As you know, I’m the Laziest Human on Earth, so to think I’m at 21,000 words on my memoir is quite astounding. But when you’ve written a blog since 2009 it’s not all that difficult to go back in time. I force myself to write 1000 words a day as that’s very manageable. Then I’m allowed to waste the rest of my time on YouTube videos.

Re-reading those blogs I see pets, food prep, adult children who won’t move away, and gardening projects were huge topics. Another subtopic was the fruitcake business, which was the point of the blog, and then to a minor degree every few blogs saying yep, for sure, I’m ready to write a book, though it never happened. Now that I’m doing it, I find it astonishing, but I guess it’s true, for everything there is a season. Or decade.

And speaking of many decades, mom turned 99 on Sunday, so now she’s in her 100^th year, hence the party this summer to celebrate that. As I said to her, if dead, we’ll use the party as a memorial. If alive, more fun for mom, plus she’ll have seen all the people who will be invited to her eventual memorial. Mom’ll appreciate that given she wants to know everything about everyone all the time.

I made mom’s favourite Bacardi rum cake for her birthday dinner with Luke and me. I’m able to get an entire 26-ounce bottle of rum into a Bundt cake, and it’s so moist, pungent and delicious mom will wolf the entire thing in a few days. In her younger years she could eat an entire cake, but now maybe one quarter per day is her limit.

Nick and family came to visit at mom’s to say goodbye as they’re shoving off to start a new life in Japan. I’m so proud of him for having such an adventurous spirit but I think he comes by it honestly given my dad left Germany at age 23 to start a new life in Canada. It seems to be what the family does, move all over the world, embracing new cultures. Maybe we’re part Viking or something, though they beat up cultures, so who knows.

I used to be all snooty about the Kelowna Actors Studio, then I went to New York, and now I like the Actors Studio. Forty years ago, shows on Broadway were huge complete with an orchestra, but now there’s not all that and the tickets are around two or three hundred dollars. Here I paid $65 to see an excellent production of Tootsie and loved it.

As you may know we’ve had two huge fires, one in 2003 and the other last year, destroying hundreds of homes. I have a lot of ponderosa pine trees and so a lot of needles and I wondered what the best way is to get rid of them. In the past I always had them hauled away, but then people said you can compose them so I wondered if I should do that.

I contacted the City and a person from the landfill replied, “I don’t know. Ask a consulting company.” I thought wow, I pay $350 a month and though I do have garbage collection, and I suppose the police, fire or ambulance might come if I call them, but other than that, I’m unsure what else I get other than rabid high-rise development. The City of Kelowna is a curious place.

I should’ve done this right from the beginning, as I know if I have a question, I can go to the Hall Road Neighbourhood Facebook page, and I’ll get all the free advice I need. The consensus was to remove the needles, and this makes sense given to compost takes a lot of water and time, and I have neither as we’ve been told a summer of drought lies ahead.