A Surprise Meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau
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Good day. I'm always tempted to say good morning or good afternoon or good evening, depending on when you're listening to this. This is Jan Arden, and this is the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm here with Sarah Burke. We're in a timeline now because Caitlin Green is going to be coming back. Yeah, I think it's about a month away. Sarah is still going to be with us, but Caitlin talks so damn much that

the likelihood of Sarah being able to get a word in edgewise. I'm going to be producing you. Yes, you will be. And you will be weighing in. So don't despair anybody because someone was asking me that the other day. Wow, what a week it has been. Canada Day has come and gone. The 4th of July has come and gone. Thank God the fireworks are over. And in a world where fireworks are so unnecessary, the smoke and the air quality has been so shit that

All summer because of the fires. And yet every major city in the world, you know, climate change be damned, fireworks blast on and the smoke lingers. You can smell that crap from miles away. Maybe we could just hold off this year, guys. Come on. Well, they're doing some amazing things. I'll bring up York, who's the amazing Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, actor. She was at Glastonbury. She has drones everywhere.

that do these magical things above the stage. Cool. Like something like a thousand drones. And it's all, you know, obviously artificial intelligence, computerized software, making these amazing patterns above her as she sung her songs. I know that in parts of Asia, they were also doing a type of drone thing.

making like massive dragons and very symbolic things in the sky. Lovely orchestrated music to go along with the patterns that they were doing. Lights in the sky. And then we're these barbarians that are just blasting off. And you know, people of course are saying, oh, she's so woke. Jan doesn't even like fireworks. No, I don't like fireworks. It's not 1862. Yeah.

The millions of birds that are disrupted, the millions of animals that are disrupted from geese to ducks to mice, everything, pets. Literally the SPCA all over North America prepares for bolting dogs, cats.

I'm not making this stuff up. How did Poppy do? Because you were in the capital, the nation's capital. Poppy wasn't with me. Oh, he didn't come. He was at Nadine's. No, when I'm working on those trips, they're really fast and furious, and he doesn't come with me. How does he normally do with fireworks?

He's scared out of his mind. Yeah, yeah. I was worried about my parents' dog this weekend. It's funny. I was watching the cottage next door to us. They had a ton of family and friends up. You could hardly see the lake. That's how hazy it was from the wildfire smoke up there my first two, three days up at the cottage. And...

These guys lit off fireworks. Our neighbors lit off fireworks. I wanted to go over there and be like, guys. The thing is, it's just. It's just entertainment. We can entertain ourselves in so many ways these days. Why don't you take that money that you're the thousands and thousands, and I mean tens of thousands of dollars that are spent.

Probably in cities, it's hundreds of thousands because they're extremely expensive. Why don't you spend that? Why don't you donate that to food banks? Why don't you put it into kids' lunch programs? Animal welfare. Anything but that useless thing. So you can send your letters to me if you want to, but I don't like fireworks. They're pointless and they're disruptive. And with the air quality, Ottawa, when we landed, I couldn't even see the sky. Right? Yeah. Couldn't barely see the runway. Right.

I said to Chris, I'm like, God, I hope they don't do the fireworks. And sure enough, off they went. Yeah, they did the fireworks. I'm shocked. I think the government is so...

I'm sure they have these meetings where a lot of them are saying, let's not do them. And then of course you have those conversations where all those people, and we know who those people are, are going to absolutely lose their shit and just be like, Oh, we can't even do that anymore. And our freedoms are being taken away. If we can't even look at like the whole dialogue that must go on behind closed doors. So they're really torn between what to do. Imagine telling,

those people. Yeah, actually, we're going to donate that money. I just think next year, they need to look into laser shows. They need to look into doing some great music and drone shows. There's just so many alternatives. Anyway, moving on. I was in the Capitol performing for Canada Day. And I got there because there's a couple of days of rehearsals. Those shows have a lot of moving parts. There's dozens of performers and lots of cues.

I didn't read the whole list, but I know Tegan and Sarah did some stuff. I know White Horse did some stuff. Was Ace and Abby there? I feel like Ace and Abby might have been there too. Yeah, I think so. But, um,

On the rehearsal day, I was sort of waiting around to go to rehearsal. I thought, oh, I'll shower like in the next hour because I wasn't needed there till like 2 p.m. Relaxing a bit is important. Oh, I was totally chilled out. Chris and I had gone for, you know, a two hour walk and he phones me and he's like, can you be ready? Like literally to see the prime minister in 45 minutes, which meant I needed to get ready in 20 minutes. Like a hair. I didn't want to look like a lunatic. Yeah.

Their office, the prime minister's office, had called the record label and they directed them to my management company, Bruce Allen. And then Bruce got a hold of Chris, put a bit of makeup on, blew dry my hair, got dressed, and we walked like four blocks. We ran four blocks to where the prime minister, I think, temporarily has his office because there's lots of rentals going on in the capital.

And it was to talk about the horses. I wrote him a letter a month ago. That's pretty quick turnaround, no, for Prime Minister? It is. I'd never heard back anything. I didn't think I was going to have the opportunity to speak to him on behalf of the horses being exported 8,000 kilometers from Canada to Japan. You've heard me talk about it before. I'm not going to go into that. Anyway, we got there and I was a bit nervous, to be honest. How could you not be?

Yeah, and he came in. We didn't sit there very long. It might have been 90 seconds. The assistant to the chief of staff, he met us there after we went through security and got our little badges. The prime minister came out, and I had my hand out to shake his hand, and he gave me a big hug. Trudeau gave you a hug? Yeah, he came and said, I haven't seen you since we were at the Junos in Newfoundland like 25 years ago, whenever the Junos were in Newfoundland.

And I remember I was sitting at a table with him. He was probably 25 years old, 26 years old, just a young man. I don't think he even had dreams of becoming the prime minister as we were sitting there. I think Seamus O'Regan was there with us. Maybe a couple of my band members. Newfoundland was 2002. 2002. That's when it was. It was a long time ago. I said, well, look at us now. We've come a long way.

We chatted a little bit, you know, got caught up and, and I just gave him my spiel about the horses.

And it's nothing he doesn't know. I said, I know you know all this, but I'm just going to repeat it again. Here's the elevator pitch. Here we are. We're in a time of climate crisis and we're being asked to eat local. We're being asked to watch our carbon footprint. We're being asked to eat less meat and eat more plants. We're being asked to just be mindful about the kind of energy we're consuming. We're being asked to keep it green, to even, you know, not buying new clothes all the time, to use the stuff that we have.

Governments all over the world are asking us to do that as citizens. And I said, exporting giant horses halfway around the world for wealthy people to eat raw is the antithesis of what we're being asked to do. And he said, I absolutely agree. And he said, because of the way the government works and because of the opposition he faces from you know who...

that he's just blocked. There's things that just could be years in the making. And he did mandate it. He goes, I want it to stop. He said, it's a cash grab. It's a money grab. He said, it's not feeding Canadians. It's not employing Canadians. It's just a handful of people.

The airport guys that do these loads, they're already employed. They're not dependent on loads that go out maybe every three or four weeks. That's not what they're making their living on. They're hired by the airports. That's their job already. The truck drivers, they can drive other things. Also, their jobs are not contingent on picking up horses from these feedlots every three or four weeks.

to haul 100 horses to load them on the planes. So it is not part of the gross national product of our country. And he goes, I know it's a cash grab, but he said, let me tell you what is happening.

It's a private member's bill put forward by Tim Lewis, which has my name on it. When the parliament goes back for sessions in September, they're like school kids. They take the summer off. Right. And God knows those people need a break. The vitriol, those are not the people to be vilified. I'm telling you. Anyway, he just said that goes forward. He said it is a much quicker way to end the live exports. And there's also a bill that the Senate has introduced. So there's two bills that

that are presently in a queue to be presented at the House of Commons in September to end the live horse export. So he just explained how it worked. And he said, you know, this is something you're very passionate about. And he said, I want it to end just as much as you do.

But it's not that simple thing that people think it's a stroke of a pen. He can't do that. Of course, yeah. Things have to go through votes. You know, that's why we have an opposition. Imagine if a prime minister could just unilaterally make decisions. That's over. Women's health, that's done. That LGBT thing's done. That thing with petroleum is done. There's a process for a reason. How did it feel...

After him hearing you out and you hearing him out, how did it feel? How did you guys leave it? Oh, it was really good. I mean, I probably was there 20, 25 minutes. It felt longer, honestly. Like I did my thing and he explained the bill and how it was going to work. But, you know, we got up and he had to go down the hallway to talk to Macron, the leader in France, because they were having all the violence from that young man being shot by the police officers in Paris. Yeah, yeah.

So he had to go do that. He had to go deal with other problems. Like he was dealing with problems all day long. That's what he was doing. That's his gig. But the fact that he sought me out and you know what? It wasn't because I'm Jan Arden. It was because I'm a citizen and it's because I have for four years been consistent with our messaging with the Canadian Horse Defense Coalition. We've got lots of people that are with us now, you know, the Winnipeg Humane Society, the

the SPCA societies, animal justice have been so amazing. There's just so many agencies that are aware now. So, so he just basically wanted to say, you have my support. You should be optimistic. You should be optimistic. He said, this is something that can happen. It's going to happen eventually, you know, keep doing what you're doing. He said, having your name on this bill is really important. He said, it just draws the attention of Canadians.

He gave me another hug and I thanked him. It doesn't matter what your politics are. I voted for every party over the last 20 years. So anyway, the meeting was really incredible. Let's remind people that if they want to find out more about where things stand, they can go to horseshit.ca and we'll have the links and everything in the show notes. Yeah, you can go there. There's lots of campaign kits. Great merch. Yeah, there's lots of new merch that's come out. Wendy Williams Watt, shush.

She's just like so incredible. She's got a team called the Together Heads. They are marketers. They are imaginers. They are creators. They are inventors. I can't express to you what this campaign has done, how they've branded it. Maybe it's a lesson to a lot of other people that are fighting to get things done.

Keep going. Well, but to have a look and to have it organized, we don't want people making homemade signs. We want people to use the language. We want them to use the fonts. We want them to use the materials provided. We're never going to give up. We're never going to stop.

It's not like that's how they make their living either, guys. I want you to know that even the exporters that have come up from Washington, D.C., because live horse export was banned in the United States in 2003, they came here in 2006 to start it all up again because of the loopholes here in agricultural laws. Right. They're quietly making $25 million a year and they're calling themselves farmers. And that's not right to Canadian farmers.

And once again, and I'm going to repeat this message, we are not telling people what to eat. We are not talking about domestic slaughter, which is a very complex, very complicated thing. We are talking about loading specifically purpose-bred large draft horses to Asia, terrified, in planes, in boxes.

to be slaughtered brutally and eaten there raw by very wealthy people. There was an episode of Top Chef years ago. You won't find it anymore because they've removed any sign of it. Oh, wow. They made a misstep. And this is, oh gosh, probably 12, 13, 14 years ago, they had horse on Top Chef and people lost it. Lost it. You've been listening to

to me ranting about the live export of horses, but it all started with a purpose. Talking to Prime Minister Trudeau, it was really amazing. It was an amazing experience. As a citizen, it was an amazing experience. As someone that knew Mr. Trudeau, Justin, when he was a very young man, before he started down this road, it was really amazing to see how

the government does work for people. You can sit down and talk to the man. It's not impossible. Summer jobs. We all remember summer jobs as a kid because, let's face it, you have two months, eight weeks to make money, to buy the stuff you want. Save up for university. No kid was doing that. Were you doing that? I was.

Yes. A summer job at 13, 14 years old, you were saving for university. Well, 14, 15, 16, like you're putting it away. And also you want to be able to like buy the jean shorts too. Note to self girls, jean shorts should be, and fellas, the shorts should be longer than your balls and longer than your labia. Just putting that out there. Very good reminder. Very good reminder. If you're trying to figure out what's the rule, what's where...

Should shorts be? I'm not going to repeat it again because this is radio and I don't want people driving off the road. So what was your first summer job? My very first summer job, and it took me so long to get this summer job, was at the Pinebrook Golf and Country Club, which I live very close to still. They had just built it. But of course, I would take my bike down there. It was about five miles away. I'd ride my bike all the way down there. My parents knew where I was going. And I'd go into the golf pro. His name was Clayton Robb.

And I just beg him for a job to wash clubs. And I did that from the time I was like 11, 12. In the summer, I was 13. I had a moped at this time, one of those crazy Honda mopeds that went about 20 clicks an hour. And I went down there and he actually said, you are persistent. He says, I thought you might get taller. You know, be a little easier for you to lift up the golf bags. Cause he's like, you're not going to be able to lift these golf bags up and put them in their containers. How tall are you?

I'm 5'3". Oh, yeah. I got one inch on you. Are you only 5'4"? Yeah, we've met in person. He just hired me. I remember I got $2.30 an hour. So this was 46 years ago, 47 years ago. And I was so excited that $2.30 an hour seemed like a million dollars. And I watched golf clubs.

So the golfers would come in, they'd drop their bags off the members. They were covered in grass and mud and you'd put them in the soapy warm water and wash them up and put them back in and wipe down the golf bags. And, you know, one of the boys would put them up in the thing for me. So it wasn't any big deal, but I did that. And then I got moved up to driving the little cart that picked up the balls. When I was like 13, 14, I was driving the cart to pick up the balls.

And literally you would have guys on the golf ball range aiming for me. They would be aiming the balls because I was in a cage, right? Yeah. The tractor had a cage on it because you're actively picking up these yellow range balls while the guys are firing them at you. They want to hit you. You're like the moving target. I don't think they were aiming for you. Sarah, they were aiming for me in that cart. I know they were. And then you'd hear them laughing. Yeah.

you know, drinking their beers. And then I got moved into the little snack shop. Oh yeah. And then when I was 16, my friend Teresa and I got moved into banquet catering.

you know, they'd have the big parties in the clubhouse. It's a beautiful clubhouse. So you were serving at that point. That's when, when I had my first gin and tonic was at 16 at the Pinebrook golf winter club. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is, this place is like part of you. Oh yeah. I worked there for so long and, um, have lots of good memories. We,

We've talked about this before. I also, for one summer, because when I did my first radio show, it was just a Saturday and Sunday weekend show. So like, what are you going to do the rest of the week to make money? Right? So that was probably when I was 20, 21. I worked at a golf course in London, Ontario. I drove the beer cart. It was fun. We had a good time. Still to this day, I still get messages from the members when they listen to me on the radio and stuff, which is very cute.

But going way, way back, I was a camp counselor for a really long time. You know, three to five year olds where they're like terrified to leave their moms. I think it did well with the preteen guys because I would give them their shit back to them. I bet you did. But my most memorable summer job, I would say, was working at the local DQ shop.

Little ice cream shop you can find just about anywhere. Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen. That's where Pamela Anderson used to work. And I'm telling you, my first summer there, I wrote a screenplay. At Dairy Queen. Because all the things you witness, the romance that you would see come into the shop, like first dates, you know, going to the local DQ. There was a lot to write about in that screenplay. I can't.

I can only imagine maybe you still have a chance to get it made. Do you still have that screenplay? I think I handed it in for a school project in grade 11 or 12, if I remember correctly. It was called Make Like a Banana and Split. That was the name of the play? I wrote it on the top of it. Yeah. Oh, man. I heard that that Dairy Queen got sold up in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, where I grew up.

For whatever reason, you know iPhones. I've had an iPhone for years and years and years. And every time you do an update, all your contacts just get brought over to the new phone. Yes. Thank God. For whatever reason, I noticed like maybe two, three months ago that I had my old Dairy Queen boss's phone number still on my phone. And he was kind of a cool guy. His name was Chris.

He gave me a key to the store. I don't know why he thought that was a good idea. Me and this guy, Mike, like we were running the show as 15 year old kids. This guy gave us like,

You had your first drink at a golf course. I'm pretty sure I had my first drink at the back of Dairy Queen. So how old would you have been? Like 15, around there. I called him from my radio station a few months ago. And I was like, hey, do you recognize the voice? And he's like, yeah, keep talking. Wait, who is this? And then I told him who it was.

And I'm like, by the way, I have a radio show now and I'm recording this. Like you have to tell someone, right? Yep. And he's like, are you kidding me? This is going to be on the radio. It was the funniest thing. He's like, you were, you were a boss. You had leadership qualities at 15 years old. Yeah, girl. Yeah, girl. Yeah.

You did. Anyway, making ice cream cones. A few weeks ago at the cottage, went into the DQ. They dip a cone for me. It wasn't even half dipped. I wanted to crawl over the counter and be like, excuse me, let me show you how to do this. I just remembered the craziest story from Dairy Queen. I had just got my license. Okay, so now a year later, still working there the next summer. I'm 16.

The boss's dad, big Greek man. Everyone was terrified of him. I show up to work. I'm wearing my cute little visor. Everything's fine. I'm about to start making ice cream cones. And he's like, you, you come with me. I'm like, okay. For all you Greek people, please forgive her for her accent. So I'm in his vehicle with him and he's like, yeah, we're going to do an errand. I need some help. He wanted me to follow him home in his Land Rover because he was picking up his motorcycle from the shop.

So I've never driven on the DVP, one of the scariest highways here in Toronto. Here I am driving this man's Land Rover. I got my license two weeks before. Oh my God, Sarah. I was scared out of my mind. When we got back to Dairy Queen, my hair was like flying out of this visor because I had all the windows down because I was terrified. And they're like, where have you been? And I was like, when he says come with me, don't go with him. Oh.

Oh man. You know, that's a bit much for him to ask a young, inexperienced driver to do that. He knows how old you are. It's not like you had 10 years of driving experience. Good point. Good point. Here are you five foot four girl that looks 12. Come drive my Land Rover. Oh my God. No, forget about the ice cream cones. Dairy queen. I got lots of life skills there.

Yes, you did. Dairy Queen. I just want to say I'm really proud of you because you do have one plant-based option. Yes, you have the French fries. You have onion rings. And you also have plant-based dilly bars. I made those. Ladies and gentlemen, they come in a box of six and they're a little pricey. I think they're like 24 bucks, a couple bucks a piece.

Holy crap, are they ever good. Plant-based, the chocolate, everything. The stick is plant-based. Jan eats the stick as well. It is their greatest dilly bar. You could hand that to any kid, anybody, anywhere. They would never know. They're getting so good at vegan ice creams.

The next summer job I had was working at a landscaping company. Oh. Teresa, once again, my pal Teresa, her brother had a landscaping company and he fired us after two days. Well, he fired me. I'll have to ask Teresa. But there was this paint that we were doing a fence, painting a fence. And I had this big, big thing, not just a gallon of paint, but like a big white plastic industrial size paint thing. And the lid wasn't on it properly. And I wiped out going up this hill and all the white paint went down on the grass. Oh.

Oh my God, he was so mad. I thought he was going to kill me. But that's about summer jobs. And then really from the time I was 17, 18, I was singing. I never had a job after that. I've only done music. So I don't really have a lot of experience with things. Like I was a really, really terrible waitress. I did that a little bit, but I was a singing waitress at a place called Orlando's Bistro on 17th Avenue Southwest. That place has been so many different businesses over the years.

It's an old brick building from the 30s and it's on 17th Avenue and 14th Street. But anyway, I would serve tables very badly and sorry about my dog. And then I would sing a song. I'd go up and do a Marshall Tucker song or Janice Ian. So yeah, it was, I was a terrible waitress, but I was a pretty good little singer. And I think people forgave the fact that I gave them all the wrong food, that everything was cold, that I brought the wrong drinks, whatever.

you know, the whole nine yards. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast and show. We're going to come back with just a couple of news items that I've seen. Sarah Burke, myself, Jan Arden, and my La Croix coconut water that I love. Goodbye. We'll be right back. That's what she said. We'll be right back.

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Hello, everyone. I'm Jan. Sarah. I just wanted to talk about a few little articles that I've seen. Our summer conversation is not over yet. I just want to tell you, human beings of the world, the planet saw its hottest day ever this past week. 17 degrees was the average, right? That record they expect to be broken again and again. Hottest day in recorded human history. On average across the globe. Yeah. So what does that mean? What do we do? Like, thank God. We've got some pretty nice weather this next week here in Alberta. We've got some pretty nice weather here in Alberta.

22 degrees, 23 degrees. I love it. 22, 23 is perfect for me. I don't need no more than that. And when I'm on my deck, I'm always surprised when I get up and look at my little thermometer because it feels 100 degrees.

And it's like, oh, it's 21 over here in the shade. Man, in Palm Springs last week, 44 degrees Celsius. So what they're doing with the 17 degrees, folks, is they're taking a global average. And it was a degree and a little bit hotter than it ever has been before. I

I just looked at the temperature in Greece, figuring it's going to be pretty hot when I go to Greece, which I've now booked. And it's 29 degrees at 8 p.m. Crazy. 29 degrees in the evening. Yeah. I have geothermal cooling in my house. So my house is heated and cooled by the ground. Cool. I did it when I built the house, you know, 16 years ago. I'm like, I'm having geothermal because I live in a rural area. It's a system that will work here.

And it'll pay for itself if I live here long enough. So I'm very lucky to be able to do that. So people that come over here are like, oh my God, this feels so good in here. Because it's not air conditioning. It's not a chemical thing. It smells earthy. It smells like a really great garden-y dirt kind of smell. I know that doesn't seem appealing to you, but I mean that in the best possible fresh way. I didn't sell... Sorry, geothermal companies. I did not sell...

It kind of smells in here, but like in a really good dirt way. No, but I just mean that mossy outdoorsy thing. I like that smell. Yeah, yeah. I got you. Most of the people that we're talking about that are suffering these temperatures, excluding Las Vegas and California, don't have air conditioning. You can see these amazing aerial pictures of people in India, Sri Lanka, you know, Asian countries during the summertime.

that all sleep out on the roofs of the buildings. You can see hundreds of people just on their mats. I mean, it really is a stunning national geographic type awe-inspiring photograph because all the beautiful colors of their

clothing, but they're just out there sleeping on their buildings, on the roofs, which is, I guess, just getting, taking advantage of a little bit of a breeze, maybe? You would think. I just pulled up this article on what we're talking about. So it was Monday, July 3rd, the hottest day ever recorded globally. That's from data according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction. And

And just in case we have any American listeners, the average global temperature was 17.01 Celsius, 62.62 Fahrenheit, surpassing the record from August 2016, which was 16.92 or 62.46 Fahrenheit. And Antarctica currently in its winter, you have to remember, right? The opposite seasons registered high temperatures of 8.7 degrees Celsius this week. Gee whiz.

And that's melting like crazy too. I mean, we don't want to be the harbingers of doom here, but there's a lot going on. And then we have El Nino to contend with the old El Nino. Yeah. It's saying that the world needs to prepare for a lot more extreme heat because of...

I read an article this week. We were talking about day camps because I used to be a day camp counselor. You know, being a normal thing for camp plans to change if there was going to be like thunderstorms or something. But in this case now, this summer, all the local day camps here in Toronto are saying that they're going to have warnings when the air

air quality is low and when there's wildfire smoke present, all that kind of stuff. Times are changing for the kids growing up these days for sure. Oh, it's just, it's just unbelievable. The legacy that our generation, and we thought it was the generation before us. I mean, it is a little bit for you because you, you and I are definitely a generation apart, but it's like. My white hair says otherwise, but okay. Well, I thought,

as a 60 year old person that this wasn't my fault, that this was the people before me.

And then you kind of lay in bed and go, no, this is my convenient life. This is what this generation is doing right now. We all have to participate every day though, right? In the little day-to-day things that you do. And I mean, we've talked a lot about those things, including how we eat on the show. But you know what I did for the first time yesterday? Cleaned your kitchen? Well, that too. But I got on the bike to go to see my favorite band Weezer at Budweiser Stage, the venue on the water here in Toronto.

And I brought a water bottle and normally I would be buying water bottles inside. And I was like, now this year, just this year, they now have water filling stations everywhere in the venue. So I dumped out my water, brought it in and I was able to, and I was able to just refill my water at the show all night. Okay. That's great.

That really is awesome. And there's those collapsible ones that people can bring in their purse. I bet you, you got a few of those. I have, I have my Yeti water bottle that I love so much. Yes. I love my Yeti. But refill, right? All these day-to-day things. Like you have to think about how you live your life if we want to save the frigging planet. I haven't bought a plastic bottle of water in at least three years. Good. I always have my water bottle and I have one in the car.

I have extra water in the car for Poppy. So I keep a dog water thing on the side of the door because sometimes I don't throw it in his bag. So I always have that. And I always, in my purse, always, always have a water bottle. Yeah.

Yeah. So even when, you know, on a plane, some, a lot of planes will hand everyone little bottles of water. I never use it. I just give it back to the flight attendant. She goes, you don't want it. You might need it. I said, no, I got my water. Oh, good for you. Yes, it is good for me. Saving the planet. Water's going to be the thing. And getting back to like eating large animals, everybody, it takes so much water to make a large animal, uh,

big enough and have the musculature that they are ready for human beings to eat them. Like the calories that it takes to make that cow or that pig is so unbalanced to what the calories it gives to human beings. There's no balance. It's always, always tipping the scales way in the other direction. So, and water is going to be the thing that does us all in every time. I like, I don't, I don't water lawn here. I live in a country. I,

give my flowers on my deck water, but I'm really mindful about that. And I always set them out. So like it rained yesterday. So I take everything off their hangers when I go to bed at night and I think it's going to rain. Everything's sitting out on the deck. Yeah. Getting rain. And that's actually like you, the best water is not like when you water plants with water from your sink right away, it's better to leave the water to let all the stuff from the sink evaporate before, before you water your plants anyway. Yeah.

For sure. I mean, water is my absolute favorite drink in the world. And if you would have told me that as a kid, I would have given you the finger and told you to F off. I don't want water. But if I have a choice now, I just, I love ice water. I've turned into my grandmother Richards, my grandmother who was never, she was diabetic. She was my dad's mother. She was always like a

big water barrel with legs sticking out of it. She was like five foot high Mormon lady, always with the ice water because of diabetes. And back in the day they had the big ugly needles that they had to, it wasn't like diabetes is now, which is totally AI. Um, she had the big needles, but the ice water, man, but now I'm her and by God, I, I ate a piece of gluten-free chocolate cake over the effing sink yesterday. Yeah.

And as I was standing there with crumbs falling into the sink of this gluten-free chocolate cake, thank you, Duncan Hines. It was really good. And I veganized it. Instead of the eggs, I used flax eggs, which is one heaping tablespoon of flax meal with warm water. And then you just let it sit there and congeal like a big chunk of snot. Yes, folks, you just stir it in a little cup. And when you dump it into the cake batter, it kind of looks like

Well, listen, eggs, they're kind of congeal-y and snotty when you whisk them up and put them into a batter. And some vegan butter. Sarah, come on, stay with me here. Well, this is where we're different. Over the sink, I'm eating olives. Like my midnight snack, I love eating olives. You got a sweet tooth. That's a lot of salt. I don't have a huge sweet tooth. I'm with you. Like I would love an olive. I like a chip. I like a tortilla. I love a pickle. Pickles.

I like sauerkraut on a hot dog, vegan hot dog. Oh, I was in your neck of the woods last week. And guess what I did? Went to a Blue Jays game, screwed it up, bought tickets. I was playing that night in Pickering. So this was last week, over a week ago.

and my two friends went that were visiting Toronto. I'm like, I'll get us tickets. We got the tickets for the Saturday. We thought the game would be at two and that I could at least go for a couple of hours and then go to my sound check. Nope. Gates opened at two. Game started at four. So Chris picked me up on the side of the street, but we did walk around the big dome or whatever you guys call that. It's the Rogers Center, formerly the Sky Dome. Rogers Center. We walked, we did the whole thing. That's what I spent my hour doing because Chris had to pick me up.

And I found, drum roll please, a gluten-free vegan hot dog. I got a bun that was like, I'm going to liken it to eating my couch. It was the worst bun I've ever eaten in my life. And it was still kind of frozen. God bless them for even trying to have a gluten-free hot dog, but they should have microwaved it. The wiener...

I was really scared to eat because I took one bite and the bun was so dense and so kind of half frozen that it took me a while to think about the hot dog wiener. I said to Nadine, I don't know if this is vegan. So she took a chunk of it. She goes, that is not a real wiener. And I'm like, oh, said the bishop to the nun. And then I was just like, I just don't trust it. She goes, I don't eat a lot of hot dogs, but this is not a real wiener.

I said, I just, I don't know. Well, it's good that they're trying. It's good that they're trying. We had popcorn. I broke down. Haven't had a Diet Coke in 18 months. Aspartame out. We got to get you off that stuff. No, that's the first one I've had in a year and a half. And I didn't drink at all. I asked for extra ice. But that was my Blue Jays experience. Do you know who they played? Oakland A's. Good. Yeah, Oakland A's. Nice. Oakland Athletics.

I didn't even get to see the players on the field. There wasn't even anybody out there. There was just people like cleaning and stuff, but it was free shirt day. Oh, the pickleball shirt, right? I don't know. It's, it was a free, um, yes. My friend was in my dad's seats because he wanted that shirt. I mean, it looks like it's made out of plastic bags and sulfur. Like it's one of those things that just, as soon as you get sweaty, you'll stink. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things. So, um,

So Forbes, I don't read Forbes a lot, but like you, I have an app called Flipboard on my phone. I don't know if you ever look at it, but I love it. I love Flipboard because you can pick your topics that you like. You don't have to even deal with politics. If you don't want to see that on your feed, you're not going to because you just don't choose it. But I've picked summer stuff and food. Is it kind of like a Pinterest, but for news? It's articles, but it's all kinds of different magazines. So Forbes...

has vetted a guide to your best summer ever. And it's officially time to put those vacation days to good use. The next few months provide the perfect excuse to ditch your routine and log in some quality time outdoors. So I think everybody does that.

Summer is the time to absolutely kind of treat yourself. People abandon their day-to-day routines. They eat differently. They think differently. They're more active. They're doing stuff. They want to get into those bathing suit. By God, you need a bathing suit body. Screw that. Get into a bathing suit. You've got a bathing suit body already. Just put on a bathing suit. It doesn't matter. I love that. Forbes is saying that it's backed by expertly researched content. And, uh,

The first thing they're saying, I don't know where these people live in Martha's Vineyard. The first thing they say you need for a great summer. This is how ridiculous things are. Guess what it is, Sarah? The first thing you're going to need to have a great summer vetted by Forbes, by a panel of experts. What do you think their first thing was? It's a product? It's a product. It's a thing. It's a fucking beach chair. Okay. Okay.

No, come on. How disappointing is that? I would say towel. Like I'm happy to sit on the ground on a towel because then you can do it anywhere. In that they've included sunscreens. Duh. That to have a great summer, you have to have a great sunscreen and you need a great beach towel. But I don't know. Do we want to tell people, go out and get more stuff? Go out and buy more stuff?

You've obviously got a chair in your house that you can use. I've still got folded chairs that were my parents. Speaking of folding chairs, this is so funny. I had a Toronto Blue Jays knitted chair that a radio listener from my first year in radio gave to me, gifted to me. So cute. It's very old school. It looks like straight out of the 90s. It

It was in the storage unit at my ex-boyfriend's place because I had moved out of his place. And he was leaving town. He said, Sarah, I'm moving to Goderich. You have a few things in the storage closet still if you want to come pick them up. Sends me a picture of this chair. I'm like, oh.

Even if I didn't have plans to see the ex-boyfriend, I needed that chair. So I got right to it. Okay. I got the chair back. All right. Well, I mean, I've got a chair that I've had for 25 years. It folds out. It has a drink holder. It's bigger than it should be. Things are much more lightweight now, but I just was so disappointed that they went on to this article. Like we have vetted with experts. We've gone to the best in the business to tell you how to enjoy your some of the best. The thing that I did enjoy was their snacks.

For road trip snacks. And we talked about that. Oh, yeah. Like either last week or the week before. What did they say? Well, they said that animal crackers are the newest thing for grownups, that animal crackers are the way to go. I do love an animal cracker. That it's really a snack that is overlooked a lot because you think it's for little babies and that animal crackers kick ass and that's the way to go. And they have savory animal crackers now for adults. Yes.

So they have, that doesn't sound appealing to me at all. I just, just give me the effing animal cracker that tastes like thing, whatever. Goldfish. I like goldfish too. Teddy grams. I like all the children's snacks. Okay. Well then, and then they're talking about flavored chips, chips that taste like Mexican street corn. And they're from Trader Joe's and they're called the Elote corn chip dippers. And there's seven bucks and they're supposed to be like brilliant. And that made me sad. $7 for chips is too much out of my budget.

Kind Bars made it into their curated zing. So I'm thinking, who's paying for this? Kind.

Kind bar minis. You've seen kind bars in airports everywhere you go. They always have kind bars up by the thing. So a 20 bar pack, which is pretty good, 13 bucks. Well, we'll put this link in the show notes. You can peruse. Have a look for yourself. Please do. You got to go peruse this Forbes link. I'm going to send it to you. And tell us your summer snacks. We're still on the summer snacks from last show. Also, please tell us about your summer plans and what you're doing and your beach chairs and all the things.

And did anybody listen to the newly launched Jan Summer Jams playlist?

Jan Summer Jans. I've been listening to it in the car and I'm like, oh yeah, this was Sarah's pick. I love this. So Sarah is in there too. Like I, it wasn't just mine. Sarah and I both, we participated in putting this, um, song list together. Anyway, there's, there's so many things going on. Uh, we are going to be doing a podcast all through the summer. So a lot of people who are normal people that take a break from a podcast. No, not us. Not us. Jan's not a teacher. She's not having a summer off.

I don't have a job. So we'll be here and we're going to just be talking about things that are going on. But thank you for listening. Hit that subscribe button. Give us a review. Give us some stars. It helps people find us. As you know, there's, I think, 275,000 registered podcasts that are up on the different streamers, Spotify, iHeart, iTunes, 275,000 people. But they're not even anywhere as...

informative as we are. And you know one thing, we ran out of time, but next time, Sarah, I want to bring up the scientists have proven that light is

They've done these experiments, can travel back in time. I want to get into somehow trying to explain it to myself. Dr. Jan will be with us next. But it has freaked me out ever since I ran across this article. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. Thank you for being here. We love you, Sarah. Have a great week. We will touch base soon. In the meantime, totally do.

This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.