Parenting continues to be an interesting experience.  As you may recall, Luke went to Thailand in April, and came home saying he was in love with a Thai woman.  Since he’s come home they’ve spent 10 hours a day talking on Skype, he has proposed, and the wedding’s in  Thailand in October!

Naturally I’m attending my baby’s wedding, so have been getting my head around the ide of it all.  First, I have to fly from Vancouver to Bangkok, which appears to take 18 hours.  I immediately began researching airlines and told Luke I’m not going unless we fly Cathay Pacific, as they have the best reviews.

Then once we arrive in the steaming hell hole of Bangkok, we take an 8-hour bus ride north to the province of Ubon-Ratchathani. My new daughter-in-law, Jan’s village is located very close to Laos.  Luke said I’ll be sleeping on the floor and there’s no bathroom, so of course I said I’ll just adore it so much.

To do: Phone Dr. Lacroix and get a prescription for sleeping pills.  Strong ones.

But really, the research I’ve done on Thailand and Thai weddings is making me very excited about it all.  From what I read, the Buddhist ceremony starts in the morning and goes on all day, and into the night.  The entire village shows up and Jan said they’ll be married in the rice paddy.

Right now the area monk’s choosing the date, as is the tradition.  He picks a date that ensures the marriage will be long and happy.  Once I know that, I can start to look at flights.  I plan to spend two weeks because after the dear village, we’re apparently going to a resort on an island in the Gulf of Thailand.

I’ve been talking to Jan by texting back and forth on Facebook, but she wants me to get Skype so we can speak before the wedding.  I was talking to Luke about it and asked if it was too hard for me, and he said look mom, if Jan’s able to do it, you can do it.  So I’m going to try.

You know, now that I’m fully inerested in Facebook, and also have to research Thailand and Buddhism, plus send e mails and messages to Jan and Luke, I can’t think about another damned thing!  All day I sing this ditty from Lady and the Tramp, “We are Siamese if you please.  We are Siamese if you don’t please.”

But I fear it may be more like the old song One Night in Bangkok.  “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble, not a lot between despair and ecstasy.”  Now Luke says he’s scared to have me see the insanity of Bangkok but I said too late.

I was called by the nice editor of Country Woman Magazine again.  You may recall a few years ago she was interviewing me, but then nothing came of it.  She said this December they want to feature fruitcakes, so I’m hoping I’ll be lucky.

I have to build the business so I can hand it over to Jan someday.  Luke said who wants an Asian fruitcake? and I said what’s Asian about Jan Doyle?  It’s all in the marketing, as we well know.

The other night Nicky was looking through the cupboards for something to eat after dinner, so I asked him if he wanted me to make him some pudding.  He said, “Sure!” so I made him some nice homemade chocolate pudding.  I use the old Joy of Cooking cookbook for recipes like that as you can’t beat it for simplicity.

I received a nice cookbook from Petra (a.k.a. Pat) as a hostess gift, and I tried the beef sukiyaki recipe.  I didn’t think it was all that great, as compared to what I’ve had in Japanese restaurants over the years.  But Nicky’s pal Taylor was over so I invited him for dinner, and both boys tried it and declared it ‘legit.’  They both loved it actually, so that was nice.

However, I don’t think I can properly convey the annoyance I feel every time I look out of my south-facing windows.  For 22 years I’ve seen nothing but trees, but now with a huge house being built across the road, I’ll have people staring right at me.

From Monday to Friday the builders are there, and it’s really disconcerting.  I’m so used to wandering out my French doors onto my deck and eating at the table, dreaming about lots of wonderful things.  Now as I approach the doors I’m assaulted by their old rock and roll music station and feel completely uncomfortable out there.

I’m not sure what can possibly be done about it, and the other day I said to Nicky maybe I’ll even have to stop walking around in my underwear.  But then I said you know, I think dad was right when he used to say, “If thine eyes offend thee, pluck them out.”

I mean, I was obviously here with this privacy before the house was built, so to put it in the kindest and politest terms possible: shove off.  If they don’t like what they’re seeing, they’ll have to cast their gaze elsewhere, because I’m afraid I don’t think I can change at this age.

And it’s precisely that type of upset that I blame for my recent weight gain of 5 pounds.  Remember how I dieted to get into shape for Toronto?  I guess once the trip was over I decided I may as well try to eat my troubles away, and though it didn’t work, I managed to gain 5 pounds of blubber right on my stomach.

I had another letter to the editor published the other day.  This time I wrote about why I’m against a ridiculous new development called Kelowna Mountain.  It would be comprised of a golf course, year-round snowboard hill, 1500 homes and a bunch of other stuff that’d drain this lake entirely.

I have to say, as well as the chocolate pudding and beef sukiyaki a lot of interesting cooking projects are keeping me completely stimulated, so that’s a good thing.  The June Martha Stewart magazine is a joy, and I intend to try some of the recipes, like the strawberry cheesecake ice cream.

I’m salivating over the flourless chocolate cookie recipe as well as a tres leches cake that uses coconut milk as one of the ingredients.  So I believe you can see my dilemma: food is fun to make and fun to eat.  It is comforting.  However, the excess “fun” is 5 pounds of fat in one month right on the gut.  Cruel!

On this date in 1964, I received my first horse.  Her name was Babe, and she was a middle-age bay mare.  Unfortunately, because none of us knew anything about horses, we didn’t know she was pregnant until April 19, 1965 when she gave birth to a little white colt who we named Max.

I think that’s why I’ve been particularly haunted by the play War Horse.  When you’ve hung around with horses you realize how intuitive and smart they are.  The queen and I apparently both have a great love for them, which is just another reason I adore the queen.

I find it very irritating when people say the monarchy is irrelevant, and who cares about the queen, and so on.  When I think of how much tourist money she’s brought to England, and of what an example she sets for the world, I can’t understand why others think that’s nothing.

In any case, I was always raised by my parents, and especially my dad, to think of them as Cousin Phil and Cousin Liz.  That’s because we’re all teutons, so dad naturally made the leap to us being related.  Therefore what they do has always been a large part of my life.

Did you watch the Jubilee celebrations?  I did, and loved them.  I especially like looking at a creature as lithe as the Duchess of Cambridge.  How does she do it?  I’m currently trying to reduce my bulk, and when I see that I can see I have an awfully long way to go!  But then she’s 30 and I’m 58, so go figure.

Being bored and cantankerous, I’ve just written another letter to the editor.  This one is about a ghastly project whereby the developer literally built a ski hill just outside of Kelowna, and then went to apply for permits!  But thank God, unlike the queen, I’m allowed to give my opinion.

And I’m also trying to do more of that on Facebook, as it’s a good way to slag or promote things.  I’m still not getting the hang of Twitter, but one can only do so much when one can barely still use a touch telephone.

Nicky left for Alberta on Tuesday, but before you get excited, it’s just to visit Luke and he’ll be home any day.  I’m hoping he sees the benefits of moving to a place where the jobs are plentiful and the pay’s good.  And selfish and horrible old me, I’m also kind of hoping that one day, after 27 years, I’ll have some time alone.

Yesterday I talked to a super nice pal from the gym who separated from her husband of 30 years and who said she is kind of sad it’s just her and the dog in her house.  I went, are you nuts??

I gave her a good pep talk about the virtues of solitude and she said she needs to speak with me more often.  I said well no kidding!  But then it’s just like people’s opinions of the queen, so I guess we have to say vive la difference.  What else can one do?

When Bev visited me last fall she asked if she could use my laptop to send me an e mail, and I said sure.  However, after a few minutes of frustration, she gave up. Because of my zeal at striking the keys with the force of a punch, I’ve managed to wear off the letters. Bev’s not a touch-typist, so you can imagine her annoyance at my keyboard!

The roving hub in the computer had packed it in years earlier. So whereas other people can sit at their nice sunny dining room tables, I’ve had to be connected to the actual cable in order to do anything on the Internet.

Whenever I unplugged the laptop and took it to Osoyoos to type mom’s biographical information, it squeaked whenever it was plugged in again.  There were toast crumbs wedged so firmly that some letters hardly reacted when struck.

Once the laptop was running, I noticed the motor roared very loudly, but I just thought oh well.  Backing up files would cross my mind now and again, but I thought as I didn’t have a clue how to do it, I’d just igore that, too.

Yesterday morning I was typing away, and suddenly the computer turned itself off.  As this had never happened before and due to the squeaking, roaring and no back-up, my blood ran cold.  I decided to just slowly back out of my office, and then I ran dow the hall and paced in my kitchen for a while.

I consulted with a fellow member at the gym who works for the RCMP in their special computer section.  She reassured me it was likely just the power inside the laptop that was now gone, but that the hard drive should be salvageable.

When I came home from the gym I just wished for good luck and picked a mobile technician from the Yellow Pages.  He came over, transferred my files from the poor old laptop onto the new one Luke gave me for Christmas, and installed an external hard drive to boot.  Now nothing can happen.

So despite a few traumatic weeks of landscapers, a broken computer and surprisingly huge invoices, I’m now in pretty good shape all around.  The yard is now supposedly all going to be automatically watered, so without hours a day of watering, life should improve tremendously.

I’m off to Osoyoos today then will pick up cherries on the way home to make some more bark.  Tracy, the owner of Discover Wines, ordered some tiny bags of bark and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I don’t want to sell my products wholesale anymore.

I decided I’d continue to sell to her, because the quantities are manageable plus she’s the first store owner who contacted me, and who helped with my foray into stores.  Besides, with my new-found time I should surely be able to handle that.

My hands and arms are like lead due to my Kamikaze-like gardening methods.  For example, I’ll do things like pull on an errant root like a badger with a snake’s tail, rather than stand up and get a shovel.  Last weekend I gardened for a total of about 16 hours, and yesterday for four hours, and now my body’s weak from the experience. 

But it’s that time of year, so if not now, then never.  Hence, I’ve now planted an inordinate number of tomatoes, including some heritage varieties, one of which will be almost black!  I also have potatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, peppers, Swiss chard, beets, carrots and green beans.  I’m pretty excited.

Yesterday the weather was motivational, so Nicky and his friends helped me with some difficult work like weed eating.  As this isn’t your conventional yard, the weed eater is a gas-powered behemoth that I can barely lift, never mind maneuver around the plants.

You’d think with the four times per week of gym attendance, and the heavy gardening and yard work, I’d be as thin as Nicole Kidman, but no.  It’s strange, but working like a mule seems to engender a mule’s appetite, and I indulge it.

The SOSS (Southern Okanagan Secondary School) grad class of 1972’s having a reunion on the Labour Day weekend, and I can’t be the largest one there.  It’s frightful enough to have to show up all jowls, but with Donald Trump’s girth to boot, it’s just too much.

Mojo resembled The Donald the other day, too.  I put down the dogs’ bowls of their dry munchies for breakfast, and Mojo just looked at hers.  This never happens with a dachshund, so I felt her body and realized she was as taut and blown-up as a zeppelin.

I don’t know what caused it, but she was fine by dinner time.  The day before the cats had brought in a mouse, as they like to do.  Mojo won’t tolerate a mouse in the house, so after stalking it for some time, she was finally able to get it when I moved the TV and stand out of the way.

However, in the past I’ve always been able to get her to drop the mouse once dead, but this time she just couldn’t stop herself and ate the whole thing.  I’m thinking the mouse must’ve disagreed with my pure-bred dog.

But unfortunately, not a single food item seems to disagree with me.  I invited my friends Kathy and David, Pat and Larry for dinner on Wednesday.  I made the broccoli and coconut milk soup I had in my latest newsletter, as well as chicken, rice, beet salad and a four-layer chocolate chunk torte for dessert.

Thankfully I know myself well enough, and before they left I wrapped the remaining cake and gave it to the two couples to take home.  I knew what was going to happen to it if left in my possession, and with three months to go until the reunion, I can’t take any chances.

As you’ll recall, Luke installed video surveillance on the property after the garage got robbed a few weeks ago.  This turned out to be a very opportune thing, in light of the damage caused by a group of marauding bruins.

On Thursday morning, our garbage day, I let the dogs out as usual, and they didn’t return.  I looked out the kitchen window to see if I could find them, and saw the heavy city garbage can on wheels had been knocked over.  Naturally the dachshunds were busily chomping on the contents.

Once I had the dogs inside, I went out and got a shovel and broom and cleaned the week-old garbage off the carport floor and steps leading up to the sliding door.  While doing that I heard water rushing in the yard.  I went to the water box where all of the irrigation lines originate, and found a line broken, water spewing out and the box full to the brim.

On the way back to the house I looked down do my vegetable garden and saw my bee hive was smashed to pieces!  Now I was beginning to wonder what on Earth had roamed our property in the night, and when Nicky got up I told him to replay the night’s tape.

In the meantime, I was phoning landscapers and Denis, trying to figure out how to turn off the rushing water.  The box was about to overflow, at which point an awful lot of water was going to whoosh into the neighbour’s yard.  And these are the neighbours who are very odd to boot, so it wouldn’t have been good.

The only answer seemed to be to find the valve at the bottom of the box, and turn it off with a big metal T shaped implement.  Nicky and I both tried, but with three feet of turbulent water on top of the valve, and the gushing cold water hitting us in the face, we couldn’t find it.

Finally Brent, the landscaper, sent his stepfather to come and try to turn off the water.  Brent’d been fooling with it the day before, and thought maybe he’d done something stupid.  However, this turned out not to be the case.

When his stepdad came with a friend, they marched to the box, one held a piece of plywood against the rushing water, the valve was now easily visible, and voila! They turned off the water and the catastrophe was averted.

Meanwhile Nicky had replayed the night’s tape, and the story it told was a fascinating one.  First one sees bears bounding toward the camera, their eyes red in the darkness.  Then you hear the garbage being knocked over, and then you see them up close: a mom black and not one, not two, but three cubs!

I guess at first they must’ve slapped the bee hive around, then came up the fence line, and stepped on the irrigation pipes.  Brent later looked at them and said a great deal of weight came down on them to break one like that.  Then the bears found the garbage and enjoyed a feast of that.

Once full they left piles of bear dung in the yard, and I guess sauntered away to sleep it off somewhere.  Now I have the garbage can itself inside the little shed on the top of the driveway, and the door is kept shut.  I love animals, but honestly, I have to draw the line at a family of bears.

Do you know why I know that for a fact? Because my dear friend Liz kept every letter I wrote to her from September 1967 until June 1968.  She, her brother and parents went to Switzerland for a year, and I of course remained in the lovely bosom of Osoyoos.

I was visiting Liz and Liza yesterday, so she lent the letters to me to take home and re-read.  What a joy to be able to re-live the events of 45 years ago as though they occurred yesterday!  What I realize more than ever is that we really don’t change all that much over time.

One letter ends, “I’ll tell you how much I weigh if you tell me how much you weigh!” (We were 13 years old).  It’s also a chronicle of music, “I love the song Lady Madonna,” and fashion, “My mom’s making me the cutest dress with an empire waist and baby doll sleeves.”

I talked about the many Elvis Presley movies we saw every Friday night at the Sunland Theatre, and mentioned that I got the cool new Monkees album.  I wrote about how horribly stupid I was in math and how much I hated band.

But most importantly, the letters chronicle the year of my first boyfriend, Aldo.  It begins in September, with me describing the first kiss in detail.  It continues with movie and dance dates, and ends in June with, “I can’t wait until after the last school dance when I can say good-bye forever.”

I realize I’ve been a bad girlfriend ever since I was 13, and I believe if you’re just no good at something you should leave it alone.  I described events at which I “accidentally” ignored Aldo, or “unknowingly” flirted with someone and made him mad.  Oh My God, I was a little brat even then.

The letters also mention mom attending a Liberal convention in Ottawa, where she planned to support some guy named Pierre Trudea.  A letter sent in June describes my time as a Trudeau Girl and the excitement of campaigning for him.

In the letters I’m reminded how unfairly I felt I was being treated by my mom, who wouldn’t allow me to attend Teen Town dances.  Many of my letters to Liz ended with “of course mom wouldn’t let me go.”

But perhaps it was all to the good, and here I am, 45 years later, reading my words and feeling highly bemused by them.  The main message I got from that year’s worth of letters is this: thank God I didn’t have a girl.

It took quite a while to read that many letters, as I think there are about 40 of them!  They’re all at least one tightly-written page, but some run to as many as three pages.  So, like this blog, it seems I’ve had a long-running attachment to describing my week’s activities to some hapless reader.

You know how Gene Kelly sings, “Gotta dance!” in the musical Singing in the Rain?  I guess my motto’s going to have to be, “Gotta write!”

The country mouse visited the city mouse, and had a good time!  Alison lives near the corner of Yonge and St. Clair, so we were minutes from the city by foot or subway.  We also drove around in the car, so I was able to see quite a lot of Toronto in four and a half days.

When leaving the house Alison has to program the motion-sensitive alarm.  As I secretly felt smug because of where we live, you can only imagine my chagrin at a call from Luke that we’d been robbed while I was away!

Nicky was home alone, and fast asleep, as were the dogs, so someone just helped themselves to a bunch of car parts and tools in the unlocked garage.  Luke came home from Thailand the following day, and found out about it from a freaked-out Nicky.

Thankfully Luke is a computer and all-around electronics genius.  In one day he and his pal Tyson layered on the security.  Thanks to them we have cameras, alarms and motion-sensitive lights, and now the place feels as secure as its nickname, The Compound.

But back in Toronto, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it, except to feel briefly perturbed.  I was too busy.  We began with all-out cultcha in the form of the Picasso exhibit, followed by the play War Horse.  A sob fest if you love animals, so just a heads up.

I had the first manicure of my life, as there are several Vietnamese-owned nail salons near Alison’s house.  I bought a vintage half-slip at a store in Kensington called Courage My Love.  We later did a driving tour of Cabbagetown and Rosedale.

The morning always began with lovely coffee and a great read.  Alison and J.T. are avid newspaper readers, so I was in my element.  I’ve decided I simply have to try to find the Sunday New York Times someplace in Kelowna. 

Because I’ve been pals with Alison since we were six we have our own way of interacting.  For example, when I developed blisters from all the walking, Alison stopped and said, “Okay, give me your shoes.”  Because we have the same size feet she decided by switching shoes I could survive because the pressure points would be different.

And speaking of shoes, we went to the Bata Shoe Museum, which is well worth it.  We also saw a cute French farce one evening entitled The Game of Love and Chance.  Lunch one day was at the cutest restaurant I’ve ever been in in my life, called The Red Tea Box on Queens.

Alison pointed out the author John Irving two tables over one night when we all went out for dinner.  Walking along Yonge it’s like this: “Hana!” (Gartner) “Alison!” They hug, and chat.  Celebs by the bucket.

Alison said, “Oh there’s Geddy Lee (from Rush).  He and I go to the same gym.”  I just adore knowing Alison.

And all too soon, the country mouse had to pack and leave, my suitcase filled with fabulous finds.  But now that I know how pleasant it is in Toronto, I’ll certainly be planning to do that again.

I forgot to write this blog yesterday so I’m writing today in a passionate haste.  I still have to finish packing, and am leaving in two hours for Toronto!  I’m not sure why I have this terrible penchant for doing things at the last minute.

Yesterday, instead of packing, I was at the local nursery, shopping for my xeriscape project.  I’ve never had a list when shopping for plants, so that was novel.  As well, I’ve never experienced such quantities.  For example, Lisa ordered 41 dianthus plants!

But I didn’t question it.  I just loaded up 20 balloon flowers, 17 stonecrop, 12 switch grasses, etc.  I also didn’t even flinch at the till, so that was quite brave of me.  They didn’t have any of the shrubs on the list, and Lisa still has to find those, so the plant bill will grow.

On the weekend I went to a funky rock place, and picked out rocks for the edging of the berm and paths.  Later in the day it was horrible to see a large truck, steam stacks puffing away, coming up my narrow, steep driveway to deliver them.  But the driver was obviously a master at it, because not even a blade of grass was damaged.

Then I had the good fortune of having the City send a work crew my way to clean up old logs and fallen pine needles on the strip of City land right beside my driveway.  I was going to try to remove the needles myself, and I’m glad I didn’t try, as the guy said they took 6 half-ton trucks full of them to the dump!

It’s hard to know what to pack for this trip, but I think a few basics should leave me with a half-empty suitcase.  And we all know that that means, don’t we?  However Alison’s idea of shopping (Holt Renfrew) and my idea of shopping (Value Village) are opposites.

I’m returning on Tuesday and Nicky’s to pick me up at the airport.  I think Luke should be back from his trip to Thailand, too, so we can exchange stories of our experiences.  Hopefully he’ll have the sense to tone his stories down a bit for his poor old mother.

I feel somewhat under control as I leave, because I’ve left three tightly-written pages of instructions for Nicky.  I don’t like to leave anything to chance, as he’s not used to running the place on his own.  One of the women at the gym was very surprised to learn he’s never used the dishwasher, and is 22 years old.

Before leaving, I have to be sure to mail the blood money to the government that they slap out of entrepreneurs every spring.  God knows Bev Oda needs it, as she certainly can’t afford to pay for that limo out of her paltry income, and needs some of my earnings to help her.

As soon as I’m back next week, the landscaper’s going to be here with a brawny fellow, and the three of us are going to slap this yard into shape.  So I figure I may as well eat as much as I can while I’m away, as I’m pretty sure moving 15 yards of soil and rocks will burn off a lot of calories.

You know how some tradespersons act like they’re asking what you want, and then when you tell them, they do what they wanted to do right from the beginning anyway?  And when I say “some” I mean the vast majority, as that’s been my experience.

After a charade of playing “pick a colour” with the contractor who built our rental house six years ago, and ending up with what he planned on right from the start, I got wise to the whole game.  I said, “Look, Bob, let’s just stop right here and you just go ahead and pick the roof, siding and all other parts of the house yourself.”

Another hazard of being near them is the way the trades fight with each other.  When we did house reno’s we lived in fear the painter would hold up the carpet layer, and so on.  And now with my xeriscape project, I’m right in the middle of two really nice landscape companies and their sometimes opposing views.  Fun!

One landscaper said, “I want to use this sod to build a berm.” The other landscaper refused to have anything to do with that plan.  So today when Landscaper A wasn’t here, Landscaper B removed all the sod, loaded it up, and said no way to leaving any for that crazy berm idea!

Now I’m scared of what’ll happen tomorrow when the first landscaper arrives.
The landscaper:  Okay, where’s the saved sod for my berm?
Me: Um, they said they wouldn’t leave it because your idea is um, no good or something…..

But the fear of tradespersons is dwarfed by the fear of Nicky’s appetite after walking through orchards from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM daily.  He works for the Regional District, in the coddling moth program.  They go orchard to orchard, hanging traps on apple trees.

You may recall my descriptions of what Nicky used to eat when bored.  Now when he’s worked up a day’s worth of appetite, it’s quite remarkable.  The other day he ate his usual two cups of heavily buttered cooked rice, topped with curried chicken.  Then he came upstairs and heated a large bowl of leftover spaghetti and meat sauce from the night before.

That kind of thing just starts him off.  He then downs a full 8 ounce glass of 18% creamo with a box of cookies.  Or a box of those Cinnabon cookie things they were demonstrating at Costco the other day.  They were a big hit.

But finally, more fearsome than the tradespersons, or Nicky’s whale-like appetite, is the call I received from Luke from Thailand yesterday around noon.  He said he was phoning because he wanted to tell me how much he loved me.  I said, are you drunk?  He said, kinda.  Then he said he was deeply in love with a girl from Bangkok.

I decided to go into a Zen-like mental space at that moment and just thought of the bright side: the Thai revere the elderly, and love kids, so I might be a loved mother-in-law with a huge number of grandkids.  Don’t worry, be happy!