one T shirt, a pair of sandals, a pair of earrings and one pair of shorts.

Now it’s back to the old routine.  I have my creative writing class at UBC-O today, and am looking forward to being back.  Country Woman has notified me that they will be featuring my business in their December issue!  So even though the house resembles an abandoned lean-to, there’s always good news to counter the bad.

Just so you know, I’m leaving for Hawaii on Wednesday, so this same stinking blog will be sitting here until I return on February 9th.  In preparation I’m having a fit about the weather, nervously and compulsively checking the Kelowna Airport departures every few hours.  This has been going on for weeks, so by now my nerves are totally gone.

Maybe that explains my latest bout with stupid behaviour.  Last Thursday I did the usual, parked in the big lot at UBC, and then put a nice note on the dash.  The note is always the same, “Sorry, I forgot to bring change.”  Prominent signs are displayed around the lot advising that a ticket needs to be purchased from the dispenser.  Failure to do so can result in a ticket or being towed.

After class I headed straight to where I’d parked the van, but when I arrived, it was gone!  I felt sick as I realized my “sorry, no change” gag had finally failed.  However, I also felt that I deserved to be towed, as here I was, flouting the parking laws of UBC.

I trudged up the hill and went into the security office.  Unfortunately, on my way I passed my creative writing prof and said to her, “I’ve been towed!”  She reacted with disgust at the strict punishment meted out for parking infractions.

As soon as I told the people in security that my van must’ve been towed, both nice guards shook their heads and said they hadn’t towed anyone that day.  One of them phoned down to a colleague and read my license number to him.  I waited nervously, though with some joy as I thought of never seeing the van again, and making the claim for theft.

Sure enough, the guard phoned back that indeed, my van was there!  I said, “Oh my God, I feel so stupid!” and was given a ride to the lot in a golf cart.  I then had to e mail my prof and tell her how incredibly stupid I am.  What a day!

It’s funny because I’m always so sure that I’m right.  I was sure I knew where I’d parked, but it turned out I was at the opposite end of the row.  And because I felt so sure that I was guilty of an offense, I didn’t even bother to search the lot.

At the gym we hand over our car keys in exchange for a locker key.  Last fall the receptionist handed me my key, and I said with utter conviction, “that’s not my key.”  She replied calmly, “it’s the one you gave me.”

I shrugged and took it, knowing she was nuts.  I went out, and sure enough, the key started my van.  Hmmmmmm.

So it appears that a nice holiday somewhere warm is probably going to be a very good thing.  Please think of me now and again as you are freezing.  Aloha!

I followed up with some of my stores to see how sales had gone.  Dufflet Pastries in Toronto reported selling three quarters of what they’d ordered, so that wasn’t bad for the first time out.  I’ve realized that it’s one of those things where once people know it they but it.  At first, though, it’s like, “Fruitcake?? No thanks!”

But don’t ask me how many fruitcakes I’ve sold, as people like to do.  They think I’m being coy, but I’m serious when I say, “I don’t know.”  The spiral bound notebook in which I record sent and received invoices only works for the stores.  For other orders, I put credit card receipts in an envelope for my poor accountant.

In March or April, she will hand me a tidy bunch of neatly typed stuff, and only then will I actually know the number of fruitcakes sold in 2008.  When I was interviewed for the Vernon Morningstar newspaper last month, the reporter asked me how many pounds of fruit I go through. I said, “Hmmmm, I’m not sure….”

Actually, I would have to say that I’m very much of an instinctual entrepreneur, and not your normal school-trained variety.  I just do things because something in my gut says to do it.  Later I find out I was just having heartburn, but by then it’s too late.

On Tuesday after the weight-training class I went up to the instructor and told her that I won’t be there next week.  I said I had to watch the inauguration on TV.  Actually, I mentioned it to lots of women at the club, and not one of them went, “me too!”  Maybe I am some kind of a nut??

My dear friend Alison is right there in D.C. in the thick of things, as her apartment is just three or four blocks from the Mall where it’s all happening.  She’s going to actually be standing there watching the whole thing, so I feel mighty jealous.  To placate me she’s bought me a deck of Obama playing cards in which Cheney and Bush are the jokers.

I had lunch with my old pal Ralph from teacher training days at UBC.  We always like to reminisce about the time the prof told us to lie on the floor and feel a dot moving through our bodies.  On another occasion he made us chant vegetable names in the dark.

At one point as our practicums loomed someone nervously asked the prof what to do about discipline problems, and he said, “Be creative, and you’ll never have a discipline problem.”

Needless to say the grade sevens I had for my first practicum made mincemeat out of me.  Ralph and I still laugh ourselves stupid about all of that, even though it happened over 33 years ago!

Oprah has become the world’s guru, so I think it’s great she did a whole confessional show on getting fat.  She has everything anyone could want, but still gets bummed out and eats herself into oblivion.  Therefore can anyone blame those of us with no fame or fortune for eating like horses?  If she has to eat to feel better, then the rest of us should have custom-made feedbags slung around our muzzles all the time.

Mine would contain the items that I consumed at 8:00 last night: shortbread, chocolate and Miss Vicky’s jalapeno chips.  The year is off to a bumpy start where the diet is concerned.  On top of the nighttime shenanigans I’ve been meeting friends for lunch and happily consuming fries and lettuce drenched with full-fat Caesar dressings.

I find it inspirational that Oprah and I are both having serious issues around food at the very same time.  The unfairness of it all, though, is that Oprah has a doctor, a trainer, a spiritualist, and many other professionals around her.  I have a surly husband, a hungry teenager, a blind diabetic dog, two feeble-minded dachshunds and two disinterested cats on my team.  I wonder which of the two of us is going to beat this weight thing?

Oh well, you know what I always say.  When in doubt, go shopping.  You cannot believe the sales at this moment.  At the Bay they have those fab racks where it says, “50% off.” Under this sign it says, “Take an additional 40% off.”  I found a great housecoat, regular $58 for $12, and the most darling Ralph Lauren two-piece pajama for $24 (regular around $90).  My God, that was a great afternoon!

On Wednesday Nicky’s girlfriend, Taya, came over to take a bunch of photos for Country Woman Magazine.  They’d sent a list of suggested shots, so I baked a batch of fruitcakes and Taya took photos of the process from start to end.  She’ll edit them and put them on a CD as the magazine said they want them early in the New Year.  It’d be great if they decide to run them and do the accompanying story.

I’m enjoying the second half of first-year creative writing immensely.  We’re learning interesting things, and are given exercises in order to practice them.  The worst part of the course for me is my own idiocy regarding the use of the computer to post and read my and other people’s stuff.

When the prof explained it, I was like, Huh??  “You have to go on-line, blah blah blah.” By this point I was too frightened to listen, and was wondering if I had passed a chocolate bar vending machine on my way up the stairs.

Fortunately on the way out I was able to visualize my thighs at a normal size and passed the chocolate bars without a hitch.  I drove home, feeling triumphant, and quickly mixed up tuna canned in water with low-fat mayo and threw that onto a large bed of lettuce.  I wolfed it down, wondering how Oprah and I were going to manage the next couple of dark months of winter.