Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello, my name is Jan. This is the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. It is our one millionth episode. Unleash the doves! 51. 51 of season two. Sarah Burke is here with me, and this is her 51st podcast. That's almost a year's worth, Sarah. I know. I can't believe we haven't, like, missed much. Well, unlike other people who really...
think that podcast seasons are six episodes. Not us. 52 weeks a year come rain or shine or fire, which is what the world seems to be doing right now is burning up. Right out of the gate, I'm just going to talk about Maui. I've been there a few times in my life. I was there
oh gosh, five, six years ago in Lahaina at Mick Fleetwood's restaurant and the big giant tree, Chris Brunton, my road manager and I were there writing songs. I was writing songs with Bob Rock and hanging out and it's so beautiful. Seeing that is a grim reminder of
what we need to do to prepare ourselves. And that, I might add, we can't always depend on the government, either locally, federally, statewide, provincial wise, to tell us what to do. We cannot sit
in place, waiting for a siren to go, waiting for an emergency announcement to come over our cell phones or our televisions. A lot of people aren't looking at a cell phone, nor do they have one, nor do they have a TV, or do they look at one in the middle of the night? So what does that tell us, Sarah? We have to take these matters into our own hands, certainly when it comes to
I mean, forget about your property, protecting the living things in your home. So the people and the animals, your pets. You were looking at some of the kind of official things that people were saying about
about what to do. So yeah, so I've got this website up ready for wildfire.org. And it seems to be pretty catered to like Americans, but there's no reason why we can't use the tips that are there. So first and foremost, they want you to have before you even think about this an emergency plan in place, they actually have a little quiz that you can take about where you live on the site, I'll link it in our show notes. And you know,
you know, if you have children, it asks you to pick it from a dropdown menu. If you have pets, all that kind of stuff. So they say, tune into radio or local news, follow that stuff first, make sure your home insurance covers damage due to fire. This is a before a fire ever even happens, right? Our friends at intact insurance might know something about that. Yes. Find out if there is an evacuation order or alert. They're actually two different things. What they're saying in Maui, this is without doubt.
Any kind of notice, Sarah. This is looking in the hills and seeing smoke. I think so many people waited to be told what to do. I'm speculating, but they're saying people faced a horrific death in their cars, tragically.
trying to drive out. People were jumping into the ocean. People were caught off guard. So saying all those things, the evacuation notices, people aren't listening to a radio. They're not looking at TV. They're just having an ordinary day, petting their cat. And this stuff is going on.
You and I are in a house. There's a fire a block down. We haven't heard anything from our local government. There's nothing on the radio. All the power is down now, Sarah. There's nothing working. So what do we do? They want your windows and doors to the house locked.
Closed if you stay in your house, obviously, so that you're not breathing in what's on the outside. Combustibles, if you have anything combustible in the house, firewood, lawn furniture. Like, I don't know about you, but I have a lot of things that are made of like wood in my home. So I live in a forest. Yeah. You have to move any of those things away from like propane, barbecues, anything like that.
And then for pets, here's what it says about pets. Always make sure your pet is wearing the collar with personal identification in case you lose sight of the pet, of course, right? I never take my dog's collar off except when he has a bath. His phone number's on there and his name, always. Each animal should have its own pet carrier. Birds, rodents, reptiles should be transported in cages and you want to cover it with a light sheet or cloth to minimize fear. Oh my God, imagine Poppy in this situation. I don't even want to think about it.
Store vaccination medical records and protocols.
proof of ownership all in one spot. This type of thing is if you've got a lot of time to prepare. Yeah. You cannot wait for someone to tell you what to do. You have to think about this now right today so that you're not caught in that same situation. They want your windows and doors, they want them shut but unlocked. That's in case you need to get back in, right? Yeah. Remove flammable window shades, curtains, and closed metal shutters. Remove lightweight curtains. Pull those off the wall and chuck them outside.
Get them out of your house. Exactly. Move anything flammable furniture-wise. Like I think a lot of people have... Fabric furniture, wooden tables and chairs. Away from windows and doors. So move them to the center of the room. Shut off gas at the meter. Turn off all pilot lights if you've got pilot lights anywhere. And you want to leave your lights on. This is interesting. You want to leave your lights on so firefighters can see your house in smoke. That's something I would not have known.
Air conditioning is something you want off because that can exacerbate the fire. See, now I'm going to find out where my gas line is, the main one into the house. Yeah. I'm writing these things down. We're going to put the link. To find out where is the main gas line. Yeah. I would never even think to turn lights on. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. And just outside your house. So if you've got stuff like patio furniture, doormats, trash cans, you want them as far away from the exterior of the house as possible or in your pool. If you have a pool, you want to be moving anything that has propane like a barbecue away from a structure. Garbage.
garden hoses. I know you got one of these, Jan. Connect garden hoses to outside water valves so that the firefighters can use them. Leave exterior lights on as well, again, so firefighters can see you. Have a ladder. What this got me thinking about was, and I was talking to friends about this, you know, in the last couple of days, is,
In my bedroom, my house is kind of a walkout. It's on an escarpment. So it looks like a ranch style house at the front. It's very unassuming. You've seen it. It's just a flat, it looks like a one-story house. Of course, out the back, which is a lot of homes here in Alberta, it drops down and it's a walkout basement. So where my bedroom is on the far southeast corner, the drop down is 20 feet.
From my bedroom, from that main floor, because of the nature of the land. So, and I was thinking to myself, I have one door into my bedroom. That door leads to the garage door. And if I didn't have power...
I would not have time, nor would I have the wherewithal. I don't even know how to lift up my garage doors manually. So that was something I'm going to ask my friend, Darren. So now I'm just assuming I have no power. Sorry, Sarah, I'm taking like worst case scenario. Yeah. In my bedroom, if there's a fire at the front of my house and I can't go out that way, I got to go out back. So down the escarpment is the river, which could give me a chance to
If I can't access my car, I don't care about anything on my house. I don't care about any of that. I just want the dog. So he and I have to make it down 20 feet. So what I've already done, I went online and I looked for emergency ladders and I thought, what would be easier? I don't think a ladder would be easier for me to navigate. Even if I threw Poppy into a knapsack, which I would, I would literally zip him. I think he could breathe for five minutes and put him in a knapsack on my back.
So I have ordered a ladder that is in a metal box. It's got metal slats. It's on chains. It's not ropes. It's not something that would burn. Yeah, it would get hot if that was the case, but I would just throw it down. It's 22 feet, but I think I could get myself over the railing and down onto the ground. So that is ordered. And the Maui thing has prompted me to do that. I'm
I'm going to find out how to open my garage manually without power. Cause it's, you know, everyone hits their remote. My gate is powered. I do know how to open my gate manually going out of my driveway, but just thinking about where I would go, hopefully I would have a path to get out to the middle of my road where there's really no trees around there. Anyway, this has just been bone chilling to me. Absolutely bone chilling. I looked at stuff on Tik TOK for a while and,
And the unpreparedness, I think, is what has really been extremely startling to me. They're saying there was no sirens, there was no warning. And, you know, when you have a whole community getting into their vehicles, it's
And in Lahaina, there's one road. Maui does not have a huge infrastructure of roads. It's like one way in, one way out, right? And a ring road around the island. It's spread at a rate of one mile every minute. And the wind exacerbated that, obviously. They thought they had a wildfire put out.
but because they were dealing with the storm and those winds. The onus is on each human to have a little kit prepared that they know where it is to grab it and think about these things before it happens, right? That's why it's so important that we're even having this conversation. So having a ladder available and at the corner of the house. This is happening immediately. Yeah. This is not something I'm going to do someday. This has absolutely jarred me into thinking
Taking action. So I'm supposed to have this thing in a couple of days. Yep. You know what? I'm also going to practice going down it. So this isn't going to be a one-off at three o'clock in the morning when I see flames darting out my windows. No, seriously, don't you think that's important? Yes, I do. I'm going to put it over there. I won't put Poppy on my back, but I'll put some weight in a knapsack and I'm going to crawl down that goddamn ladder. To try it. I'm going to do it a few times. So you know, yeah. Yeah. Here's what should be in...
A pet disaster preparedness kit. Like if you were thinking about what do you need for Poppy in a pinch? A pet carrier. You've got that. Two week supply of food and water. Food or water bowls.
Your pet first aid kit, medications, of course, car litter box. Well, I could keep that in the garage or keep it somewhere that's relatively safe. Like if I did have, I mean, God willing, if someone told me to be out of my house in the next two hours or the next or that evening, which a lot of people in Canada were experiencing with the Alberta fires, you know,
they listened. They got in their vehicles and they got going. And I mean, the normal things like, um, the plastic bags for waste disposal, they may not be the ones that you want to have, but you grab what you have. Disinfectants, your harness, your collar, blankets, toys and treats, newspaper. It's almost like have a separate little bag that has some stuff that's just always there. I was actually at a friend's house a week ago and, um,
She was like, oh, I have that in the spare room for you. Come with me. And so I follow her into the spare room. And in the corner, she's like, oh, sorry, this is like my COVID emergency corner. And in that corner, she had toilet paper. I saw a paper towel. There was a little first aid kit. So these are things like,
Just to have something ready to go. It's there. If you need gauze, God forbid something happens. I need to get a bag. I'm definitely going to do that this week. And I mean that, folks. I live in a building. So for me, it would be really important for me to understand how to use the fire extinguisher that's in the hallway. There's one on each floor. I should know what to do if that happens, right? Right.
Well, this is just a lesson in really thinking it through, taking it seriously. Yes. I think the people in Lahaina and in Maui didn't think it could ever happen to them. I think when you live on the edge of an ocean, the last thing that really is on your mind is that you are going to succumb to a fire. I don't think that when I think island. I think exactly what everyone else does. Forest in Alberta,
you know, trees. I don't think of a coastal town. Did you see the harbor, the before and after pictures of the harbor, the boats, the boats that were floating on water? So in my mind's eye, I'm thinking, maybe you could go and be safe on your boat and just kind of float there.
Well, those flames, the wind was such, and like you said, the speed of the fire when you're going a mile every minute. Is that right? Is that the correct information? I'm reading it from the Washington Post. It was covering a mile in 60 seconds? In your mind, don't you think, oh, you're on the harbor in a boat? They were raised. They were leveled. Boats were like literally melted sitting there.
in the water. Yeah. And a lot of people got stuck in vehicles. So it's like, you might think it's proper to run to a vehicle in this case. And it's like swimming was the way to save yourself. Well, let's think about this. You're, you're in a car with a gas tank, right? You know, if you have a full tank of gas, you're literally sitting in a powder keg. It's all hindsight, right? But do you know how to swim? I do know how to float.
And I can do the side stroke. Yeah. But if you had to float and do some doggy paddle. But I would have the dog. So, you know, I just don't know. Those are things you have to take into consideration. Yeah. Now I would probably perish trying to save my dog because I just know myself. I just, I would never, ever leave my dog behind. I just wouldn't. Maybe that's unfair for me to say. Maybe I don't know what in the moment of explosions going off and
Imagine the chaos of,
Imagine the atmosphere of utter panic. 5G towers are down. They had nothing to communicate with each other. Zero. And that's where it's worth it to talk to, like maybe to wrap up this conversation because we're not trying to like scare anyone. We'll put all these links in the show notes. Yeah, we are trying to scare you. You have to think about it. You have to have a conversation with the people closest to you about if something happened tomorrow, where are we meeting? What's our meeting spot in town? Like something like that. Think about it ahead of time, like we said.
I always think of my parents in these situations. I don't know about you guys. Like my parents are long since dead and gone, but I think about my mom and dad in a house and
nothing's working. They can't phone me. I don't know. I just think of them all the time and the helplessness of that and this journey, our humanity. All we can hope to do from these things is learn, do better. I know Lahaina will come back bigger and better than ever. I think they will have infrastructure thoughtfully plotted out. I know there'll be better roads. My gosh, they might even have
something I would think would be akin to a bomb shelter or a fire safe place where if you're in town or if this ever happens again, everyone who can get your ass in there, especially in a little town like that. Uh, you know, and obviously there was a huge tourist population. So, uh,
There was a lot of people that didn't know the town very well, that didn't know the roads, that had flown in, were taking taxis all over town, and had no idea, you know, what was available to them. Anyway, do some homework, get some stuff repaired. I am, I know Sarah is, figure out your building. And I mean that. We all get in an elevator and they say, you are here and where's your nearest emergency exit? I bet you I could ask anybody.
100 people and 40 of them might know where their nearest emergency exit is. Like, oh, I've looked at it a million times, but I don't know where it is. I think we are living in times that are completely unpredictable. The weather's unpredictable. It's hotter now than it has been in recorded history. I mean, August is...
in Southern Alberta is expecting a 30 plus Celsius week coming up ahead of me. And I don't know if everyone remembers the kind of heat wave that happened in the BC coast. It's 600 people perished in that. Anyway, let's think about it. Let's try and keep each other safe and talk to your friends. You're right, Sarah, about a plan. Where do we meet?
And if that place isn't there, then where do we meet? But the gift of fear, the gift of fear. I am here at my kitchen table in Springbank, Alberta, looking out into a forest made of wood on my wooden table with my wooden floors. Sarah Burke is in her... What floor are you on, Sarah, in your building in Toronto? I'm on the fourth floor. Okay. You can be easily laddered up and they can grab you. Okay. We're moving on. We're switching gears.
I came across this article and I loved it. I was in bed last night and I love stuff like this. The little headline, the clickbait was mysterious and bizarre posts that show just how weird our world really is. And I was like, Ooh, this is right up my alley. Did you know fresh snow is
Canadians can relate to this, absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the trapped air between the snowflakes attenuates vibration. That's why it gets so quiet when it snows. Yeah. The snow holds sound and it keeps things from vibrating. We've all been there. Like you stand outside on your deck and
And the snow is coming down. The traffic seems quieter. That makes so much sense about when I was up in Nunavut. It was so quiet up there. It's the one thing I do appreciate about winter. There is a real solitude. And now we know that it's really based in something tangibly scientific. And it makes sense. You see these big puffy piles of snow and it's absorbing sound. And it's eerily quiet. Fun fact. Did you know...
Before alarm clocks existed, people used nails fixed onto candles to wake up. So picture a tapestry candle and they would put nails down the shaft of the candle. They knew how to calculate the burning time
Whoa. That's so smart. That is so clever. Humor.
Humans are amazing. This is interesting. When we were talking about pets and unbelievably scary situations, getting back to Maui for a second, if we're going to hear some stories about animals that were really trying to prompt their owners to do something hours before this happened, like I'm sure we'll hear. So anyway, in 1975, when officials in the Chinese city of Heisheng were alarmed by odd and anxious behaviors of dogs and other animals, they were
These observations led them to order 90,000 residents to evacuate the city. Only a few hours later, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake destroyed nearly 90% of the city's buildings.
And they had evacuated 90,000 people because of unbelievably bizarre behavior from animals. It's just fascinating to me. More. Tell us more. Well, especially animal stuff. You know, I listen to my dog. A lot of times he drives me bonkers, but he's a great little, he knows when there's things in the driveway. And a lot of times I'll admonish him. I'm like, God, be quiet. Poppy, stop it.
And I'm telling you, 10 out of 10 times, there is something going on. My old dog, Middy, my 12-year-old dog, 4 o'clock in the morning, just going off, barking, barking, whining, crying, crying. And it kind of worried me a bit. And I thought, well, she's got to go to the bathroom. But it was just so persistent. And I usually would have a little mat, you know, for her to have a little wee on in the bedroom.
And nope, that wasn't it. She was at the door, scratching at the door. I turned the alarm off. She booked it down here to my patio door. And of course, I just put the light on because I wanted to see what was going on because she was adamant. There was a herd, and I mean 40 deer in my yard. Oh my God.
And when I hit that light on, I could feel the ground moving even through the house because they were so startled by the light and her barking. But she smelled them. I just wasn't buying into it. I'm just like, I don't get it. She was letting me know. What about pet sensing like spirit? Do you think that Meaty and Poppy can communicate? Who knows? But I do. I've read so many things about animals, pets.
sensing entities, you know, in rooms. I think they, I think they travel this life on a much different level than we do. I mean, they're hearing their intuitiveness, their empaths for one thing. They love us no matter what. It's not like they get to pick who they're going to be in a relationship with. My mom hurt herself last week and the dog,
is so caring for her. It's the cutest thing. Following her around, needs to have a paw on her to make sure she's okay. Like they really do feel it all. Yeah. Well, here's an interesting animal fact. The octopus, did you know, the octopus has nine brains?
one small brain in each arm and another in the center of its body. Each of its arms can work independently of each other to perform basic actions, but when prompted by the central brain, they can also work together. These are animals that several very large corporations that are hoping in the next five
six months to farm octopus for human consumption, to keep them in tiny spaces, to literally industrialize the eating of octopus. And what I say to that is fuck you guys and fuck off. Eat
a banana. Like honestly, a being that is this intelligent, have we learned nothing? Can you imagine if you had eight limbs? Like just think about that for a second. Each limb could do different things at different times. You know, when you see an octopus, even in cartoons, like all the arms come and strangle one thing. Yeah. They're emergency preparedness, basically, right? For an octopus to know fear is coming. The animal world is absolutely fascinating. There's no doubt.
This is a perfect example. Did you know researchers found a female Greenland shark in the Arctic Ocean and they found it to be 392 years old. It had been wandering the ocean since the 1600s. That is older than America. That's older than when newspapers started to be made. And I think they found this through carbon testing, just whatever DNA, but this, the shark that was extremely rare, uh,
Almost 400 years old. Imagine the secrets held inside of that animal as far as the biology. Like if you study it, yeah. How did the world come to operate and all the species that we have where everything works so perfectly in that species? That from cells to like an intelligent being. Sorry, I'm going way back right now. No, it's mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm going to leave you with one more thing. Okay. And it's the perfect ending to this segment. Okay. Did you know there's a roller coaster? This is a real thing, people. Okay. You ride only once because it's designed to kill you. It's called the euthanasia roller coaster. It's designed to be used by those who are terminally ill. Now, I don't know if it exists anywhere. It's a coaster that if built, okay, there's our answer, could only be enjoyed once. It was conceived in 2010.
by a Mr. Urbanos. It is meant to take lives, quote, with elegance and euphoria. It can take up to 24 passengers up to a height of 1,674 feet, then drops them down at a speed of 220 miles an hour where they go through a series of loops, keeping you under 10 G force for 60 seconds. The passengers will die from prolonged
cerebral hypoxia, which is the insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain. This coaster has never been built, obviously, and is only a concept envisioned by Mr. Abanas, a Lithuanian artist who actually built a scaled-down version. What a way to go. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm here with Sarah Burke, and we're coming back with even more interesting things. Don't go away. ♪
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You are back with us at the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm Jan. Sarah Burke is here. Sarah, you've got some other little things coming, not little things, but big things about emergencies happening here at home. Yeah, we've been talking about the Maui wildfires and, you know, we can't not mention that here at home...
More than 1,000 active fires are burning across the country. 236 of them are in the Northwest Territories. Crews are working around the clock to stop the fires from destroying the capital city, Yellowknife. There are both evacuation orders and alerts in place across the region.
And there's this potential loss of communication. I'm really thinking about the residents up there right now. Cell phone service spotty and the meta bans, right? So even if you tried to find something out on Facebook, you might not be able to access it. Oh, God. Yellowknife officials have warned residents not to evacuate by boat on the Great Slave Lake as the fire is unpredictable and air quality is expected to worsen. Thousands have fled to Alberta, to the south, and there are evacuee reception centers in
as far south as where you live, Jan, in Calgary. And then you have West Kelowna. Kelowna's actually declared a state of emergency. The nearby McDougal Creek wildfire, their thinking sparked the new fires with embers and gusting winds crossing Okanagan Lake.
And just to illustrate how fast this is spreading, BC Wildfire said the estimated size of the fire is 6,800 hectares or 68 square kilometers. And just one day before yesterday, it was mapped at about 1,100 hectares. 2,462 properties are under evacuation order and 4,801 properties are under evacuation alert. And
Just in case we have any listeners in BC, you're reminded to be cautious. You know, maybe go to some of the websites that we've got in the show notes and get your emergency preparedness kit ready to go. Things could get very aggressive in terms of fire behavior over the next 48 hours. And we'll also have this link for you at www.bcwildfire.cg. I figure if you're listening to this podcast, you've got some access to the internet and I'm sending you good vibes out there.
Let me ask you this while we're on this. How do you think you do under pressure? And have you, Sarah Burke, ever been in a situation where you have to react very spontaneously and very independently of any help? Like, have you been stranded on the road? Have you been
Have you been in frightening situations in your life, do you think? Or have you been exempt of those things in your life? I'm so lucky I haven't really found myself in those situations. But I will say, as a nismatic, I mean, when I started watching shows about the zombie apocalypse, there's been so many over the last decade. Yeah, which one hasn't been? I just have sort of come to terms that if there's a zombie apocalypse or whatever it is that I'm, you know, I'm kind of the first to go.
Like I know that sounds bizarre to say out loud. Because you won't have your puffer. Yeah. Like right now, many asthmatics will understand this. There's like an emergency puffer that you take if you can't breathe. There's a preventative one that you kind of take every day to keep things at bay. And then some people also take, you know, a little pill at night that helps with mucus and stuff like that to make it better. Okay. So I can do without...
one of those three things, but I need two of those things every single day. You do? Yeah. So it's kind of scary to think of it that way. Well, I'm on heart medication. It's the only medication I'm on. And I've been on it, I think for 15, 16 years, maybe longer than that. It's called the beta blocker. Okay.
Because I have issues with tachycardia, which is, you know, you can just be sitting there and move your torso funny and all of a sudden your heart's going like 170 beats a minute. So these pills literally help me to avoid that. It's all preventative, yeah. But they're pretty benign. It's a medication that's been around since the 30s. Yeah. But I know this for a fact, Sarah, you and I would be in the same boot, boat boot. We'd be in a boot, eh? Yeah.
Uh, cause I would have to wean myself off and I mean over six, eight months to get off that medication. And after that, I really, I would still need it. Like I would be getting tachycardia. That's really hard to get your heart back in rhythm again. So I would stay with you. We could huddle under a foil blanket together. Yeah.
and talk each other down. - Like if I forget my medication, let's say when I'm going to the cottage for instance, like I need to go fill that prescription locally if I forgot it.
After two days, I can feel the difference of what's happening in my lungs. So that's where it's kind of scary to think about. But I don't think we live in a society where people can store so much extra medication like the way you would toilet paper or something. You know, it's too goddamn expensive. Well, and sometimes the pharmacy simply won't give it to you. Yeah, with your coverage. In advance. Yes.
I thought about that during COVID. I know there was lots of medications that people couldn't get because the supply chain was really broken. They're still playing catch up with so many things now, pharmaceutical wise. I get my pills normally three months at a time. Me too. Yeah. Because I take them twice a day in the morning and at night. So-
I get down to the two, three weeks left and I don't feel great. I'm like, I need to get this filled now. And you know what? I want to flip this question back on you. If you've ever found yourself in any sort of emergency situation, because I feel like the worst it's been for me is like running for the GO train because it's about to leave. It's not that it's not that bad.
Yeah, I think I've witnessed quite a few things. You know, people having heart attacks in a parking lot and just hitting the ground and people running around trying to figure out who to call. I've called, you know, 911 several times in my life to get help for people. My friend and I, we went to England just for a holiday to visit some other friends. And
And it was such a weird thing. It seems so unassuming, but she just caught her flip-flop, not the safest shoes in the world, on the line in the concrete sidewalk, the little edging. She went forward, did not get her hands out in front of her.
and smashed her head so hard that she just smashed her nose. There was so much blood and she was in shock. I mean, it was just, I think people literally heard her noggin like hit the concrete and I probably screamed and people were like, do you want us to call
because that's what it is in the UK, 999. Good to know, good to know. Thank God I was with Nigel. I was with my friend and he literally ran back to his house and I think he just grabbed a sheet or a towel or something and I...
I didn't do anything. I was useless. Well, this is another thing to think about, right? During all these conversations of like what to do when these things happen, how can you be a better bystander? I don't know. He was perfect. He reacted so he was calm and
He said, hold it, put pressure on it, Steph. I was just like, jaw down, not saying anything. Can I sing you a song? Yeah, no shit. Looking at the blood on the sidewalk, my friend was white. She was as white as a sheet and her nose was clearly broken. Like it wasn't where it should have been on her face. Oh my God. She did incredibly well.
So when you turn it around to if something happens to you, she was calm. She followed instructions. She didn't cry, but they went to emergency. They call it casualty. They went to casualty. I didn't go. Nigel says, I don't bloody want you to come. You're useless. And I'm glad I didn't go. We all just would have sat there, but oh,
Oh, I just remembered an emergency situation I have been in where my sister had toppled down the stairs at my mom's house. I was, I'm going to say five. My sister was three and we were left with, I might've been a little bit older than that, but we were left with our nanny slash babysitter that we had during this time. And my parents had gone away for like one of the first times since they had kids.
So imagine getting that call as a parent. My sister definitely had a concussion. And the best thing right now that I'm noticing is how well the nanny dealt with us because she kept me calm. She kept my sister calm. Well, you hit the nail on the head, Sarah. You said, how can we be a better bystander? And we're not the victim, but we're standing there. How can we...
How can we be better at that? I suck. I also remember a time in Zellers. God, Zellers. I love Zellers. I was like four or five years old and my mom had some sort of like dizzy attack and fainted. Okay, Sarah.
That is a situation. What are you talking about? You've never been in these situations. I was thinking in my adult life. Sorry, sorry, sorry. But yeah, my mom, I remember Zeddy the bear came to the rescue in some situation. It was in the local mall. Ladies and gentlemen, saved by a mascot. There's no end to the things that can happen to us. But I think if it came right down to it, I think I could show up for someone else and myself.
I've certainly helped people on airplanes. I've seen. Because I fly so much, I have seen it all. I've seen some grave in-air emergencies. I was on a flight years ago where a gentleman actually passed away on the plane. Oh, my goodness.
And because we were further to our destination than where we had taken off from, he was carried by the three flight attendants. And I think a co-pilot or something or a gentleman that was on the plane. And they moved people in the back of a plane. And they put like this plastic...
covering over these three seats. And that's what they did. I don't know what happened to him, but I've seen people absolutely be walking down the aisle and just drop travel fatigue, heart stuff, whatever. I've seen lots of in-plane thing and it's amazing what happens on a plane. And I've always been so relieved that there are people that are absolutely perfection in an emergency. Usually they'll always call, is there a doctor on this flight? People know what's going on. You can see it.
or a nurse or someone who is trained in, and there's always someone that just rises to it. They are up. They are checking pulses. Some people are just so good at that. I'm not one of them. Like I've seen people that have gone into diabetic shock on planes and there's always someone there who's a fellow diabetic. That's just like, we need an orange juice right now.
We need, anyone got chocolate, anyone got candy? And there's a hundred hands going in the air. But certainly something to think about there of how we react in situations and getting back to the Maui thing. If you are a person that can remain calm and that can use logic to go, I need to get away from these buildings because they're going to incinerate in a matter of seconds. I need to get into open space or I need to jump in the harbor.
It's amazing. Am I that person? I don't know. Well, you'll be happy to know that I sent the email to start the process of getting a will, just to bring it full circle. Oh, did you? We talked about doing wills a few shows ago and how important it is to have a basic will, especially if you have pets, especially if you own a property. Who's getting all my posters on my wall? I need that stuff covered.
Exactly. Anyway, good for you, Sarah. I'm really proud of you. You said something a few minutes ago that is another thing on my preparedness list. I do not have a fire extinguisher in my home. Okay. I don't have a fricking fire extinguisher. There's one out in my dad's shop. I bet you it's so old.
I bet you the tag said long since expired because I've been at this property for 16 years and I bet dad got that the first year or so that they were here. You know, because his shop, he did soldering, he did a bit of metal work, he was...
You know, he used flames out there for something or the other. And so he had an extinguisher. I don't have one in my house. I'm going to go get one tomorrow. Good. And ask your lumberjack friend if he has one that he likes that maybe you can compare some notes. Yeah, Mark. All these things.
It would never have dawned on me. Just would never have thought about it. And I should probably get one and put it out in my damn tree house. Yes. And if you're ever escaping, you want to be wearing as much clothing as you can to cover your skin. What? If it's cotton, it will not go on fire. It will protect you.
Cotton. Okay. Everything I own is pretty much cotton. So don't be running out with polyester on. Is that what you're saying? And they even say a bandana for like covering your face is good, but only if it's cotton. If it's a synthetic one, uh-uh. You know what I was going to talk about today? This is how insignificant this seems to me now, is breakups when you're a public person. It does feel insignificant.
When you have that pushed up against real human tragedy, we take such interest in those trivial things. And the reason I even bring this up is I was thinking when I met with Justin Trudeau about the horseshit stuff on July the 1st, he was sitting there doing his business, being very professional, giving me the facts, clear.
Clearly he had separated from his wife already by then. They had been going through it, someone told me, for a year. I think more. That they separated a long time ago. I know someone who works through someone through someone who works in his circle and apparently it's been going on for a couple years now. Because of the vitriol, the vitriol that he faced. I'm sure they had a lot of logistics to sort out.
The kids are going to be staying mostly with him. I found that really interesting. I didn't read that. Three or four different articles that I've read that the kids are mostly going to be with him. And do you know that his dad was a single father raising children for a long time because he had divorced, Pierre had divorced Margaret Trudeau? I did a speech on Pierre Trudeau when I was in grade school. So I know a lot about Pierre. Margaret Trudeau, I met her years ago. She was really so adorable to me. I'll never forget it.
Her son had been killed in that horrific avalanche accident. And I was at something to do with pets, a TV show about pets or something like that. And I was there and I felt someone come up behind me and kind of place their arms on my shoulders. My back was to them. And the most ever so gentle little kiss happened.
behind my ear. That's very intimate. It wasn't offensive. And I was talking to a group of people. So there was like three people looking at me that could see who it was and they were smiling. And it was Margaret Trudeau. She had said, I've been listening to your music and it just means so very much to me. And I just was flabbergasted. It was just really lovely. I'll never forget it. Sorry, I just have to go back to this
kiss behind the ear. Is that not? No, like a tiny little, I can't even express it. It was just like a, like a little touch behind my ear with her. You didn't know her really, right?
Well, no, I'd never met her before in my life. She's going up to Jan Arden. Anyway, it's very intimate. And just, I've always wanted to meet you. It was so gentle. It was very, it was very. It's not creepy. No, it wasn't at all. Like I just turned around and I, I hugged her, you know, hugged her back. And I said, it's so nice to meet you. And of course I'm saying, I'm so sorry about your son. I mean, I didn't even know what to say. You don't know what to say. It's the elephant in the room.
But I also know you do not avoid those things. People are stronger than you think. Not speaking about someone's passing is not going to make their grief any worse or any better. I've been watching the new season of And Just Like That. So it's like the Sex and the City spinoff series. And I feel like this is well known enough that I'm not ruining anything. But in the first season, did you watch Sex and the City at all? I've never seen an episode in my life.
So Sarah Jessica Parker's character, the guy that we see her chase for the entire series. Christopher Knoth. And he passes away from like a sudden heart attack in their beautiful dream home that they've just renovated and got ready.
So she's going through this whole thing where people are trying to avoid the topic of like her husband passing, but she's now a year past it and she's in a really strong place. And it just happened like in the episode I just watched where she was like, no, I'm actually okay to talk about it now. Like I don't need you to approach me with that assumption. To me, in my humble opinion,
Tell people you're sorry and tell people you're thinking of them. That's it, yeah. People are stronger than you think. People come up to me still. My mom's been gone five years this December. She passed away in 2018. And people come up to me.
of the time and say, I'm so sorry about your mom. Like it happened yesterday. And I'm so grateful. I'm like, thank you. I really miss her. Yeah. You know, I appreciate it. We got a lot of comments about your mom on the podcast socials last week. Did you see any of them? No. What was it about?
What the hell was I saying? People love when you impersonate your mom. Well, for God's sakes. I think I've started doing that. My mom is like, you're starting to talk like Jan talking about her mom when you talk about me. And I was like. Well, there's a universality about it. There really is. Yeah. But I hear my mom all the time. I channel my mom a lot, I think. Whatever energy she had, I draw upon it a lot.
A lot more than I thought I would. I don't even think I knew what it would feel like to not have her here. But a bird hit my window, unfortunately. I have a lot of windows in my home. They reflect the trees. And he passed away instantly. It was a beautiful little gross beak. And I went running around the house because I knew it was a hard hit.
99% of the time, the birds see it very last second and they're able to avert it. They'll go into it with a shoulder. Like they're very clever.
Most of the time they make it unscathed. This time I knew I heard the strike and I ran around the house and I found him and he was gone. And I used to be so afraid. I don't know why, but I picked him up and he just was as little warm as can be. And I thought, I want to be with this being for this moment. So he knows he's not by or she knows she's not by himself. People may think that's really silly.
But it was my mom. I felt like my mom step into me, just pick it up. It's not going to do anything. And it's okay. When mom was here, I would have run and got her. Bird hit the window. I can't, you know, and now I can pick it up and just hold it. I just, I just stroked his little head, her little head and she was gone, but it's just so delicate. And what a privilege to
To have a bird in my hand. I see thousands of birds every day and I can't imagine ever getting close enough to touch one or hold one. And it's so unfortunate that it was in the state that it was, but I knew it was very fast and I apologized for my fucking house. You apologized about your house. Yeah.
And I've got stickers everywhere. It's a whole system. It's a really complicated system of dots that I've got in front of my house. You've seen them. They're at my kitchen window. Oh, now I remember. Those dots that were on my kitchen window. So I need to do something on these back windows.
And they're 40 feet off the ground, right? From the back. It's a long way up. So I have to figure that out. Anyway, that's my story. We probably need to say goodbye. This has been a lot of information today. I want to leave you with a laugh. Can I leave you with a laugh? Well, go ahead. Try. So I get this text message from my former roommate. Okay. She goes, hello, I had a dream about you and Jan. So I'm like,
Okay. She was quizzing me about her songs and my memory was blocked and I panicked and I couldn't remember any of her songs and you were embarrassed of me. Well, isn't that just typical? And she's like, I woke up so embarrassed of myself and I was like, what just happened in my dream? Well, you tell her, you know, that she has been forewarned by her dreams to make sure that she is very up to speed on all the meanings of
of my songs. Those things are so cute and so funny. Dreams are bizarre. We'll talk about dreams more. Maybe we should get a dream specialist on here. Let's find one, Sarah. I think that'd be really fun. I accept this challenge. And I also want to talk to somebody about mudlarking. Damn it. What is mudlarking? Mudlarking. What is that?
Sarah, any rivers in England are really great or in Europe because there's so much history there. So the Thames is tidal, right? The tide goes out and in and it leaves the shore and it's constantly changing the
And people find shit from 400 years ago, coins and buttons and bones and pipes and you name it. Anything that was chucked in the river. And it's called mudlarking and you need a license to go do it. Not any fool can just wander along the Thames and pull stuff out. Anyway, I want to get someone who's a specialist in mudlarking. Okay.
So a couple of things. We mentioned that this week we were going to have a guest. We still have that guest. We just pushed them back a week because we wanted to talk about the wildfires and some things that are a little more pertinent to this week. Julie Van Rosendahl is going to be with us next week.
And we're talking about food trends. She's always so interesting to talk to. She's a cookbook author. She's such a community leader. This is someone that has done so much. I can't wait for you guys to hear about cooking lessons that she does online.
And you're not going to believe how many kids tune in. And I'm just going to leave that with you. So we didn't lie to you. We just pushed it back a week. That's all. We pushed it back. It's just sometimes the world takes over, but we really did want to talk about being prepared and I'm going to get better. I'm doing my thing. I'm going to get my ladder. I'll keep you guys posted. Keep us posted. Practicing is going to be...
Hilarious and terrifying. You've been listening to the Jan Arden podcast and show. You can subscribe to us. It'll make it a lot easier for you to find us week after week. Thank you to all our listeners. We love you dearly. You've made the show such a success and we appreciate it more than you know. We love your comments. Jan Arden pod on all the socials. You can leave us messages, DM us.
questions, fashion advice, because we're both, Sarah and I are fashion experts. Yeah, fashionistas. But look after yourselves. Be prepared. We'll talk to you next time. Totally do. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.