I now have five out of 23 boxes vacuum-sealed for the Nokia order.  It’s surprising how long it takes to vacuum seal 1,125 fruitcakes!  Thank God for CBC Radio as it seems to keep my mind sufficiently occupied to prevent a catastrophe.  An example of this would be analyzing what I’m doing, decide to quit, and start throwing butter at the walls.

I’m also losing it a bit on the packaging, and must now do the rabid pack-per-order nightmare that I vowed to avoid.  As I perused the year’s sales to date, I suddenly felt sick as I saw that I’ve already sold 2,000 and the season’s just begun.  What will become of me?

I had a wonderful response to my e mail to the Osoyoos Times.  A really nice woman phoned and said that she will be doing an article.  Then today the Okanagan Life Magazine came out, and on page 22, should you feel bored, there’s a dear article about my fruitcakes.  The boxes just looked so Martha Stewart that I felt quite proud.

It’s very hard to do, but Nicky managed to strip the transmission in the little Nissan van.  I asked him what had happened, and he said he was losing power and wanted to keep with the flow of traffic, and to do so engaged the overdrive.  I said to him that I never touch the overdrive, to which he just shrugged.

So this morning I had to drive him to school, and he said he didn’t want the dogs to come along.  I said, “Well then you’re taking the bus, because I’m not leaving without the dogs.”  Seeing that there was finally a line that was not going to be crossed, he had to acquiesce, though he refused to allow them the front seat.  Ricky perched on my neck as usual, but poor Arnie and Mojo had to sit on the back seat.

I’ve had a nice invitation to be the guest speaker at the holiday wine tasting event at the BC Wine Museum on December 6th.  It’s called Glitter and Gold, and apparently will feature bubblies, late harvests, ice wines and ports.  After my talk we are to adjourn to the wine room where guests will sample my cakes with a variety of ports.  To which I said, “Wahoo!”

On Friday night I made chicken enchiladas, on Saturday shrimp jambalaya, on Sunday chicken cashew stir-fry and last night lightly floured red snapper fried in butter, accompanied by mashed yams and steamed brussels sprouts.  So, today I announced that there is a Rising Crust Pizza in the oven, and people can either eat that, or starve.  At this point, it’s every man for himself as I work like a frightened idiot until December 25th.

Did I not say one month ago that making smaller fruitcakes would lead to insanity?  This may come as quite a shock, but I’m going to be packaging over 1,000 smaller fruitcakes for Nokia Canada!  Thankfully, Marilyn’s going to be baking with me for the next two weekends so that I’ll have enough product for the onslaught.

And what an onslaught I’m expecting, if the craft event at Prospera Place was a foreshadowing.  They opened the doors at 11:00 AM, and within ten minutes I’d made the first sale.  After that, I was just slinging fruitcakes at people right and left.  Mom came to help, and left at 3:00, ashen-faced from the experience.  She couldn’t move from her spot, maniacally putting pieces of fruitcake samples into muffin cups as fast as her hands would go.

There were the usual suspects at the event: the dad with the four shabbily-dressed kids pushing samples of everything and anything into their mouths; the pregnant woman worried that the amount of booze in the sample piece might be harmful; the mentally ill devout person, hoping to convert the hapless vendor on the spot.

Of course, there were also the serious shoppers, and those who said they’d bought last year and who were happy to have found me once again.

Gerry had accompanied mom, so went into the bleachers to listen to his books on tape for four hours.  I suspect he spent a bit of that time sleeping.  Once it was time to go, mom had to search for him briefly, and once found, they were out of there as fast as they could go.  Mom still had five cases of fruitcakes to deliver to Buy Low Foods in Osoyoos!  I hope I’m that spry at 82.

Next week an article will appear in Okanagan Life Magazine, so that should be exciting.  I also contacted Steve MacNaull of the Daily Courier, and will do the same with Maxine Dehart of the Capital News.  I also e mailed someone who I’ve know for over 40 years, who happens to be the owner of the Osoyoos Times.  Sometimes it helps to be from a small place!

Or, sometimes it just helps to be brash.  I e mailed the food writer from the Victoria Times Colonist and asked if I could send him some more fruitcakes.  I reminded him that he’d written a lovely article last year and how much it helped my sales.  He e mailed back and said, sure, go ahead and send them.  So, hopefully I’ve covered some major areas with these latest efforts.

Because of all of that, I’ve neglected the garden entirely, so am behind in my yearly ritual of digging up the dahlia bulbs and storing them.  I still plan to do it, but now with the packaging and shipping for the Nokia order, I’m trying to figure out how all of these things will get done.  Certainly it would not occur to family members, often found in recumbent positions around the home, to offer.

I find it strange that no matter how many sit-ups I do at the gym, my stomach remains problematical.  However, I believe it is quite likely the result of an overabundance of calories.  Mom and Gerry just returned from a trip to Germany where they toured the Ritter Sport chocolate factory.  Mom just couldn’t resist buying one or two of each kind they make, and believe me, they make a lot of kinds.  She dropped off a zippered plastic bag of them for me, and I’m working my way through the varieties.  The rum truffle is one of my fav’s, for sure.

Not that I am the only living creature who was ever addicted to chocolate.  We had a cat who was originally named Mimi, then called Stripe by me and Maugel (which means whiner in German) by my dad.  She used to jump on the kitchen table where my dad fed her a large tin of almond roca.  Not all at once, of course, but over several weeks that cat had eaten the whole tin.

Fruitcake orders are now coming in daily, and that’s a good thing.  As the stores are now fully decked out in Christmas plumage, people are starting to think about it.  A nice woman in Vancouver ordered 20 from my site!  I was also heartened to see that Sunshine Market is moving them nicely.  This is due to return customers, so that’s wonderful, too.

What’s not so great is Nicky’s newly-found penchant for entrepreneurship.  He isn’t one himself, but hangs at work with the guys who contract to Telus, so thinks he’s a wealth of knowledge.  The other night I was sitting in the living room, alternately cutting parchment paper for the tins and snipping dried apples.  He came in, and said that he was happy to see that I was actually getting with the progran and perhaps there was a chance I would be able to meet my orders.

I’ve learned that keeping my mouth shut at times like this is best.  There’s little to be gained from getting into a verbal battle with Nicky as it just ends badly.  So, I just practice mentally and emotionally absenting myself from the situation.  Kind of the way I had to cope with math while in school.

After weeks of baking every weekend with Marilyn, I had last weekend entirely off.  Denis’ brother Kevin and his wife Denise visited, so it was a chance to cook like a crazy person.  We had a lovely dinner of chicken souvlaki, homemade tsaziki and pita, roasted potatoes and Greek salad on Friday.  On Saturday I made a pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy and a Caesar salad.  Actually, both dinners involved a couple of bulbs of garlic, which is just so healthy.

But now I have to get ready for the big Christmas craft event, which means going to the bank for change, buying muffing cups and bags, and cutting up a dozen fruitcakes for samples.  More importantly, I have to choose my wardrobe, and this will be tough as I want to wear shoes that are halfways comfy.  You know what that means – the entire outfit will be ruined!

Gardeners are an odd lot, as we get mysterious joy from doing something like planting bulbs in the fall.  I bought 60 tulip bulbs the other day, 35 pink and 25 yellow, and planted them along the driveway.  It nearly killed me to dig out the old tulips, and in the end I succumbed to kneeling and digging with a hand shovel.  My back simply would not tolerate the angle required for the full sized shovel.

But now I can dream of the drifts of pink and yellow that will greet me each day next April or May.  Actually by February I’ll be out there studying the ground looking for signs of life.  Now that’s fun!

This morning I realized that the house’s feng shui was terrible, due to an overload of dirt.  As I’ve been baking and doing all of the things associated with that, I’ve neglected the house terribly.  So, I began in the entrance and dusted, washed, and cleaned myself silly.  I moved into the kitchen and dining area, and by then ta da! the phone rang and a nice woman from a cute sounding store on Saltspring Island ordered two cases of Okanagan Harvest Cake!

I then went downstairs to turn on the auto-clean for the ovens, and when I came back to my e mail an order had been placed from a highly-recommended store in Calgary! Tomorrow I shall move into the living room, and then continue throughout the house until I have more orders than I know what to do with.  It is truly amazing how feng shui works.  Removing dirt and clutter is definitely Step One.

For someone who loathes technology, this next step in the business may be a doozy.  I’ve applied for the ability to accept credit cards.  Part of it involves getting one of those adorable credit card machines, so I can swipe people’s cards to my heart’s content.  I’ll be giving it a whirl at the upcoming tsunami known as the Christmas craft event at Prospera Place.  A report will be forthcoming.

Nicky now says he wants a $400 winter jacket from a store called Island Snow.  I suggested he try Winners first, but he said he wanted to look “like all the other kids” at university.  Both Denis and I cried and whined, and I think we have him buying it himself.  However, just now he stated quite emphatically that he expected Christmas to be big to compensate.

Tonight I expect we’ll have our usual complement of about six trick or treaters for Halloween.  Nonetheless the other day I thought it would be a good idea to get a two kg. bag of mini Oh Henry’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Glosette peanuts and raisins.  After several dizzying nights, I’ve come to the conclusion that Halloween candy is best bought on the day of the occasion.

I knew I was The Biggest Loser when I didn’t get notified that I was a semi-finalist for the CBC Canada Writes contest.  Then I read the B.C. finalists’ submissions and biographies and laughed at myself.  Two out of three were writers, so that made me feel better.  I adored reading their bio’s and imagined mine: “Moni Schiller is a middle aged woman who makes fruitcake in the basement of her home.  She writes a weekly blog which she purports to be funny.”

Sigh.  However, I did have some wonderful news, and that is that I’m very close to getting into the sainted city of Calgary!  Someone with a lot more down-to-earth business skills than I have actually did some research into this.  She said that Alberta is a gold mine for fruitcake mongers, so we will see.

It makes me chuckle to think of the way I researched the viability of a gourmet fruitcake business.  I made some fruitcake, gave it to people, and when they screamed and wept a bit when it was gone, I decided it would probably sell.

I’ve had my nose to the grindstone since August, and have literally not had a moment to indulge in my most serious passion, shopping.  However, the other day I had an hour to kill between appointments, and found myself right at Winner’s.  As I needed to buy a Christmas gift for a girl who will be visiting, I decided this would be the perfect time.  Nasty old Winner’s, though, puts the women’s clothes in front, so one must walk through them to the girls’ section.

I now have 19 pairs of dress pants and 5 pairs of casual pants.  I didn’t need the gray dress pants I just bought, however, gray is HUGE this season, and God knows, one wants to at least try to remain au courant, even caked in dough.  At the end of a day of baking my pores as well as my clothes exude fruitcake.  I miscalculated the rum the other day and had to race to the licquor store right at the end of a baking day.  The people all around me said, “It smells like food!”

But seriously, back to the CBC writing contest.  Who in their right mind wouldn’t find O! Dear Fruitcake set to the tune of O! Canada funny?  What about the ingenious movie review I made up about a trio of super-hero dachshunds who defend the Okanagan from developers?  Honestly, I was chuckling for days over my brilliance, only to have it dashed to bits by some judges.

Not that any of that counts for a hill of beans here at our dear home.  Nicky was in a flap this morning because his winter coat ‘is lost’ (IE he didn’t lose it), and Luke can’t find his important apprenticeship log book, so today I’m to help search the house for it.  It seems that a great portion of my time is spent helping others search for their things, but I guess that’s good as it’s an opportunity for bonding.

Everyone’s idea of humour is different, of course, so now I’m wondering if my submissions to CBC Radio’s contest will be viewed as juvenile rather than funny.  It reminds me of my dad, who in response to something that was supposedly witty would reply deadpan, “Tickle me.” I’m on tenterhooks until Friday when they’re posting the short-listed people.

Nicky’s been trying to soften me up on the idea that he may not work in January as he’s going to be taking six whole courses, and therefore may be too busy.  I tried to point out that his job is actually very easy, and well-paid, and hence it doesn’t hurt him to try to do just a few hours a week.  When that failed, I said, “Look.  Work or don’t won’t, but I’m not giving you a cent.” To which he balefully replied, “You are SO mean!”

Luke’s been living in a hell hole in Rutland for the past month, and it’s been quite nice.  Particularly enjoyable are the times when he comes home, and says incredulously, “Jeff and his girlfriend don’t even rinse their plates so the food is all stuck on and they’re really hard to clean!”  He said that he and his friend Felix are the only ones who clean the house.  I just chuckle merrily to myself.  It’s true, life does get more enjoyable the older you get.

The garden is giving its final hurrah.  The dahlias are still blooming bravely, even though the nights are getting very cold.  Soon I’ll look out and they’ll all be black and melted from the frost.  Now, though, when I look south out of the kitchen window I’m bathed in a golden glow of yellow and orange maples in the neighbours’ yards below.  I admire the orange-red pyrancantha berries around the deck; and on the deck itself containers still bursting with red zinnias and petunias, and huge orange marigolds.

Nokia, the phone company, inquired if I make tiny, individual fruitcakes.  Sadly, they would have wanted 1000!  However, to save myself from certain mental illness, I e mailed them that I only make the one-pound size.  I added that the one-pound size is actually perfect for a couple to share with a bottle of Merlot.  No reply.

I’ve started receiving orders from individuals who have ordered in the past, and have received a few new orders on PayPal, which is wonderful as it means people are finding my site.  I got the nicest e mail from a woman in Calgary today who said in part, “Your cake was one of the reasons we went back to the Okanagan.”

So even though on many days I wonder if I’ll have a few thousand fruitcakes to store for next year, I have to think positive.  I got a great e mail from the editor of Okanagan Life Magazine saying that the cakes I left were wonderful, so hopefully that article will bring lots of sales.

I may have overdone the manifesting of my destiny stuff, a la the book that changed my life called Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting.  I’ve been practicing the Law of Attraction, and by God, if two separate magazine editors didn’t phone me and offer me an article! Free! Complete with photos!

I’ll be featured in Okanagan Life Magazine, and the other is far away, in Florida.  The editor phoned and said she’d seen lots of fruitcake sites, but liked mine the best.  When I told Denis, he acted surprised, which annoyed me terribly, and so I asked him which part he was surprised about.  He said it was the fact that there are lots of fruitcake sites!  The nerve of that man.

I’ve also gotten out to do a bit of marketing, and am happy to say that orders are now picking up.  In fact, I’m a bit nervous, as I’ve entered a contest on CBC Radio called Canada Writes.  So far, I’ve submitted in four of the five categories, so am hoping that at least one submission will be good enough to be chosen as a semi-finalist.  If it is, what if thousands upon thousands of people check out my site?

I must say writing for the contest has been more fun than anything I’ve done in a long time.  I guess that’s because the genre is right up my alley.  The categories are: blogs (hello!), humour, songs, advertisements and movie pitches.  I’m very much hoping my rendition of O Fruitcake (sung to the tune of O Canada) will make it.

Just now a nice woman phoned in response to my ad in EAT Magazine.  A cider-making place on the Island e mailed me, and a store manager in Westbank ordered two cases of each product.  Of course some places with no vision have said no, but c’est la vie.

I spent the Thanksgiving weekend experimenting with pumpkin.  I ended up with pumpkin bread, pumpkin tarts and pumpkin pie.  Denis overdid the tarts with whipped cream, and so had an unpleasant night as a result.  He and the dogs are quite similar in that they will eat until the food is gone, no matter how sick they’re feeling while they’re doing it.

I also spend several hours re-organizing the storage room in the basement, as I now appear to have 50 cases of fruitcake ready to be packaged.  Just as I typed that number I felt my stomach do that weird flip flop thing stomachs do when they’re telling you that you’re insane.  I’m sure hoping there’s a way to get everything done, but right now I’m not really sure how.

Not to worry, though, as I have quite a large platter of leftover turkey that I’m going to fashion into delicious sandwiches.  Wolfing these will help me find a way to think.

I did my first fruitcake demo of the season on Friday, and after two hours of standing was reminded of why I’m not absolutely wild about these events.  It was in a new gift store called Shop the Valley, inside the lovely setting of Summerhill Winery.  All of the store’s inventory is made in the Okanagan, from art to food.  It was their grand opening as well as the first day of Wine Festival, so very busy.

A nice young woman came in, and the owner asked if she was enjoying the wine-related festivities.  She pointed to her stomach, and said that she was expecting.  One of us asked, “Is it your first?” to which she replied, “No, it’s my seventh.”

Of course the three of us (all moms) working in the store acted thrilled.  As soon as she left, we did the circled index finger around the ear motion, ie, that woman is crazy!! She made the usual delusional statement that after three it just gets to be so easy as the older ones help out.  I felt woozy just thinking about it.

I was happy to have snagged another customer, and once again, it happened as a result of them tasting the product.  I phoned the Kootenay Co-Op in Nelson and asked if I could send a sample, to which they innocently said, “Why not?”  Like a spider building its web, I chuckled merrily to myself as I packaged the two fruitcakes and mailed them off.  I knew what would happen.

I’m currently awaiting a response from the Executive Chef at the Capilano Golf Club in chi chi West Vancouver.  If he thinks the product passes muster, it is added to their roster of gift selections for members to purchase at Christmas.  How very exclusive, non?  We schlubs get to comb The Bay for something for a loved one, but they get to browse giant olives, gourmet crackers and decadent fruitcake (we hope).

I’ll do one dreaded Christmas craft/food event, and that’s the huge trade show held at Prospera Place here in Kelowna.  I feel sick thinking about it, but it’s a great way to get lifelong customers.  I had attended one in Penticton a couple of years ago, but not last year, so received a panicked phone call from a woman who had gone specifically to find me, and I wasn’t there.  I delivered two fruitcakes right to her door, and she was extremely relieved.

There’s a brand new high-end grocery store in Kelowna called Choices which just opened.  I must put on my Jones New York suit and get over there with a sample.  It always throws them a bit, I must say.  However, as I’ve always said, my initials aren’t the same as Martha Stewart’s for nothing.

In the meantime I have four dogs to take care of, as mom and Gerry have left for three weeks of fun in Germany, so Schwartzie is here with us again.  As mom sadly cradled the dog one last time before leaving, with a tear in her eye, I also had one in mine.  I imagined the amount of pee that the dog is going to leave on my area carpets and felt wistful for a day at a trade show just to get away from it all.

Has your own stupidity ever paralyzed you?  That’s how I’m feeling right at this moment, totally paralyzed.  I opened an envelope and out fell a bill for just over $600 for an ad!  I stupidly had read the terms of the contract wrong, and had purchased what I thought was one year’s worth of ads, and it turns out it’s per issue!  Excuse me while I got outside and scream for a minute.

Besides screaming, I find singing helps most things go along more smoothly.  I have actually composed a booklet of songs, just for the dogs.  Most of them are actually just for Arnie, such as Phantom of the Okanagan (sung to the tune of Phantom of the Opera).

“Look on the bed, and there you’ll find

The dachshund of the Okanagan’s there

He’s in your mind.”

By the way, if you’ve never seen the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Phantom of the Opera, you’re missing something.  I bought tickets for the four of us when the kids were about nine and twelve, and we were all completely blown away by the experience.  When the chandelier swings over your head and crashes into the stage, you know you’re in for the ride of your life.

My brother-in-law Martin commented that he didn’t really like musicals, as he said most people on his street don’t burst into song spontaneously.  Denis dryly muttered, “Try livin’ at my house.”  He’s very used to having the theme from Green Acres sung to him at the drop of a hat.  I particularly enjoy purring Eva Gabor’s words, “I just adore a penthouse view.  Dahling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue.”

I had a crazily busy week with the fruitcake business, and it’s just going to get much worse.  I had a lovely comment, “nice read” on one of my blogs from a stranger who stumbled onto my site by accident.  I felt happy about that.  I also got orders from Comox and Victoria, so feel my fame is starting to spread.

Not that fame can go to a person’s head if one has to deal with this.  I got up and there was Nicky’s pile of laundry, with a note printed in capital letters on top saying, “DO NOT OVERDRY THESE CLOTHES.”  He’s quite a vain little individual, and thinks he knows a thing or two about the care and maintenance of clothing.  Though he realizes he doesn’t know how to do it himself, he nonetheless thinks he knows enough to give proper instructions to the maid.

As I load the washing machine, I burst into a happy rendition of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island.  Like screaming, singing truly is a wonderful form of therapy. 

For seven long years I spent every summer toiling in my mom’s fruit stand.  It was called Schiller’s Fruit Stand, and was right beside the Super Valu in downtown Osoyoos.  I started at age 13, and mercifully when I was 19 mom decided it was her last year after 20 long summers.  However, during those seven years when I was there, I worked ten hours a day, six days a week.  When I mentioned this factoid to my children, Nicky replied drily, “Good for you.”

This was explained to me as actually being very leisurely, as during the summer, my mom worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day.  My grandma was in her seventies, and was cooking several dozen jars of jam in an un-air conditioned house every day.  These were trucked to the fruit stand and sold.  My grandpa, in his eighties, helped prepare the fruit, and my dad worked out in the orchard.

It was therefore unheard of that one would complain about their cushy 60-hour a week job.  Plus, there were some happy moments in there.  For one, the Sun Rype delivery guy was always a hunk, so once a week I was able to flirt outrageously.  Then, there were the lunches of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and afternoons of ripe cantaloupes filled with soft ice cream.  Did I mention I was a bit of a butterball even then?

Because mom thought peach fuzz detracted from the appeal of the fruit, all peaches had to be wiped of fuzz prior to being artistically placed into a basket.  The cherries were arranged into a kind of a dome, all stems pointing down, and thus invisible.  The jars of jam were all polished and placed on dusted shelves.

And then there were the riotous phone calls to Mrs. Toke.  The Tokes grew tomatoes, and as the summer wore on, the tourists’ appetite for local tomatoes would grow to a fever pitch.  They would shop at the Super Valu, then walk by our fruit stand on their way back to one of the motels lining the lake.  Of course, they would stop in for some local fruit and the prized tomatoes.

Every few days, a panicked phone call would go out to Mrs. Toke for more tomatoes.  Often they would also be low, and Mrs. Toke would say they really didn’t have any.  It was the phoner’s job to convince Mrs. Toke that somehow tomatoes must be deliverd, and she in her nasal voice would whine, “We can only try.”

And thus is has become the battle cry for people such as my pal Alison and me.  When the chips are down, we will say, “We can only try.”  And as I now feel the weight of the fruitcake season pressing down on me, I try to meditate on this mantra.  When I think about the phone calls I still have to make, the samples I have to deliver, and then the unending task of packaging before me, I just thank God for Mrs. Toke.