You Like Potato, I Like Potahto
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Well, well, well, top of the day to each and every one of you listening to us on terrestrial radio, which is not another planet, terrestrial radio. I'm not really sure what that means. It's like the regular radio or if you're listening to us on Spotify, if you're listening to us on iTunes, you know, the Jan Arden program is available to you. If you hit subscribe, you don't even have to worry about looking for us anymore. You can just subscribe.

Have us appear on your phone much like other favorite things that appear on your phone. Like, I don't know, today, I don't know what appears. I don't even know what the hell I'm talking about. Did I take mushrooms before this? Did I, did I do some, did I ingest shrooms?

Welcome. I'm Jan. We're with Julie Van Rosendahl and Adam Karsh, of course. Julie is joining us from her amazing home in downtown Calgary. Not downtown. The outskirts. The outskirts of downtown. Yep. Julie lives in a 190,000-year-old house. Yeah. No. Come on. 120 years. 120 years.

It's yeah. 19, 1906. I always have to stop and do the math, but about 120 years, 114 years, 115 years. Oh my gosh. Adam lives in a home built in 19. That was a good year. That was a good year. I think I remember that year, but I have a Jeep from 2003. I love bombing around. I have an old Jeep that I bought from a friend and I,

Whenever I take it out, which is in the summertime, because a few years ago, I decided it would be a great idea to take the hard cover off because it comes with a hard lid, this particular Jeep. And then you put on the summer lid that is just your little flippy soft cover. Well, I broke the bolts off, so I can't put the hard lid on anymore or the soft lid. So I just drive around.

Hoping it doesn't rain. Inevitably, it doesn't matter where I'm parked. Somebody comes up to me and usually a guy between 19 and 39. Is that for sale? No. Is there anything on this Jeep that says it's for sale? What do you want for it? I'm not selling it. Anyway, it's really fun to bomb around in. That's from 2003. What a riveting show so far. Oh,

This show has been brought to you by the year 2003. I was in Vancouver in 2003. Living? Living in Vancouver in 2003. Why did you move out there? My friend was out there and the apartment below her

came up for rent and was she just texted me or probably not texted me because I don't think which cell phones around in 2003 yes but not the flip the flip phones not texting anyway she probably dialed me on her rotary phone with the long extension cord and said the apartment below me is 800 bucks do you want to move out and I was like sure and I hopped in my car and drove out and lived there for a few years that's the short version of the story no as you do I lived in Vancouver 83

Part of 84, all of 85 and part of 86, just before the World Trade. So what happened in 86 in Vancouver? Is it the World Trade Fair? What's it called? Expo, yeah. I knew it was in my mind somewhere. I knew Expo 86 was in there. I have the cookbook. I have the Expo 86 cookbook. Oh, of course you freaking do. Of course. Yeah. Can you remember one recipe out of the Expo 86 cookbook?

Was it mini donuts? No, I cannot. There was probably like a spinach salad with mandarin oranges and, you know, those crispy chow mein noodles from 1986. It was very big back then. Pesto, lots of pesto. Yeah, 80s. Pesto was big in 86. Is this what you're telling me? Yes, this is, I'm pulling up the food trends from 1986. Yes.

Listen, folks, if you ever want to make a pesto and you're a vegan person out there, a plant-based person, and you're thinking, oh, damn, I miss Parmesan cheese and I want to make it. You can use nutritional yeast. And the VioLife. The VioLife Parmesan cheese. VioLife comes in a block. VioLife, do not hesitate to sponsor our show. We would love to have you. Is it VeoLife or VioLife? VioLife, I don't know. Maybe they'll contact. Maybe they'll reach out.

Vio, vio. It's like, I think of it like violin, violin. Yeah. Viola. Oh, see violin, viola. The English language is so confusing. You know, when my, when my niece was little, she was really upset. Uh, one day her dad was upset about work and she, she was like, I'm going to write a letter to my dad's boss. Cause there was something going on. And she, she drew a picture of

you know, herself crying and, and someone else crying. There was a scribble and I was like, who's this? She said, that's my dad. What's the scribble all over him. That's the fire because they're going to fire him. Cause he was saying, Oh, you know, I'm going to get fired. They're going to fire me. She was so upset because they thought she thought that we were going to light him on fire at work. Right. Of course. Anyway, language. We have a very clear theme to this show. I can, I can tell already. Well, the theme is focus.

Themes are very 2003. Oh, I'm so relieved. Very 2003. Nobody wants a theme. Haven't you guys seen any of the more popular television shows? They don't have themes. No, that's true. Do they? Theme songs. I just... Theme songs. I remember a lot of theme songs growing up. Like, I just...

Who can't hum Star Trek with William Shatner? Oh, yes. Okay, maybe I can hum the theme song and I'm a professional. I think I was doing Star Wars and not Star Trek. I fed the entire cast of Star Trek.

Really? Tell us that story. Cause that, even though we don't have a theme, please talk about that. Well, I can't tell the whole story. So the, the Calgary. Why were they, were they nude? Why? What was, was it? No, they were all very nice. They're all very nice. There are very few people who are not, but they were all super nice. Not, you know, demanding or anything. I almost spilled soup on Jean-Luc Picard.

What's his name? Patrick Stewart. Sir Patrick Stewart, who I love. I was trying to, they set me up in this room that wasn't, there was no kitchen, right? So I was trying to like cobble together everything.

you know, crockpots and folding tables. And, and so this is at the Calgary entertainment expo, which happens every April or used to, I think it's coming back in September this year. I heard. I've heard there's a small version of it. That's going to go on a smaller version. Yeah. Yeah. So for a long time, I've I've fed the, the gold room, you know, the, the bigger celebrities and,

um, the big C celebrities. And so they're very lucky to have you. Yeah. Except I almost spilled soup on, on, uh, Sir Patrick Stewart and, um, the soup was cold, but I didn't notice it because something, you know, someone else had served it up. And anyway, I was, I was walking towards it. I was thinking of some hilarious joke to say like soup.

Butternut squash hot right because he always does that tea. Oh, great. Hot, right. It was going to be hilarious and then I tripped over an extension cord, and I like went flying through the air, and the whole world went into slow motion as I left forward out of my body and grabbed the cup before it landed on him.

I pretty much saved his life, really. Yeah. You know, like, you know, he wouldn't have been burned because the soup was cold, but it was. I was the worst waitress like in the world. I really was. Me too. Like I waitressed at the Pinebrook Golf Course, which is west of the city of Calgary. And when I started there, I drove my moped down there from my parents' house. It was like a 40 minute drive on a moped because it had a top speed of 16 miles an hour.

And I went down there like every week one summer and kept asking the pro there if I could, you know, wash golf clubs or do something. And I think after like week five, he finally just thought, oh my God, I'm going to give this kid a job. But I moved up through the ranks. I started off washing balls and then I was cleaning clubs and then I was, you know, doing little things sort of

I drove a tractor picking up the balls out on the range. And then I moved into the lounge, like from the time I was 16, 17. I don't think I should have been serving booze, but I was. Gin tonics were big in those days. Like the golfers came in, they had a GT. That's what they had. Yeah. And, but anyway, I just remember just dumping things, dropping things, pouring things, and

I was one of those idiots have the big teapot in one hand to refill somebody's cup of hot water. And as you're leaning to grab their teapot, you know, to try and get between people you've got the, and I'm pouring it down this guy's back, this hot tea. And he was actually very nice about it. He like, it wasn't super hot. It wasn't McDonald's hot. Am I allowed to say that?

I know what you mean yeah oh yeah yeah and uh but yeah I just was the worst server was it Patrick Stewart no thank god but I I got tipped accordingly I was the same way which was like no tips people just look at me like shaking their heads but it was traumatizing I should have had your niece draw a picture with flames around my head because you're gonna get fired

I never did, though. I worked there for, I think, eight years. I worked there from the time I was 13 to, like, 21. I worked at the Elbow River Inn and Casino for about two weeks. And I could not... Everything slid off the plates. I always... I'm so impressed by servers who can line up the plates on their arms, you know, and carry, like, and balance. I'm not sure of arms. I was the worst. I have long arms, and I could not... I couldn't do it. So I figured I was better off in the kitchen. So... And I think I was right. Well...

I think it's an extremely hard job. And I, you know, I'm always so grateful to be waited on ever by anybody, especially this last year and a half. My, my goal now that I'm double vaccinated is in the next month or like before the summer's out, I really do want to get my courage up to go sit on a patio and

with friends that like are not even in my pod and have a meal, like have someone come up to me and say, can I take your order? And then I'll just burst into tears. Yeah. Yes. Take my order. You can, you can take my everything. Do you want to marry me? But yeah, I got, I got my second shot yesterday and it, I have to say like the tele center downtown Calgary, um,

It's such a, it just works so well. It's so organized. And a huge shout out to the dozens and dozens of volunteers. They had a woman downstairs in parking helping everybody work the machines. Anyway, you're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm with Julie and Adam, and we shall be right back. ♪ Red, a bottle of white ♪

It all depends upon your appetite. I'll meet you anytime you want in our Italian restaurant. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Show podcast and Variety Hour. Julie Van Rosendahl is with us, Adam Karsh. If you're just joining us, you've probably already clued into the theme today.

um which is well we've touched on a few themes 2003 uh being a terrible server in life uh and I don't mean serving Jesus or anything like that because I am a good server of the Lord I think and uh no I'm not I don't even know why I said that why are these mushrooms just kicking in now your mouth and brain work together like mine do yeah um

Yeah, so we're just here. We're just talking about random things. And what I actually, I did have things that I wanted to ask you guys. I find that as I am getting a little bit older, my morning routine gets longer. And, you know, we're all creatures of habit. You know, my mom used to say, well, you just get up and you repeat the same day twice.

for about 30,000 days. And I'm like, well, that sounds really great. But I do what my routine gets really long. I mean, from making the bed to how just putting cream on my face, brushing my teeth, putting a little bit of makeup on now watering the plants, adding all the summer stuff.

unloading the dishwasher, feeding the dog, getting her meds, checking the laundry. Like it just, it honest to God, it takes me an hour before I sit down to have a cup of tea. So I wanted to ask you guys,

Julie, about morning routines. Like, cause I will follow your Instagram and I see birds being fed. I see things going on. I anyway, go. I love my summer morning routine because it involves going outside and feeding the birds and watering my garden. And, you know, I can open all the kitchen windows to the outside and it's great, but let's backtrack. So I get up, I pick up my phone, which is probably the wrong thing to do. It's like the last thing

I'm looking at before I fall asleep and the first thing I pick up. And then, yeah, wash my face, moisturizer, come downstairs, you know, go outside if it's summer, if it's winter. I don't even know what I do in the winter.

You know, it's still dark. It's cold. I put on my dad's old cardigan sweater that I wear in the mornings. And on Tuesday mornings, I talk about food on the radio and I get well enough to school when there's school to be had. Yeah, it's not that exciting. I straighten the bed.

But how you straighten the bed, you didn't, it doesn't even go so far as making it. I just pull like, there's only the, you know, the one sort of side pushed over my comforters and my quilt. So I just kind of like pull it straight there, made the bed. I don't do that. Like my mom and my grandma did the hospital corners, you know? And so when I do the sheets, I do that. I even started, do you iron your sheets, Jan? Oh, screw off. My mom...

My mom irons her sheets, but it's amazing when I go, you know, out to their, their, they have a little tiny place out on the sunshine coast and it's so nice. So during the pandemic, at one point I got some really fancy sheets. I started ironing them on the bed. It didn't last very long. I didn't iron them on the, I just on the bed with the iron, probably not a good idea. Don't do this at home. I give terrible housekeeping advice.

maybe I should iron sheets. My friend Teresa irons her sheets and she says it's just like the absolute best. It is. At the very least, and I've been told by this many times, people that really are Martha Stewart's out in this world, to at least, at the very least, iron your pillowcases. Pillowcases, for sure. And your underwear. But if you get stuff out of the dryer, like pronto underwear. I know, but it's not the same. Yeah.

It isn't the same. I agree. It isn't. I always, I argued that for a long time, but you know, when I, I can't argue with the iron sheets at my mom's house and nice sheets. That's one thing I, I, you know, I got during the pandemic, I got some really nice, you know, 8,000 thread Egyptian cotton or whatever. And yeah, they're nice, nice sheets of nice sheets. Sorry. I totally derailed that conversation. No, it's something you should, Adam, do you have like things you do in the morning that

Maybe you don't. Maybe your wife picks up most of that. No, no, I do. I have. I think, Julia, as you were saying, like my summer morning routine is different than my winter morning routine. I'm not really a morning person, but with the nice weather and the fact that it's getting warmer, I feel like I don't want to waste time.

any part of this beautiful day. So I take my coffee and I go sit in my backyard and I relax. And I just, I just like my morning now is not as hectic as it was when I was taking the girls to school, driving to the train station, getting downtown. That was so hectic and stressful. So I make a point out of starting my day in this relaxed, slow state. And then when I'm ready to work, I go down to the basement and do my thing. Nice. Yeah.

You're such a dad. The day's a-wastin'. You don't want to waste the day. Just images of my dad opening up the blinds at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Day's a-wastin'. And I'm not a morning person. In general, I'm not a morning person. I'm the sleep-in king, and I'm a real night owl. I've turned into a morning person. Me too. I think as certainly when I sort of hit my...

late forties, I was like, okay, I'm awake. It's 20 to six. I'm not going to lie here because like, there's no way I'm going to fall back asleep. So normally now I'm up between five 30 and six every day. And I cannot believe I'm that person. If someone would have slapped me upside the head,

And said, you're going to get boy, when you're this age, you're going to sure be an early, right? I, I, I still can't believe it. And I love the mornings in the winter. I'm even up that early as well. Like, and I know it's dark, but there's something about the darkness in winter mornings that I like to, I always get a fire going. Although now my little dog is afraid of fires. She's decided at almost 13 years old. And I would have a fire and the dog would disappear. Yeah.

Like, and she'd be behind the laundry basket in my walk-in closet. And I thought, there's no way I can keep doing fires while I'm sitting out here enjoying the, you know, the rosy glow of the flames. And she's cowering in the closet behind a wicker. So I just stopped. I can't do them anymore. She just doesn't like the crackling wood. If you're just joining us, the Jan Arden podcast, today's theme is no theme at all. Nothing. We're meandering.

It's a show about nothing. I feel like the Seinfeld music is going to make a comeback in this episode.

I really am so, so shocked by just how much my body is changing. And I don't mean physically. I mean, yeah, your breasts get longer and things happen, but I'm so grateful just to have my health and to be here. And I think everybody is, I think everyone that's coming out of this is just like, they know friends who have had parents who've had grandparents who have someone from work. I think it's,

I spent six or seven months not knowing anyone that had contracted, you know, COVID. And then I started knowing like two dozen people. Yeah. So that, that really changed a lot as I was like, wow, I know people that are getting closer and closer to my direct circle. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, health is health really as well, but yeah, lots of things changing lots of ways that I'm thinking differently and,

But the mornings don't think that's going to change. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm going on way less sleep than I did than I was in my forties. Like you'd think it would be the opposite that as you got older, you'd need more sleep. But if I can get five hours in a row, I'm really, I feel fortunate. Yeah. Same, same. And I always wake up in the middle of the night and have a good think.

How do you get back to sleep again? What do you, what's the tricks? I try and think of, I try and get my mind out of all the things that I'm worried about, you know? And I think about, you know, being out on the kayak with Louie, think about different, you know, just calming things. I try and yeah, I don't do that. I try the, the counting backwards from a hundred or whatever that never, I don't know, that doesn't call me, but, or things I think about the garden. I think about

Yeah. Just little things that, that take my brain away from all the stuff. I've probably talked about this before, but there's the alphabet thing and it certainly isn't mine. I read about it somewhere probably in, Oh, it could have been Chatelaine and Chatelaine feel free to hop onto the sponsorship, but I read it somewhere and it was a guy that does the alphabet sleep game. And he was like, I start with a,

I don't say it out loud. I just, when I can't sleep, I just lay on my back, shut my eyes and I start with a, and I name as many A's as I can. Apple, artichoke, armadillo, armpit. And then when I, when my brain gets to the end of that, I go to B, you know, barrel, buckwheat, bastard.

Okay. Some people listen to podcasts, some people listen to podcasts and then they, they go off automatically with what you're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We're going to be, we're going to be right back.

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And I like potato. You like tomato. I like tomato. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Let's call the whole thing off. Welcome back. I'm Jan Arden with Julie Van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh. And this is our podcast. And the Jan Arden podcast. And today's theme is nothing. Nothing. There's no theme. There's nothing going on.

I'm looking out my window right now at my flowers that hopefully will last another month, you know, because summers are very short. If you're listening from across the pond or from another country other than Canada, our summer starts allegedly June the 20th, which isn't even started yet. So summer hasn't officially started and it goes till June.

June the 31st. So it's not a long summer. So we have 11 days to really enjoy our bedding out plants. I can't stop buying plants. I have got to stay away from garden centers. Now they're on sale. Same now because we only have two weeks of summer left. People think I'm kidding. Well, we get into hail season in about a week.

Oh God. You were so last year, if anyone followed along with dinner with Julie, she got annihilated her garden, her, her little garden got like cut down three times, but it came back that kale kale is a trooper. So I had slaw a few times, but, uh, but yeah, it bounced back. I've kind of rigged up a tarp and put some hooks on the, on the fence so that I can run out when you can tell, you can tell when hail is brewing.

and put up the tarp and maybe it'll sort of protect them. It's not a, you know, it's not a fancy garden. Well, I just know it's, but no garden should be fancy. I think people get really intimidated by planting. And I always say to people, my goodness, you can plant stuff anywhere, which brings me to a story that I really wanted to talk about this week. And that is,

Julie and I, a few weeks ago, I had a bunch of PEI potato seedlings, like seed potatoes left over from my garden. I just had too many this year. And so I gave them away to a lot of people, but I still had a bucket full. And Julie's like, we'll go plant them downtown. I'm like, what? So anyway, Julie, pick up the story from there. So we potato bombed the neighborhood.

And so I live in Ramsey, which is right beside Inglewood. And there are a lot of nice new planters, but there's a lot of old cement planters, like those ones from the 80s, you know, like they look like they were. They're exposed to aggregate. They've all been like sandblasted. So it's the pebble sunk into concrete. Yes, like it looks like, you know, it used to be in front of an old school, that kind of. Anyway, there's a bunch that are always left unplanted every year.

And so I was like, let's just go and put potatoes in them. Right. You should have seen us. Did we have the dog? We had the dog because it was hot. We kept having to go back in the car and turn the air conditioning on.

We had our bucket of potatoes. Julie had an accordion water jug that it's one of those things that you flatten out. But as you fill it, you can literally have like five gallons of water. So she has the water. We have the world's oldest trowel. I'm like, the handle was busted in half. I'm like, oh my gosh, I guess we're using this trowel. So here we are. I'm following Julie's lead. She goes, I know where there's a concrete planter.

and we dug holes we put these these these wilted tired looking prince edward island beautiful potatoes we sunk them into this yeah i mean the dirt just did not look well it was some of it was dusty it was clay we were pulling giant weeds out clumps of grass that had been there for four years anyway we we planted we plant planted we planted

25 hills of potatoes. Around Inglewood. And they are, one of them is sitting in, yeah, one of them is in front. It's between the little piece of ground between the sidewalk and somebody's front gate, where it's kind of an easement that the city owns. We dug holes there. Julie's watering. She's digging. Our nails are filled with dirt. And now if you go onto Julie's page and

dinner with Julie on Instagram. She is updating all these potato plants that are growing like maniacs. Like crazy. And so, and the first one that we planted, which is right beside a dry cleaner, someone came the next day and they planted other...

plants in it. So I think some of our potatoes got dug up, but our, our potatoes are pushing forth and they're doing better than the new plants that were put in. Yeah. Screw those. But some of them, like I went back and pulled out some of the old dead grass and

grass that was in some of them. The dirt was like dust. It was like, you know, people had been using them as ashtrays, but they're, the potatoes are growing. The one on the, there's one on the corner that did get replanted and they didn't make it, but, uh, but that's okay. The rest are doing amazingly well, all this sun and rain, right? It's making everything go gangbuster. Well, we're going to have updates on the

the gorilla potato planting, you know, extravaganza. And Julie, with all her expertise and her amazing cooking skills, we're going to make some kind of kick-ass potato dish that

I'm hoping that we have 10 hills that will come through. Oh, we have more than 10 already. There's more than 10. I'll send you an update today. Every day. I've been going for the last couple of mornings and they, they grow so much every day. I need to get some manure and put the manure on them and then we can make some poutine. That was good. No, no, no, no, no. It had to happen. Well,

Getting back to people being tentative about growing things. And it's, you know, it's only like the 18th, 19th, 20th of June right now. So we're going into third week of June. There is time to plant folks. You do not, Oh, I miss that opportunity. You do have time. Radishes are something that you can grow in five, six weeks. So that might be a place to start.

Carents you can plunk in anywhere. I think potato still has time. I leave my potatoes in the ground till the end of October. Yes. I talked to a friend who's a potato farmer and he said two weeks after the last or the first frost, two weeks after the first frost.

Yeah. So a lot of times I dig them out sort of mid-October, end of October. And I have, they are great. And they don't keep growing. Like they don't, you don't have potatoes the size of your head. They know, they're like, we're done. We're just going to sit here in the dirt and we're going to wait for somebody Irish to come along and dig us up.

I can't wait to do an Instagram story about us going around digging up potatoes. We'll get a bucket. We'll get a bucket. We will get your beautiful trowel with the handle half off. I will get a new trowel just for you. I'll have it in green.

And we'll just go dig up potatoes. I'm hoping for like a good harvest, Julie. It's so fun watching things grow. Yes. Except for your bum. Oh, yeah. I don't like. That's true. Well, that's not true either. You can't watch it, though. Like, I can't see...

I can't see what I look like from behind. I've seen your bum and your bum's frigging awesome. Well, so is yours. Yeah. Thank you very much. And you know, it's in all the right places. And I am so grateful to have legs attached to it that work and move around. And that's another show. One of these days we will, we will tackle that. There's so many amazing people talking about,

women's bodies and men's bodies. I don't want to leave Adam's

folks out of the conversation and human beings let's say humans because we want to always include human bodies our trans friends our non-binary friends everybody it's it's difficult to get into those conversations but yeah bodies are something else welcome to the no theme podcast uh we went from potatoes to bums to our transgender community there you go all in four sentences

Do you guys have any idea of going on holidays this summer? Is, are either of you guys going to be like in a trailer? Do you have any plans to like take your kids at them? Like what's happening? Cause this is,

This is the first summer of kind of liberation. My oldest is going to overnight camp in July last. I'm so happy. So last summer camp was canceled across the board day camps, overnight camps, very dear friends of mine own a great overnight camp in near Bancroft, Ontario. What's the age limit? Oh, well, there's staff. I mean, you can go from like seven till I don't know, 16. And then you're a CIT and then you're a counselor. And, but so they're, she's going to camp for a month.

Everyone's super excited. We don't have any vacations planned.

per se this summer. But, you know, maybe day trips going up north. My in-laws have a cottage in Collingwood. If you're familiar with Collingwood, it's a couple hours north of Toronto. So like little day trips like that. Grand plans to travel Europe this summer? No. No, no, I don't. No, I don't think I wasn't talking about that, but just, you know, stuff to do. Anyway, that's we'll be right back. You're listening to the Jan Art Podcast. Don't go away. Camping, we will go camping. We will go.

And off we go, a-camping we will go

Hey, this looks like a great place to set up our camp. Welcome back. We were just talking about camps, summer camps. Adam says he's a camp person. I am. I was never really a camp person, but I did love going. I remember going in fifth grade on a school camp that I will remember all my life. I remember being, I remember the smell of the, of the cabin. And I remember there was four kids to each little room and we had our sleeping bags and

I just remember having my mom having to get me a thermos. They, for whatever reason, made sure that the kids had a thermos. But putting that little camp kit together, that I remember very vividly of being, oh gosh, 11 years old and having that camp kit put together of stuff that you needed, like a little fork, knife, spoon, combo thing. Yeah. A cup, a plate. Like we had to, we had to have that.

It was such a fond memory. I remember putting the emergency kit together in an empty dry mustard can. Do you remember? We'd have to use an empty dry mustard can. We'd have to empty out the mustard. My mom had to buy all this mustard for my sisters and I and then just dump it out. I don't know how we used all that dry mustard. So it was like a metal box. I went to horse camp. Yeah, well, that's a great idea. Yeah.

So what did horse camp entail? There was horses. And we rode on horses. And there was cabins. So I had a hard time with, I loved camp, but I slept walked. I slept, slept walked.

I walked in my sleep when I was a kid a lot. And so there were bunks all the way out the perimeter of the cabin. And one morning I woke up and everyone was sort of giggling and acting weird around me. And the camp counselor said that during the night I had been running around the cabin shaking everybody saying, where are my crutches? Give me back my crutches to all the kids. Are you serious, Julie? Yeah. Yeah. So I was-

Oh, I mean, do you do that as an adult? No, no, I don't. Willem does. He doesn't as much anymore now that he's getting to be a teenager, but I don't, I don't think I do. I don't know. Maybe I do. I don't notice anything disrupted in the house, but I used to have night terrors, you know,

early in the night where you could see something. It's just, it's sort of you're halfway between asleep and awake and you can see as often spiders or bugs dropping from the ceiling. And I had those a lot when I was a kid and they stopped when I was about my mid twenties, late twenties. Yeah. I think there's, there's part of the whimsy of being a person, that unknown factor that we, that we do stop doing. Like kids, they talk about,

kids being able to communicate with grandparents and they're very open about, oh, Grammy came to the end of my bed or I saw this or imaginary friends that I always question that, like, is it imaginary or are they actually having a pal? So I think that openness and then as the world closes in around us, we suddenly kind of drop that

little bit of unicornishness in ourselves. We close off things. Yeah. And then we spend the rest of our lives trying to climb back into that place of wonderment. And I love the fact that, you know, people are starting or what COVID did rather, that they started getting back into crafts and crafting and making things with their kids and making things with their families and, and,

And I think everybody found out you can only be on the computer so much. And then you kind of abhor it. You don't want to be on there. You want to be away from it. Just tell somebody they can't go to a park and see what happens. Mm-hmm.

No, I agree. And it's, yeah, I mean, people have been cooking and crafting and making things and becoming more self-reliant. We got bees because Willem got into the idea of beekeeping. So we signed up for an online beekeeping course.

I saw your bees. So what, what, what the hell? Like, will you keep these bees in your, in your yard now? Yeah. Yesterday I was watching it and, and they were, you were looking for a queen bee and you don't think you have a queen bee and the bees were really loud. Where did the fricking queen go? They were anxious. So my friend who, who has bees split her hive and,

Um, and, but she's not, you know, she hasn't been doing it for a super long time. We have another neighbor who's really good beekeeper. So he comes in and helps, which is great. We're always like, Kevin, Kevin, can you come look at her, look for our queen? So we split it, uh, moved the, the brood over to, to our bee box and, um, and then let them chill out for a little bit. Kevin came back and looked for the queen. We couldn't find a queen. So we're going to get another queen, um, because they need a queen.

There needs to be a queen in there. There's always going to be a queen in life. I think we've all learned that.

We're going to name her Beyonce. Yeah. And so, yeah, you can get a queen cup. Bees are so fascinating. They can make their own queen. They build a queen cup. They feed the larva like 10 times as much royal jelly and create this queen. Or you can go to like a beekeeping supply store. You can get a queen. He's going to see if he can find a queen cup from one of his other hives and bring it over. But yeah, this year it's just...

um just building up the colony next year there will be honey but a colony produces like up to 100 pounds of excess honey like beyond what they use per per season that is it's fascinating it really is fascinating i've i've enjoyed watching that i i've often had people tell me that i should have bees you know out here and i do worry about life i mean i my year 2022 is already a log jam

Like I'm looking at the work on my plate now because everybody's trying to make up for lost time, dates that weren't fulfilled. People are still have their tickets for the shows, which are all going to be fulfilled. Anyone that has a ticket for one of our shows, that's all being honored. Like none of that goes away. You'll have the same seat you had in. When did you buy those tickets? 2013? When did this all start? Yeah.

So that's starting. And then they're adding more shows, of course, because everybody's sort of wanting, I don't know. It's like a race to make up for lost time, which I think is impossible. So, you know, I, this is going to be, I think my last full summer at home for quite some time. I'm just so used to being home for four days and then being gone for 10 days and then being home for two days. And so I'm, I'm, uh,

This has been a unique piece of time and I've found myself doing so many different things. I don't know about you guys. Is there things that you've done this past year that you, you just didn't think you'd be doing or thinking differently or approaching things differently? Yeah.

Adam? Oh, I can elaborate. I could see his eyes open wider. Yeah. So many things. I, so many things that I do now that are so much better for my life, my mental health, my stress level that I didn't do before. Cause it was just, that's how life was. And now I take more time for myself. I make sure that I take breaks. I told you like when we were talking about morning routine before I don't just jump out of bed, run downstairs and start working. I,

I take my time. I make sure that I, that I balance my life between work and family and relaxation, which all takes place under the same roof. And I'm very conscious of that. So totally. Yeah. Good for you. That's awesome. I've been prioritizing what I, what I want to spend my time and energy on, which I think partly is, you know, as you get older and,

you get, you know, you're into your fifties and you start to realize like just the hustle. I'm spent so much time saying yes to everything. I know. Oh, I can do this. So I should do it. You know, this is a paying gig. It's like, you know, I can sure I can do that. I can do that. And then I end up just not doing anything really well. Cause I'm always so not true.

I don't know. So I've been trying to focus. Could I have that in writing? Yeah. I'm going to put that on my next book. You do everything so well, Jan Arden. You do. That's going to be the title of my next book. Well, it should be. You plant a mean potato.

But I, you know, I think there's been lots of lessons and you hear so many people talking about it's going to take a long time, maybe decades to really unravel what has happened this last 15 months, how it's affected the planet, the environment, the carbon footprint, animal welfare, seniors care, homelessness, you know, food insecurity. I'll tell you what, there's been so many issues that have been cracked wide open. Our pandemic bras. Yeah.

Pandemic. Well, you know what? I did go out and buy myself some really, really nice bras about three months ago. I went into a store, took a number. It was very clandestine. You always have a woman that comes in and lifts your boobs into the proper direction. And for some reason you just allow it to happen. You're like,

This Russian woman is coming in here. Exactly. And she's going to be literally pointing my nipple in the right direction. And I'm going to accept it. And it's not even a Tinder date. It's just a normal, strange person that I have never met before in my life that is going to be, you have too much back fat here. Totally. She's tucking it in. Yes. It doesn't look, it looks like you have boobs on the back and you must put this in here and put, Adam is. I'm blushing.

This is lifting off for your sternum. You cannot have this. And you must make sure your nipple push is the right direction. When you go out the door, you must do that little bit of a check because nobody wants one boob this high and one boob this high. Anyway, you've listened to the Jan Arden podcast, Julie van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh is so embarrassed.

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