It’s my birthday today, though we had a celebration at my mom’s in Osoyoos on Saturday evening.  It was just a small party of nine people for dinner.  Unfortunately, due to being impulsive and imprudent, I accidentally imbibed too much wine and felt like death on Sunday.

So imagine the pain of getting into a vehicle in full blazing sun and temperatures in the 30’s.  When Denis and I got home we saw that in the 24 hours we were gone an awful lot of food had been consumed.  Remnants were left of the usual groceries, but there was evidence of take-out from the Greek restaurant in Rutland as well.

I just looked at the counter filled with dirty dishes and debris and told Denis I had to have a nap.  When I got up the dear man had washed everything and the kitchen was pristine.  Surprise!  When I got up this morning the entire counter was filled with food debris and dirty dishes again.

Can you imagine how unhealthy it is to be filled with murderous rage day after day?  The only thing that helps me survive is knowing that I don’t have to drive off to a job.  Instead, like Lily Munster I can hand everyone a lunch on their way out the door.

As a result of my new life of caring for others, I think I could easily run a small group home for the mentally disabled or the elderly.  I mean, really, what would be the difference?  The folks with whom I reside can’t make their own food or clean up after themselves.  They’re unable to recall what day of the week it is.

To placate myself I’m having lunch out with my friend Kathy from the gym.  It’s going to be wonderful to actually go to the gym this morning as well.  The Monday class is a killer combination of step and weights.  That should sweat out a lot of nasty toxins.

I had a pleasant e mail the other day from a nice woman who had ordered wedding favours in 2006.  She said her second son was getting married and they had all loved my fruitcake so much for the first wedding that they wanted it again!  Something like that can really brighten a day.

To cheer me even further, the four of us are going to our favourite Greek restaurant, Yama’s, for dinner.  The kids and I already know we’re having the calamari because it’s absolutely fantastic there.  The tzaziki is so heavily laced with garlic that you can easily stun a panhandler at five metres.

So here I am, aged fifty-five, hence older than Madonna, yet younger than Cher.  Sadly I have ten times their cellulite and one millionth of their income.  However I have the pleasure of being on the couch at 7:00 PM, freed from doing gyrations on a stage.  That’s gotta cheer a person up.

When I went downstairs the other day I found the phone book shredded into hundreds of pieces.  Luke and his friend Ryan Higgins were sitting there so I asked them what had happened to it.  Luke said he’d seen someone rip a phone book in half on TV, so he tried to do it, but couldn’t.  He then acted incredulous when I informed him that I actually needed the phone book.

This is merely a very small example of the types of things I’m subjected to on a daily basis.  On Canada Day I was leaving in the morning to go to Osoyoos to visit mom and Gerry and spend the night.  I left a note of things for Denis to do, one of which was to water the vegetable garden in the morning.

Luke was leaving for Calgary that day to visit The Boarder for a few days, and I’d helped him find a small bag for his clothes.  Nicky was off work on the 1st, but said he was working the next day, July 2nd.

I had a lovely time in Osoyoos, beginning with a gourmet lunch provided by mom’s friend Jerralynn.  We then had dinner out at some friends and watched the spectacular fireworks.  It’s hard to believe but true.  This is one of the best shows in all of Canada.

When I arrived back home on the afternoon of July 2nd, I saw Nicky’s car.  I went downstairs and asked him why he wasn’t at work and he said that no-one was there so he went home.  I came upstairs and saw Luke’s bag with his toothbrush and clothes sitting near the entrance.  I asked Denis if he’d watered the vegetables to which he replied he hadn’t.

I relayed this story to my friend Kathy at the gym, to which she asked, “How do you stand it?”  I said, “Because I don’t work outside the home.”  If on top of helping three brainless males I also had to organize myself to go to a job, I think I would go over the edge.   I used to do it, but how?

Besides babysitting adult males, I think another ideal job for me would be recipe-tester.  I’ve noticed that some recipes sound good, but when made, are less than wonderful.  This recently happened to me when I tried one of Martha Stewart’s Cookie of the Month recipes.

They were called strawberry shortcake cookies, and involved fresh strawberries.  Now imagine making quite a stiff cookie dough, and then trying to get diced, juicy strawberries incorporated into it.  It doesn’t work well.  The on top of it all, there was only half a cup of sugar in the whole thing, so they simply weren’t sweet enough for anyone’s taste.

So if you have any witless males that need watching, or want any recipes tested, please contact me.  I am an expert.

You may recall a story that I told you about when I was a young child, merrily skipping barefoot through the orchard.  I stepped on a bee, got stung, and came into the house saying, “I just got stung by a bee.” To which my dad angrily replied, “You watch out for those bees!”

My dad was a lover of all animals, and he certainly wasn’t going to have a flat-footed, clumsy brat stepping on a bee, thereby killing it.  So I wasn’t in the least bit surprised this morning to see a bee sitting kind of dazed on my chest of drawers.

I shook my head and chuckled to myself, as today is the twenty-year anniversary of his death.  Only my dad would take the trouble to remind me that every stinking bee on Earth is important.  So of course I grabbed a glass and a piece of paper and risked life and limb.  I got the bee into the glass, took it outside and away it flew.

Another really influential male in my life has been Dr. Wayne Dyer.  In the 70’s I read his book Your Erroneous Zones and it really helped me a lot.  I saw him on public television last night, and he did it again.  That man is a raving genius.

Here is something he asked us to ponder.  He said you know how easy it is to face a task and automatically think to yourself, “this is going to be hard.”  But he suggested that we should practice thinking differently.

 As an example of why we should give it a try, he said to remember times when something unexpected happened.  He asked if any of us had ever been thinking that we really would like to get some money when something unexpected happened and we received money.  Many peope nodded as they could relate to that.

He said when you’re pondering some task, consider the unexpected in that you have a fifty-fifty chance of it going either way.  In other words, it may indeed be hard or easy, but you don’t know in advance because we can’t foresee the future.  You can think, “this is going to be hard” or “this is going to be easy” so he said why not pick the second thought and go with that.

Hence as I look at the basement kitchen and try to cajole myself into baking, I’m going to have to think, “this is going to be easy.”  Experience tells me that it’s not, but what the hey, there’s no harm in trying a new approach to things.  Remember Julie Andrews singing “just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down?”  Now where is that bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry that I bought the other day?

It’s the first day of summer and my delphiniums are looking absolutely gorgeous.  I’d love to include a photo of things like that in a newsletter, but don’t understand yet how to do it!  I can grow beautiful delphiniums, make really delectable souffles, write reasonably coherent blogs, but cannot for the life of me understand technology.

Last night I made one of the family’s favourite meals.  I made chicken souvlakis, roasted potatoes and Greek salad.  Just because I was in the mood for some baking therapy, I made a dear little butter cake for dessert.  Then I iced it and put sprinkles on top.  I decided a tiny corner wouldn’t hurt.  Sometime within the next hour something inside me snapped and I ended up eating the majority of it.

I woke up intermittently in the night, feeling quite nauseous.  When next I’m being whisked to the hospital with a kidney stone, I will reflect back on the cause.  Note I’m not going to try and reflect on it until the crisis hits.

Today is Father’s Day so in honour of it I’m making pork chops in a delectable whipping cream and white wine sauce for dinner.  Tempting fate, I’ve got a pan of brownies in the oven.  I figure one won’t hurt anything.

My vegetable garden has proven to be a bit of a disappointment.  The radishes were woody and the lettuce is bitter!  Vegetable growing is proving to be a bit of a puzzle.  It’s probably better to stick to producing baked goods.

As an experiment, inside my greenhouse I have two big pots, one with a bottle-neck gourd and the other with a cucumber.  It’d be great if these turn out to be great honking vines winding their way beautifully around the inside.  So far it looks promising.

Less promising are my efforts regarding fruitcake production, even though I keep telling myself how much I’m going to love it this year.  Luke and his friend Ryan, the kid who works for food, hooked my TV up to cable so now I can watch Martha while being Martha.

Last year I had the TV, but it was only hooked up to a DVD player.  I tried to watch some episodes of Trailer Park Boys, but realized one needs shows with a lot of talking and little action.  If all of the funny stuff is happening and you’re head-down chopping fruit, then you miss the whole point.

The weather changed this afternoon and there’s a wind and a bit of rain which could fell some of my tall delphiniums.  I recall this always happens the moment they’re at their full height and glory.  They’re too beautiful to cut, so maybe this is nature’s way of saying ‘go ahead.  Put some gorgeous delphiniums in a vase and enjoy.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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