Tag Archive | vodka

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.

Mom’s Quite the Handful

May29

One thing I do not do is run into the house when I hear the phone ringing and I’m out working in the garden. I don’t like talking on the phone as it is, but when I’m interrupted by something like “Did you just phone me?” asked by a 100-year-old, it gets maddening. As you may recall, Luke installed a Tapo camera in Mom’s living area, so I can see the phone ringing when I call her. Her phone then says, “M. Schiller” a few times as it’s ringing. So then I ask mom, did the phone say it was me? No? Then no, I didn’t call you.

And if it was just useless questions being asked constantly, it’d be fine, but Mom’s crabby streak has caused her nighttime caregiver to give notice, so now Jan’s going to take over sleeping there. Poor Jan. She’s the least favourite person on mom’s list. I guess everyone has a burden to bear when caring for a centenarian.

Margaret came for the long weekend, and we went down to Osoyoos to party around with Luke and Jan, and of course Mom. Though cranky, she easily drinks her .5 litre of wine and eats her two Ritter Sport chocolate bars a night. Margaret’s not used to our lifestyle and was hungover the first day but then got with the program and managed to hold her own and still feel okay the second day.

I was raised to loathe and fear teetotallers, so drinking is just what Schillers do. Growing up, people who didn’t drink were spoken of as the world’s stupidest bores, so who wouldn’t want to drink for God’s sake? I believe the secret to it is keeping it to a dull roar to avoid damage.

Sunny and Julie and their families came for brunch, as did Denis so there were 14 of us. At the last minute Mom decided she was too sick and went to bed for a couple of hours. Then came out and seemed fine. I made a particularly delicious breakfast casserole, made with croissants instead of bread. Everyone seemed to like all of it, plus fruit salad, ambrosia salad, pound cake and marshmallow and chocolate squares.

It was nice to get back home, and Margaret and I had time for a couple of hours of thrift store shopping on Tuesday before she flew home. Then two days later Elsa and I returned for more treasure hunting, and I felt fab finding a Fossil handbag for $10. So much better than the several hundred the original owner paid.

And on Sunday, June 1, I will have lived in this lovely house for 35 years! Isn’t that great? And due to the awful thrift store hobby, I can’t move, so this is it until I’m hauled out feet first. Watching Mom age is certainly scary, and I can see it takes a lot of courage to get that old, but I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I get to it. If I do, right?  Putin could take us out with a nuclear bomb tomorrow.

Hence my philosophy of not worrying, which I try to employ even though it can be difficult. When I was in Germany, I learned so much by staying with dear Hannelore, mom’s cousin who is 92. We spent every morning and evening talking about all manner of things, and one thing she stressed was not trying to predict the future and to just let it all come upon you.

And when you think of it, there’s nothing we can do except try our best to remind ourselves how fortunate we are. My problems are small: broody hens, a centenarian, clutter, an insatiable appetite for trashy YouTube videos and incurable evening snacking.  Okay, add vodka and there you have it.

Edward Scissorhands

Mar18

Edward Scissorhands, the 1990 movie starring Johnny Depp, was about a humanoid who had scissor blades instead of hands. In the movie he uses his hands to cut hair and trim hedges, and all’s well until he accidentally cuts people. This reminds of my dear landscaper, Gilles, who I asked to “prune” my fruit trees. My fault, really, and it reminded me of saying something stupid like that to the hairdresser, i.e. “cut” my hair. When you mean trim, and say cut, look out, right?

My apricot had finally produced a lot of branches studded with buds, so I was looking forward to some fruit this summer. I decided to go down to the vegetable garden area to see how Gilles was doing. I was dumbstruck when I saw all those branches lying on the ground, and said “oh, um, I guess no apricots this summer?”

He replied cheerily he’d left a couple of smaller (12 inches in length) branches and they had buds so there’d be “some.” Then a few days later Elsa asked me if I knew of someone who could prune her apple tree. I said my landscape helper can do that. Why I said that I don’t know, as you’re probably already skipping ahead in your mind to what occurred.

Yesterday Elsa came over and we drove in my car to thrift. On the way I asked if Gilles had been to her place, and when I saw her face: white, mouth tight, I thought uh-oh, Elsa never gets mad. She said, “my poor tree.” Apparently he took down the majority of the branches so now just a stump and a few smaller limbs remain.

I felt terrible and said I’m so sorry! We should’ve said “trim” and not “prune”, given he’s done that for years in commercial orchards. He knows what needs to be done, but as it turns out, I don’t want those things. I just want fake cosmetic shaping, and a bit of stuff cut down, that’s all. But if I live a long time, I think some day I’ll have apricots again.

Here’s the height of laziness. I went for a teeth-cleaning and when the dentist looked at my teeth, he tsk tsked as I haven’t been wearing my Invisalign retainers. He thought it’d be cheap to get some new ones made, and advised they’d call and let me know. A few days later the office manager phoned and said unfortunately I’d have to start over at around $5,000.

I said I’d think about it, knowing that was a hard no. Then got out the old retainers and have been wearing those and all seems to be well. Why Invisalign thought I’d need to start over when the old retainers still fit (albeit no longer 100%) I don’t know but I have my suspicions, don’t you?

I had the Crones here for Petra’s birthday as I like to do every year. I’d found an adorable tile at thrift that said “It’s hard to be humble when you’re German” which of course I wanted to keep but gave to her as I knew she’d enjoy it. It really is hard to be self-effacing, but we try our best.

Here’s an annoying development. I found a wonderful woman to sleep at Mom’s, but it turns out she’s a normal human being who enjoys having time off now and again. I can’t blame her at all; however, it means I now have to spend two nights there instead of one. Early April I have to spend four nights and I’m wondering if there’s even enough vodka in the Osoyoos liquor store for that.

My plan is to do an Edward Scissorhands impression and slash around mom’s garden by day, then get mellow with vodka by night. I’m hoping for the best is all.