Road Trip Season & Being 'Funemployed'
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Hello everyone, it is the Jan Arden podcast and show day. This is a day that everyone looks forward to week after week after week. Some people do seasons of podcasts. Sarah Burke, who is here with me from her Toronto dwelling. Hello. Some people do seasons. They do like 10 episodes in a season or 12. Not us. We do 52 shows a year. Our first season was two years long.

So what do you think of that, Sarah? Like, you work on a lot of podcasts, and I'm just wondering, are we an anomaly? I feel like we are an anomaly. We are because, you know, a lot of people bake in a summer break or a Christmas break, and you're like, no, but I'm going to want to talk about what we did over Christmas on the episode leading up to New Year's. Or we're on episode 44 this week, which is wild because that means I've been with you for 44 episodes of season two. That's crazy. We're halfway through the year. Right? Yeah.

When should we declare season three? Maybe September. September is when we started season two. So I feel like we should do season three, September. Okay. We'll do some giveaways. I think we should. We'll do some giveaways.

Let me give that some thought because I have lots of merch in my garage. And a book coming out. And a book coming out. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this week the cover art was presented to the world. Marcia Jean Harris is an unbelievable Alberta artist, and she just did exactly what was in my mind. It was inspired by a painting that I bought in Canmore last year.

of this old house. And so when we approached Marcia about doing this, I said, I really want that house in there, but I just want a round window and I want some cows and a cat. And she was incredible. So yeah, it's, it's cool to announce it. It's, it's all about pre-sales. And I was going to ask you if that house had inspired any of the storyline, like, did it change anything you had already written?

No, no. The house was way after. I started this book 12, 13 years ago. Right, right. So it was already locked and loaded. It's all just bits and pieces of life. But we'll definitely talk more about the book when we get closer to it. But thanks for all the beautiful responses from everybody. It just has been so kind and

Listen, you don't have to be a great writer to tell a great story. And I'm no Anne Rand. I'm no Henry Miller. But it's always a compliment when people read my stuff and go, it sounds like you talk. And you know what? You hooked me in with that post yesterday, I think, with your publisher. Your publisher is Penguin, right? Mm-hmm. Random House, yep. I saw a post go up and you were talking about talking cows. And I was like, pre-ordering the book right now. I want the talking cows. Okay, good. Yeah. Anyway...

Moving on to all things Toronto this morning, certainly for this first section, Olivia Chow is your new mayor and she won by a landslide. She's been a longtime member of the NDP cabinet and been in politics for a long, long time. Partners with Mr. Layton, who we all admired very much. What do you think? 37% of the base and there were 102 candidates.

So I feel really good about that. But I was catching up last night on some news and I found myself looking back on a ton of videos from Chloe Brown. Have you heard that name? Yes. So Chloe Brown was basically not invited into any of the debates and sort of shunned from being like one of the, you know, no one would call her an actual hopeful in this race. Right.

But she was like right there and really strong numbers right till the end and very impressive. And I went back and watched some of her videos last night from her campaign. I feel like she's talking to my generation. I feel like her voice in marginalized communities is so needed right now. There were a lot of articles about her having a non-traditional race and campaign.

But I loved her calling people out. I just feel like, yes, even though Olivia Chow won, some really interesting, maybe future leaders of Toronto presented themselves. I want to talk to Chloe Brown. I want to try and have her on my podcast. But it'd also be great to talk to Olivia Chow. Well, Olivia is going to be really busy this first little while. Yeah, she's not going to have time for me. Toronto is a big city. But Olivia definitely has her work cut out for her.

Of course, she's going to face a lot of opposition because that's how politics works. And I'm hoping that she has a fairly easy time creating the city that I think a lot of Torontonians would like to see. And you know what? You've brought up this point before, which I think is so important. It doesn't really matter who wins this race. Whoever it is always has their work cut out for them. And you have to remember that there's an entire team of people. It's never one person making decisions.

Right. It's a team. And so if you didn't have faith in Olivia Chow, we'll have faith in her team then. And to all the people that voted. Great. The you know, the advance poll turnout was really good and a ton of women running like all those things we talked about with the Alberta election. So there's lots of hope around right now.

Well, it's a good point. It is a team. It's not one person that's hovering over a red button, you know, ready to end all your hopes and dreams. She is an immigrant. First woman who's a person of color to run the city. Pretty incredible. And it says a lot about the progressiveness of Torontonians and what they want to see and

It's exciting for me. I've not met her, but I was excited for you. I wasn't surprised. Congratulations to everybody that ran. It's not easy going into politics and anyone that does it. I would be so frightened to be in that arena right now of politics.

Being a public servant and facing the vitriol and everything that goes along with it is just like...

to not wear it to work. Okay. How can you say that to your employees? How can you say that to your employees right now? I can't believe the Fairmont, that story I've been thinking about for three days straight. I cannot believe that a little pin, a little pin that someone feels expresses who they are, what they believe in is so offensive to someone else that they have to be asked to remove it. Well, that is just stupid. Yeah. Fairmont. Yeah. They're getting lots of heat for that. Are they? Yep. People do such trivial things.

nonsensical things. And you know what? Just know this folks, when you do things like that, it does exactly the opposite of what you think it's going to do, which is shut people up. So you've just given us a voice to talk about how ridiculous it is to not let someone wear a pin. That's like not letting someone wear gloves. Don't wear gloves. It's too OJ Simpson for us. No glasses, no hats. Yeah. Just go about your business. Why does everyone have to interject?

Such judgment on other people, especially when the LGBTQ plus community, two-spirit community has just been inundated with so much weird stuff lately. Even my own father, who was a really staunch, kind of conservative guy, he used to say, just let these people live their lives. Leave them alone. This was my dad. He was watching something on the news. Obviously, the man's been...

He passed away like eight years ago, but he actually was sitting there watching something on the news and shaking his head about how ridiculous it was. And that was eight years ago when things seemed to be a bit better. Women's reproductive health was in a better place eight years ago than it is now. And we really have this fanaticism in Christianity, which is all of a sudden these people are poking their heads out of holes everywhere. Yeah.

And demanding that everybody thinks like them, reads what they read, votes how they vote, wears what they wear, has hairstyles like they do, works the jobs that they do, likes the friends that they like. It's so ridiculous. This is what they're asking of everybody that's slightly different from them. And we know as a society that different people, different thinking, diverse thinking is

Critical thinking comes from getting our information from a lot of different sources, a lot of different places. That's what critical thinking is. So these fanatics are asking all people to be like them, to assimilate. So fuck that. Fuck off. I have to tell you, I loved the response that a musician named Alison Russell, I don't know if you've heard of her.

She's been performing at the benefits. She's been at all the protests for everything going on in Tennessee. She lives down in Nashville, but she grew up in Montreal. Member of the queer community, Black queer immigrant mom. I was talking to her about this and I said, you know, I admire your courage in using your voice like that in somewhere like Tennessee. And we need to call this behavior out when we see it. And she said, no.

Call it in. They're not others. They're part of us. We forgive them. Call it in. I thought that was such a radical take on it because everyone's so divided. Well, I mean, she's not wrong, right? It's so fear-based. I don't know how many times we need to have this discussion. I guess we'll have this discussion until we don't have to have this discussion. Yeah.

of just being afraid of what is not the same as you. What kind of a world would it be if everything was green?

Well, it would be actually I picked the wrong color. It would be a fantastic world if everything was green. If everything was gray. Yes. If it was just that color, everyone wore that. I get so angry and so frustrated, Sarah, and I know you do too. I do. I do. And you're of a different generation. You're I don't know what what do people your age? What are their thoughts? Like what what are the discussions around?

you're having around a dinner table or... We're just as mad about something like the pin, the Fairmont situation, as I think any member of the queer LGBTQ2 plus community would be, whether you are queer or not. Maybe the new generation, maybe the kids that are...

you know, 10, 15 years old, they're the ones that are going to finally put their feet down and just go, we're not doing this again. And you old people, you old assholes are not going to be pushing your agenda on us anymore. You know, it's, it's not the kids that are in schools going, mom, they taught us this or this. The teacher said this today. It's the parents imposing their ridiculous ideas. And we need patience in, you know, helping parents,

older generations understand they were brought up a different way, right? There's got to be patience and love in that process as well. Like my mom, for example, you know, I've corrected a couple things over the years that I've heard my mom's. How did that go? It went totally fine. It's, can I help you see another side of this? And? Mom is now the first person to click on my Women in Media podcast every week because she wants to learn something new. You know what I mean? She's very open-minded. Well, that's positive. There's a lot of hope and optimism always. Yeah.

But the whole bad neighbor thing that's happened, really, we've seen it unfold a lot in America over the last few months, but it's happening here too.

terrible things have happened. You know, people turning into the wrong driveway and getting shot. A woman in the United States, I think it was in New York state, you know, stabbed her neighbor over, over noise, a noise complaint. Come on. Let me read you a little bit of this article. Just, just a hair of it. This was written by Eleanor Cummins. She's like, what explains the rise of noise complaints and get off my long violence? And research is pointing to one intriguing possibility. She writes that,

The limits of self-defense and the nature of vigilantism are both perennial American debate topics. These things, you know, really rose up. Like I was saying, a woman in the Bronx stabbed her neighbor to death over a noise complaint.

In April, a 20-year-old woman was shot and died after she accidentally turned into the wrong driveway. In May, Daniel Penny, a white ex-Marine, put Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator, a mentally ill man that had been documented, in a 15-minute long headlock on a subway, killing him. That's what I mean. I'm just stopping to say, how do we get people to come to the table and have discussions that are meaningful,

Holly Fortier, our guest last week, you know, she talked about how do we become friends, Canada? How do we go in our two canoes in the same direction and have discourse? I mean, if you literally can't solve something with your neighbor, have you ever had a bad neighbor? Let me ask you that. Have you ever had...

Oh, the laughter is telling bad neighbors. Have you had one? Have I been one? Yes. So this could go either way. You tell me if I'm the bad neighbor or if someone else is a bad neighbor. Okay. This is fresh on my mind because there's, you know, the annual general meeting tonight where everyone in the condo building can log on and discuss what's going on in the, you know, what's going on with the budget and elect a new board and all those things.

Mm-hmm. So at this meeting, when I first moved into the building, I thought I was getting along just swell with my neighbor. I thought everything was fine. And I saw them in the hall all the time. When I had Delilah, the dog, with me, like the dogs would say hi. Everything was pleasant. Well, on this meeting, you can publicly write in a chat. It says your name. It's kind of like an instant message, right? But your name is your unit number.

So the unit number beside me comes up in the chat, right? So and everyone can see this. And I'm like, oh, it's my neighbor typing and I'm waiting for what they're going to say. Hello, we have a question from the fourth floor of blah, blah, blah. What should we do if our neighbor is growing a large cannabis plant on their balcony and it stinks? And I was like, I

Like, I saw you in the hall today. I saw you in the hallway today. Like, could you not have just said something to me? We have a good relationship.

Why in this public forum, you won't talk to me about it. Never said a word to me. What do you think? Have you smelled it? It's like the same thing as having rosemary. It's not like a crazy smell. Growing cannabis, it smells a little bit, but it's not like you're smoking it into their, you know what I'm saying? So you're growing pot on your balcony, which is legal. And in this building, if you've been grandfathered in and you have certain units, you can smoke cigarettes in your unit.

In this building. Still. But my outdoor plant is bothering someone. Anyway, I understand that that's not for everyone. It was the first year of the pandemic.

And it was just a fun little gardening project. And it was beautiful to watch it grow. I don't think it was bothering anyone. I think they just didn't like the concept of it. And I would have loved for them to in person say to me, listen, can you move that plant? So where did the phone call go? Or the texting, obviously the meeting? They said, well, we have rules that you cannot smoke cannabis here.

But because it's legal to grow a plant, right? They kind of like beat around the bush and it didn't go anywhere. But then the next day I see them in the hall and I'm like, hello. Right?

How you guys doing? How's the dog today? Can I ask their ages? They were, I would say they were probably about my parents' age. So I'm going to guess like early 60s at that time. It's okay to not agree with someone else's way of life. It's okay that you want to do things differently. But like, could we just talk to each other? But what has made us be essentially much braver and more

kind of vile behind a keyboard, more accusatory and judgmental behind a keyboard. So this is what I find so interesting. You're in a building. Yeah. The meeting's online. Great. Great. That's all something that we're all very used to now. But why, why wouldn't your neighbor say, do you think you could set that at the other end of your deck? Yeah. Maybe that would make all the difference in the world. I mean, pot, you either love it or you hate it.

And it is everywhere. It's omnipresent. But why the keyboard? Why not in the hallway? And did they say one word to you? Hey, sorry about the pot thing today. But yeah, if you could just move the plant. Like, I don't understand why having these face-to-face conversations, discussions is so foreign to people. Like, is it going to get to a point where we just don't talk to each other at all? We freaking text? Which reminds me, I once had

DM me on a plane, I was looking at my Twitter and the DM me was like, I am two seats behind you on the plane and I'm really scared to say hello. Well, can't you say to me hi? Hi.

hello, instead of doing it two seats behind me and sending me a text, would you have texted me on the plane or would you actually have just said, hey, I've seen you around, great, blah, blah, blah. Hey, Jen, love your music. How are you? That's what I would say. I think I told you that. A guy went by me one day and said, are you that girl that sings insensitive? And I said, yeah. And he goes, I hate your music, but I like you. And you said, thanks. Yeah. And it was fine. I'm like, I sometimes hate my music too.

So anyway, yes, more face-to-face would be lovely. And if you're too scared, well, could you not have like slipped a note under my door or like it didn't have to be from the behind the keyboard in a public forum. That's all I'm saying. Okay. Staying within this realm. Okay. A lot of, a lot of traveling going on this summer. I have so much traveling this summer and trust me when I tell you, it makes me uneasy about, you know, the carbon footprint, the impact of my travel.

And like many people out there that face these quandaries every day, I have to travel for my job. I wish I could have a few hundred people in my lawn every morning and I could sing them songs and make a living that way. But I have to go to where the work is, which involves flying or driving or busing or something. And I bring this up because...

I was sitting in my seat coming home yesterday. It was a four hour flight. Poppy was under the seat. He's so good. He was in his little bag, sound asleep. I had a woman beside me. It was a tiny little woman. She was on her phone a lot and then she had a nap. And then about halfway through, I needed to use the washroom. The man in front of me had reclined his seat and

And it came back and it actually kind of knocked my water bottle that was on my tray. I just caught it and I did have the lid on it. So I grabbed that, but his seat just went whoosh, like right back. It wasn't an easy, gentle thing. Okay. So now trying to figure out how I'm going to not wake her up. I did end up having to wake her up because, and I literally had to do a limbo to get her

my boobs and my body through this, I'm going to say a six inch gap that the reclined seat had created to get out to use the washroom. And she was very good about it. I said, I'm very sorry. And

So now I'm coming back from the washroom. The guy that has reclined his seat, he has his headphones on and his eyes are closed. So he's sleeping. In order for me to get back into my seat, which was a window seat, my colleague, she got up and moved. I snuck in there. But now once again, I have a really narrow gap to get back into the seat. And so I had to grab his seat to sit down, to get in there. It

was really not pleased with me that I grabbed and moved his seat a bit. And I felt bad and I apologized to him at the end of the flight. I said, I'm sorry I had to grab your seat to get in. But when it's reclined like that, it makes it hard. How was he with you? He didn't answer me. He ignored you? He didn't say anything. He was looking at his phone. He went, you know, whatever. I really have no idea what he said. So here's the question. That was a very long windup.

To recline or not to recline? What is the etiquette? Because professionals are saying it's never okay to recline your seat. As long as you're respectful about when to put it up, I feel like it's okay. You can recline the airline seat, this woman says, but not without potentially hurting someone, spilling wine on them, or whatever it is that happens. This is what consumer advocate Chris Elliott told a reporter. He has seen reclined seats damage laptops,

And he has suffered the indignity, not to mention the pain of having his legs smashed by the person in front of him suddenly tipping back. He puts the blames mostly on the airlines because they're overselling the flights. All of them are being oversold. So they're selling the same seat twice. They do it. It's legal to sell the same seat twice. People don't know that, but then they have an issue on their hands of

you know, asking people to stay behind and take the next flight. Like, I don't even know how they get away with it, but they just do it. Would it be the hardest thing in the world to look behind you, see what the situation is with the person behind you and say, just so you know, I'm going to recline my seat. I recline my seat a little bit. And I do very, very often, like nine times out of 10, I'll say, is that okay? You okay back there? Sometimes I'll say, can you just bring it up a little bit? I'll be like, yeah, okay. Yeah, of course. That's fair.

but I've never ever had anyone say, no, it's a problem. But you don't ever just hit your button and yard back. You've really got to be mindful because my tray is attached to the guy's seat. Now, if you're in business class, it's really not any better. Business class is getting smaller and smaller all the time. Usually the trays come out of the arms and they flip over, but you still have stuff sitting on the tray in front of you. And if the seat goes flying back,

It does knock your computer, your drinks, your coffee, your tea, your food, whatever it is you have on there. There's an etiquette expert. Her name is Diane Gotsman. She never reclines her seat saying that there are very few circumstances under which others should do so.

We know it's going to interfere with other people's personal space. What's relaxing for one customer could be uncomfortable or even injurious for another. And while travel experts have different views on whether it's acceptable to recline, they agree that airlines have worsened the problem by shrinking the distance between the rows of seats in order to sell more tickets. So yeah, I just wanted to get your take on that. I say if you can find a way to be respectful. I love the, hey, is that okay?

That's easy. Why not? Have you ever had a pair of feet come up to where you are? Absolute no. Get your feet away from me. Call Chelsea Handler. I'm out. So a few weeks ago, I had socked feet that stunk of a teenager who's very hormonal, a lanky, tall teenager. But he's traveling with his parents. So his feet come up. And first, it was just his toes hanging over kind of the edge in the middle of Chris and I.

And then his six foot one body decided it would be okay to have them come forward like another five or six inches. So literally, if I look to my left, I have feet, stinky, hormonal teenage boy feet. Yeah.

In like some kind of sports sock. Oh my God. With the toe almost coming through the end of the sock. So they weren't even new socks. So you ask yourself, why didn't you say anything, Jan? I didn't have the heart. Yeah.

I didn't have the heart. I don't like confrontation. I didn't want to be that person glaring back, that old, suddenly 60-year-old woman with progressive glasses on, looking through that gap at a mother. And I have to give her credit. This lasted about 10 minutes. And I heard his mom say, Darren, you don't put your feet up there. I let her be the disciplinarian.

He moved his feet back and he never put his feet up again. And further that, she said, Darren, put your shoes on. Yes. But her reasoning for it was if we crash, she said to him, you can't go through broken glass on your feet.

in your sock feet. So we're up there at 42,000 feet in the air and I'm listening to this and I suddenly thought, I'm going to look at my footwear, but I had really good runners on. They were tied up and ready to go. And then I started thinking about what am I going to do with the dog? People are going to be mad at me when I have to jump on that chute and slide down when the plane crashes and I'm taking my fucking dog with me and he's going to be in the bag and I'm not leaving him behind and I don't give a shit if they sue me. I don't care what Air Canada does. So I had all these scenarios going because Darren,

had his feet and his frigging socks. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We have lots left to talk about. Don't go away. We'll be right back with so much more.

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Summertime travel. Yes, it's challenging, but man alive, is it ever fun? Is it ever exciting? And travel does not have to be expensive. It does not need to involve a plane. It does not need to involve you spending a kajillion dollars to have someone whip their seat back and knock your $18 beer off of your tray as you're going to wherever. Road trips. I love a road trip.

I love a road trip too. I love it. Just pack in the car, put your snacks in, get your music going. Oh, I love it. I did one with my best friend last week. Last week? Where did you go? Just to the cottage, my parents' cottage. But like for her and I to do that, there's a little bit of figuring it out because she's from London, Ontario. So she has a two-hour drive to me. Then we hop in and we have another two-hour drive to Midland, Ontario. But I loved it and we had the best time. Well, you know, when you have someone that you can split the gas with,

cold drinks in there to kind of have it wedged in the back seat.

You know, chips, vegan jerky, chips and crackers and pickles and sandwiches and fruit and cut up vegetables with hummus. Don't forget about the fry stands, though, in country roads. Those are great. That's a whole other thing. I have bought everything from those little stands. I mean, going through British Columbia, and I'm sure that's what it's like in like fruit country in Ontario or anywhere you go across this country in the Maritimes and the prairies. Yeah.

There's stands every 20 kilometers. Some corn. It's not corn season yet, but... Everything. All kinds of homemade ice cream. I've bought banana bread. I've bought Saskatoon's. I've bought pies. I've bought tarts. I've bought donuts that they are literally frying at the side of the road. Love it. Kombucha that someone's making on their farm and you're thinking, God, I hope there's no alcohol in this because it's...

It's making my head fly. Yeah. But it is really that time of year to stop and enjoy all those roadside attractions. Except for the animal ones. Yes. Don't go near them. They're insidious. I'm a big supporter of the ice cream stop on the road trip. That's my favorite. I love ice cream so much. And I'll tell you what. Kudos to everyone making ice cream out there. I have yet to go to a place that doesn't have at least one ice

plant-based alternative. Right. Whether it's a sorbet, you know, just frozen fruit like a tangerine or grapefruit or coconut. It's come a long way. Village ice cream here in Calgary. I want to give a shout out to you guys. I don't know if you have other stores in other places, but village ice cream has three or four killer vegan flavors week after week after week. I always buy all of them in pints. Oh, yeah.

road trips are so great. Leah, my co-producer, co-writer, co-creator from the Jan show. She and I, we drove to Palm Springs from Calgary. So she flew here and,

And then we drove down there and I don't know if everyone remembers the trucker convoy that was blocking the borders. It was the most scary, intimidating thing I have ever experienced in my own country. And I never want to feel like that again. Anyway, once we got there, it was so much fun. We didn't reserve hotels anywhere and we had Poppy. He was just a baby.

I absolutely recommend people taking a road trip and don't plan it. Like don't get your pencil out and open your map and make a plan. Like literally just drive and top your gas tank up. Even when it gets to half, pull over and top your tank up. That's my little tip for you. Yes. That's a, that's a good tip actually. I think I'm going to take a huge gamble here and I think I'm going to go to Greece.

Well, that is a very big road trip. That's going to be a long drive over the Atlantic Ocean. We're talking a different type of travel here. But, you know, I'm kind of in this like, okay, I'm single again. I'm just figuring my things out and I'm going through a phase.

Are you going this summer? I think I'm going to go end of August into September, like over that long weekend. You know it'll be 35 degrees. But I want to get your take on this actually. Okay, so a girlfriend of mine I met from the gym, she introduced me to the woman that does my hair and then another woman who does like, you know, waxing and stuff like that here in Toronto. Those are the two ladies that planned the trip because they've got some family over in Greece. And you want to get your head waxed and you're asking me if I think that's a good idea. Yeah.

Okay. So they're the ones going on the trip and they sort of said, you guys should come. So that's where we started talking about like the four of us going. Those are the best. Right? Now, I don't know these, the two women well, but I do go for appointments. So I have a relationship with them or whatever. My thought is that I need to do this. I haven't booked the flight yet. I feel like by the next time we talk, I'm going to do it.

It's the idea of going with two people that you like don't really know, but they're locals. They're going to be able to like show you around proper. It's too good to be true. I think when those opportunities come up and if you can get like a pretty cheap fare over there. I got points, yo. By all means, go. Nigel, my friend Nigel's in Greece right now and

They did an Airbnb and they've got a pool and they're having like the greatest time. Nigel sits in the shade and his partner sits full sun all day long. They couldn't be more different. And they've been together 25 years. So something's going right. Having said all these things about these big trips or road trips, I would absolutely be remiss if I didn't mention checking out your local libraries and going in there and asking the librarian about day trip books.

Every city has them. A lot of times when Nigel takes me places in Dorset, he's like, I've never been here my whole life. I've lived here my entire bloody life and I've never been here. I've always driven by and I've never gone in. So don't underestimate the power of what is an hour or two hours from the city that you live in. Those trips are really something that a whole family can do really inexpensively, like a tank of gas.

Bring your lunches, bring your drinks, bring your stuff. And of course, stop for your ice cream cone. But like from here, Drumheller. There's dinosaurs, folks. Dinosaurs. There's a museum there that's just like... There's a dino hotspot? The Terrell Museum. And it's an hour from here.

Cool. And I finally went a couple of years ago. I'm like, I cannot believe I've never been through here. What's a spot near Calgary that you haven't done yet? Because when I come, maybe we can go. We should do something like a day trip. Yeah. Well, there's so many little things. I'd love to take you to Black Diamond.

What is Black Diamond? Black Diamond is about 90 minutes from where I live. And they've got a little strip of all these craft artisans. There's always farmers markets going on. There's the Black Diamond Hotel there that I'm sure the same people have been drinking in since 1947. They're still sitting in the original seats. But it's a beautiful drive. It's the foothills of Alberta. Turner Valley, shout out to Turner Valley. I think they're going to start calling it Black Valley.

They're trying to amalgamate the two towns. Turner Valley and Black Diamond are literally two kilometers apart. Okay. So...

Turner Diamond? I got to find out. People write in and tell me what their thoughts are because I think they had votes on what they were going to call the area. And you should tell us about your summer road trips. Send us a voice note. Tell us what you're planning this summer. Tell us the cheapest way to do things, any hacks you have, tips and tricks. We're all ears for summer travel. And while we're talking about that, Sarah, give us an update on our summer playlist.

because that's an integral part of any road trip is great music. So here's the good news. We're officially into summer and we officially have a Jan Summer Jams playlist ready for you. You can find it in the iHeartRadio app if you do a search for Jan Summer Jams. You can also go to the link in our Instagram bio at Jan Arden Pod, or you can click the link in the podcast show notes. Jan Summer Jams.

Tell us your favorites on the list. Which brings me, we have like a couple minutes left here, and I just wanted to briefly touch upon this. In the workplace, and you've worked in a lot of different places over the years. I haven't really, because I've just been on the road as a musician. So I've never experienced that. Going to work every day, the cubicles, the staff parties. How do some people get away with literally doing nothing at work?

And I think we've all known somebody that is,

kind of does that. They somehow work 40 hours a week, but they don't seem to be doing anything. Do you have an experience with that? Oh my God. How long do we have? Really? One of the big reasons that I left my last job was because of the frustration of knowing that I'm doing a heavy lift and someone over there is doing a no lift. I'm totally all about team and delegation. And if you're in

a position that's above someone else, of course, it would be assumed that you're going to be delegating things to your team, right? But you got to be doing something too. You got to be working on the vision. You got to be working on what's next for the team.

And if you are just out for lunch, having radio is a fun business. But I have had a boss in every building I have worked in January that has had a liquid lunch and then doesn't remember the conversation with me later in the afternoon. Okay, that's a bit of a problem.

Yeah. Well, there's this, there's this publication that anonymously talking to a guy they're calling Nate. He was admittedly a guy that, you know, did an eight hour work day, but he figured he only worked an hour of that day. And he said he really, there's an art to it, like really keeping a low profile and not interacting with people. Nate said he purposely avoided having any interaction with his boss other than, you know, being cordial. How are you? And doing stuff like that. And he said, there's a real art form to not draw attention to yourself. Yeah.

But what do you do when you suspect a person of doing nothing at work? Well, you certainly can't have a meeting with your boss about how he's not doing work. Maybe if it's someone on your team, you can. I've had to do that before. Well, they're saying it's a very universal problem. They're saying that it's like 90% of workplaces...

I've experienced people that ostensibly do not work more than a couple of hours in an eight hour day of what's expected of them. Sometimes it looks, it's intentional that they're not doing anything, but they're saying a lot of times it's unintentional. It's just people's work ethic and entitlement that they're not paying me enough to go the extra distance. So I'm going to do as little as possible. I would love to hear from you guys too, about if your workplace has somebody or somebody's

that are not pulling their weight or putting in the time. I just think it's so interesting. And I'm interested in the workplace. Like a lot of times I, I'm really jealous of my friends that are in those situations where there's 50 or 60 staff at their school or their office and they have office parties and Christmas parties and things like that. Like, believe it or not,

I really am jealous of that. We got to get you in for like a take your kids to work day, but it's a take your Jan to work day. Yeah, please. But I just think about what I have missed out on. People may not think about that, but I do. It crosses my mind a lot of those social experiences. And don't get me wrong, you know, the band is great, but I can't think of one person in a tour situation that doesn't work their ass off. There's

There's so much responsibility to everybody. You can't just kind of do the job. The way that you work, and I'm thinking about your manager who I also work with on some other projects, in the arts sometimes it can be super busy for three, four months and then you have some downtime where there's not a lot going on for a month or two, right? I'm sure there's busy times in an office too, but you're still...

tied to the nine o'clock show up lunch at this time, five o'clock leave. It's, it's really interesting, especially now. Well, the Nate guy whose name is not Nate, he calls himself fun employed, which I think is effing hilarious. Fun employed with a full salary. Cool. He's fun employed and he's very purposeful about it. He makes no apologies for taking advantage of a situation where he's working with enough people and,

And that he says he gets his stuff done, but it's the minimal amount. He's in data. Beware people in data. Someone needs to go do a roll call once in a while. He's wishing that how it ends is that he gets laid off with a generous severance package. Oh my God, Nate. This is a quiet quitter. This is the quiet quitting thing. So now reportedly the days get shorter by days.

I don't know, a few minutes every day. So pretty soon we will be back in darkness. What time's the sun setting out there? Alexa, what time does the sun set tonight? Sunset will be at 9.58 p.m. today. 58? 9.58 p.m. Holy. Hey, Google, what time will the sun set today? 9.04 p.m. for us. This goes to show you how much further north we are.

So imagine being in Nunavut, Yellowknife, up in the Northwest Territories, Alaska. In Iceland, they have days that's 24 hours of sunlight. I don't know if I could do that. What I wanted to wrap up this lovely podcast with was, you know, the whole idea of summer roommates. So my friend's daughter, this is a weird thing to me as well, but hear me out. She lives with another woman.

They are in their early 20s. And in the summertime, they've lived together for two and a half years, going to university. One of them's finished university. The other one isn't. In the summertime for the last few years, they've gotten two extra roommates to share in a two-bedroom apartment. Oh. And they do...

air mattresses on the floor with these two roommates and they have extra money to do stuff in the summertime. That's smart. Are you serious right now? Like if you're young and you have no cash, but you want to do stuff, but you're trying to pay for school, as long as it's not like creepos, I feel like that's a great idea. You're the one who has to sleep on an air mattress. Honestly, you think that would be okay. I wouldn't do that in a million years. And I knew myself at like 22, 23.

I have never had roommates in my whole life. I've always lived alone. I've never, I've never ever had a roommate.

Which is, you know, to my detriment, it was probably been why none of my relationships have worked out because I don't want to live with you. You're not living here. You're not staying. I just, I can't, I can't fathom it. But I was like that as a young woman as well. Okay. I was already doing the Mia Farrow, like living across the park from Woody Allen. Maybe that's why I feel comfortable with that idea. Cause I've always had roommates up until the condo, like the homes that I bought. Right. I just think it's so funny. So they have, they've literally figured out kind of a spreadsheet of,

of how much money they're going to have extra to go do renting boats or going on booze cruises or...

Okay. Well, I'm glad we've just our age disparity has now really reared its ugly head. But if you think that you would actually do that, would you do that now at 30 years old? 36 years old? No. But like when I was 20, I was like, I wish I thought of that. So my first year university in Ottawa, it was just me and one girl in one room the size of my bathroom here.

That was a lot. When I was in Western University in London, I lived with four girls in residence. And then it went down to like just one roommate by the third and fourth year. Okay, yes. It like gradually dropped off. Well, this is pretty cute. These are the 20-somethings. And, you know, my friend's daughter is really great. I've never met the roommate. I've never met the other roommates. They moved in third week of May, I think they started this stuff.

But the cute thing is that I thought was really kind of adorable and very responsible. No boys allowed. Oh, what a rule. No boys allowed in the apartment. So if they're going to, you know, be making out or whatever, they have to find, they have to go to the boys' apartment or the girls' apartment, whatever a preference may be. Let's put it this way. They've said no boys, but there's a no lover rule. No lover. Yeah. If you want to hook up, you do it elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah.

That's also brilliant. That's so good because when I lived with those four girls, let me tell you how many times we ran ourselves into that situation. Sarah Burke. I remember hearing laughter outside my window when I had a guest over and the girls were coming home from the bar, you know, like there was always, well,

I think it's very responsible and I think it says a lot about them. And apparently they're all getting along famously and they've got drink stations in the house and they're having just like the time of their life. And they're already talking about how they're going to do it next year. And apparently the girls are,

out the end of August. So they got two more months to go. And my friend's daughter is actually, she's like, I'm doing it because I don't really want to party or anything. But she said, I think I can save almost $4,500. That's amazing.

So everyone's got their own motivations to how they want to do this. So if you're out there and you're thinking, how am I going to make this summer work and how can I do fun things? Maybe you might want to think about, and they all know each other. So this isn't like they went on Kijiji saying, looking for two. It's not randos. Yeah, it's not randos.

But that might work too, only it would be kind of a dangerous situation with all your stuff and you don't know. So make sure you know them. Key piece of context here. A lot of the time when, you know, you're in student housing or figuring out arrangements to live off campus when you are still a student,

you're often signing a one-year lease. Knowing that you're not in school for however many months of that summer, right? I think that's what this is. They're not in school. Yes. They have the accommodations because of school, but they're trying to make the best of the time they're not in school and bring some supplemental income in. It's so smart. Well, one more final piece of this story. Okay. They can't let the landlord know. Ah. So there has been some hilarity, apparently, of...

Girls pretending like to actually walk out and leave the building super is like really tight with this. I think there's a lot of young people in the building and they're watching like a hawk. So sometimes they've actually pretended to leave. Great seeing you guys. Thank you. Like,

have a bag in their purse and they talk to you tomorrow, like literally. So he hears them because they're on the main floor. They're coming back around and coming through the patio and keeping a real low profile to do this. Oh my God. That's so funny. Because it's extra water. And I would imagine extra power and extra blow drying and

and things like that. So far, they haven't been caught out anyway. And to wrap things up, because we do have a few minutes, I wanted to talk to you about summertime food before we leave and how you eat differently in the summer than you do in the winter. Because I know I eat completely differently, but I want to hear your take on what are some of your favorite summertime foods? Well, I'm going to start with a summertime drink, an iced coffee.

Oh, delicious. I'm a big coffee connoisseur. So I switch from, you know, hot to cold usually in the summer. As for food, like sharing some seafood on a patio is one of my favorites. I get obsessed with patios. Like I love nothing more than sitting on a patio enjoying drinks, food with friends. That's my favorite.

My mom is always like, there's too many bugs outside at the cottage. I'm like, we're eating outside, mom. I will get you a net for your head. Sorry, we're eating outside. Look at that sign. I'm with your mom. Your mom and I could be pals. Because if there's one bug, I'm like, no, I'm getting out of here. I now have a wasp nest underneath my, one of my patio umbrellas. But anyways, yeah, I like your mom. But

But we really do swap it out. Summer eating is so much different. Do you find you eat lighter? Is that why you're bringing that up? Lighter in the summer? I just eat completely different. Like last night, I had my first real meal out of my garden. And I took a whole bunch of different lettuces. I took a whole bunch of beet greens and I took a whole bunch of Swiss chard.

I steamed them for literally 120 seconds. And I put my vegan butter on there and salt and pepper. And it was so delicious to have these vegetables. And I've got all these herbs that are growing on my deck. It really is such a special time. I wish there was a way that I could...

have that freshness. There's nothing like it. Like the Swiss chard. I mean, to steam something for that quick of a time and to have such a simple meal. Normally for vegetables in the winter, I'm a big pan cook girl. Roasting veggies. Put a big thing in the oven and do my broccoli and whatever. But in the summer, I'll switch over to the lettuce in my garden, which I'm also growing out here on my condo patio. And no, it's not cannabis. It's lettuce this year.

Okay? Yeah, don't be eating your weed and your salads because I can't guarantee your safety over that. I love a good iced cannabis beverage as well. What the frick is iced cannabis? It's just pouring a cannabis-infused drink over ice. What's a cannabis-infused drink? Like tea? Tell me what you do. You take the leaves off the plant. No.

Okay, what? I'll buy it. So the same spot that you would go to buy some pre-rolled joints or something, they'll sell a beverage. In a can, pre-made. So you're not making... I probably could make it, but I didn't. Sarah, you got to back this up. There's this delicious blueberry iced tea one that I love.

That's from Collective Arts and a blood orange one. They're delicious. And I'd rather have that over a beer any day. So what happens to you when you drink one of those drinks? What do you feel like? Because I don't do nothing. Honestly, I would say the feeling is just like a little relaxy. Relaxy. Like with beer or wine, I feel like I lose some like control and I get sloppy. With this, it's just like a chill, like hmm.

Maybe that's the way to go, folks. Now, can you drive after drinking a few of these things? No, no, no, no. Listen, I'm asking the question. I don't know.

Responsible. I'm very pure, Sarah. I'm very pure. You and your vegan cheese. You know what? Screw you. If I single-handedly have to try and save this planet, I'm going to. As a matter of fact, I just wanted to tell you, this is where we're going to close this off today. I have stayed with vegan cheese in my fridge, what I personally have in my house since January when we did our vegan challenge. Well, I'm really proud of you for that. Every little bit helps.

You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast and show. Sarah Burke is our engineer. She's our producer. And she's also the person that puts these up. I don't, I don't, I don't, I haven't really let people know that you do so much more than just talk to me a week after week after week, you're doing it all. I show up this morning. I was 10 minutes late. She's like, are we still doing this today? I'm like, Oh my God. And I was sitting here probably picking lint out of my navel, um,

tweezing chin hairs and cleaning up dog turds. And here Sarah is just waiting. I know what I'm dealing with. You don't worry. We're good. But I'm usually punctual, aren't I? Tell the people. You're very punctual and you're a very good boss. She doesn't leave at 11 and come back at 3 p.m. after several beverages. And it's been a fun employed, ladies and gentlemen, word of the

podcast fun employed and I have to say to you Sarah Burke that I'm fun employed with you every time I do this I love it so listen have a wonderful weekend everybody look after yourself eat some corn on the cob eat fresh eat local get

Get those veggies in. They're all starting to come out end of June. There's so many things that are ready to devour right now. And if you don't grow them yourself, go find a market. And the prices are excellent. There's so many around Calgary. I know that they're everywhere. Anyway, we love you. Thanks for listening. Tell us about your road trips and tell us about the fun employed people in your office. We'll see you next time on the Jan Arden Podcast and Show from Sarah and myself and my quiet, quiet dog today, Toodly-Doo.

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