Tag Archive | kelowna-now

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.

When Bots are Stupid

Oct30

Imagine my surprise to see that Amazon’s bots decided to write this about my book: “Customers find the content of the book wonderful and great for kids. They describe the writing style as delicious and unique. Generated from the text of customer reviews.” One reviewer had said they thought it was a kids’ book, then wrote NOT, as she read it and discovered it was for adults.

Though now I hope parents buy it for their kids because they need to learn the importance of cannabis and alcohol early in life. It’d be fun to give it to a twelve-year-old who then says to their mom, “Can we make cannabis cookies, too?” Or give it to a ten-year-old who can expand their vocabulary with four-letter words that mean ka ka.

As usual I panicked, and because the liquor stores were closed and it appeared no end was in sight, I stocked up on a lot of vodka, and some tequila. Of course, soon after the hoarding was complete, the strike was over and now I’m left with the most interesting assortment of brands. The small independent stores soon ran out of the normal stuff I buy (nice cheap Smirnoff) and so I had to take whatever was available. Fear not, it’ll get drunk. Or I will.

Great joy as I remembered my old pal Steve MacNaull from the Kelowna Daily Courier and decided to google him to see where he was. It turns out he’s now working for Now Media, and so I met him there today in their absolutely gorgeous office space on the 16th floor overlooking the lake and the autumn trees now changing colour within the neighbourhoods below.

We reminisced about the old days when he’d write articles about the government contracting business, Rucastle and Schiller Workskills. Then we talked about the fruitcake madness and how all of that went over the years. I gave him my memoir and told him to read it as I said, “you’re in it.” He immediately tried to look in the back and I said, “there’s no index, so you’ll have to read to find it.” Cagey, right?

I also baked fruitcakes a few days ago and brought him one of those. He very kindly got a knife and plate, and cut a piece then took a few photos of me holding my memoir in one hand and the cake in the other. When I saw the pictures, I was quite dismayed and said why oh why is my right eye so much smaller than my left? It’s not normal.

When I left, I asked about Now Media, and he said this story about my book will appear not just in Kelowna Now, but Prince George Now, Kamloops Now, and many other Nows. I don’t mind telling you I’m very excited about this as perhaps as we come up to fruitcake season, the article will arrive just in time to give people the nudge to buy the book as a gift for someone.

I’m off to Toronto tomorrow for a week of fun and am all packed and ready to go. Will just take a carryon for that amount of time. Actually, I took a carryon for my two weeks in Europe and when my male cousin arrived to drive me to the airport he looked at what I had and said “that’s it? For two weeks?”

Trevor and I are hoping today’s the final day of re-taping certain areas of the book that didn’t come out right. I’m willing to ignore all of the annoying swallowing just to get it over with, but there are some words that are just plain wrong and it has to be fixed.