When I left Untouchable, the salon I go to inside Orchard Park Mall, I noticed a young boy in a booth.  The sign on it said, “Hurricane Simulator”, and the mom was standing outside the glass door waiting for the kid.  A dial showed the strength of the wind being simulated, and I could see the kid was pretty amused at the  experience he was having.

What kind of a brilliant mind thought of this little money trap?  It’s made me think of other simulations one could try in a booth, such as Trapped in a Mine.  The entire booth would become pitch black, humid and very hot.  Or, a Frustration Simulator, in which you’d be re-routed dozens of times while trying to make a call to a business using their automated phone system.

I’m currently in my own Anxiety Simulator, though it’s more real than simulated at this point.  Orders are coming in at a rate much greater than in the past, and so perhaps this tiny business is finally going to turn a corner.  It’s wonderful, really, and that’s why I’m trying to get a grip on the negative aspects of it.

Yesterday I delivered four cases of fruitcakes to the Osoyoos Buy-Low Foods and two cases to the Bench Market in Penticton.  If all current customers re-order, I am dead.  I’ll actually have to haul my lazy carcass downstairs and start baking again. This will be fun, because I’ll also be packaging and shipping at the same time!

And speaking of fun, I finally did something that I’ve heard of, but never thought I would do: on-line dating.  It’s true. I signed up for two sites, and now I’m getting profiles of men, and wondering what to do.  As usual, technology has me completely buffaloed, but I’m going to soldier on.

Here are some hints to those of you who may be thinking of doing this.  When writing your profile, don’t write, “I don’t have a lot of time for a relationship,” as we question why you bothered to spend an hour to fill out their questionnaire.  Or, “I am a veracious (sic) reader.”   You obviously don’t read with a lot of absorption.

At dinner the other night when I was describing some of the profiles on the site, Nicky asked if I’d written in mine that I can cook.  I said I had.  He said, “Good, that’ll help because cooking’s a big plus.”  Even Nicky’s not above brain-storming ways to get his mom’s profile noticed.

Never mind on-line dating, but on-line shopping’s become my new friend.  I’ve just ordered more detritus from Future Shop and am thinking it beats the hell out of skulking up and down the aisles, trying to find an available clerk.  And if it’s not something I need to examine in the flesh, then why not just order it on-line?

Too bad the mate-matching isn’t as easy, as one does have to interview these prospects face to face.  Perhaps a big seller for singles would be the Dating Simulator, wherein you’re trapped in a booth with a bore for 60 minutes.

We’ve all heard of the show, $h*! My Dad Says, and lately I’ve thought I could have one of my own, called $h*! My Kid Eats and feature Nicky’s food intake.  The other day I made a red curry paste and coconut milk chicken recipe for the first time.  It was so successful that Nicky ate two chicken breasts worth of meat bathed in sauce and accompanied by a cup of heavily buttered rice.

After a gigantic dinner he’ll often have a salad bowl filled with Froot Loops and topped with a litre of milk or cream.  And instead of being annoyed, we should all feel awed by the power of exercise.  It appears that if you work out like a son of a gun with heavy weights every day, you will develop quite the eating ability.

I’ve been quite organized lately, and it’s bothering me because I don’t understand it.  I think a lot of it has to do with my ability to force myself to get unpleasant things done even if I don’t want to do them.  Yesterday, for example, I made myself bake four dozen Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars, and I vacuum-sealed them this morning.

Ordinarily the fruitcakes would sit in their Tupperware container for days, waiting to be vacuum-sealed.  Meanwhile, I would be upstairs fretting about them, but refusing to do anything about it.  The tension would mount until I had orders to fill and then would have to work for hours, weeping.  Maybe I just grew tired of the drama of all that.

I was very fortunate to be mentioned in the November/December issue of EAT Magazine.  You can read the article on-line, page 37.  Next Wednesday I’ve been promised a mention in Maxine Dehart’s column in the Kelowna Capital News.  All of this helps tremendously.

I’ve now got orders coming in daily, either via my website from individuals, or by phone from the stores.  On Wednesday evening I’m going to attend a tiny, free craft fair at the Catholic elementary school which I’ve been told is well-attended.  As you know, I loathe these types of events, but one must do what one must do.

But then again, I say I loathe these events, and yet something good almost always comes of them.  Either I meet a really nice fellow vendor, or else someone I haven’t seen in years shows up.  Sometimes sales are actually good, and so it’s always an adventure no matter what.

Kind of like the awe-inspiring sage of the Kid that Ate Everything. Yesterday Nicky ate 10 or 12 pieces of bacon with four eggs scrambled with cream and four pieces of toast.  A while later I went downstairs.  I saw him lying on the floor and asked him if he was sick from too much bacon.

He said no, and that he was just stretching, but added the amount of food was “borderline too much.”  I’m kind of fascinated at seeing what the limit’s going to be. 

I went to the South Okanagan on the weekend, both to deliver fruitcakes and also to visit mom and Gerry.  I dropped off at Terwilligers Gifts in Penticton, and thought one day when I have time I simply must shop at that store.  They have absolutely to-die-for pottery and they wrap everything very beautifully.

After that I went to Handworks Gallery on Main Street in Oliver, owned by a wonderful woman named Esther.  It’s the kind of place where you can find locally-made arts and crafts and learn something about each artist from her.  Plus, I like her style: she keeps coffee brewing and has my fruitcake ready to serve with it, so her sales of my product are brisk.

Finally I dropped an order at Tin Horn Creek Winery in Oliver, which is situated like a castle on the top of a hill.  I adore the steep driveway, which they keep in indigenous plantings on either side.  Once at the top the view of the valley is one of the nicest, even though there’s nary a body of water in sight.

It was a sunny day, and because it’s been so warm all of the coloured leaves have remained on the trees.  Below Tin Horn Creek it’s solid orchards, and the leaves of the cherry trees were a gorgeous gold on the bottom, with the topmost branches a fiery red.  On days like that I’m knocked out by the beauty of the Okanagan Valley.

Mom had a few people over for dinner on Saturday evening and she made a moist and delicious pot roast.  She’d bought the most decadent coconut cream pie from the bakery at Prince’s in Oroville, WA and I had an enormous piece.  Then at midnight, after everyone had left, I had to have some more.  Mmmmm.

I got home on Sunday exhausted, as usual, because as you know by now, mom loves to stay up late.  She made me sit there and visit with her until 1:00 AM, then she looked at her watch and said with surprise, “it’s 1:00 AM we should go to bed!”  By then I was like, “just shoot me” because I’m usually fast asleep by 9:00 PM.

After cleaning up some of Nicky’s detritus, it was mercifully 4:30 PM, which is the hour at which I put a margarita into the freezer so that it’s ready at precisely 5:00 o’clock.  Imagine my horror upon finding most of the tequila gone!  I have to say that thanks to people like Eckhart Tolle, most of the time I seem able to keep a grip on how much adrenalin I allow to flow through my body.

However, my world is the size of a pea.  Hence small pleasures, such as my drink at 5:00, are very large and important.  So I indignantly marched downstairs and tore a strip off Nicky, who admitted he and Jordan had drank it the night before.

Just as I was planning a murderous revenge, there was Nicky, home with a bottle of tequila for his mentally deranged parent.  He hugged me, and said, “sorry, mom.”  So what can I say?  I probably need to read a bit more Eckhart Tolle.

I walked Arnie every single day for five years.  Somehow by year six or so, with Mojo along, it dawned on me that I shouldn’t be the only family member walking the dogs.  Sporadic attempts were made by Denis here and there, but they petered out, and soon dog-walking was a thing of the past.

However, Nicky’s a big fan of Caesar Milan, and is also a psychology major, so he very successfully put those two factors together.  He told me stories day after day about how important it is for dogs to be walked.  To his credit, over the past several months he’s also made some sporadic efforts to walk the mutts.

I finally caved and took Mojo and Ricky for a walk around the neighbourhood on Friday.  Then, much to my surprise, I took them again yesterday and today.  I’m very hopeful this is a sign of renewed adherence to daily dog-walking.  I realized how much I missed the neighbourhood, and have already enjoyed two great conversations with neighbours I haven’t spoken to in years.

A couple of days ago as I walked by one neighbour who was out raking his lawn, he said, “I hear you’re on your own.”  I explained that technically I wasn’t, given the fact Nicky lives here, but that yes, Denis had moved out.  As I continued on my walk I thought, I simply love this area because I feel people know me, and care about me.

It’s such a great neighbourhood in that it’s a lot like the small town of Osoyoos where I grew up.  In Osoyoos there are one or two key people to whom you tell a story, knowing by the next day the majority of townsfolk will know it.  It just seems an expedient way to spread news.

I was quite delighted to see that it works just like that in the Hall Road neighbourhood.  Of course there’s my blog, which I know some devoted fans read who happen to be neighbours.  Then there’s a lovely woman who goes to my gym, and who lives here, and who may also have told a person or two.  In any case, I think it’s rare to live in a neighbourhood where people still know each other.

I think another reason for the dog-walking is the great fall we’ve had.  The weather’s been so mild.  In the 20 years I’ve lived here I don’t recall snipping dahlias on October 31st.  We’ve always had frost by now in past years.

Yesterday I cut down as many spices as I could stand, as some of them, like the sage, are just plain huge.  I’m now drying it, along with rosemary, parsley and tarragon.  My plan is to grind them when they’re all nice and dry and then fill cute containers with them and give them to people as gifts.

Tonight it’s Halloween and we usually get about 5 – 10 kids.  This makes the recent purchase of the box of 125 assorted tiny chocolate bars kind of odd, doesn’t it?  I think Nicky and I are going to be feeling quite dizzy by tomorrow morning.

As you know, shopping is my hobby, so it may come as a suprise that I’ve actually just placed an on-line order for some Christmas gifts.  I’ve never done this before, as I adore wandering the aisles of stores, peering at items, and wondering if anyone really wants this piece of junk to put on a shelf.

However, as that pesky little thing called time seems to be in short supply right now, I have no time for speculative tours through stores.  As much as I’d like to touch items before buying, the items I ordered are largely electronic in nature.  Hence I actually don’t need to, nor do I even want to.  It’s all strange stuff for the kids, so who would know what it is, even if held and examined.

Now that’s saved me a bunch of time, though of course it’s warmed up the credit card for the season.  Although sometimes when one is weighing sanity against a few dollars, sanity, or vanity will quite often win.  Though I’m broke, I’ve booked a Botox treatment for my forehead because I simply can’t take it any longer.

The lack of time issue is my own fault because I’m such a poor manager of time due to being a very impulsive person.  The other day while driving I was making mental lists of all the errands and things I had to do, when the Art Knapps sign caught my eye: It’s Time to Plant Spring Bulbs!

I thought to myself, they’re absolutely right, pulled into the parking lot and went into the store.  My goodness there are a lot of early, mid and late spring tulip bulbs from which to choose these days!  I loaded up on lots of each, and then headed home to start the driveway garden preparation.

I felt kind of bad, thinking about all of the work I had told myself I’d do, but then I thought what the hey.  It was a sunny and lovely day, and I enjoyed the project immensely.  Once I’d dug out the too-large heliopsis (false sunflower), I added peat moss and Ogo Grow to the soil, then put in the bulbs.  Now I can’t wait until spring to see the show of tulips I only envision in my mind’s eye.

Flowers make me so much happier than some people do.  I don’t want to speak negatively of people, but my God I’ve been tested recently.  You’ll recall I’ve been trying to get the Lions Club to try my product.  Their newsletter-writer put an article about my products in their monthly bulletin and e mailed it to all the clubs. 

I phoned one of the members and asked if they now wanted to test my product, in light of the newsletter’s article.  He was like, “Newsletter? Article?”  and I realized I have a tough demographic to work with here.  However, equally as tough is trying to pin the stores down on when they wish to order.  It’s kind of embarrassing as customers e mail and phone me asking, “When will your fruitcakes be in the stores?” and I’m like, “I don’t know.”

But like some kind of lunatic, I just keep baking away, praying for the God of Fruitcake Sales to help me.  One of these days, my big break’s gonna come, and then you’ll all be like, “I knew her when.”

I used to feel bad about all the things I’ve bought over the years that were never worn.  A few years ago I was on a suit mania, and bought a navy Liz Claiborne pant suit.  I never wore it, and now that the pants are much too large, I gave them to the thrift shop.  I still have the jacket, but God knows if I’ll ever wear it.

Recently I’ve grown philosophical about the items that are rarely or never worn.  When I think of the expensive hobbies some people have, such as golfing, I think shopping is actually quite cheap.  Also, there’s no replacement for the joy I feel as I skulk the aisles, looking for that elusive item.  Then there’s all the fun of trying stuff on, and finally the kill, which arrives at the cash register.

When viewed as a hobby, I think shopping makes a lot of sense.  We have hobbies because they’re a way for us to get our minds onto something we enjoy.  I practically whooped with delight on Friday as I found a pair of brand new, grey suede Liz Claiborne pumps for $10.00.  These days it’s rare to achieve that type of adrenalin rush for that little money.

I packaged and shipped an order of fruitcakes to an old customer, Stongs Market on Dunbar Street in Vancouver.  I have new labels for both cakes, so I’m hoping that won’t throw people.  However, the little white box is the same, and it still says Nuttier than a Fruitcake on it, so let’s hope for the best with that.

I’m continuing to chip away at the baking day by day.  Some days I have to practically get out a gun and put it to my head to make myself walk down those stairs.  However, once I throw the butter into the big mixer, add the sugar and turn it on, I get into the rhythm of it and seem to manage to make at least 50 fruitcakes each time.

Nicky’s helping me by putting the front and back labels on the boxes, which is great.  Then when orders come in I simply grab those labeled boxes, and can proceed to put the fruitcakes into them.  I’ve learned that bandaging my fingers prior to starting saves a lot of wear and tear on the cuticles.  You have no idea the kinds of things one learns from an artisan food business.

In this month’s Martha Stewart Living they have an article about glass-blown balls made in the last centurey, called witches balls.  They were individually blown by workers who toiled in extreme heat, 12 hours a day, six days a week.  So, if all I have is torn cuticles from the boxes, I should just consider myself very lucky.

Although I have to be careful about the euphoria of feeling lucky because it can immediately lead to an unnatural desire to hunt through the thrift store for that Joseph Ribkoff for under $10.00.  My mind immediately associates happiness with shopping, so if I get too happy, I’m off to Value Village.

Sadly, like any true addict, the converse is true.  Feeling upset?  I can’t think of a better antidote than an hour or two at the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

I was just downstairs and heard Nicky and his long-time friend Jordan, talking.  Nicky said, “I weighed myself, and I was like, 208 – yay!”  I was just weighing myself as he was saying that and thinking how funny it is because they’re both into body building and are therefore happy when their weights go up.  Of course my response to a weight gain is the opposite.

Because of this inane body building, Nicky drinks glasses of vile whey mixed into milk twice a day, and eats like a horse.  I say cautionary things like, “well, if you get too huge it’s not nice either, is it?” hoping he’ll stop prior to attaining the George Atlas physique.  By then our food bill will be in the thousands of dollars per month I guess.

I’ve been buying pumpkin pies all week, and Nicky consumes one nightly.  Today we’re driving to Osoyoos to visit mom and Gerry for Thanksgiving dinner, so hopefully he’ll fill up there as best he can.  I hope she remembered the whipping cream.

Last week I was fortunate enough to have the Lions Club put me into their bulletin, which goes to around 400 clubs.  I haven’t heard a word from any of them, but will follow up somehow.  Sometimes I feel like the laziest entrepreneur on Earth, as even typing those words makes my heart sink.

But in small business, the follow-up e mail or phone call can often be the thing that makes the deal happen.  It’s just that it’s so painful, that I find myself circling the task, coming ever closer.  First I have to make a cup of tea.  Then perhaps I notice a perennial that absolutely should be pruned.  I decide to look for photos that I could put into frames that I bought months ago.

Finally, I’m ready and I make the call, and usually people are surprisingly receptive.  I wonder why marketing remains so unpleasant, but I think a really large part of it is the times you do get rejected.  Nobody likes rejection, so once it’s occurred you try to avoid it.

Today I roasted a huge amount of almonds for the Okanagan Harvest Cakes and also prepped the fruit that I use.  It’s a finicky recipe because before I can bake with it, I have to have the fruit prepped, meaning the dried apricots, pears and apples have to be cut into small pieces.  Then the mixture of that, plus raisins, dates and pineapple get cooked in a bit of apple juice.

Once that’s done, I freeze the bag for when I’m ready to bake.  But that bag makes just 14 cakes, so imagine how many times I’m dicing dried fruit and cooking it.  I think that’s why when people ask if I want to expand my business I look at them without speaking for a moment as I collect my thoughts.

I realize that I have the stamina to make 3,000 fruitcakes in a year.  But anything more than that will be cause for a banshee-like scream to come from my kitchen as I have chopped so much fruit I’ve gone mad.  If I do get some orders from the Lions, I’m seriously looking at this as a way to make my business valuable to some energetic person who may someday wish to become Nuttier than a Fruitcake.

 At my age I find I’m able to do so many different things, yet remain defeated by technology.  Today no e mail accounts will open, even though I’m supposedly connected to the Internet.  It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to weep because I have no idea what to do.

If faced with a baking or cooking dilemma, I have no problem trouble-shooting it.  Sauce too thin?  I just remove the lid and allow evaporation to solve the problem for me.  Fruitcakes sticking to tins?  Cut and fashion parchment paper and the situation is solved.

However when something’s wrong with the computer, I have to just sit here, looking as dumb as Paris Hilton in a serious interview.  And I certainly can’t wake Nicky at 6:30 on a Sunday morning and ask him for help.  I recall our trip to Germany whereby I had to ask him a few times on the plane how to figure out the movie remote.  That didn’t go well.

On the positive side, sales are going really well this year.  Quality Greens will starting carrying my fruitcakes next week, and I received confirmation from Edible BC in Granville Island Public Market that they’ll be ordering again.  So all’s well on the business end of things.

The baking’s going surprisingly well, too.  I’m forcing myself to bake four batches, or approximately 52 fruitcakes a day. I also got all the existing stock organized and labeled, and feel somewhat in control.  It’s a strange feeling for me because usually I do the entire business from my gut.

Perhaps after six years I’m figuring out how to avoid a complete nervous breakdown by December 15th.  The Lions Club is kindly putting an article in their bulletin this week to all clubs in Canada!  If I do start getting orders from them, then I can assure you I’ll be thanking God on my knees that I got myself somewhat organized this year.

You know how I love all the women at The Woman’s Place fitness centre.  A couple of weeks ago I bought a couple of jars of honey from a woman who has bees, and who’ll provide me with a hive next spring.  Her bees forage in Okanagan Mountain Park behind her house, so the honey packs a real punch.  You can taste the sage and it’s really strong and delicious.

So last week I told her I’d like two more jars, and asked if she’d like a fruitcake in exchange, which she did.  Bartering is a great way to sample local artisans’ wars.  Now I have two jars to eat, and two to give as gifts.

Right now my life consists of the gym and baking.  The house is a filthy mess, but I have neither the time nor the energy to deal with it.  I’m pretty tired of cleaning by the time I leave my basement kitchen every afternoon.  but you know I have no-one to blame but myself, as I’m the only who insisted I wanted to become an artisan baker.

I’ve now baked about 1,000 fruitcakes, and need to bake 2,000 more within the next 80 days.  That would be manageable, but on top of the baking, there’s the purchasing of inventory, putting labels on boxes, vacuum-sealing, mailing, etc.  Right now I’m thinking if I eliminate sleeping every other night I can do it.

Last year in December when I was ready for a long rest in a mental asylum I begged my readers to remind me of this.  However, you did not, and I purposely ignored the need to bake a little bit all year long.  I refused to do it, and now I’m up to my elbows in dough from morning until late afternoon.  Sigh.

I did receive three excellent bits of news, though.  First of all, I got a wonderful response from Jennifer Schell, a columnist for the local newspaper, The Capital News.  She also writes columns in BC Wine Trails and EAT magazines.  Upon sampling my fruitcakes, she wrote, “OMG!  I’m a believer!”

She kindly said she’s going to mention my fruitcakes in all three publications!  I get all hysterical and dizzy thinking about the number of potential customers I might get if that does indeed happen.

Then, I had e mailed Monika, the owner of Okanagan Grocery and creator of that insane Callebaut-filled rye bread for which I could kill.  I’d dropped in to pick up a loaf and found her store closed.  I thought she’d gone out of business so sent her a panicked e mail.  She replied that she was in San Francisco taking a bread course to make things even better.

She carries my fruitcakes at Christmas, so I was doubly worried when I thought her store was closed.  But as with the nice reply from Jennifer Schell, one must not allow one’s mind to leap to negative conclusions.  If you read my blog last week, I was all “waa waa waa, nothing’s working out” and yet this week everything’s great.

The third bit of good news was that the owner of Quality Greens, my biggest customer, said they’ll want to have my fruitcakes at their four locations starting the first week of October.  I also contacted another regular customer, Edible BC on Granville Island, but no reply yet.  And no, I’m not going to get all negative and crazy about that.

The other excellent thing about having to work like a lawyer at a victim’s assistance convention, is that I can’t shop.  I’m dreaming about those adorable new shoe/boot combo’s and yet I can’t get anywhere near a store to try them on.  It’s kind of a wonderful feeling of anticipation.  Because as you know, whenever I’ve curbed shopping for any extended period of time, the blow-out is huge.

But that’s what January sales are for.  People such as me who will be browsing the racks, looking for that perfect 30th pair of pants.  Circling the shoe racks like a scruffy lion surrounding a herd of gnus, ready to pounce on the weakest one.  With the goal of the January sales in my mind, I believe I can make it.

 It’s hard to believe the latest Mercury retrograde is over, as obstacles continue to be thrown in my way.  For example, I finally decided that perhaps by taking inventory of what I have and what I need it might act like a motivational tool.  Almost immediately I felt completely defeated when I realized I’d ordered 5,000 of the wrong labels last fall.

Now I can’t quit the business until 2025 or something due to the number of back labels I have for the Totally Decadent Fruitcake.  Plus of course I’m out money I don’t have to order the back labels that I actually need, which are for the Okanagan Harvests.

Then late on Tuesday afternoon I received a call from a young-sounding female health inspector saying she’d like to come and do an inspection.  I said no problem, and we set an appointment for 1:00 the next day.  Of course I then ran downstairs in a lather and turned on the auto-clean for both ovens, and gave the inside of the fridge and cupboards another cleaning.

Fortunately she was a sweet young woman, and we spent a pleasant hour while she checked the fridge and freezer’s temperature, looked under the sinks and asked about my baking method.  We generally kibitzed around talking about things like the intrepid town of Prince George.  It turns out she lived up there for a few years, too, and could totally relate to my tales of learning how to party hard in that town.

If you read my September newsletter, you’ll see I have a recipe for green tomato relish in there.  I decided to make it after publishing the recipe, and then went Oh My God.  By following the instructions I ended up with a vat of liquid in which vegetables were roiling around.  There was no way I was going to pour that into jars.  Why?

So I ladled out the vegetables and discarded the several cups of unused broth and pureed the pulp a bit in the food processor.  Now I had something resembling chutney, which I put into jars and which are now in the fridge.  I had some on a ham sandwich for lunch and I must say it was really nice.

Other obstacles include closure of a store that carried my product, as well as no reply yet from the local Lions Club, or in fact any Lions Club representative anywhere.  On top of it, a pithy e mail sent to a columnist was ignored.  You’re probably starting to see how hard it is for the small entrepreneur to remain positive.

And yet, there they were: six beautiful martini glasses, each with a different coloured swirl of glass embossed elegantly around their stems.  Once again, at Value Village I was able to find that small bit of hope that keeps one going.  Now I can have one of my brazenly strong cocktails in a different coloured glass every night.  You see how very small things keep someone with a very small mind happy?