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Hello and welcome to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm here with Caitlin Groove. Sarah! We just watched the Irish children rapping and Caitlin, I'm going to you because I just seconds ago watched part of the clip and it's pretty special. There's nothing like an Irish accent to just
jump you up an Irish accent and also just the heartwarming nature of like kids in the arts when I see kids expressing their creativity if you look over at me make eye contact with me at a children's choir performance you will see a grown woman bawling her eyes out like I nothing is cuter to me so these kids it was part of a an arts awareness day in Ireland
They did a rap. They did it on almost no money. They recorded it in a day. They went to a recording studio that frequently works with children and they shot a music video for it. And it is now taking over the internet. It is just absolutely one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my entire life. It's called The Spark is the name of the song. I feel like we need to play
a little chunk of it so that everyone listening knows what we're talking about. They don't have to go Google it. Let's listen to that right now. That's my passion and I couldn't live without it. You can do it like we do it. Don't doubt it. Any obstacle, we find a way around it. If you're proud of who you are and what you do, shout it. Think you can stop what we do? I doubt it. I search for my spark. I'm saying think you can do it. I search for my spark and I think
It immediately amasses over 8 million views. The kids must be going bonkers. Oh my gosh. I know. It's all 9 to 12 year olds. It's boys. It's girls. There's refugees in this group. It's just so cool and it's very empowering with the message. I love it. And one of my favorite comedians, she has a show in Dublin and she said that she's going to play it as her walk-in music. Well, this is kind of a step back in time. When did you...
As a kid, step into the arts, like, was there choir? Was there talent shows? We'll start with you, Jan. I think you guys know my story. I was just playing my mom's guitar in the basement. Never in front of the school? No, no. Not until I graduated. But I loved art. I loved...
Mrs. Humphreys or Miss Snyder, whichever. I think it might have been Miss Humphreys and Mrs. Snyder or Miss Snyder and Mrs. Humphreys. I always screw up what her married name was. But anyway, she was fantastic. So lots of singing in her class. She'd bring in her record player and her Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass records. But I tried out for the Young Canadians when I was 15, which is affiliated with the Calgary Stampede. And it's a huge musical organization with the Stampede.
and they do the grandstand show every year. It's a huge thing for these kids. I tried out and I didn't make it. I'm sorry. Oh, I got past the singing thing, but I couldn't dance to save my life. So then I just went. Oh, it's a combo. I get it. Okay. So I just decided drinking beer.
I mean, that's honestly though, that is stampede culture. I feel I got into it. I was in a choir, uh, in my elementary school. We had a teacher, he was the librarian and the choir master and his name was Mr. Thompson. And he was married to Mrs. Thompson, my favorite junior kindergarten teacher. And he was strict. He had tryouts.
Then he had another set of tryouts. Like there were like finalists and he meant business. And so we were, we would win like choir competitions. And then he picked his favorite, you know, singers, the people he thought had the most interest in it. And I auditioned for the Toronto youth choir and I got into the Toronto youth choir, which was like a competitive, like children's choir. I knew it. I was very clearly an Alto. Yeah.
I was immediately placed in the boys section, which wasn't great for my social life. But anyways, and so it was a lot of fun. And then one of my longest standing friends, who I'm still great friends with today, he and I actually co-hosted, we sort of emceed and were the stars of our talent show at school in grade six.
And then it just sort of snowballed into loving drama in high school. And like, I just loved it. And like, we had a real stage in my high school. They film mean girls there. So it was like spotlight on auditorium and just like the vibe of it was so addictive for me. I couldn't get over it. We had to do a standup. I think it was two minutes. We had to do two minutes of standup in our senior year in high school for our drama class. Our drama teacher was also very serious about everything to do with performing arts.
this was the first thing you did all year because he was like it was like this torturous like icebreaker for everyone to become more comfortable with each other afterwards and everyone was like throwing up in the bathroom beforehand at school just like sick like sick to their stomach and our drama class he loved having an audience and so sometimes for finals he would invite people to come in if they had a spare class and just sit in the auditorium and watch us and like that's merciless in high school so people are understandably quite anxious I was like a
I couldn't wait. I was so excited to do it, but then like put me in gym class and I was like, Oh, get me the hell out of here. So I like gym. You did. Yeah. I really liked gym. I was kind of athletic. I was kind of very coordinated. I was on the senior basketball team. I was on the volleyball team. I played badminton. I played softball. I was really good. I was, I could play any position like pitcher, back catcher. I might need you at some point. Yeah. Well, I'm telling you, I don't know. I,
I'd probably break an ankle and put an eye out now if I was to try anything. But back in the day, I was quite good. But I would love to, you know, with summer upon us, I'd love to join like a casual softball team. I think that would be really fun. But with who? Who would do it? Who would have me? I mean, I feel like my team would be like, yes, you can join even if you just want to like pitter patter to first. Jan plays virtually? Yeah.
You just have a laptop with wheels on it? Well, when she's in town at the Toronto condo. Yeah. Are you guys still watching hockey since the Maple Leafs are out? Not that I want to bring up hockey, but I guess I just did. Absolutely not. There's one man that I like watching hockey with, and that's the only reason I'm still watching hockey. Oh, okay. Well, Edmonton's in, so it's Alberta. So everyone's quite excited.
So we're still going on that. Oh, I like the Oilers. Zach Hyman's on there. Okay, fine. I don't see, you know, people, I don't even know people. The last hockey player I knew was Ken Dryden, who was the goalie for the Montreal Canadiens. Yeah. And that was like 1975. I was going to say, it's a different era of hockey. So what else is happening in the world of pop culture, Caitlin? Because not that I have my ear to the ground, but... I mean, where do I begin?
There's so much happening all the time. What's happening? Because this is your thing. What do the people need to know?
People need to know about this security guard at the Cannes Film Festival in France. This woman is taking the headlines from every single celebrity there because typically people want to get that photo on the red steps at Cannes. It's this big moment. Frequently they wear something by a designer who sent it to them so they're photographed for this purpose. And the Cannes Festival used to be something where if you weren't part of the festival, it would be less common to go. It wasn't the same sort of influencer inundated event that it is now.
So I guess you're not supposed to dilly-dally on the old steps. And she has been giving the straight arm, like, shove. Like, she's like a bouncer. She's a nightclub bouncer at a university town to just, like, these wayfish, small, like, K-pop stars. So she first did this to Kelly Rowland of Beyonce. Of Beyonce. Ha ha!
That feels fitting. That was Freudian. That was Freudian. I don't, I'm not, she's not owned by Beyonce. Of Beyonce fame, but let's face it, of Beyonce fame. Of Destiny's Child slash Beyonce fame. So anyways, she shoves her, she tries to cover her, she's ruining the photos and she's rushing her away. And then when Kelly Rowland was asked about it, she got quite emotional because it's like, it's rude. And,
And it's weird. It's just weird behavior. Is no one checking this woman? Is no one saying, let's give them 60 seconds? Kelly did. Kelly was like, no. Kelly got in her face back at her. But then everyone starts painting Kelly as being angry. And I think that's why she got so upset. So that's unfair. And there aren't a lot of African-American women historically on this carpet. So she felt like maybe I'm being mistreated and now being mischaracterized for having a logical response to somebody putting their hands on me. And then she did it to a K-pop star. She did it to some other teeny tiny little mom.
little model and then I'm like can we stop talking about me in those terms teeny tiny little k-pop model jam Caitlin how many times are we going to have this conversation I don't want to be talked about in that way it's teacup so anyways she she's been I've been calling her Paulina Blarth or Blart to my friends because it's like Paul Blart but it's like the mall cop gone
gone wrong for Ken and she's taken all these headlines. And so other security guards are backing her up and I'm like, okay, you guys are all weirdos. I mean, like, what is she doing beyond this? Is she just like a for hire person? But I need a full documentary. I need like a Nancy Grace expose on her. I'm obsessed with this woman. I don't know what's wrong with her, but
But she's had one too many Red Bulls. My friend last night, I went to Zaya Tong's premiere of Plastic People last night. Oh, I'm jealous. And my friend actually got like, so it was at the Royal. I don't know if either of you have been to that theater. I have. On College in Toronto. Yeah. So after, you know, people were using the bathroom and there was a little reception across the street. And my friend actually was like asked to like,
leave where she was and she was like well my friend is still in the bathroom and she was like you can go back to the bathroom isn't that the weirdest comment like you can go back to the bathroom aka you can't stand anywhere else but the bathroom or outside hey I'm sorry but like security guards like you it's a fine line between just like I'm just here doing my job or being like a sick loser who's like getting off on rules guys I thought we learned everything we needed to from Zaya last week but do you know what I learned yesterday
Tell us. Scare us. Bayfield, Ontario. Tiny, tiny, tiny little Ontario town. Yeah. I know Bayfield. They are a plastic-free community and they have been for years and they are part of this like world collective of plastic-free communities. No, she talked about this. I don't remember her talking about this. Yeah, she did. She talked about this because I was like... I mean, I missed part of last week's... Maybe I blacked out while editing. Maybe. But...
it's either she referenced it while we were recording or just to Jan and I, but I did. Okay. Okay. I, I think it was a very quick reference of a plastic free community and that there was other communities and stuff. I wish I was a plastic free house, but I've thought of nothing but plastic ever since she talked to me and, and Caitlin about this stuff, because I,
I feel like my whole life, and I was checking my sheets, like my shirt that I have on has some kind of plastic in it. It's linen, but on the label, there's 10% some freaking polyethylvaloline. Which now we look for. So I don't know if it's too...
extend the life of the shirt, which I pretty sure it is. Linen is very, it can come apart. And I bet you that 10% of the plastic content is to give this shirt more life. So how do you balance that out? I don't want this thing to fall apart in eight months. Cause I wash fucking everything so much. I am my mother's child. I'm surprised I have skin. When we used to pull our socks on as children, our foot would go through the end. There was so much bleach. Oh,
But you know what? The whole point of the film is like, you know, we need plastic. We are dependent on plastic and we want it for certain things in society. Like medical world is a perfect example, but that whole film's message is let's limit and stop, you know, new production and new ideas. I,
I also think it's about corporate, like it's about corporate accountability and like government accountability because so much of this stress is passed off onto the individual as if like, I said it in the episode, but do you think like all of our paper straws are saving the turtles or do you think that maybe it's actually oil and gas not being such a huge problem? Or her comments about like the yogi, like sitting on a yoga mat, but like made of plastic. Yeah.
But can we reuse what we have effectively? Can we, and this is the problem now, but I'm always encouraged by Instagram or socials these days. Four young men from Zimbabwe have devised a plan and you see these time-lapse
pieces of these entire communities cleaning out literally plastic that is over your head and over the course of an afternoon it's bagged, sorted, taken to the proper place and for the first time ever they're seeing fish kind of return to these little pathways. So people really are
getting sick of the junk in their own backyard and people are reacting and they're getting together. It's like, do we just sit here and stare at this and watch it get higher? I know in the area that I'm in, Bragg Creek, Cochrane area, when I go to the dump here, I have to have everything separated out. You can be fined if you do it improperly. She asks, when you go in, you pay $3 for a bag. And she's like, do you know where your garbage is going? Is it separated?
If there's any glass, it can't go into the compactor, like this massive compactor. But she says, what is your address? Are you from this area? So they don't even have people from for a while, I guess during. Yeah, it's but people don't screw around. I had a woman say to me a couple of weeks ago that no, no, not that.
It's colored. It can't go in there. And she was nice about it, but she was like, I said, I'm sorry. I haven't come here very much. I said, I'm really sorry. I'm just learning. That's okay. Yeah.
I'll give you a free pass this time. I'm just like, holy shit. It's like firm but fair. But I also didn't realize like you can't recycle black plastic containers in Toronto. They're not recyclable. So when you get like takeout containers in the black plastic, it's because the sorters at the recycling facilities, the black is on a black conveyor belt. And so it's indistinguishable for the machines to tell the difference. Okay.
Don't make black takeout containers. Exactly. Keep them clear. Yeah. And like they have amazing biodegradable containers now that just have like a little light coating on them. Otherwise, they're cardboard and your food shows up just fine. I mean, I will specifically aim for places where I know that that's what they give it to you in. And it makes a difference because I also –
I feel like crap putting a piece of black plastic in a garbage can in 2024. I reuse them constantly. My building doesn't allow the sorting of like the food composting part. So,
So all that is going in the garbage. And I've asked at like a few of the like, you know, annual meetings where you can log on as a resident of the building and, you know, ask your questions. I'm like, why don't we have this yet? Every other building in Toronto has this. Yeah. I have food in my building. I have a food shoot, a button that you wait, you push it and go. So it's quite good. And the try sorter. And I've been to the garbage room downstairs and it is as clean as the day is long. Everyone...
Chips in. Everyone folds their cardboard. Everyone flattens it out. I have never seen a box that someone goes, fuck it. I'm just going to chuck it in there. Somebody else can deal with it. Everyone that I've ever seen down there is flattening it out, pushing it down with their feet and laying it in there. I just like everyone gives a shit about their building. Except mine. It is so clean. We're going to come over. I'm going to come over. You know what the answer was? Sarah, it'd be great if you could do some research on that and lead the charge on that. I don't work for the building.
Like I'm happy to, but like, what about, we should all care about this. Yeah. Anyway. Have you ever seen those Indian fast food? It's a phenomenon on socials. Like on, they have fun music on TikTok. It's a phenomenon. You see like these guys that have been cross-legged, I'm not kidding you for 30 years on the ground and they've got, they're just slopping stuff in and it looks so crazy what they're making, whether it's chai teas, but they're literally serving 1500 people every day. All their takeout stuff is on a leaf.
So when they're making their rice things or anything, they fold these leaves in seconds into like a little box that opens up and they eat it with their fingers. So A, I get that. I think a fork is overrated. If I could eat everything with my hand, I probably would, except for soup. But it's just like, it's a leaf and it just composts wherever they put it, like on the ground or-
That's that. And I bet you animals eat them when they chuck them out. I bet you something else eats it, a cow or something. Anyway. I also feel like there's a, I watched something on this and it was about, it's like the steel, you'll see the stainless steel containers that they use for bicycle driven delivery. Over and over and over again. And everyone has their own containers. Yeah.
And it's incredible. And it's, they do office delivery lunches and you'll see people on, on bikes delivering them and in tons of places all around the world. And here in Toronto, even like we have a farmer's market that happens indoors in the winter, outdoors in the summer at Evergreen Brickworks. One of my very favorite places to go in the whole city and by far my favorite farmer's market.
And so when you go there, you can have lots of amazing food to eat. And we went this past weekend. Will had his first giant breakfast crepe. We just loved it. You sit on a little bench, overlook the pond, you have the snack. But every vendor there doesn't give you your food with a paper plate and plastic fork and knife. It's these blue plastic plates.
plates and then cutlery the same and you dump it in a bin at the end of it and they reuse it every single week. And so there's, it's not just disposable. You're like, this is not hard to do. My very favorite organic grocery store is called Raise the Root. It's run by two wonderful women. It's in Leslieville. They have a take a bag, leave a bag policy.
Instead of dealing with the 35 cent charge to get a bag, whatever, I show up with my backlog of reusable bags. Love it. I dump off like eight and then days when I go there and I forget to bring a bag with me, they go, oh, just grab one. And they always have them. And it makes perfect sense to me. And it's cheap as hell.
It's so cheap. There's no reason not to be doing this. You know, you're right. But Zaya Tong, Plastic People is the film. It's her first film. And she is an incredible person. And she cares about this world. And she's a friend of our show for sure. But if you get a chance to see Plastic People, I highly recommend you do. She's even very practical about it. Hey, guys. She's like, listen, you're not going to eliminate everything in your life. But...
You can start drinking out of glass containers or stainless steel containers. You can use all your glasses at home and not always buy cheap plastic solo cups. You can actually take something a little more...
Anyway, we could go on and on about that. I want to move on quickly. One last thing on the green things, the good for the planet things. Our also friend who hasn't been on the show yet, but should really be, Erin Ireland, she recommended Honey's Ice Cream, which is a vegan ice cream place here in Toronto, and said this is the best vegan ice cream I've ever had. We were discussing our dinner at G.E. the other night. I'm going. We're going.
So I just discovered today that one of my favorite, again, little like markets near me sells honey's ice cream by the pint. So I bought the vegan. You're starting without us. It's so rude. I'm sorry, but I had to do it. You are a very, very cruel person. I had to do it. And I already had a little bite of it, even though it was like 1030 after my Pilates class. Is it beside you on the desk right now? No, it's not.
but it was heavenly. Chocolate chip cookie dough. It was a dream. It is creamy, not watery. It is dense, not like airy and chewy like some other vegan ice creams I've tried. It's fantastic. So I cannot co-sign honey's enough. And same with happy pops.
And Jan, they are interested in sending you some happy pops to try. They're vegan. They're amazing. It's literally just pureed strawberries or lemon and mint or whatever. And Will loves them. If you have kids, this is a great summer treat to give them. Watermelon, also fantastic. They have a watermelon mint. I could go on and on. I go through a four-pack of their strawberry happy pops very regularly. So I want to shout them out. We are just going to take a real quick break. We're going to be right back. Don't go away. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. ♪
Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm here with Caitlin and Sarah. I just dragged out my old school popsicle molds. Oh, I love making popsicles. So I don't have them in the winter for some reason. I kind of put them in the back of my cupboard. I dragged them out yesterday.
And I make, I put watermelon in the blender. I put mint in the blender. I put basil in the blender and I put thick coconut cream. I blend it up. It's like this beautiful rosé little green chunks. And I dump it into the molds and I put it in the freezer in my garage and
There's no extra sweetener. I don't like the extra sweetener. I just have this coconutty, watermelon-y thing. But if you wanted to, throw in a little agave or a little maple syrup. Some people do. But you don't need sugar. Like, you really don't. Watermelon's sweet.
Watermelon is sweet and so are strawberries and it's definitely mango. But in your mind, it tastes sweet. It's so freaking good. So if that's a recipe you like, but you could swap out your watermelon with anything and you have to do mint and basil. It's just a must. So good. Yeah, you'll love it. Okay, now we're going to move on quickly.
Um, leave the disastrous details of your life off TikTok. Once again, I'm going to put this over to you, Caitlin. Um, a single mom posted a video of herself crying while baking. Okay. Explain it.
This story has destroyed my brain and it has made everyone on the internet who watched it go, okay, we're done here. We just have to leave this alone. A woman posts a photo. So she sets up her phone, right? She sets it up on her counter to film herself crying, which right there, that scares me. That type of behavior scares me. Somebody who is going into a performative place of that. I mean, it frightens me. It's deeply unsoothing to watch someone do this. I don't like it. But everyone can.
Everyone cries on TikTok, Caitlin. Everyone's bawling in their cars. People always do TikToks in their cars. They set their freaking phone up and they cry. It scares me. It scares me. Your commentary leading up to this conversation, like, because I've seen your posts, I'm like, this is so funny. It's funny.
It's quick. It's just, it's unwound my everything. So she posts this thing and it's herself baking a cake. And she says, you know, this is what it looks like when you're a single parent and you have to bake yourself a birthday cake. So your kids have something to sing with you for.
which is an ostensibly sad thing. But also I was like, okay, I'm like, okay, first of all, yes, this is sad when you frame it that way. But secondly, do you think married people are out here giving each other cakes every year? Like order yourself a cake from Dairy Queen like the rest of us. I don't even do birthdays. I
to my birthday. Exactly. We know. Every day is my birthday. Caitlin's 40, by the way. I don't know if you guys do. My birthday is today. That wouldn't surprise me. So she makes this video and she has, you know, a certain group of people are like, you know, here with you, mom. Look, look, single parenting, I can't imagine anything harder in the world. You have all, you have, you know, my heart goes out to you.
But then a bunch of people were like, wait a minute. This is weird. No one's doing this for us. Why are you crying on camera? Like, this is just like, grow up. Just don't do this for clout on the internet. I don't know why I'm nervous laughing. Then enter...
Enter the TikTok reply of her ex-husband. Uh-oh. So this guy shows up and this man has court documents with him. He pops onto TikTok and holds up court documents saying, that's rich that she makes it sound like she has, you know, this horrible life as a single parent when in fact I have full legal custody of the kids. They're always with me even on holidays. Here is our custody agreement. She back owes me $21,000 in child support and was previously arrested for check fraud. I was like, what? What?
So everyone's like jump scare and everyone thinks like, okay, so our spidey senses were right the first time around with this person when it's like anyone who films himself crying, baking a cake is probably unwell.
So then she becomes the main character of the internet for a minute, which is not where you want to find yourself ever in this world. So she, then she comes back at him and says, this man is a Scientologist who's been stalking me and I have a restraining order against him. And I will say that I saw when he posted his video, there was a look in his eye where I was like, I don't know. Like,
he seemed weird too. They just seemed so weird, this whole thing. And then everyone on the internet who was watching this play out in real time, I feel like we all kind of collectively looked at each other and just went, okay, so we're all good here. They're both insane. They've shared way too much information about themselves. I'm afraid of both of them. And I feel really concerned for the safety of their kids because what is happening? Dad's a Scientologist. She's
Passing bad checks to the tune of a million dollars. Like what is happening? And why do people feel the need when they have this level of skeleton in their closet to put this all out there? Like why do they do that? It's like that woman who, do you remember the story about the woman who was living off of insurance? She was living off of long-term disability. And then she won a Christmas tree throwing competition because she was faking it.
And there's a photo of her in her town newspaper. Screwed that one up. Chucking a Christmas tree. And everyone's like, well, your back injury doesn't look so bad there, Martha, because you're throwing a Christmas tree and winning a competition for it. So again, I say, just don't do this to yourself. Don't tell on yourself. Why do people tell on themselves? Because their need for fame usurps anything else. The desire to monetize likes is
If I have one more person on TikTok asking me to watch the full 60 seconds of the thing so that they can pay for their son's college degree or
or whatever, you need to watch the full 60 seconds. So obviously in Canada, we don't pay to play. It doesn't exist on the TikTok formats here. Now, it's a different story if someone gets sponsorships or endorsement deals. I know that there's some pretty big TikTokers that, you know, depend heavily on getting Burger King or Pizza Pizza or whatever. Yeah. To...
give them some money to peddle their products. But in the States, they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars. But people are, I think, mentally unhinged. I think they're unwell. The desire to be known for something. And Andy Warhol said it best, everyone's going to be famous for 15 minutes. So you have to be very mindful. What do you want that 15 minutes to look like? Do you want it to be saving somebody from, you know, lifting up a car or
Or do you want it to be filming yourself with a birthday cake, bawling your head off, saying your kids don't like you? I don't know where our moral compass has gone. I don't know where our moral... There's a red onion beside her cut up that she forced. She's just like jamming a knife into her leg while she's filming it. I wouldn't be surprised. But we've lost our moral compass. I think it went out the window with social media. But I just...
I need people to stop doing this. And what I really need to do is myself stop getting so caught up in it. But it just comes into my algorithm and I'm like, what? So how did it end? It's, you know, the meme of the two Spider-Men pointing at each other. And that's what I think happened. I think it was just the two of them pointing at each other. And it's like, you're both crazy. And you have to just like walk away from it. But I could never have seen it going in that direction. That's just not what I would have thought. There would be a Scientology twist involved. Like, it's just, Lord help us all. Jesus.
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I always hate it when I look at my screen time at the end of any day, especially when I've been traveling on the road. I know. It always climbs up there. So I feel such a sense of shame and freaking failure. You know, I've been on the road for five weeks and I'm like, you've been looking at your screen for seven hours and want four minutes. I'm like, what? What?
You also have more in your day. You have more in your day about passing the time. Like, you know, maybe it's like the trip to the venue and you're streaming anything. Even when, if you're watching things, it all counts as time. So if you spend 30 minutes scrolling through shit or whatever, but I was like, I think I looked four or five days ago when I was still on the road, you're like in the van or on the plane or whatever.
Seven hours, over seven hours. I'll tell you what, I mean, that doesn't surprise me. When you said that number, I was like not shocked, honestly. But what I noticed, and it's such a positive benefit to having a child, is if I have my phone out at any point, he wants to see it. He demands it. And so I purposely avoid bringing my phone out now because I don't want Will to see me with
So I'm actually on my phone. I'm way less available when I'm with Will. So weekends, like it's hard to reach me, honestly, because if he's awake, I don't want to handle my phone. So I do think that being more aware of his screen time has made me more aware of mine and like embarrassed. And I for sure am melting my brain doing it. Seven hours, 42 minutes, average screen time. Mine's still high, I bet. What tour am I on? Well,
They're back in the day. I remember like, even like before COVID, if it was like two hours and 10 minutes, I'd be like, you got to fucking do better. It's two hours and 10 minutes, but I don't. And I have looked at stuff less. Like I'm really not, I don't look at TikTok very often. It's not my realm. Mine's terrible too. What is it? Five hours, 25, five, 20. Okay. You're, you're, you're doing better. You're winning. It's better, but it's still not good.
That's so funny. Well, even with like, you know, I post for clients, some of my clients, like, you know, if it's eliminating a step, I will be posting. And even like for the Jan podcast, right? Like if I'm posting something that counts towards my screen time, but I would guess that I would be around the two hour mark of like mindlessness. Yeah, for sure. It can be pretty mindless. I really love news articles. I spend probably most of my time on an app called Flipboard.
Oh, yeah. You guys will laugh at me, but it's the archaeology pages. That's great. And in getting prepared for my trip to Edinburgh with my metal detector that folds up and goes in your suitcase. You're bringing it? It's a travel one. So I need video content of you roaming around like the beach. You will get it. I will. You will get it. And I'm going to find shit and I'm going to pay off my house. Okay.
I'm going to find a Roman hoard. You're excavating. Yeah. Anyway, I'm just, so I've been looking at tricks and what people are doing and how they're shoveling out their stuff and don't be tricked by this. And, you know, make sure you go down an extra two inches to make sure. Oh, I know if you've just joined us, if you just joined us. So, but I, that's a flip board. If you guys don't know about it, it's a, it's probably got,
600 sub headings of how you can curate looking at it. And it's so like I follow mudlarking, which is people on the Thames or people on rivers that have a tidal, that have a tide, that have a tide and go out.
People find all kinds of stuff from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. So they just go out when the tide goes out and they just like muck about? You have to have a license. You have to have a license to mudlark? Yep. You can't just go down there. You have to have a license and you have to have some training to be where there's tidal. You don't want to be caught when the tide comes in on the Thames.
No, I would imagine not. I've been watching that a lot. So that's my seven hours is being eaten up by mudlarking, metal detectoring, you know. I love how it's a verb now. I love it. That's such an adorable, whimsical name for what I just imagine is like mucking about looking for some trash. But imagine that you're in the mud and you're larking about.
Yeah, it's great. Mudlarking is great. That's a lovely name. It reminds me of when I used to go clam digging as a child in Prince Edward Island. Isn't that touching? I was a bit of a mudlarker myself, Jan. Well, I think I did my fair amount of mudlarking in my own way as a kid. We were always catching frogs and if there's any kind of water...
You know, when you're in the prairies, you're kind of landlocked. Any kind of water was always fun. I remember me and Leonard and Dale found a pair of wooden dentures on the side of a little riverbank. And I was so thrilled. Wooden dentures. I have nightmares. I have recurring nightmares about wooden teeth. That's horrifying to me. A little bit of white paint still on them.
And we tried to fit them in our mouths. No, Jan Arden, you did not. Well, they were really old. I mean, what could have been on there? It was just dirty. That's the worst part about it. It's not like they were fresh. But they were wooden teeth. And my mom was mortified. And you know what? What I wouldn't do to have those wooden teeth, and God knows, my childhood made them disappear. They just disappeared into the abyss. But
Oh, gosh. My mom used to throw out anything I brought home like secretly that I was obsessed with that she knew wasn't good for my social image. There was this sweatshirt and I wore it for like a week straight. And she was like, oh, I don't know where it went because she was worried about me becoming like the stinky kid in class. This is me. I would do this. I'm your mom. The stinky kid in class. Is there a stinky kid in the class? I don't remember. You're lucky if you only have one. Oh, gosh.
Yeah, the kids are all stinky. Public school with 30 kids in Toronto? You got a couple stinkers. No, no, we smelled like shit. We smelled like chicken shit. And I went to a country school, so everyone had muck about chores in the morning. Well, listen, before we go, I do want to spend a few minutes. Sarah has been going through...
some health stuff with her dad. Yeah. You weren't here. So what's been going on with your dad? And it's all been kind of shocking, but this is the life we live in. You know, you're fine one second. And the next day the doctor tells you, oops, we got a little problem here, Houston. Well, and what's so interesting about this experience, like it's, it's just been like two weeks at this point that we are recording, you know, I went for dinner with Jan and Caitlin. And at that point, like there was a mass found and we didn't know much about it.
And I didn't even mention it to them because I wasn't even ready to engage in the conversation yet. And then, you know, he got in quickly for surgery to remove a tumor. That fast, eh? Mass surgery. Yeah. So right now we're in the messy middle where we don't know anything else. And we're waiting to find out.
more about the stage and all of that. I am terrified to even say the C word out loud. And I'm, yeah. So, you know, my family is now faced with cancer and fucking sucks. Fucking sucks.
Yeah. You know, he did say to me when I asked him like, Hey, like, you know, I'm sure it'll come up like with the girls. Like, do you want me to just like keep this between us, which is totally fair, but like, you know, you're going through stuff too. And maybe you want it to, he's like, if this can help someone, another family going through this right now, I'm not opposed to it. As long as you're not talking about my insides. Can I ask what he, did he just feel something? Like obviously things were status quo, as you said, he wanted to buy a boat.
And they find a mask. Was it just a regular checkup at the doctor? He's had kidney stones, and it's not been out of character for him to have kidney stones, but that last...
bout was really bad and led to a scan that led to this so and thank god thank god because without the kidney stones no no i mean your your body will tell you when there's something going on yeah so that was that and he's doing well surgery went very well and um in and out and like so the day that you guys recorded last week was when i was at the hospital with my family and um
So this goes back to like, if you've been listening to the Jam Podcast for a while, like our friend Kim Dennis and all of the communicating with the other world. I wanted to tell you this story so badly. So I've talked about my grandfather on the podcast a lot. And like all these little signs I've had, there's this light right beside me that has turned on a couple of times and some eerie things that have happened. And anyway, Kim and other clairvoyants have sort of like confirmed some of these things. So-
My dad's dad is who I'm talking about right now, Zadie Sam. And so I was a bit of a mess, okay? Like, you know, I was very worried about my dad. Oh, it's scary, Sarah. And there's this woman at the cottage who has some of these abilities, a neighbor, okay? And I've become friends with her in the last two years. We've only had the cottage for two years. We see the dogs and walk, you know, on the walks together. And, you know, she says hi and whatever. But a few times she's like told me things that have been true in this sense.
She wanted me to stop by with my new car. She wanted to see my car because, you know, I just got a new car and I was excited about it. She can't make it up the hill. She's an older lady. She can't make it up the hill from where my cottage is to see it. So I stopped by and she had seen me and my dad on the walk with the dog earlier that day. And she said to my dad...
I'm feeling you, just so you know. And what I didn't hear, because I was playing with the dogs, was that my dad said back to her, I'm counting on you to feel me, which is kind of a dark thing. Like, it's almost like he was saying, like, if I'm not here, I hope that the communication continues, which like, I mean, gives me just chills even thinking about that and makes me very emotional. But there's a point where she goes back to her hospitalization.
And he goes, well, she knows.
And I was like... Like he knew she knew. Yeah. Just from like that interaction. Just from that interaction because she said, I can feel you, Lorne. And he like, he knows enough about what I've told him from like last summer where she lives in this like clairvoyant sort of place. And you know, I'm just going to say shout out Barb. Barb is a walking MRI. So I roll up my car in the driveway and...
And like she knew she knew already. She was telling me that my grandfather had a message for him when I stopped by with the car and that she's like, it's been a noisy weekend. All your grandparents have been around me like, you know, she had all. Anyway, the message was the message was you're not fucking dead yet. This was like a day after my dad like sat down and like started going over logins and passwords with my mom and like things were a little dark for a few minutes there.
So, anyway, I mean, there were some things she said that brought me some comfort, but then this is the craziest part. So, I'm driving home from the cottage to Toronto. God, life is so bizarre. She didn't want me to drive right away because I was emotional, right? So, like, you know, we chit-chatted for a few minutes. I've now calmed down. I'm not crying. And, like, 15 minutes into my drive, I got emotional again when, like, a sadder song came on. My fucking windshield wipers turned black.
Stop. It was a fucking sunny day. And what she had said to me before I left was, your grandfather, I know that you always wonder if it's a sign from him. And she goes, he will be with you and showing up before Thursday. She didn't even know the date of the surgery. She said that Thursday. She said, he is going to be here and you're going to know it's him. So what's the correlation with windshield wipers? I was crying.
So he was like... Wipe the tears. And the craziest part about that is that it happened three times on my drive and all three times that I was crying, the windshield wipers turned on. Stop it. I'm not fucking lying. He must be a funny man. He was so funny. Oh my God, I love it. That's my grandfather's humor right there. He's like, okay...
And she's like, have you ever heard the words shenem punem? It's like a Yiddish saying that means like pretty face or something. She's like, he's saying this. I don't know what it means, but this is what he's saying. And I asked my dad and he used to call me that when I was little. Your grandfather's a busy dude. He's out here turning on windshield wipers from the other realm. Well, listen. That's power.
We're going to leave it here. We're going to just leave it with people wondering. What the fuck is wrong with me? There's a lot of whimsical things in the world. No, not at all. I love those things. I love them. You can believe in a whole bunch of things all at the same time, everybody. You can believe in God. You can believe in magic. You can believe in unicorns. You can believe in crones.
Like don't limit yourself. Don't be so skeptical in your life that you don't get an opportunity to enjoy the magic in this world. And Caitlin's had an opportunity to experience so much of that with the loss of Sam and
and all the things that kind of happened that made no sense but did make sense. And, you know, and that's because you have to be open to it. So if you're wondering, well, I don't fucking, nothing ever happens to me. I don't know any of that shit. Well, you're just, you're sitting there like a lump on a log
And you're waiting for the world to impress you and stop doing that. You get out there and, and be open hearted and seek it out and good things are going to start happening for you. And I'm not trying to be all, Oh, I sleep in a parabolic chamber with monkey bones. Like did I make something up? No, I think you're close. I think you're kind of close. I think it's a hyperbaric chamber. There we go.
Well, I happen to sleep in a parabolic chamber. With monkey bones. Okay. I think we all know what I'm talking about. Anyway, you've been listening to the Jen Arden Podcast and Show. Next week, we're going to talk all about summer, what's happening with our summers, where we're going with our summers, summer eating, summer vibes, summer clothes, summer boobs, summer sweats. Summer lovin'. Summer lovin', hey.
I look forward to Jan's annual PSA about short shorts. Yep. I can't wait. Well, I'll give it to you one more time before we go. Girls and boys, shorts should always be longer than your balls and your labia. Just FYI. If they're not, don't wear them. We'll see you next week. Have a great time. Open yourself to magic. Thanks for being here. Caitlin Green, Sarah Burke, me, Jan Arden. Toodly-doo.
This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.