I think I go on about this every year at this time.  However, I have to say that I’m just amazed by the beauty of spring.  Across the road from us our neighbour, Gibb, has a huge sugar maple tree.  It’s just beginning to sprout leaves, and they’re the most magnificent shade of lime-green.

In our yard the flowering red currant is having a very good year.  It’s an absolutely beautiful shrub that when in bloom looks like it’s been decorated all over with large rubies.  I planted it about 18 years ago, and I’ve never regretted it.

Not the way I regret some of the stuff I have hanging in my closet.  When I think of how much money I’ve spent on clothes I hate, I feel really mad at myself.  What was I thinking?  Maybe I bought all of that because shopping just feels so damn good.

You may recall that I’ve been on a shopping ban for several months now.  Remember last week I scored four great tops at my friend’s work?  Unfortunately that released the inner demon again, and on the weekend I was scouring my favourite stores for God-knows-what.

I certainly didn’t know what I was hunting for, but man, it felt great!  I just allowed my manic inner shopper out and went to Winners, the Bay, Value Village and three smaller consignment stores.  I tried on a lot of stuff, but here is the great news – I only bought one thing!

So when people go on cleanses, and then say they’re more discerning afterwards about what they eat, I can relate.  Now that I’ve been on a shopping cleanse, I’m super picky about what I’m going to buy.  Why knew?  I should’ve done this years ago.

In order to ensure success in my spring and summer marketing campaign, I made a firm date with my mom for being in Osoyoos later this week. Then I made a list of 20 stores to visit on my way up and down the Valley.

This means I have to have my ordering information sheets, the fruitcakes with the new labels, and some sliced samples ready by a specified date.  Otherwise, I say vague things about marketing, but I don’t do any.

So as I prepare for my marketing campaign, please pray for me, as this is the worst, most God-awful thing anyone has to do. If you’re reading this and think “piffle” then go ahead, try.  Walk jauntily into a store, give a rousing pep talk to the manager along with samples, and then watch some moron trample your lofty dreams with a dismissive, “no thanks.”  Now that’s a regrettable situation!

I’m still giddy from the shopping spree suddenly thrust upon me last Thursday.  There I was at home, minding my own business, when I got an e mail from my friend Marilyn.  She was at work, and said a co-worker’s friend owns a chi chi clothing store, and was getting rid of winter stock.

Marilyn said the rack of clothing was at her workplace, and that I should come down and have a look.  Even more exciting however, was the price – $10 per piece!!  Now you know that I’ve been on an austerity program which involves no insane clothes shopping, but this lure was simply too shiny for me to resist.

I grabbed the dogs and sped downtown, trembling and salivating a little bit.  What an incredibly enjoyable hour ensued!  I tried on a few things, and ended up with two jackets (one of which is a Joseph Ribkoff) and two tops.  The tags were still on them, and with tax, bought in a store would have been nearly $800.  I however, paid $40!

That highlight kind of helped to balance the rest of the week, which involved the usual: big meal preparation followed by massive consumption.  Luke just left for the oil rigs today, so it’s been ten days of friends and fun.  For him, I mean.  For me it’s been ten days of high production.

But by now you must surely be thinking: is she ever going to mention the fruitcake business again?  I believe this is part of the yearly pattern.  I work like a manic Sandra Bullock from September onward, only to be blind-sided by my own inertia and ennui every spring and summer.

The good news is that I finally have new orchard-themed labels for the Okanagan Harvest Cakes, and also had summer-themed serving suggestion cards made to go with them.  Armed with that, I should be able to force myself around the Okanagan to various wineries and gift stores.  I’ll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, I have to try not to be so ugly to people who rush up to me and enthusiastically ask me how the fruitcake business is going.  I want to punch them, and tell them it’s not going at all.  Instead, I have to reach way back to junior high school drama classes, and tell them with conviction that it’s going fantastically.

Or perhaps I should try method acting, a la actors such as Marilyn Monroe.  All I have to do is recall the joy of that $10 Joseph Ribkoff and exude that.  Voila, I will be gushing with enthusiasm, bits of spittle forming at the corners of my mouth as I enthuse about the wonders of entrepreneurship.

Nicky’s been in one of those strange food crazes in which he likes to immerse himself.  Who can forget the months of nachos, made with a pound of grated cheese and eaten with half a jar of salsa?

Now he’s making batches of pancakes, and following those with bowls of oatmeal, drenched in brown sugar and creamo.  This is eaten AFTER dinner, as a snack.  I’m continually on a diet, so watch his food crazes with a mixture of envy and fascination.

Less fascinating is the way he takes parts off my car, puts them on one of his derelict cars to make it start or whatever, then returns the part.  It reminds me of how annoyed I still am over his ‘borrowing’ of my camera until he finally lose the cord.  Hence, I imagine myself careening down the highway one day, and realizing he forgot to re-install the brakes.

But I find the philosophy of offering little to no resistance to life’s foibles is the best way to cope.  I shrug.  What can one do?  If you rail against these things, it just causes dissention, but does nothing to stop the annoyances from occuring.

Plus, I like to get along and thereby avoid confrontations.  Nicky, on the other hand, says he enjoys nothing better than to argue, even if it’s just for the sake of argument.  You can see the challenges these opposing philosophies would bring.

 On the weekend we all went to Osoyoos and celebrated some Easter family time together with mom.  On Sunday night I made roasted chickens with scalloped potatoes, baked yams and broccoli.  I used Julia Child’s method of trussing the chickens, then coating them in butter and roasting them on a rack.

Today I arrived home, dead tired from 48 hours of partying with octogenarians. Mom loves staying up late, and getting up early, but I’m a bit too weak for that kind of stuff.  At 85 mom has no problem drinking wine, eating and talking until midnight.  She’s then up at 7:30 feeling great.

Maybe that’s the problem.  Perhaps once I reach 70 my stamina’s really gonna finally kick in and then I’ll have the strength to say no to Nicky.  He’ll be 35 years old, and hopefully will have stopped borrowing my stuff and will be living on his own.

I don’t like to get overly optimistic, though.  Luke came home from the rigs for a week, and the party was on.  I suppose a lot of people would be envious, so I don’t want to complain about all of the kids that have been coming and going in a steady stream since.  I just wish that my generation, the ‘sandwiches’, had a bit more jam.

This afternoon I was slaving away in the lower yard and feeling amazed at the number of rocks that seem to have appeared out of nowhere.  I got rid of wheelbarrows full of them last spring, and yet here they are, as if those rocks were able to reproduce.  It’s spooky.

I have such an aversion to picking up rocks due to the hideous job that I had to do for my dad when I was a kid.  My brother and I often talk about our experiences of picking up rocks for dad and both of us are sure we’ve been affected negatively by it.

We both remember being forced to do it a few times during our teen years.  Both of us remember the same things.  There was the steady speed of the tractor as my dad sat at the steering wheel.  The poor kid had to walk behind it, picking up rocks of a certain size and heaving them onto the trailer.

Dad was constantly peering right and left like an old whale fisherman.  When he spotted a rock, he’d point at it saying something like, “over there, over there!”

Neither my brother nor I could ever find anything under the pressure of dad’s expectations.  So the rock pick-up days were also fraught with terror as we could never see the rock to which he was pointing.

Just like when he’d send us on a mission to the garage to get “that blue-handled axe” or whatever he wanted.  As we walked to the garage, we knew we were doomed.

On top of that, it was always stinking hot, and you were walking in the dust kicked up by the tractor.  Then there was the bending and picking up of those disgusting, huge rocks, and throwing them onto the rapidly-moving trailer.

Perhaps the practice of having kids, especially in their teen years, picking up rocks would do wonders.  My brother and I often wonder about it, and both feel that once you’ve done what’s basically the equivalent of working on a chain gang, you can pretty much do anything at all.

Or better yet, get the kids to become veterinarians.  I just paid $565 to have Ricky’s teeth cleaned.  The dog weighs just 12 pounds, so imagine how little tooth surface could’ve been involved.  But the vet shamed me into having it done by saying the dog had one of the worst cases of plaque he’d ever seen!

After that I simply can’t afford to hire any landscaping help, so am thanking my lucky stars that I was hardened up by dad for life on Hall Road.

One thing I hate when I’m cooking is surprises.  As Denis and I are on perpetual diets, we shun carbs at dinner time.  Nicky, however, always wants a large amount, so I make a vulgar quantity of mashed potatoes, rice or pasta for him.

The other day I called Nicky upstairs for dinner, and noticed that he shunned the mashed potato.  I asked him why, and he said it was part of his ‘body building’ regime.  Now he said he’d decided that vast amounts of protein were required instead.

Two days later I came downstairs to see him eating a gigantic bag of chips, and so I asked how the low-carb diet was going.  He said he’d learned from a UBC prof that low-carb, high-protein diets are bad, and so was back to the combination of food groups.

We’ve grown fairly accustomed to idiosyncratic statements like that from each other.  Though the other day Denis was home for work, and around noon I said I was going out briefly.  He asked where I was going, to which I replied, “Just a quick appointment with the plastic surgeon.”

He looked alarmed, and said, “The plastic surgeon??” and I just shrugged and said, “Botox.”  Honestly, I do not like having that man at home during the week to witness the variety of important appointments I have to attend.

Anyway, I had to get spruced up in preparation for picking mom and Gerry up at the airport.  They’d been in Nicaragua for the past two months, having a fabulous time.  I drove them down to Osoyoos, and spent the night.  The next day I had a brief visit with an old friend.

Remember that group of women I still hang out with after 50 years?  Maryjoy is one of them, and she happened to be in Osoyoos at the same time, though for a sad occasion.  I dropped by and saw her and her mother, and met Maryjoy’s husband Greg for the first time.

Maryjoy and Greg must be married for about 35 years now.  Her mom asked Greg if he’d ever met me before and he replied, “No, but I’ve heard of Moni for all of my married life.”  For some unknown reason I felt quite proud of myself.

To cap off the week, I attended an excellent writing workshop at UBC-O.  It was given by the writer-in-residence, Laisha Rosnau.  We learned about setting, place, and point of view.

Now if only I could get rolfed, go to est or whatever’s required in order for me to release that creative part of myself to be able to write well.  But in the meantime, I have lashings of pasta ready to be topped by pounds of protein.

I got my standard red dachshund, Arnie, in 1995 when he was just six weeks old.  The kids were five and eight, and were big fans of movies like The Terminator, and loved Arnold.  So when it came time to name the puppy, Arnie just seemed right.  Plus, it always brought a smile to people’s faces when I’d say, “His name’s Arnold Schwartzenegger, but we call him Arnie for short.”

He was absolutely adorable, and after just a day or two decided that I was his favourite being on Earth.  I felt the same way about him, so it was a love fest whenever we were together.  As Denis always said, the question foremost on Arnie’s mind was, “Where’s Mommy?”

As he was our first dog, we really didn’t know a lot about training, feeding, etc.  The kids used to love getting cones from Dairy Queen, and we’d get a baby-sized one and feed it to Arnie.  He’d shiver, and we’d say, “Isn’t that cute?  He’s shivering!”

So by the age of one Arnie was quite the chunky boy.  At his height he weighed 44 pounds, which is a lot, even for a standard dachshund.  Despite his weight, he was a voracious hunter.  Our cat, Fang, used to accompany him out on the neighbouring fields, looking for birds and mice.

I remember one day when he and I were out for our daily walk.  We rounded a blind corner, and there before us was a mother quail and a dozen babies.  I hardly knew what they were as they were such a dark brown colour, and as I was trying to figure out what was happening, Arnie had eaten almost all of them!

Arnie was fiercely loyal.  One night the paramedics were called due to one of my kidney stone incidents.  As they entered the bedroom to try and remove me to the ambulance, Arnie stood his ground, attacking anyone trying to touch me.  Finally Denis had to carry him into another room and close the door.

At around age 10 Arnie developed diabetes, so received twice-daily insulin injections.  By age 12 his sight was going, and he developed glaucoma.  He had one of his eyes removed by the vet, and lost the sight in the other, so he was completely blind.  Then he became deaf at around age 13.

However, I kept a careful watch on him because all dog owners had told me that I would just “know” when the time was right.  I didn’t want him to suffer just because I wanted him around.  However, countless dog owners looked at him and thought he was okay as he still ate, went out, and seemed not to have any pain.

After all the dog had given me, I sure wasn’t going to have him put down just because he was an inconvenience.  I had to carry him outside and back in, and I didn’t mind.  At night I carried him to bed, where he and I have slept together for almost 15 years.

On Wednesday night, however, I noticed Arnie was completely different.  He listed to one side, and seemed disoriented.  He peed, then vomited.  I called Nicky upstairs and said I thought Arnie had had a stroke.  I asked him to phone the emergency vet and sobbed through my tears to tell them this was for a euthanasia appointment.

Nicky drove, and I held my dog, crying all the way there.  Fifteen years is a long time to have loved such a great dog!  They took him away, which annoyed the hell out of me, as they said they were going to put in the catheter and return him so I could be with him.

I was frantic while he was away, and then finally they brought him to the exam room and put him on a blanket on the table.  The vet began to put in the shot while I hugged Arnie and kissed his muzzle over and over and over until his body went limp.  The vet used his stethescope to listen and then said, “He isn’t with us anymore.”

We brought him home and buried him the next day in the yard that he loved so much.  Rest in peace, Arnie.

Spring’s definitely here, and it’s wonderful that it’s so early.  However, living in the Okanagan means serious water restrictions as a result of the low snowpack.  Unfortunately, as I’ve fought my way through to having a proper English garden, I now find myself in the position of being an environmental pariah.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, and all that.  What can I do?  I adore my delphiniums, phlox and dahlias, and they all want water.  So to do my bit I’ve been tearing out tons of the juniper bushes that grow below our house.

Twenty years ago it was a tidy strip of junipers.  However, when I started cutting, I was amazed at how much they’ve multiplied and spread.  The week before Mojo had cornered a mother raccoon and two babies under there.  It was really hard to reach her, so that was part of the impetus for the pruning.

After about an hour, my heart rate was verging on the catastrophic, and sweat was dripping off my hair.  Most of the exertion wasn’t really from the cutting, but from pulling the runners out of the ground.  I came in the house, and beseeched Nicky to lend a hand, which he kindly did.

So with the fireplace and wall painted, and the junipers seriously pruned, I feel satisfaction at two large jobs done.  I’ve done a bit of spring cleaning, too, so now feel justified in pouring my energy and time into the vegetable garden.  I still have a couple of more raised beds that I want to make, but that’s a lot like the juniper project – heavy sweat equity required.

In the meantime, I’ve booked hair and Botox appointments, as that’s as necessary as spring cleaning.  One wants to look one’s best while having rivulets of sweat travelling down one’s back.

And speaking of insane fees, Ricky has an appointment to have his teeth cleaned.  The vet said he has one of the worst cases of plaque he’s seen.  But maybe that’s just the vet’s way of preparing one for a crazy bill.  In any case, between the Botox, hair dye and dog teeth, I’ll be out close to a thousand bucks.

Nothing motivates me like the need for cash, so I updated my Facebook account and made a couple of feeble attempts to start tweeting again.  There are good videos available at www.brighttalk.com, and I listened to one on the benefits of social media.

Why I’m resistant to it, I have no idea, as I love the concept of making contacts from the comfort of my own home.  It sure beats driving up to a place, doing the ‘please sir’ scene from the movie Oliver! and getting the bum’s rush out.  So may the God of Tweeting descend upon me!

Living with offspring can be so trying.  A couple of days ago I was cleaning up after one of Nicky’s food preparations.  He’d made himself a tuna sandwich with chopped up garlic dills.  I always buy the giant size no-name brand because we go through a lot of them.

When I looked at the lid, however, I saw a giant gash, which appeared to be made from a knife stab.  I put it together: tight lid, insanely impatient human, sharp knife.  Isn’t that just so irritating?  Now I have a giant, three quarters full jar of pickles with a huge hole slashed into the lid.

A day before that, Nicky said that he had to move my car as he wanted to use it to jump start his car.  The next day I went out and of course the key was gone.  When Nicky came home I asked him if he knew where my key was, and he said, “I do.  But you’re not gonna be very happy when I tell you what happened to it.”

He said that he tried to start his vehicle, and couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t start.  He said, “So I bent your key trying to start my car.”  In other words, an impatient, angry brat couldn’t understand why his key wouldn’t turn over his car, so kept at it until the key was bent.

Can you see why murderous rage is something I can understand when I read about it in the newspapers or hear about it on the news?

To calm myself I spent yesterday morning making an assortment of lovely recipes from Eric Akis’ book Anyone Can Cook Appetizers.  My friends Kathy and Sharon came over in the afternoon, and we had shrimp with a roasted red pepper dip, crab cakes and key lime tarts.

I also cut up some Okanagan Harvest Cake and served it with sliced sharp cheddar cheese.  Both women thought the cakes would be great for winery gift stores, and Kathy asked, “Have you been to Quail’s Gate?”  I said, “I’ve been twice to every winery in the Okanagan!”

They couldn’t figure out why local winery gift stores wouldn’t carry a made-in-Kelowna product, and since I don’t either, I couldn’t explain it to them.  They asked what kind of excuses they give, and I said it was a wide variety, such as “we don’t have enough space.”

I’d like to suggest to them that they remove the items not made in BC and then they’d have space, but of course that would be brash.  Instead, I’m having new labels designed for the Okanagan Harvest Cakes and then will make a third run at every stinking winery in the Okanagan!

As the winter Olympics approached I was feeling completely blase about them.  I recalled watching the summer Olympics and liking them, but wondered what would be interesting about the winter games.  I vaguely recalled that figure skating was one of the sports.

So I turned on the opening night ceremony, and on Saturday proceeded to watch the games.  Within a few minutes that damned, cunning media had me completely hooked!  As soon as the camera panned on the moms and dads in the stands, and I saw them crying from hope and nervousness, I started crying, too.

This was followed by me being on my feet screaming with nervous excitement during every race.  Naturally, this fueled all-day TV viewing, which as you can imagine, cuts into what a person is able to accomplish in a day.

The good news is that I found a project that allowed me to get something done while watching the Olympics.  I’ve always loathed our red brick fireplace and dark wood paneling, so decided to paint the entire wall, fireplace and all.

I started last Monday, and didn’t complete it until Friday!  As always, I thought it’d take a couple of hours, at best.  However, by the time I’d gotten advice, bought primer, and taped the area to be painted Day One was over.

Day Two saw the beginning of the priming.  I had no idea that bricks could drink so much paint!  As well, painting between the bricks coated the brush with old grout, so every few minutes I had to clean the brush entirely.  There was also an awful lot of filler to be gucked in and around the bricks to fill the holes.

By Wednesday I was done with the priming, and on Thursday I began to apply the colour.  I’m fortunate that I was able to do all of it unsupervised.  At one point, I was standing on a dining room chair, holding the tray of paint, and painting the top corner of the wall.

When I looked down, I was dismayed to see that I’d been holding the tray at an angle, and now paint was drizzled over the chair, and pooling on the wood floor.  I had no idea paint was so hard to wipe up!  However, I think all of these nasty incidents are now completely invisible thanks to my tenaciousness.

On Friday I did the final coat, removed the tape, and put back the plants and art.  I’m happy to report that it looks 100% better.  Bye bye ’70’s.  Though a great decade, it really was time for it to go.

Now it’s Week Two of the Olympics, and I have no more household renovations to keep me busy.  I’ll just have to give in to the urge to postpone pressing matters for another week.

Last night I managed to use an entire bulb of garlic in preparing an East Indian dinner for just three people.  Maybe the garlic is the reason that I haven’t been sick for the past year.  Or, maybe it keeps people far away; hence the likelihood of catching anything is greatly reduced.

A get a lot of recipes on-line these days, which makes me wonder if cookbooks are going to survive.  Like most people who enjoy cooking, I have a number of them, and yet most of the time if I do use one at all, I seem to grab the Joy of Cooking.

However, for the next three glorious weeks, I’m only concerned with cooking for Nicky and myself.  Denis is off to Victoria for the on-campus portion of his degree in Leadership at Royal Roads.

It’s actually been an excellent bit of leverage for me, as whenever Denis says something idiotic, I now say, “Did you learn that at the leadership course?”

I know what you’re thinking.  But as we’re coming up to 25 years of marriage this summer I feel I should be able to enjoy the odd bit of fun.  And really, it does sometimes make him stop and think, so it’s a win-win in my opinion.

Sadly, I must slog through life without a degree in leadership.  As an entrepreneur I have to reach deep down into my gullet on a regular basis and drag motivation from within.  The present moment is an example of a time when I have to pray to the Muse of Marketing to descend upon me.

As you know, I was a huge fan of Bugs Bunny, and often still quote some of my favourite lines to myself.  Right now I could use a dose of Acme’s Tornado Pills.  Remember those?  The coyote takes one and nothing happens, so he takes the whole box and turns into a whirling dervish.

He turns upside down, still spinning, cutting through cacti and mountains, and finally falls down that same old cliff.  I’d like a small bit of that tornado energy right now as I try to think of clever ways to sell Okanagan Harvest Cake to tourists over the summer.

Yet as we know, the answers always lie within us.  And so it’s with a sense of dread that I’m starting to acknowledge what I must do.  I have to get a list of places together, get a bunch of fruitcakes, flyers and cards, and dress as well as I can.  Then I have to get into my car and drive, and then walk into these stores and introduce myself and my product.

Perhaps the Muse of the Fuller Brush Salesman will descend upon me, and I’ll have the fortitude to do it.  If not, I’ll have to sign up for a course at Royal Roads, I guess.