Tag Archive | family

Ruth Schiller is No More

Dec11

My dear old mom died in hospice in Penticton on Tuesday. She’d come home from hospital on December 1st and I tried to take care of her at home but it wasn’t possible. So on Friday she was taken to hospice where she felt very comfortable and cared for. I visited her every day and we had good conversations.

However by Monday she was already much weaker and more tired and when I arrived on Tuesday she was already in a very deep sleep, unable to be awakened. I sat by her bed and told her dad, granny, grampa, Freddie, Twig, they’re all waiting for you. I imagined that final scene in Titanic when the old woman dies and she is greeted at the Grand Staircase by Leo DiCaprio and other passengers who had died.

I was a physical and emotional wreck for the time leading up to mom’s passing, but once it occurred I felt a tremendous calm come over me. Mom was nearly 101, not able to do anything and very much wanted out of life. She’d accomplished her goal, and I was very happy for her.

I’ve written an obituary which will certainly go into the local Osoyoos Oliver Times Chronicle. But I was shocked it’d be nearly $1000 for the Province/Sun and much more for the Globe and Mail. But it’s as Penny said, you want Jean Chretien to read about mom’s passing. So I guess I have to bite the bullet and submit it to that paper for sure.

And this is the most pared-down version of an obituary I could write due to mom’s endless list of accomplishments. I had to omit the Queen’s Silver, Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medals, as well all that she did for the Town of Osoyoos. She was one of the pioneers, arriving in 1939 when she said there were still wooden sidewalks.

I worked for mom in her fruit stand, as did several of my friends over the years. I remember one morning when it was still a bit chilly, we had put sweaters on over our tank tops and shorts. Mom saw that and said “Get those sweaters off. Tourists don’t want to see people cold.” She allowed us to go out and stand in the sun as a compromise.

My friend Ron said he thinks of Mom every time he’s in a restaurant and the server removes a plate before all of the people have finished eating. He was fortunate enough to experience that in person when mom had to explain to a server that’s very bad manners. Mom’s made a lasting impression on so many people.

Those of us who know mom have all had your clothing re-arranged for you. She’d unbutton or button a shirt, depending on the aesthetic she was trying to achieve with your look. Sometimes she might come up, remove your scarf, and saying “That looks a hundred times better.” Mom was the arbiter of how an outfit should look.

She always looked fabulous and was an incredible sewer, knitter and crocheter. Mom’d buy a Vogue magazine, find a pattern of something similar, then fashion a very au courant outfit in which I’d parade around in high school. Mom could’ve been a couturier seamstress or perhaps have had her own fashion house had she not gotten stuck in Canada in 1939 when the war broke out.

Mom made the best of being separated from her parents at the age of 14. She lived with her aunt and uncle August and Anna Pfingsttag until she married my dad Fred Schiller at the age of 20. Freddie was born the following year, and I arrived (surprise!) eight years later.

Mom and Dad had an orchard where Mom would pitch in to help with picking. She said in the summers it’d be so hot the peaches would ripen by the hour so she and Dad would go out and pick all night and Freddie would come out in his nightgown in the morning looking for them.

Mom spent winters hunkered down in the basement sewing and watching the black and white T.V. In the summer she was the intrepid fruit stand owner who arrived by 6:00 AM and often stayed until 10:00 PM for three months of the year. Finally after about twenty years mom packed that in and soon had a job at Statistics Canada.

She had a yellow Pinto with no air conditioning that she drove all over southwestern B.C. drawing maps for the federal government. For fun she was involved in the Liberal party running as an MLA but being defeated, organizing a huge arts festival called Okanagan Image, and being appointed to various arts councils.

Dad was almost 19 years older than Mom, and after he died Gerry Bruck moved in with Mom. They were 77 and 87 years old when that happened which I thought was so adorable. Instead of children they adopted a poodle pup that had to make decisions and basically be the boss of the three of them. Mom and Gerry lived together until his death at the age of 98.

Mom’s last ten years were okay in that she continued to pound back litres of wine and dozens of chocolate bars and could largely get around with her walker. However, the past year saw a sharp decline and this past week Mom said she was completely ready to die. Every nurse coming and going from her room heard, “Can’t you just give me a shot? I want a shot.” You know Mom.

Mom had children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, two partners, travelled the Earth, had a lot of friends, enjoyed stimulating employment and volunteering, so for me it’s a celebration of life when someone at mom’s age dies after having lived such a full and wonderful life. She didn’t want a memorial as we had had a 100thyear celebration coinciding with my 70th birthday last year which she said was it.

In the spring I’ll invite the four grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren to joint me in scattering mom’s ashes which was her wish. Good-bye, Mom, we all wish you a speedy journey. Jan and I in particular wish this as Jan is now scared to go into Mom’s house alone as she alleges there’s a ghost in there. I will be sleeping there so, just saying.

Mom Finally Landed in Hospital

Nov27

November 27, 2025

Imagine being 100 and finally needing to be admitted to hospital for the first time in 35 years. Mom’s definitely one tough bird. I visited her today and she was able to use the walker and with help from a nurse made her way into the bathroom and back to her bed. The doc thinks she’ll be discharged on Monday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she is.

Of course then the real trauma begins as after ten days in hospital she’ll be even weaker than she was so will need more care. She refuses to go into a home so I guess I can block off the next few months of my life. Kidding. Margaret and I are definitely going to Mexico and Belize in February.

I was heartbroken not to be a finalist in the memoir category for the Canadian Book Club awards. It’s amazing to think I would even enter something like that! But then those of us with poor self-awareness are everywhere. I’m thinking of the very heavy young woman in short shorts and a turtleneck sweater in Walmart the other day.

I’ve stopped fighting with the bots at Amazon. They removed me from my ideal category, Western Canadian Provinces Biographies and Memoirs, then when I inquired said oopsies, we’ll reinstate you, please wait up to 48 hours. I’ve been fighting with them for ten days now, no sign of it.  The latest bit of gaslighting said “Your book’s detail page will display the top three category rankings only.” Yet only two categories are displayed so I guess bots are blind.

I tried out a new recipe on Sylvie the other day as I’d invited her over for Happy Hour. I made mini beef Wellington bites, and they’re super easy to make and I think with more practice will be a very nice appetizer. Then the other day for fun I tried making mango curd, and with all the leftover egg whites made meringue shells and so made mango pavlovas. Calvin and Visini loved them.

I’m waiting for Steve MacNaull’s article to appear in Kelowna Now. I’ll use that as bait and drop it plus my book and a fruitcake off to the CBC station and see if they want to talk about my book. I’ve been posting photos from the old fruitcake days on Instagram and my Nuttier than a Fruitcake Facebook page and so people are inquiring as to where and how to attain the fruitcakes, to which I reply buy Okay I’ll Bite, the recipe is in there.

It really was adorable when a nurse phoned me when mom was admitted so that I could answer a bunch of questions as mom was in a delirium so couldn’t. She asked if mom used drugs or drank and I said she drinks wine every day. The nurse laughed nervously and said, “you mean like a glass with dinner?” And I said, “oh no, at least half a litre a day. Probably more. She drinks that to go along with the three Ritter Sport chocolate bars.”

The nurse then said,” Do you think she’s in withdrawal?” I said, “oh god no it takes an awful lot more liquor than that every day for our family to go into withdrawal.” I still remember being a few weeks pregnant with Nick and feeling sick as I had a cold and my dad’s advice was to take a shot of vodka. Mom screamed saying “She’s pregnant.” To which my dad looked at both of us with a look that clearly said “So?”

But today I didn’t smuggle any wine into mom’s room, though I did take some chocolate. As she’s enjoying the food at the hospital, she might not even want that which is clearly a new sign.

Centenarian Tests Nerves

Oct3

Mom’s caregiver Karen who used to come for an hour a day, five days a week, has taken time off, likely with no hope of her returning. So now I have to find someone in a terrible hurry, and decided to just go with Interior Health, which we’d wanted to do originally. However when mom found out she’d get a different person each day she balked, and that’s why we went with Karen.

But now at 100.5 years of age, and with a very diminished mental capacity and zero physical stamina, I think she’ll just have to accept the revolving caregivers, right? It’ll be a lot of fun actually, because with just Karen and Jan mom couldn’t tell them apart or know which one was which. So add five care aides per week, and throw Jan in for fun in the afternoons, and look out.

I’m busy trying to market my memoir and am going to have to learn Instagram and use it. At first I thought I’d have to do it all on the teensy weensy cell phone, but luckily it can be done on my sainted laptop, where all creative things are made. Margaret set Instagram up for me on my phone, and the icons that came up were so small I needed not just glasses but a magnifying glass to see them. I realized this wasn’t going to work at all.

So now I’ll have to consult with my friend ChatGPT to figure out how to post on Instagram. I imagine myself as minor film director skulking around my house and yard for fitting reels. Then sneaking up on pets with my camera capturing them doing adorable things. Given my memoir is about food, I suppose the odd baking demo might be fun.

I’ve sold a dozen copies of my book, and am hoping this continues, reaching a crescendo in November when people shop for Christmas presents. The book is about fruitcake after all, so what could fit in better than that? I plan to make some of my Totally Decadent fruitcakes and pair those with a copy of the memoir for marketing purposes.

It’s still sunny and warm, blue sky without a hint of clouds and the garden is beautiful. I have to get outside and rake as living within a ponderosa pine forest one has a lot of needles to contend with. Nicky planted a chestnut 30 years ago and this tree’s now huge and sheds approximately one ton of chestnuts per year. All onto the driveway which has to be raked and swept for hours.

I spent $75 on very chi chi cheese at the Grate Cheesery here in Kelowna, as Margaret was coming and we were headed to Osoyoos for lunch with Denis, Luke and Mom. I made chicken souvlaki, Greek salad and roasted potatoes, so for dessert had the cheeses and grapes. I’ve never spent that much money on cheese in my life but it felt really good to do it. Freeing.

Yesterday I had some of this fancy cheese around, so I made a gourmet macaroni and cheese dish with them. I’ve never done this before, but you put the uncooked macaroni, cheese and whipping cream plus milk into the oven for 45 minutes and voila, very creamy baked mac and cheese. And then made with the decadent cheeses it was mighty good.

Trevor’s coming today to complete the re-recordings for the audiobook, and I’ll give him the leftovers because at around 1000 calories per serving a dish like that isn’t really good for me. It’s good for him, though, as he’s normal sized, actually quite thin.

Mom continues to eat at least three Ritter Sport chocolate bars a day and has no desire whatsoever to rein that in. And really, why would she when she’s in her 101st year?

The Care and Feeding of Mom

Aug22

It’s difficult taking care of someone who’s 100 and a half, and who’s basically crazy as a result of it. The other day mom phoned at 5:30 PM and said “Get me a doctor, I need help. Call anyone.” I said “Do you want me to call the ambulance?” and she said, “Yes, call anyone, I need help.” So I quickly called Luke and got him and Jan to head right over and told them to let me know what happened.

Half an hour later I got an e mail from Jan saying “Gramma was mad. She was out of wine, so Luke had to go to town to get it.”  Those are the typical kinds of emergencies I have to deal with. Often she calls saying “My phone isn’t working”, to which I explain it likely is, given she’s speaking to me on it.

Mom’s got macular degeneration and is almost blind as a result, so when I say I would prefer to clean a public toilet outside of a market in Thailand to hers, you get the idea. But one thing she can see no problem is food, and she has a voracious appetite. The other night she had two helpings of lasagne followed by a large bowl of peach clafoutis for dessert.

Often by 10:00 AM she’s nibbling on chocolate and drinking wine with it. I guess when you’re that age it’s pointless to pay attention to the time of day. In fact, mom will call and ask what time it is, and when I say 9:00, she says, “In the morning??” to which I calmly reply, “uh huh.”

Next week I’m going to start recording my book, Nuttier than a Fruitcake, so that I’m ready for all versions to go onto Amazon by mid September. I’m going to enter a reader’s choice contest which has a deadline for the end of that month, so I’m cutting it kind of close, but I’ll get it done because I have a good feeling about that contest.

We’re in the midst of another heat wave so I’m watering like mad, and I can see the results of it on my electricity bill. My well is powered by electricity, and with the irrigation system running three times a week all night long that takes a lot of juice. First you pay for the well, then you pay for the power to run it so the water’s not exactly free. But I still love having my own water source.

Hence for the next seven days I believe this is all I can do: water and work toward my book’s completion. Trevor, my illustrator’s coming on Monday with the recording equipment, so I have to get serious and stop fooling around.

Elsa’s going to be in Vancouver so that should cut down on thrift store shopping, and as I don’t usually go on my own, that’ll free up some of my time. I often marvel at how I worked, had a husband and kids, a yard and garden, and now I can barely do the few things I have on my list in a day.

I also won’t be returning to Osoyoos for a couple of weeks, which will help as I find my nerves are pretty much shot while I’m there, and then it takes a day to recuperate from it when I get home. Mom’s conversations are often puzzles. She says “Jan comes in and washes the dishes, then sits down and talks to me and I can’t understand a word she says. I wish she would talk first, then do the dishes.”

I reply, “But what difference does it make if she does the dishes first and talks second when you can’t understand her anyway?” To which she replies emphatically, “Exactly, it makes no difference.”

The Year of the Snake Starting out Badly

Feb3

The year of the snake means a time of rapid transformation. Just as a snake sheds its skin, it’s a time of new beginnings for us. Sounds good, but so far the changes haven’t been all that great given we might be heading into a recession thanks to the viper south of the border. Fine for us Boomers, but a mighty blow to any youth who’ll be laid off and unable to find work. Better grab a bottle of Smirnoff (made in Canada) on your way home and enjoy the last few weeks of employment.

Mom’s recent transformations haven’t been great, either. Last week she was taken to emergency on two separate occasions and each time sent back home. The last time the doctor phoned me and said Mom can’t be alone at night, so I’ve hired a nice woman to come in the evenings and sleep there. Then Mom will be totally safe, and no more fighting with Luke to go and stay with gramma.

Because of the new weakened state she’s in Mom’s no longer able to go down the two steps to the lower area of the house to access the TV and her bedroom. So we moved her into the old part of the house, dad’s old bedroom and bathroom, and then moved the TV into the kitchen for her. Now she’s all on one level, which is good, but moving the TV meant disconnecting the satellite, which turned out very bad.

Mom lives for TV, but we said don’t worry, that’ll be fixed and in the meantime you’ll have whatever’s on the smart TV, like YouTube and Netflix. In other words, a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, the smart TV remote has numbers, letters and arrows the size of pin heads, so mom can’t change the channel and so we had to do it for her. And guess what? Mom has the attention span of a gnat but the demands of the Queen of England.

I’d be vacuuming. “Mooooooni!” I’d come running, “Yes?” And then Mom would explain she didn’t like that movie, and I’d have to find a new one. Mom lives for CNN and MSNBC so to save my sanity I said “Hey, I can get clips of that for you on YouTube”, so was able to find half an hour here, three quarters of an hour there of her favourites. Sadly she didn’t like it.

Why didn’t Mom like seeing all her favourite people on YouTube? It just didn’t feel right without her ability to control it with her old large easy-to-use remote, so she was in a terrible snit. Besides asking when the other channels would be available, she’d grab the now useless remote and try to change channels, and each time I’d say, “Isn’t that cute, you’re trying to change channels with that remote.”

Then she’d say, “Well if that remote isn’t working sometimes this one will work”, and she’d pick up the mobile phone. I said “Nope. Actually, the white thing is for calling people in their homes, but the black thing is the remote for changing channels on the TV but right now it doesn’t work.” After about 27 rounds of this explanation and the whole satellite shemozzle, I just got drunk as fast as I could.

Because of the heinous stress of the weekend I spent with mom, Calvin and Visini decided to take my mind off things with a game of Scrabble. I haven’t played in over 35 years, and it was a fun thing to do. I made one good move which netted 34 points, then crashed and burned ever after and ended up last, but didn’t care. We learned bott is the plural of bot, and don’t know what to do with either of those. I did learn the most obscure dictionary in the world is the “official” Scrabble one.

Doesn’t Everyone Bake Ten Batches Of Cookies?

Dec23

Because I regard my Christmas preparations as the norm for everyone, I’m always a bit perplexed and surprised by replies such as this one from my friend Penny. “Whew! Your Christmas preparations are dizzying but most admirable.” It’s the Martha Stewart in me; I guess I can’t just be average, I have to be over the top with everything. However so far all cookie recipients have been quite pleased by their assortment.

Here’s an incredibly stupid thing I did. I assumed a courier company meant faster delivery than what we were told to expect due to back-ups of parcels after the Canada Post strike. I went into Purolator on Friday morning around 9:00 and thought this way the parcels should surely arrive by Monday at the latest. They were weighed and placed into the shipping queue, I paid and said, “When will they arrive?”

“Dunno.” I said, “You don’t know? How can you not know when they’ll arrive?” After a few moments, once I was able to think clearly again, I decided to invoke the Gods of Shipping. I said to the woman, “Ya know what? I’m just gonna think positive thoughts and imagine them arriving there on time.” She then gave me a wink and said, “I think you’re right.” I felt like punching initially, but thankfully left with a Merry Christmas. Must be the season, right?

I got one of those hilarious Fart Ninjas, have you seen them? They’re motion-activated and make a few different farting sounds. I just like having it around as sometimes I forget it’s on the table and a cat jumps up and suddenly I hear “fraaap” or “poot.” Please don’t judge me, I have a very strange sense of humour. When bored I Google ‘People Get Hurt Slipping on Ice’ and other hilarious topics like that. I’m laughing now thinking about it.

This is the last blog of 2024 and as usual I’m pretty much ga ga with excitement and anticipation for a New Year to begin. I’m not making any resolutions, per se, but I do have two goals that I wish to achieve. One is to hire a Gen Z who knows WordPress to help me with it (this means doing most of it) and secondly, I want to start selling some old stuff that someone who collects may value.

It was good to have mom’s 100-year celebration in summer because she’s to turn 100 on February 25 and at this age it’s nip and tuck. Most days she’s in her nightgown and housecoat so not sure how much steam is left in the old engine. I do hope she’ll be in the mood for our Christmas Eve tomorrow night, and again for Christmas Day. Hamiltons are coming for dinner as they usually do which is great. Fred will wear his Christmas vest, made by Julie and decorated with snowmen and other related things.

I’ve had some very decent Christmas events here in Kelowna. The Crones came for dinner one night, and Calvin and I held our very successful 4th annual Christmas party. Each year another bowl of punch is added, and I think this time he made either three or four bowls, and it still wasn’t enough. This crowd can go through the liquor, which I love to see in young folks.

Sylvie and I had dinner at the Gasthaus in Peachland last night and today I’m meeting Marie downtown for Happy Hour, so life is pretty pretty pretty good here. I’m grateful for all of it, food, friends and family. Merry Christmas!

You’ll Probably Find This Hard To Believe

Feb28

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 100th 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.