Quelle joie! I have several tomatoes and one adorable little green pepper in my vegetable garden.  Being completely stupid, I had no idea that the onions were to be separated, so planted the clump and of course they died.  However, I have so much chard and lettuce that I made my first delivery to the food bank last week.  The other day I said to Denis, “Get used to having a salad nightly.”

But even more thrilling than the vegetables is my recent spate of luck regarding CBC Radio.  The wonderful producer of Sounds Like Canada set me up with two entrepreneurs, and I was able to tell each of them about my business, and they each gave me suggestions.  Needless to say, I’ve been ruminating about each and every one of them ever since.

The first person with whom I spoke is a very successful bakery owner in Toronto named Dufflett Rosenberg.  She’s been in the business for 30 years and has three very popular and successful bakeries.  Upon hearing of my tiny, silly, wee business, she suggested that there may be nothing wrong with staying small.

She pointed out that I have a lovely lifestyle, and this would certainly be compromised by insane, rapid growth.  Dufflett thought if I sold more to customers directly, rather than to stores, I could bake the same amount, but make more money.

The second person I had the great pleasure to speak with is a 20-year-old go-getter named Prerna Chandak.  She has a business which assists young entrepreneurs access funds.  I spoke with her for 45 minutes, and again, another poor person had to listen to the story of Nuttier.  However, she was completely enthused by my story, and suggested as she has connections in Toronto, that she might be able to get me onto City T.V.  If that happens, well then you can say, “I knew her when.”

However, both women cautioned that this sudden infusion of fame will bring offers and ideas from others, and that I’ll have to remain completely focused on my goal.  Because I’m as malleable as Plasticene on  hot summer’s day, I know I’ll have some difficulty with this.

On Wednesday at 8:45 AM I’m to be at the local CBC Radio studio where my interview will be taped, and then hopefully it’ll be played on Sounds Like Canada on Friday, July 4th.  Once that’s happened, I’ll just have to see what the fates bring my way.  After all, just three weeks ago I was just an unknown fruitcake monger on a mission, and now I’ll be on national radio.  Quelle joie!

As you may recall, last week I’d e mailed CBC Radio’s Sounds Like Canada show about my business.  Can you believe it, but the producer left a message saying that I was one of two people chosen!  She said I would be paired with a marketing student, and perhaps interviewed on the air.  After leaving messages back and forth for two days, we finally spoke at length, after which she said, “We are definitely going to interview you on the air!”

I guess there’s something inherently funny about a fruitcake business, as well as the type of insane individual who would envision such a thing.  And perhaps I am going mad from it, as witnessed by a dream I had in which I was constantly packing and unpacking.  When I went to my favourite dream interpretation site, it said this generally denotes chaos.  I guess that pretty much sums it up right now.

Not only am I going to be on CBC Radio, but I’ve also browbeaten business reporter Steve MacNaull of the Daily Courier to write another fruitcake update.  Plus, there’s the upcoming article in the summer issue of Okanagan Arts Magazine!  With the help of the marketing student, coupled with this flurry of media exposure, I guess it’s understandable if I’m trying to work things out even in my sleep.

It’s really just the same old thing.  I phoned some people to follow up re: the Okanagan Fruit and Rum bar.  Several said “No thanks.”  This drives me into a tailspin of hopelessness.  Then, I remember what’s to come media-wise, and my blood runs cold as I imagine the thousands and thousands of orders I’ll have to fill.  This cycle continues all day until I fall into bed, exhausted.

In the midst of this, I drove home behind a car whose customized license plate read, Let Go.  I read it, and thought nothing more of it.  However, the words came into and out of my head for the next couple of days, and I was thinking to myself how strange a coincidence it was.  Then it finally hit me that of course, this was not coincidence!  It was the universe saying that I really do need to let go.

And when I  do honestly and completely say and feel those words, I feel fantastic.  Plus, there’s always my sainted mother giving me pep talks, such as “So what if it doesn’t work out?  It doesn’t matter.”  To which I beg to differ, but I understand the philosophy of thinking of the worse thing that could possibly happen.

On the up side, mom has decided to become my image advisor, as she’s sure the Ellen Degeneres show is next.  However, she said I’ll need a signature look, such as Hill’s pantsuits or Martha’s tailored shirts.  As I’ve just eaten an entire iced angel food cake over the past two nights, I’m voting for a muumuu for summer, and a flowing tunic for winter.

Working from home can be lethal.  Yesterday around noon I thought I may as well turn on the TV while I ate my chicken salad sandwich.  I tuned in to KCTS, the public television station, and saw that Deepak Chopra was on.  It was one of his talks about how to find happiness.  As I watched and listened to his words about the Buddha, I became completely and deeply relaxed.  Wouldn’t you know it, by 1:00 PM I was soundly asleep!

Damn!  That can really cut into a person’s schedule.  However, I decided that I had probably burnt myself out the day before.  I had bravely gotten into the van, loaded it with some Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars, and took my dog and pony show on the road.  I drove south, and managed to hit a total of eight stores.  As luck would have it, I made a sale at Summerland Sweets.  I’d never been to their store before, and I would recommend it as a darling place to take out-of-town visitors.

I’ve now been to 29 stores, and 11 of them have bought.  I now need to hound those who said they were going to sample the product and get back to me….. nicely, of course.  I’m fanatical for round numbers, so either want to get four or nine more stores.  Next week I’m going north, so will hit places like the O’Keefe Ranch in Vernon as they have a gift store.  Anywhere the intrepid tourist lurks, there lurks my product.

You know how I love entering any CBC Radio contest presented to me.  I feel this one is fated to be The One.  As I left Hainle Vineyards in Peachland on Tuesday, Sounds Like Canada guest host Katherine Gretsinger was doing an article about small business.  Then she said, “We’d love to hear from small business owners out there.”  Apparently, they’ll pick some and pair them with marketing students.

I sent them an e mail yesterday about my dear fruitcake business, so am keeping my fingers crossed.  Wouldn’t it be fabulous to be chosen?  And why not, as who needs more help than a fruitcake monger?  Only someone making stuff out of spinach or liver would need more help.

It’s finally sunny today, so I’m heading down to the vegetable patch to do some watering, and will try to regain the tan I began in Nicaragua.  Wonderfully, I’ve begun picking leaves from the Swiss chard and curly lettuce on a daily basis.  After that bit of fun I need to bake and package, and so I just prey there’s no more Deepak Chopra on TV or I’m dead meat.

Oh, my poor aching body!  I’ve been working on my insane gardening project and it’s nearly killed me.  I started innocently enough the other day by jauntily walking down the path to the garden.  I picked up a shovel and placed the tip on the ground, then attempted to push it into the ground with my foot.  The shovel skewed this way and that, and the end went in about an inch.  I realized that I was trying to dig through dirt the consistency of cement.

The ‘dirt’ is actually sand filled with various sizes of rocks, some the size of my head.  Where the six dump trucks of so-called soil went that were delivered I have no idea.  It appears to have mated with the existing gravel, spawning a field of hell for the would-be gardener.  I can’t believe the early settlers had to work through this.

On Wednesday it took me about four hours, but I managed to remove all of the gravel from one of the beds.  I had sweat dripping off the end of my nose as I carted the wheelbarrows full of gravel to the side and dumped them.  Once the bed was emptied to a depth of about one foot, I had to go up and down, up and down the steep path to get the decent soil.  When I had the bed filled with that, I got out my bedding plants and started the fun part.  Oh man, when those tomatoes are ripe….

So now I have a greenhouse, and three beds filled with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cabbage, lettuce and cucumbers.  Three beds left to go, and then next year we can start on some landscaping.  Don Burnett suggested some dwarf trees, so I’ll enjoy looking into that.  For sure, I’m thinking an apricot tree would be wonderful to have.

One would imagine that physical labour would burn off an awful lot of calories.  And I suppose it would, if one didn’t have the appetite of a large draft horse.  Plus, doing that kind of work makes it all seem perfectly legitimate.  Yesterday I was lined up at the till at Lakeview Market, when lo and behold a box of cordial cherries caught my eye.  Usually only available at Christmas, yet here they were.  I took that as a sign, and last night easily ate the whole box.

So this morning’s agenda includes fitness, then some marketing, and as a reward, a very large lunch.  I’ve been forcing myself out to winery gift stores, and am waiting for a couple of them to get back to me.  The fact that some stores don’t even bother to reply irks the living daylights out of me, but what can I do?  I can only wait until I get discovered and my limited product is in wild demand.  I can feel that this moment is just around the corner.

In 1975 I attended UBC to become a teacher.  The whole experience was quite irritating as the program seemed to have about as much meat as a jet-puffed marshmallow.  We were all transfer students from various faculties, so were all stunned by it.  We traveled in a group and enjoyed discussing our amazement at the curriculum.

In one class, in which we were to learn  how to teach language arts to grades four to seven, one of us nervously asked the prof, “but how do you handle discipline problems?”  He thundered, “Be creative, and you’ll never have a discipline problem!”

One day in that same language arts class the prof turned out the lights and had us chant the names of vegetables in the dark.  We were each to choose one vegetable and chant its name over and over.  He pointed to me, and I began.  I chose the word, “squash.”

We were naturally all apprehensive, none of us ever having been in charge of a classroom before, and knowing our practica were just around the corner.  Of course I had grade sevens, and they absolutely made mincemeat out of me.

We often wondered if any of the profs would show us how to handle a group of 30 twelve year olds, but unfortunately they never did.  I finally came to understand why as a result of a woman in our program named Megan.  Just as with a talent like being able to paint or being able to hit a ball, there are those who are born to teach.  They just exude ‘teacher.’

Megan would come to class all coifed and cheery, wearing a pant suit.  She would colour all of her assignments for extra marks.  If anything needed to be done, she would happily volunteer.  All the profs would look at her and beam.  Naturally, whenever I was alone with the other class members I would do what I thought were hysterical imitations of her and make scathing remarks about her brown nosing.

Soon, however, I found just being near Megan raised my blood pressure.  One day I said to my pal Ralph, “This much adrenaline can’t be good for anybody.”  Although, I did notice that I was able to do things at a much faster rate.

I was reminded of all of this because of the amount of adrenaline currently surging through my body.  It comes from the knowledge that if I don’t sell my product, I have no money.  Scary!  I therefore have to keep marketing no matter how upsetting or annoying it is.  The good news, however, is that I’ve sold Okanagan Fruit and Rum Bars to eight stores, and this would never have occurred if not for the adrenaline.

Mercury is about to go retrograde, but as we know, the effects are always felt well in advance.  Perhaps that’s the reason for the number of annoyances recently.  Yesterday I was so excited to know that the greenhouse was being assembled.  I wandered down around noon to see how it was coming along, and said to the guy, “Oh, I kind of thought the door would be FACING MY HOUSE……” However, having it face the neighbours’ is really kind of original, so I just walked away, amazed.

I stupidly relied on the family to assist me in laying out the raised beds, and as not a thing’s been done, I phoned Don Burnett, local Gardening Guru for help.  I told him that now everything’s an emergency as Luke and his friend Brian are to be building them on the weekend, and so they have to be laid out this week.  I then made an appointment for today at 1:00, totally forgetting my creative writing class.  Now I have no idea when the bed design will be done, due to not paying attention to my own schedule.

I did receive some wonderful news, though, with the new Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars.  I have a new customer, and that’s the Penticton Wine Information Centre!  The Bench Artisan Food Market also ordered, so I’ll be off to Penticton tomorrow to make deliveries.  If you’re not an entrepreneur, you have no idea of the heady feeling brought on by the thrill of the sale.

 Another personal thrill  is the conversion of the so-called fruitcake hater.  I also had one of these this week, as I had given a bar to the label designer at Challenge Labels.  I was very happy to receive his e mail extolling the product’s virtues, as he’d told me at the beginning that he hated fruitcake.  I told him I would change that, and he was skeptical.  Chalk up another victory for fruitcake.

We just spent the long weekend on Pender Island for a Doyle family reunion.  As you may recall, Denis comes from a family of 11, though two have died in accidents over the years.  So the remaining nine of them (seven males and two females) got together.  My sister-in-law Margaret and I have penned the term ‘fog horning’ to describe their manner of ‘speaking.’  I guess when you’ve always had to fight for everything, including having your voice heard, you learn to project.

Margaret and her son Brendan, Denis and I rented a lovely house right on the ocean.  In the morning Brendan and I went down and poked around in the tidal pools.  There were fantastic starfish a shade of purple so insanely vivid it looked artificial.  We also saw dark orange sea anemones and lots of little crabs in various hues of pink, red and mauve.

The weather was great, which was a Godsend, as the Gulf Islands in the rain are pretty hard to take.  Margaret and I had pedicures at the chi chi spa in the Poet’s Cove Resort.  Wouldn’t you know that she and I were fog horning so much while we were waiting that the attendant came out to remind us “there are treatments going on in the rooms around you.”  I guess it’s a trait not just limited to the Doyles.

Some of the biggest screaming fits curiously seem to occur on Mother’s Day.  I’m not sure why this is, but I recall having one four years ago, and then there was the other one this past weekend.  Four years ago I managed to tear off my big toe nail with the bottom of a door.  As I say to people, the combination of being a klutz and doing everything with gusto is a recipe for disaster.

I had pulled a door open towards me with all my might, not realizing that my foot was in the way.  The details are too horrible to rehash, but suffice it to say I am far more careful now.  In any case, this happened in the spring, and so I wasn’t able to do a lot of gardening.  So on Mother’s Day 2004, I had to get Nicky to help me with a shoveling project.

I gave him instructions and walked away.  A while later I returned to see him doing something completely stupid, and I asked him what in the name of God in Heaven he was doing.  He said, “Dad told me to do it this way.”  This was the moment when I suddenly lost all sense of rationality and screamed at the kid that as dad knew blank-all about it, he shouldn’t be interfering.

It was then that I felt the stillness of the neighbourhood, and wondered.  I didn’t need to wonder last weekend, though.  Denis and I were attempting to discuss the Great Garden Project, and this led to both of us screaming at each other.  That was when we noticed that the neighbours were having a garage sale, and that the entire group of people on their driveway had gone silent.

I mean, really, have they never heard a couple arguing before?  To avoid this situation in the future, I’ve hired Luke and his friend Brian to build the beds for me.  They’re to start this weekend by laying them out and digging the trenches for the blocks.  Then, next week they’re to fill the trenches with gravel and set up the blocks.  I can then fill one or two beds with soil and maybe plant one or two stinking carrots this season.  They will be very, very expensive carrots.

Imagine how flattered I was to have been invited to submit an article to Okanagan Arts Magazine!  Robert MacDonald, the editor and publisher, said he reads my blog, and hence would like me to write about my meteoric rise in the fruitcake business.  As I write this, I have just had a horrible day of marketing and feel like the world’s biggest failure.  However, one must persevere.

Yesterday I spent the day as a traveling salesperson, going to nine businesses in the Valley to flog my new Okanagan Fruit and Rum Bars.  I sold at two stores, two said no, and five need to be re-contacted.  Couldn’t I just win the 649 and be done with it?  However, as long as plucky Hillary Clinton is able to keep going, I shall keep going, too.  I’m sure she’s having the odd testy moment with her spouse as well.

I needed insulin for Arnie the Diabetic Dachshund the other week, so went to the vet’s.  Every six months or so they try to make Arnie come in for a day of glucose testing, and they try to withhold the insulin until that is done.  I did it once, and saw no benefit whatsoever, so told them I thought it was unnecessary.  Naturally, the vet had a fit, but said I could refuse the test “on my peril.”  Whatever….. in any case, I got the dog’s insulin.

 Then a week ago I noticed Arnie’s bad eye was looking particularly horrible.  I took him into the vet, and it turns out he now has glaucoma.  The vet said this is very painful, and as the eye is blind he suggested removal.  What could I do, but acquiesce, as I don’t want the dog in pain.  $850 later, the dog has no eye.

It never pays to act smug around a veterinarian.  When I talked the vet out of the glucose test, I came home proudly and said to Denis, “I browbeat the vet out of an exam for Arnie.”  I now have a 13-year-old dog that resembles Frankenstein.  There are looped stitches over the eye, which thankfully are to come out in two weeks.

However, the good news is that somehow the concrete foundation got laid on the weekend!  I could hardly believe it last Friday when dump truck after dump truck of soil was dropped in the yard.  On Saturday morning a man came and transported it all to the lower yard and flattened it.  In the afternoon, Denis, Luke and a friend of Luke’s started on the foundation.  By Sunday afternoon it was done.

Next week the greenhouse will arrive and be assembled.  I now have to get going on the raised beds.  As I read article after article about the world wide food shortage, I chuckle at my own brilliance.  A cow, a few chickens, and we’ll be all set.  I wonder how much wheat one needs for a year’s worth of bread.

Next Monday my first-year creative writing course begins at UBC-Okanagan.  I’m pretty excited about it, even though I’ll be the senior citizen of the class.  I imagine myself as the character from Elf, draped over my miniscule desk like a behemoth, while surrounded by tiny little eighteen-year-olds.  Nicky asked if I was going to be a keener in the class, and I said, “Of course!”

Yesterday I made 30 Okanagan Fruit and Rum Bars, and it was a fantastic feeling.  I’m going to take a few around to my stores within the next few days, and hopefully these babies will be selling shortly.  They really do look sweet in their little boxes with the little cut-out window.

Because of the excellent karma produced by actually taking action with the new bars, I came home today to a message  from one of my stores.  The owner was placing an order, so that put me into a good frame of mind to get back to the business at hand, which is baking hundreds more bars.  God knows I need the business with the vet sending me off with these words, “Glaucoma can strike the other eye, too, you know.”

Even though I had ordered boxes and labels for the Okanagan Fruit and Rum Bars, I actually had no idea how I was going to present them.  I thought of using my mini-loaf pans, and then cutting the cakes in half lengthwise.  After trying this a few times, I could see that cutting something exactly in half thousands of times was going to lead to one of those horrible murder-suicide incidents.

The Universe, however, was already chuckling at me, and waiting for me to remember that I had the answer already made.  During our last baking session in December, we’d ended up with half a loaf’s worth of dough, and Marilyn suggested we should just bake it.  I soaked it in rum, vacuum-sealed it, and threw it on the table downstairs.  There it sat, waiting to be discovered.

Imagine my wonderment at how my most major predicament was solved through a so-called ‘coincidence.’  I’m now making perfect little bars, and as soon as the labels arrive, I hope I will be selling these babies like hotcakes.  I contacted a gourmet store owner in Langley, and she said she’s always interested in trying locally made foods.

So even though there is finally forward-movement in the fruitcake business, there isn’t one single thing happening with the garden project.  I was promised dirt last Friday, but here I am five days later: dirtless in Kelowna.

Any person who has any kind of a trade appears to be belong to a secret brotherhood.  They promise to uphold their credo, which consists of telling the customer they will be there, when they know they won’t.  Why, I have no idea, but I’ve been through enough renovations to know that’s the way they operate.

I, on the other hand, must whip up gourmet sandwiches in a timely manner for Nicky’s lunches.  The other night I was watching TV when the phone rang.  It was Nicky.  He wanted to let me know that he had clothes in the dryer, and he would appreciate it if I would get them out and fold them so they wouldn’t be wrinkled.  Imagine how little success I’d have with the Trade Person’s Credo!

Denis grew up in a construction company-owning family, and so he seems to have inherited this ‘manana’ kind of philosophy himself.  Imagine his surprise when he came home yesterday and I had the stove unplugged with tools scattered about.  After 18 months with a broken oven, I’d decided to take matters into my own hands and fix it myself.

I’d called Sears, and they told me to get a ‘baking element.’  That bought, I set about removing the old one.  Sure enough, the new element worked, and I was completely triumphant.  I do draw the line at repairing vehicles, however.

The Harlequin Romance Critique Service said, “Don’t quit your day job!”  I re-read their critique several times, feeling sure that I must have misunderstood.  However, the words, “overwritten, predictable and unconvincing” seemed to convey quite a strong conviction on their part that I need a lot of help.  Thank God the creative writing course starts on May 12th.

Being slapped down by the Harlequin people reminded me of how mirthful I was last fall entering the CBC radio writing contest.  The same comments must have floated across the judges minds then, too.  Meanwhile, I was breaking out in laughter every few minutes thinking about what an extraordinary wit I am!  Life is funny, isn’t it?

There was nothing amusing about the heavy snow that fell on Saturday!  I’ve never seen snow in April before, and found it quite distressing.  The forsythia was totally weighted down by the snow, and the tulips, pansies and daffodils were totally flattened by it.  I got a broom and knocked some off my rose bush, and then covered the bush in some plastic bags.  God knows what the flowers will be like this year.

Two nights ago it was minus 11 degrees, which is just ridiculous.  The water in the bird bath has been frozen for the past few nights!  Just now I was outside and needed a zipped-up jacket, as well as long pants.  Nonetheless all of the beds are bone-dry, so I have to water even though it is certainly not gardening weather.  The poor birds and bees must be frozen solid.

Of course there’s zero progress on the grand garden project, but there has been some forward movement on the new product.  I now have a lovely new label, and am looking forward to marketing my product with it.  It’s a butterscotch-coloured label with burgundy accents, and the theme is of rows of fruit trees with the sun behind.  Hopefully it’ll convey a feeling of the Okanagan to the tourists who are to be buying it.

Yesterday I went down to the proposed site for the garden project and began to pick up some of the huge rocks that were unearthed by the backhoe.  The two miniature dachshunds enjoyed it tremendously, but Arnie’s sight is now totally gone, so he just stayed at the top, howling balefully.  He’s spent every day of his life since he was six weeks old asking himself the question, “Where’s mommy?”

Remember Sylvester the cat on the Bugs Bunny show?  He had a little son who would walk around with a paper bag on his head, because he was ashamed of his dad for being beaten up by a mouse.  He would say, “Oh the shame of it all.”  Sylvester would then angrily grab the bag off his head and tell him to cut it out.

I guess I’ll have to have a paper bag ready for Denis when he gets home.  I’ll have to tell him that he will not be seeing my book amongst the pulp fiction in the grocery store – yet.