Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Well, hello and welcome to 2023. This is the Jan Arden Podcast. This is still season two because we have another 120 episodes to go. In season two, we have very long seasons. Sarah, I didn't know if you knew that or not. Yeah, 2023, it can't be any stranger than the last couple of years has been. I think a lot of people are...
take this time of year to reset and to rethink about their lives. I don't know why. I kind of do that every day of my life. Anyway, we are back. Sarah Burke is here. Adam is here. Caitlin Green is still on mat leave, and she will be back sometime in the next couple of months. I don't know exactly the day, but she is chomping at the bit to come back and join us and
She's like, every time she listens to the podcast, which she does, she's a fan of the show as well as part of the show. And she's like, oh, I always want to jump in and say stuff. That's what happens. So it's pretty cute. But anyway, I just saw it right out of the gate. We would talk about that reset and what happens to people year after year after year disappointing themselves with resolutions. I'm not a resolution person, but just listen to this fact, especially for the women out there. I don't know if men do this.
About 75 to 85, depending on what website I went on, 75 to 85% of New Year's resolutions were health-oriented. And further that, a huge chunk of that, whether it was drinking less or eating better, was weight loss. Weight loss, weight loss, weight loss. And I just shake my head at the amount of time
that we waste, and I think it is wasted time, on wanting to have our bodies look different. Like, it goes from like self-loathing to slightly annoyed to hating, you know, that whole hatred thing. I really, it breaks my heart. And then, you know, a month in, it's kind of back to where you were. And what do you think, Sarah? Yeah.
I think I definitely used to feel that way, especially growing up as a competitive dancer. You're really hard on yourself.
But I think I've been so like just proud of myself and my body and comfortable in my own skin for so many years now that usually it's about how I feel and what I need, right? When you think about it. Do you have girlfriends that you have this conversation with? Like other women that you know that you work with or colleagues or relatives that are always like, oh, I have got this year, I've got to go, I've got to lose 20 pounds.
I don't think it's actually... Most of these conversations are not really centered around...
weight loss anymore. I'm hearing the word strength a lot, like being stronger. And for me, I know I feel like crap. I just feel different mentally, physically. I don't know, kind of lethargic if I'm not in a routine. So I just love the reset of the routine, but it's like a routine I was in right before the few weeks we just had. Do you not find it at all sad that
That high of a percentage of people that go into the new year are going into it year after year thinking they're not good enough and that they should look differently. That bothers me on a huge level. You know, I saw Emma Thompson, the amazing actor. She was on a talk show and the clip has kind of gone viral. Some of you may have seen it last year, but Emma basically has been in everything from Shakespearean stuff to Nanny McPhee. You know who she is.
If you saw her, you'd know who she is. Godsford Park. I mean, so many great, great, great movies. But she was on a talk show and recently she did a movie where she played an aging woman who came from a very unhappy marriage who had hired a male escort to have sex with.
And anyway, there's a huge scene at the end, spoiler alert, where she takes her robe off and she's looking at herself without clothes on in front of a mirror. It's a big part of the movie about being accepting of yourself. But anyway, on the talk show, she was talking about the movie and I think it was Jimmy Fallon that was just asking her, you know, what was that like doing that in that film? And she said she learned so much. She goes that she spent so much of her life
you know, worrying, hating, disliking, beating herself up, not cheering herself on a year, decade after decade of doing that, especially in the film industry. And she's like, that was that pinnacle of finally getting to that point of going, I am not doing this to myself anymore. Yeah. It's the sad truth of realizing that like so many people, I mean, I'm lucky to say I feel confident in my body, but most of people don't.
Yeah. Anyway, that's a big part of New Year's. A story that you brought me, Sarah, that I thought was so interesting was there is a fitness chain, I don't think I want to name the fitness chain, that is refusing any January memberships. It was January 1st, yeah. January 1st memberships. I don't know why they don't do it for the whole month, quite frankly, because they have so many people that join. Yeah.
I mean, tell me about this. You found this story. So what's the details on that? They just think that people are, what, not going to follow through or they're going to cancel or they're going to back out of these memberships? They're playing on the data that you just sort of told us about, right? They're playing on the fact that no one keeps up with their resolutions. And they're saying, we don't want to be a gym who welcomes those people who are looking to do this just at the beginning of the year, right? Right.
So I think it's really interesting and they got a lot of hate online, but I thought you might like this. And something tells me you were like, yeah, I like that gym. Also, we must say it's a little bit of a snooty, like elitist type of gym where like when you go to the bathroom, it looks like a frigging spa. So just keep that in mind. Take this with a grain of salt. But yeah, the concept is we don't want anyone who's just looking at this right now at the beginning of the year. We want people who are here every day, all the time. Well, I think people are so relieved.
after COVID to even get back to the gym where they're around people and kind of working out and being able to take classes and things like that. I think that was a very precarious time for people that, like you said, really relied on routine, you know, and going even twice a week or three times a week and just seeing people that they knew.
Um, anyway, there's a whole bunch of things that happen at the beginning of every year. And that is just basically the human reset. It has been for a long time. It's the midpoint in winter. So people are like, okay, we've got two months to go. Certainly in Canada. Anyway, uh, the last month we've seen so much weird weather on the West coast. Uh, this country was absolutely thrown into a state of chaos, uh,
The snow in Vancouver did not disappear in 24 hours. The airports were closed. There was thousands of stranded passengers in cars. I was thinking about you. Yeah, this is all going into Christmas. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, Manitoba, if you live in the prairies, you are geared for this. You have all-season radials. In Vancouver, nobody has radial tires. They have just summer tires everywhere.
If they have the slightest incline, they can't get up it. My flight to the UK, I went to the UK for Christmas, was delayed by four and a half hours. I got lucky. I flew out on the 20th. But the reason that we couldn't fly out, flight attendants were there, the plane was there, the luggage was loaded, we had no pilots. Guess where the pilots were coming from? Vancouver.
So they barely got out. So basically we sat there and waited for, you know, those four hours for the pilots to come. And when they started walking through the concourse, pulling their little bags, you know, 200 people broke out in tears and clapping. It was really funny. And they're like waving, like, sorry, you know, couldn't catch a ride. But so, I mean, I'm getting long story short, getting back to the whole reset thing. I think for people,
To even go for a walk is paralyzing in this country because, let's face it, you can't always go for a walk here. So it's not as simple as you sound. If you're in an apartment or a condo, I don't know what it's like in Ontario, you guys, but here the malls are, when we have cold snaps for two or three weeks, you cannot believe the thousands of people inside of a mall. You'd think everyone would be at home sitting in front of their television or, you know, with a heating blanket.
And they're in the mall and they're walking around with their kids. The food court looks like an amazement park.
Or an amusement, an amazement park. That was Freudian. It looks like an amazing amusement park or an amusing amazement park. A friend of mine just told me, and he's like 23, he's a gym friend. He just told me that his friend doesn't have a gym membership but goes to the mall and walks around every day. You know those programs that they used to have? I don't know if they still have them, the mall walkers? This guy's like 23. I was like, yes, buddy. Well, you know, malls go for...
I don't know. It's like the Chinook Mall here in Calgary is probably one of the mid-sized malls and it's got to be five, six football fields long. I mean, it's massive, but we have these huge ones now that are, if you want to buy something, if you find a pair of shoes that you want and you think to yourself, oh, I'll think about it and I'll come back, you're never going to find it again.
It's like that underground mall you guys have in Toronto. What is that, Adam? The Path. Oh my hell. I got a coat altered. Like I took it to a little alteration place to get, of course, the sleeves shortened. I couldn't find it. I couldn't find where I was going. I had no idea where my coat was. It took me like two days of going online. My road manager's like, well, what was the name of it? I said, I don't know. I didn't even really look. I walked by, I dropped my coat off.
And, oh man, it is. Anyhow, I don't know if I would go for a walk in the mall and my dog will not walk past about seven, eight degrees below. I don't want to go if it's
15 past 15 below. I'm like, my face is frozen. Even if you wear a balaclava, it's, it's like frozen solid. Yeah. We got, we got some, like, it's just been really gray. I would love a pop of sunshine. We have a ton of sun here in Alberta.
So here it's, it's, there's absolutely a lot of sunshine. There's so much solar here, like you're seeing it more and more on the new builds. Even when they're putting up these structures, you're like, oh, the solar panels are going up already. So in a province that is primarily petroleum driven, and I think it will be probably for another hundred years, I don't know.
They're putting up, there's a lot of green going on here. Anyway, we have lots to talk about today. I want to talk about Veganuary. I want to talk about people going into sobriety things. Some people do it January. Some people do it February. I want to talk about those things when we come back. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here with Sarah and Adam, and we'll see you in a few seconds. Don't go away. Welcome back. 2023.
So far, it's kind of loony tunes. If you look at what's happening in the United States, they can't even elect a Speaker of the House down there. Next episode, they might not have one yet. I'm telling you, yeah. So we're taping this. This is Thursday, and you guys will be hearing this. Some of you keeners will be hearing it Friday, late, late Friday, or Saturday mornings. But yeah, so far, they have no Speaker of the House. And this hasn't happened in over 100 years where they cannot.
vote in but it's it's such a sign of the political upheaval that's not only existing in Canada or in Russia Ukraine or in you know the Middle East Israeli Palestine it's just it just seems like this ongoing narrative all the time and I know people get really worn out emotionally from that and I know a lot of my friends get so worn out emotionally from U.S. politics and
And, you know, there's part of me that goes, well, it's U.S. politics. But then what we've learned is we are absolutely connected at the hip. We would be foolish to think that we're not. It's our biggest trading partner. You know, when there's unhappiness down there, it absolutely bleeds over here. We've seen it in how even political elections have been happening here in the volatility, how candidates position themselves, the kind of the Trumpism type stuff that has happened
really been divisive. It's been very divisive in this country. But anyway, so 2023, I feel like has just been, I don't know if anything's going to change. I have a feeling we're really going to have to hunker down for the next three or four years. I'm not being a harbinger of doom. I think there's so much good, so much positivity. There's so many great things happening.
And every year they do recaps of animal welfare, just a whole bunch of people that are advocates for animal welfare. And there's a lot of great, great things happening. And one that I wanted to talk about was Veganuary. Some people call it Vaginuary. It's not Vaginuary. It's not anything to do with a vagina. It's, it's, but Veganuary started in the UK several years ago.
And they have hundreds of thousands of people. It started out just with a trickle, you know, that 13,000 people, and then it was 50,000 people. It's hundreds of thousands of people that join up to try vegan for a month. And there's a site. Well, there's lots of sites that can help you, meal planning and everything. Is it something that either of you
would even consider trying for a week so that I could talk to you in a couple of weeks from now and have a conversation about it. So I wanted to do that live on the air with you guys to see if I can challenge for one week, whether it's Sunday to next Sunday or Monday to next Monday, I'd love to challenge you guys to one week of vegan eating. So no dairy, no eggs,
Um, cause I really want to have a discussion about this and I, I, I think it would be really fun for our listeners to maybe try it along with us.
The tough part is cheese. You know, people often talk about, but what about cheese? Well, no, cheese is... It can be eggs for me. Yeah. It can be eggs. I love eggs. I'm an egg guy. I like eggs. Yeah. What do you do in place of eggs? Well, I do avocado and toast. I do beans on toast. I do mushrooms on toast. I will do excellent oatmeal with nuts sprinkled on top of it and flax and hemp hearts.
I will do stuff from the night before that I've had. I will do, sometimes I'll do a half a potato. I'll cut up potato. There's something called Just Egg. We are not sponsored by the Just Egg people. It is so effing phenomenal. You can get them in little packs that you can either add them, pop into a toaster.
unwrap it. You don't need a frying pan. You can pop these little, and what they look like is the little folded eggs that go into a breakfast sandwich. So I will do a bagel with some big old juicy red tomato slices. I'll do my just egg. You can also get it in a liquid form where you can scramble it. I do tofu scrambles and I throw in salsa and diced onions and red pepper. So you can get like a soft or a firm block of tofu. There's something called black salt.
and it is basically, it smells exactly like eggs. I put a little sprinkle of that, and you can find it anywhere. You can find it in any grocery store. Ask the guy with the apron on and say, where's your black salt? So any kind of tofu scramble, they're delicious. I throw some black beans in there. I throw...
any kind of regular beans. I have soup for breakfast a lot. I have vegan yogurt. I'll have the coconut yogurt or oat milk yogurt. You will find a very large section in your grocery store, and this does not have to be expensive. But I'll tell you what, there's nothing more satisfying than a slice of vegan cheese, cheddar, or whatever kind you like,
Veal Life does a great version. If you go to the vegan little dairy section, you will be blown away. And who doesn't like avocado toast? I love it. Okay. I'm into this. There's so many non-dairy creamers. I'm asking for seven days from you guys. I can do it. I can totally do it. I'm so into this. I integrate a lot of
fully plant-based meals into my diet as it is. So I'll eat anything. I'm not picky. I can do this. I know, Adam, we've talked about that before. I know you guys have a couple of meals a week that don't have meat in them or, you know. Absolutely. So like last night, we had a really nice dinner and my friends had chicken and I did potatoes, carrots. I did corn on the cob. I did a vegan stuffing with
you know, vegan butter and onions and sage and breadcrumbs and all, or bread cubes. And I just had some Gardein little turkey fries
scallopino like what do you call that a scalloped turkey fake turkey slice oh turkey scallopini yeah something like that and it's breaded and it's it's obviously made with pea protein it it would be very much like the chicken fingers you get and i just did that in the air fryer and i had that and i made a just a vegetarian gravy like our vegetarian brown gravy so we had a great meal and i didn't miss it at all so i had i had all that stuff anyway
I would really, really be fascinated to hear your thoughts. If not next week, we'll do it the following week. Why don't we aim for no later than the 15th of January? I'm so good. And next episode, we can talk about the shopping list. Yep. I love it. Yeah, we can. And I'll tell you right now, everything's in your house. If you want to go and spend...
Well, groceries are so expensive now in general. But all the stuff that I eat, yeah, avocados are expensive. But I go buy a bag at Costco. I don't know about you guys, but that's where I'll get them. It is the best deal. Or Superstore. I would definitely not go buy the one avocado for $3.99.
And leave them in the fridge. This is a little tip from me. And only take it out the night before when you want to use it because they will stay so much firmer. You can keep avocados for six, seven, eight days. For sure. But there's so many great hash things that you can do for breakfast too. Who doesn't like an effing potato? I love potatoes. And I'll tell you, Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat, if I get their ground stuff and do a really excellent breakfast hash –
You could do chili with that even. It is so...
thing you can swap out now, punch vegan into Instagram. This is a great place to start. Hashtag vegan and go on. You will be so overwhelmed with the most unique, amazing vegetarian or vegan stuff, but I'm not asking for a vegetarian challenge. I want a vegan challenge. Okay. Anyway, the other thing that's happening right now too, is people do a sober January or they're doing a sober February. I've just seen a bunch of stuff where
People are like letting everyone kind of finish the holidays off, wean themselves in, maybe have a few glasses of wine during the week. And then February they hit the ground running and not drinking. So what do you guys think of doing a sober diet?
January or a sober February? I'm definitely right now not drinking because it made me feel like crap. So like I 100% was like, yep, time for a detox. I'm also not drinking coffee for five days.
Can I ask why? Yeah, it's like for a little hormone reset. Okay. Because if you drink as much coffee as I do, which is a lot, it can mess up your system. So I like doing a little reset and I drank so much coffee over the last month. Did you drink a lot of alcohol? Yes, both. A lot of both. And what do you like? Is it just wine at parties? Is it...
wine with dinners, festive dinners? Do you find that it does accelerate over the holidays for sure? Yes. Wine over the holidays for sure at dinners. Like on New Year's, a girlfriend and I were making espresso martinis. That's a double whammy. And it's delicious. But you don't feel great the next day. So it's always the next day, right? During, you're like, oh, this is great. I got a sugar kick. I got an alcohol kick. I got
you know, my caffeine kick. Yeah, definitely. Triple whammy in that one. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm here with Sarah and Adam. We're going to be right back. We're going to continue this conversation about a sober month. And if any of you would be up for an alcohol challenge, uh, two, and you're probably thinking, Jan, if we try the fricking no meat week at the same time, but you know what? I'll tell you right now. It's easier if you do them both at the same time. This is a Jan Arden podcast. We'll be right back.
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Welcome back. I just feel this energy coming through the airwaves, just like I'm dropping these little challenge grenades, but I love a challenge. I do too. We were talking before the break about trying veganism, which is plant-based eating for a week.
And I have just thrown the abstinence of alcohol for an additional week. I will tell you, when I became vegan, which was seven years ago, the same week I did that, I also stopped eating. And I hadn't eaten red meat. I'm eating red meat. There's another Freudian. I hadn't eaten red meat.
For probably 15 years because I had a partner for 10 years who didn't eat meat. A little bit of fish, a little bit of poultry once in a while, but the red meat was already gone. But yeah, the same time I quit drinking. I had come out of the hospital. I'd had a heart thing, scared myself, knew I was drinking way too much. And then I thought, you know what? I just need to eat better. Something's got to give here.
And it wasn't just meat. Like I'm not blaming that. It was a diet that was not good. And I thought plants, this is a good place for me to start. And I, much like you guys nodding your heads right now, didn't think that I was going to be here seven years later of doing either of those things. But I stayed with it because how I looked, how I felt was undeniable. Like I couldn't look myself in the mirror and going, oh, it's not making any difference. The difference was so profound and so life-changing that
that I was sold. I was like, if this is what this feels like, then I'm not ever looking back. So the alcohol thing. Tell me if that is something that could be possible. Adam is gritting his teeth. What's wrong, Adam? So I really do like a glass of red wine with dinner. And I like my scotch. And you like beer? Beer is camping. Oh, you like scotch? Yeah.
I love scotch. Beer is camping with the guys up north around a campfire. I'm not a beer guy. I mean, I like a cold beer, but beer is not my go-to. I love scotch. Like at the beginning of COVID, and like my buddies, we drink scotch together socially. I'm like, everyone's freaking out that they're going to run out of toilet paper. I'm like, I don't care if I run out of toilet paper. I just don't want to run out of scotch. Well, alcohol consumption went up by 700% during COVID. I bet. There's a little liquor store in Bragg Creek.
And I've known the guy that owns the store for a long, long time. And I took my friend in there the other day because we were just buying bottles for my neighbors. I usually buy them like a bottle of something, wine or something. And I hadn't seen Fred. And I just said to him, how has the last few years been? He goes, Jan, I've never in my life made this kind of money as I did at his small little country liquor store. It's a beautiful liquor store, but 700%.
And it did vary from country to country, but that was a Canadian statistic. I don't even know what that means, 700%. I can't even get my head around the jump in consumption. So my question to you is, both of you,
Is it going to stay there? Is alcohol consumption going to come back down again? That's why I think it's so important to definitely do an alcohol reset and really think about how you used alcohol through a very trying, very challenging time. How that, you know, you're sitting with your partner or whatever and splitting a bottle of wine every night because it's freaking COVID and you're scared death and you can't go anywhere, especially during lockdown, right?
But has it stayed there? No. Has that stayed there, that habit? No, not at all. No, because there was day drinking at the beginning because it was all crazy. Oh, there was day drinking. I mean, not fall over hammered, but there was day drinking. I don't day drink. And I don't need it. I don't need it. I like it. I don't need it. I like it. Well, I'm still, I'm asking you, can you do a week of not drinking anything?
I can do a month of that easy. No problem. I don't think about alcohol. Like I'm a very like situational alcohol person. If I'm going to a concert, I want to have a drink at the show. If I'm having dinner with friends, I want to have a glass of wine with dinner, New Year's, right? Like I don't really, I never really come home from something and go, oh, I need to grab a drink, you know, like that's, that's really not me. So for me, like I'm doing basically an elimination diet right now. I'm working on some things with my asthma and
Dairy really affects my asthma, things like that. So once I've done this, that's why I was saying like, yeah, if we start like January 15th, I'm golden. I just want to like finish up what I'm doing so I can separate it. No, absolutely. I'm just putting that challenge out there and to our listeners.
I think 30 days of not drinking, you really see the benefits. I don't know if one week you're really going to know it. I think with the plant eating stuff, people will just worry about how to cook. But I'll tell you what, simple things right out of the gate. Everybody knows how to do spaghetti and tomato sauce. Zucchini, spaghetti squash. You can do that way too. But the way you can incorporate any kind of proteins –
It's so easy. Like if you want a really creamy spaghetti, and this is just like one meal that I'll give you an idea for, take any can of beans, like white cannelloni beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, chuck them in a blender with some cashews, not salted cashews, but raw cashews, a bit of plant milk, some nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast is going to be a must because it tastes so much like Parmesan cheese. Put that in a blender, blitz it up.
pour it over your spaghetti. It is like, and any kind of bean will work. You have some, now you have a carbohydrate that's loaded with, with proteins and flavor and it's so filling and delicious. And that with like some coleslaw on the side or whatever. And I'll tell you what, you can put anything in a damn taco, coleslaw and some grilled, you know, cauliflower, like anything goes. We were talking on the break that a lot of people say, listen, if I had somebody cooking for me,
I mean, wouldn't we all love this? Sure. If I had someone cooking plant-based meals for me, Adam was talking about a restaurant called Parallel. Yeah, I love Parallel. In Toronto. So if you had that chef, you know, cooking for you every day, you'd never even notice you were eating plant-based. But
But we don't have that option. Right. Whenever I go to Parallel, I go with a buddy of mine who's totally vegan and we split everything. He's like, you can order meat. I'm like, no, I want everything that you're having. And their food is 100% plant-based. Again, they have meat, but everything that we get is 100% plant-based. And Parallel, oh my God, shout out to Parallel, delicious. But I like to cook. You know that. I love to cook. I can make a ton of vegan options very easily. Yeah, it's easy to do the swaps.
Um, I just cannot wait to have this conversation with you guys in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to, I'm pumped. I'm excited to try it. I can totally do it. Do you want to do the alcohol challenge too? I'm up for it. Like I was already eliminating alcohol for two weeks. So why not? Right. Continue on. I can't even imagine living my life any other way than I am now, but I certainly can think back and trust me. I loved to drink. I, people were like, what did you drink? And I'm like, oh gosh, everything.
And, but I was, you know, blacking out a couple of times a month and I was just sick all the time. And I remember looking at the back of my hands and they were just really puffy, just retaining water. And I looked 20 years older than I do now. And I was so much heavier and I felt heavier. So I looked the way I felt. But anyway, the drinking thing's interesting. And I think if people, even if you're that person that does three glasses of wine every week,
Taking that out, you're going to sleep better. You're going to have less anxiety. You're not going to have that low-grade anxiety. You're not going to have... Your depression is going to be so much better. And I'm not talking about people that are
you know, clinically and on medications and things like that. Like I would think that drinking on any kind of antidepressant is not a great idea to begin with. And I'm not a doctor and please don't take this as any kind of advice, but I think they call that self-medicating in the medical world where, you know, most medications do come with alcohol warnings, right? Yeah.
I had a really scary experience in first year university. What? My roommate at the time, she was on some medication and she was drinking because it was frosh week. And I ran away to someone else's residence to stay with them because I was scared. Like I tried to help. It wasn't going well. She was angry. So yes, I've seen this and it's scary. So a real personality break, right? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's like you know that they're not themselves when those things happen. But yeah, alcohol is something that I think more people struggle with than they are willing to admit. Well, it's so...
It's such a casual thing when you talk about, you know, people that do book clubs that say, oh, it's just, we have a book club, but we just get together to drink wine. And I think a lot of people, when they talk about rewards of any kind, alcohol is part of that reward. I deserve a drink. I, you know, all that kind of, that kind of narrative.
But, you know, anyway, I just want to throw a few challenges out there myself from the Jan podcast to see if we can get our listeners, you know, on board. And I would we would love to get everyone's comments. The on Twitter, we have a handle on Twitter and Instagram.
Once you put it out, there's an accountability piece, right? So let's all put it out there. Well, getting back to the top of the show, one of the things that happens with plant-based eating and with alcohol, alcohol especially is weight loss. So when you are suddenly eliminating 2,500 calories every week, that's 2,500 calories every week.
that you would have, you know, with drinking. It is a lot. Anyway, you're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. We are going to be right back. I've got a few other questions to ask the gang. I promise there'll be no more challenges. I'm not doing a sit-up challenge or a push-up challenge or an hour of yoga every day challenge. None of that's happening. We'll be right back. Don't go away. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. Sarah Burke, Adam Karsh, and me, your host, Jan Arden.
We're here. We are celebrating 2023. Are we celebrating 2023? We are. We are. We're still here. We are. We're stoked. We're still here. We're still going. Things are changing slowly. We're coming out of it. I had to talk about this because I wanted to get your take on traveling and what your travel plans are for the year. And if you're planning any holidays, if you're freaked out by how expensive it is,
And just the unknown, like if you fly to Cuba, you might not get back on the day that you want to go. Like your flight could just be canceled. There's a friend of mine that was stuck in Mexico for like three extra weeks. Is this the Sunwing? Yes. Oh man. They're home now, but they had to go. They live in Saskatoon. Okay. So the text messages were so funny. Like I was cry laughing and I don't mean that in a mean way.
But it was just hilarious. They're just like, well, this is now turning into an $18,000 holiday. Like they had to stay in the hotel room. Sunwing was not, you know, obviously covering extra hotels and they weren't about to lay on the floor in the airport waiting day after day for a flight to go out. And they knew people that did that. They literally were there camped out waiting to get out on any kind of an aircraft. Anyway, so I'm cautiously optimistic that
Things are going to be great. But all across the state, Southwest had canceled like thousands and thousands of flights. People were strewn across. And I'm like, is this like, Sarah, is this a COVID thing that started all this? Like what, what is, what happened? What is going on? We've seen it like up and down, consistently up and down for three years. Right. Right.
Because I'm thinking about the last flight that I took, which was actually to Calgary for the Country Music Awards. Things were kind of calm at that point, but it was right after a period of chaos. And now here we are in the period of chaos again. And I think there will be another period of calm coming up. But I'm terrified to travel right now. I did actually book some flights on like Boxing Day deals to Nashville in May. Okay. I think you'll be okay. I thought
That's what I was feeling, right? Like by then this should be figured out, but I would not book a flight tomorrow for that reason. I just won't. But it's interesting how we are going about our day-to-day lives, that people are acting like COVID is not there. Even, you know, the respiratory stuff that young people have been dealing with the last 12 weeks, 15 weeks, probably even a little bit longer.
The flu that really hit hard this year, the really different cold strains. The interesting thing about what Southwest was saying about the entire system breakdown that happened before Christmas, it was very COVID related.
half of their staff was out because of COVID related illness. So when you look at a statistic like that, this is coming from the office of Southwest. So if we are all choosing to live in a world where it's over now, we're going on with things, doesn't affect me, go walk around grocery store shelves, staples. There's stuff, there's just things missing that you just can't get.
You go in to get a certain kind of a picture hanger or like really random things, ink refills. Or like Staples was really weird going through there a few days ago with the amount of stuff that was just gone. And it might have been Christmas sales and things like that. But when I talked to a clerk there, she says, oh, we haven't had that for months. We're not going to get that probably until the middle of March. So, but we're choosing now.
to live in a world where it's over and it's clearly not over and it's going to clearly continue to affect travel. When you have 50% of your pilots out COVID-related illness, what does that even mean?
Yeah, it's like, is some of it close exposure? And that's why. Or do their kids have it and so they don't want them to come in? Like, there's just all kinds of things. Anyway, I'm still, and I don't want to take any vitriol for this, folks, but I'm still in a mask. I'm in a mask in the grocery store. I was the only person, well, no, maybe there was three or four of us on a 200-person flight going to the UK and coming back.
Oh no, one flight attendant did have a mask on. One woman about my age had a mask on. Nobody else did. You would think in the airports that people would know better. I understand maybe if the grocery store, you're just feeling weird about it, but a flight? That close proximity? I still haven't had COVID. Finally, I qualify for my fifth booster in January because it's far enough apart. So I'm on tour again. I start touring on the 27th of this month.
And we're out in the East. I have like, I don't know, 20 plus shows, but I'm definitely going to go get my booster. So say what you will, I'm going to go get it, but I've never had side effects. I don't have any of that. And I'm going to be masking and we are going to adhere to, I'm not doing any meet and greets. We're still not doing backstage stuff. I'm going to try and keep the band, you know, really healthy and well so that we can go and do these shows for people.
And if you want to wear a mask in the audience, you can. If you don't want to, you don't. Obviously, you don't have to. Yeah. When you see all these people at concerts right now, I've still been wearing a mask at concerts too. I haven't been to one in a couple of weeks now, but if I was going to a concert tomorrow, still wearing a mask. Grocery store, still wearing a mask. I feel weird not wearing a mask at the gym, but I think about it.
Um, so yeah, that's where I'm at. And it is tough at a gym. I mean, I think too, I don't know anything about the medical side of what the strains are. I'm, I try not to read the news like to the point where I'm feeling depressed about it every day. I feel like I know what's going on, but there's another strain that they say is going to rival the Omicron strain that happened last year. And, you know, to be just mindful of that and,
And I don't know, they're recommending some masking now in some schools just because of what the kids have gone through. And so anyway, I don't even mean to like bring that up, but it's just weird how we've chosen to go forward because I consider human beings somewhat smart, but it's amazing to me how the blinders can go on. It's not a problem. I'm not living like this. And I understand that too.
Trust me, there's just, I wish it would go away, but it's never going to go away. So it's like the common cold, COVID, the strain, whatever strains of COVID is never, ever going to go away. It's with us now. And I guess our bodies will just...
hopefully learn how to protect themselves better going forward. Or people will be getting those shots like they do the flu shots every year. I never heard people complain about a flu shot. Yeah, and it's there if you want it. Yeah, it's there if you want a flu shot every year. But do you ever remember flu shots being divisive? No, never. No, I don't. And I got one this year. And it's a different story too because obviously people aren't losing jobs because they don't get a flu shot. That was a whole different component. And...
you know, unpacking that is so complicated that it's, it's just heartbreaking. Anyway, here we are, we got, it's going to be a really interesting year. I, I think there's going to be so much goodness and so much positivity. I really feel like this is going to be a year where people do come together and that they do lay down their grudges. And I feel like time is a wise healer
But I do. I feel like spring is going to come and that people are just going to be easier on each other and hopefully easier on themselves. Wouldn't that be nice, right? Well, what's easier? To go forward carrying that weight of discontent or the lightness of being...
and happy and, you know, letting each other kind of be themselves and do what they're going to do. And that goes from everything from the COVID stuff to sexuality issues to transgender issues to all of that stuff. I don't even know why it matters what somebody else does.
that we get so mad about. It takes so much energy to be mad all the time. Yeah. And to like, okay, so you can be, you know, down on yourself. That's one thing. So you're taking energy away from yourself. But then focusing on other people's problems is,
That energy? No, right? Like you should not care how someone else is living their life other than if they're a friend and you want to, you know, you want to make sure that your friend is good. That's the only care. Have you guys seen the story? It was just the last couple of days out West here. There's a news woman in Victoria and she had on a sleeveless dress or sleeveless shirt. Sorry, I don't know exactly the detail, but she had another woman write in
and tell her just how inappropriate that sleeveless dress was and that it was very off-putting. And it just, it really, she found it just appalling. And so this news, well, this news person, this broadcaster has received,
boxes of sleeveless dresses and shirts from different companies. It's a pretty cute story going forward. But let it be a lesson as we wrap the podcast up for today is that taking the time to interject that kind of vitriol on somebody is just pointless. It's energy wasted. So much energy wasted. I've been blocking people all morning because I...
I just said, I saw this picture of a woman, a very young woman holding up a beautiful cougar with a big shit-eating grin on her face. And I just said, this is effing horrible and this person should be in jail. That's what I said because I was mad. I don't know anything about the law. And I've just been blocking hundreds of people, hunters. It's not about hunting.
It's not about going out and, you know, in hunting season and having a permit to have a deer for your whatever that you're going to eat. It's not about that. It's about going out and killing a giant deer.
cat that anyway, I'm not even going to get into that now, but it's Twitter is not going to let me down this year. I know it's going to be just a roller coaster and it's still on. Elon Musk has managed to still have it on. I don't, I don't think he has appointed anybody else as the CEO at this point because he did that Twitter survey that he was going to step down during the holidays. Should I step down? And it was kind of,
It wasn't overwhelming, but it was certainly, you know, kind of 60-40 that he should step down and give the reins to somebody else. Haven't seen that happening. Maybe I missed that news, you know, flash. I think he's working on it. He's working on it. And I also don't think. Unpopular opinion. I don't think he wanted Twitter to begin with. I think it was a display of his manhood. I think he was just like, I can. So you want to see me do it? I think it was that. Do you really? Yeah. For $44 billion? Yeah.
It's a $44 billion display of your manhood. Man, that is a commitment. Well, think about how many times he tried to get out of that deal, right? I don't think he wanted it. Well, they're saying that half of the members are bots or something. Wasn't he saying something outlandish like that? I'm sure it's a great deal. Most of the people I block have zero followers.
Or like two or three followers. So they're definitely opening accounts to hurl an insult and then go back under the water again. So it's very Moby Dickish, you know, kind of how... Wasted energy. Well, it's because...
anger is so pervasive, people are frustrated that they feel like they're invisible and they're not seen. It's very hard to manipulate Twitter unless you're hurling insults at a public person, unless you attach yourself to somebody that has visibility, that has some social... I don't want to use the word power, but certainly not an influence, but have followers, like someone you can
attach themselves to. And I know that would be very frustrating. I think it's, you know, when you're yelling into the abyss, it's just an echo chamber. So, uh,
I don't know. I really do love Twitter, though. I stand by it. I think even with how horrific it can feel and seem, I try and be at least 75% positive. But at my age and at this time in 2023, I am not afraid to throw my shoulders back and express my opinion. And if I see a 21-year-old woman holding up a cougar that she's really proud that she shot, I'm going to say, you're an a-hole.
And I don't care what the circumstances are. You don't know what the circumstances. She could have a tag and a license for that. That cat could have been killing children. I'm like, oh my Lord God, you are very inventive, sir. Block. Goodbye. And so, but it's just, it's just that, it's just that stupidity. Cougar burgers are great. I'm like, are you?
Are you so much of an imbecile? Oh, I have to ask you this. You saw what happened with Greta and Mr. Tate. That...
Sarah, tell the story because it's worth telling. I know it, but for anyone that was really just visiting with their family as they should be and weren't on social media, this is what unfolded. A guy was throwing some shade on Greta Thunberg. Yeah. Andrew Tate, kickboxer, call him an influencer, whatever, was showing off his, what did he say, 33 cars? Okay, whatever it was.
I don't even know. They're luxury vehicles. And he's bragging about how many emissions they give off. So Greta writes back some tweet about, it was funny. He said, where can I email you about the emissions? He was really coming at her. So she said something about small dick energy. Yeah.
I thought that was so funny. And he ended up getting like picked up by the feds because of a pizza box. Like anyway, this is the top level story. They knew it. The pizza box was a local pizza place and he had been, they'd been trying to arrest him on, on human trafficking charges. Right. So, you know, he is now arrested because the pizza box that was in front of him as he's doing his video rant to Greta,
was a local place that the people knew and they basically did a little bit of FBI-ing, CIA-ing. And they're like, who picked up that pizza? And did you sell a pizza to this guy or to these people? And they went to where he was and they arrested him. So...
But it's amazing. In the final. It's amazing, though, just reading that thread. And there were thousands of comments. And they went from being very funny and supportive to literally threatening Greta's life. And, you know, her comment after the arrest was, this is why you should recycle your pizza boxes. Yeah.
Mic drop.
I find her to be heroic and very strong. You have to understand, folks, even people that have been in a little bit of a scrum on Twitter over something, whether it's vaccinations, something very small they've commented on and they've literally had death threats and they're not used to that because they have 35 followers. They're not used to the weight of having strangers involved.
tell you you should die and you ugly pig. It knows no bounds of how people come after you. So you look at this young lady who has grown up with the kind of vitriol that should be reserved for warmongers, for people like Putin. Her fortitude, her strength of character, her willingness to stand firm
on her beliefs. And yet there's no simple answer. There's no one way there's, she's going to be, you're damned if you do damned, if you don't, but I'll tell you what, I admire her. I admire Malala. There's so many brilliant young women that, that toe the line that just, um,
she knows what she's going to get, you know, and it's mostly supportive, but the stuff that isn't. And so, I mean, I'm very used to that. People like, how do you do it? And I'm just like, it's just sad people. I believe that something like this will happen with one of your trolls, that you're going to somehow, the FBI is going to solve a crime because of one of your trolls. Yeah. Well, you know,
If, what was it, Eleanor Roosevelt that said well-behaved women seldom make history or maybe it was somebody really fantastic. I certainly didn't say it. But when you believe in something, whether it's my horseshit campaign that, you know, is going on with a bunch of brilliant people.
the Canadian Horse Defense Coalition, the Winnipeg Humane Society, the Vancouver Humane Society, all these people that are absolutely well on board to stopping the live export of horses. Trust me, I have faced a lot of vitriol, as have so many of the people working on behalf. A lot of people that do animal welfare work face so much stuff.
Oh yeah. No rabbits. So good on toast or it just never ends. It's, it's always a stuff and it's terrible. I don't mind it as I'm getting older. I thought maybe I would cower a little bit more or stand more in the shadows. And I am staying on the sunny side of the street. I am going to walk into the sun every single time when I, when I, when the, you know, when I find a shadow, I'm going to cross the street.
And I'm going to walk in the sun and I'm going to keep pounding this messaging of things that I think are wrong. And it's, it's, it's, there's so many things that you can't defend. Cruelty is one of them. You just can't defend that. But Greta Thunberg, thanks for bringing that up, Sarah, because it was, it was a very, it was very filled with a lot of joy and it was funny because
Her sense of humor. Her sense of humor. You bet. Anyway, the best is yet to come. I really do believe that. Don't be afraid to stand in your sunshine. Don't be afraid to put your shoulders back and do not be afraid of taking crap on Twitter. That's why so many of you have handles that aren't real names. And I understand that now. We had that conversation in the last couple of years. I know Adam probably remembers that.
Because I was kind of mad with people that were like banana 45, but I understand it more now. Do you know what I mean? I mean, I have my name, you have your name, Adam has his name, Caitlin has her name. So we sort of stand out there going, yeah, this is me saying this. I'm not pineapple 54.9. But a lot of people that literally cannot take what we take on a daily basis, they're
They can make their comments, but they have to do it with anonymity. And I get that now because it's just too much for their mental health. But I'm a strong person and I'm going to keep advocating for things that I believe in. And I don't care. I should probably put that in my profile now. It's like, I'm probably going to block you, but follow me anyway. Maybe I should change it today. Yeah.
Does it excite you to block people? I don't even think about it. I don't even think about it. I literally hit block. Yeah. And sometimes I will block 25 people who have liked the comment of the person that said it. Oh, I do housecleaning. If they like a really crappy comment, I'll block 25 other people. I will take the time. And they're probably going, what is this? What did I...
You liked a comment that was filled with hatred. And they're like, you say hateful comments all the time. No, I don't say anything personal to you. I make comments about things I don't like and I don't believe in.
I mean, for the 21-year-old woman to be holding that cougar up with that fucking grin on her face. Who was it? There was no name attached to it. I mean, who knows? But to glorify that, I'm not going to shut up about it. I'm going to say you look like an asshole. And this is a really, really horrible thing to do.
Yeah. Well, it's probably Photoshopped. I don't care. If someone took the time to Photoshop a photograph like that to glorify wildlife slumped over in a young woman's arms smiling, no. I'm not going to be the silent majority that goes, well, what can I do about it? Stand up. Say something. Disagree. Everyone's so afraid. Anyway. Silence is violence. Well, it's complicit too.
You know, a lot of times people will write me and say, why aren't you doing something about da-da-da-da-da-da-da? I'm like, why aren't you doing something about that? Oh, yeah, you're helping horses. Why don't you help people? Why don't you help people? Why don't you do something? Why are you waiting for me to do something for you? Do something. And as you always say, you can care about more than one thing at a time. You sure can, Adam. You can care about more than one thing at a time.
Anyway, I think it's going to be a fascinating year. We're going to have so many cool things to talk about with the podcast, much like we're doing right now. We're going to try and make sure that we have, you know, 10 or 15 minutes of bonus material where all of us can just sort of talk about what's bugging us and, and what's not bugging us or things that excite us. Great books that we've read, great movies that we read. Don't forget to, you know, follow us on the social platforms, whether it's Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. Do we have a Facebook
page, maybe we should do that this year. We can do it. We don't have one. Yeah. Maybe we'll get a Facebook page, but we really want to interact with you guys more. We really want to know what you're thinking, what excites you, what makes you mad, what, you know, what you're doing to help yourself sleep or, you know, recipes that you discovered during, for
Vaginuary. Veganuary. Send us your vegan recipes so we can get at those next week. Just send us some pictures. Or DMs. Yeah. I'm going to send you lots of pictures of the food that I make. Yeah. Awesomeness. I'm already sick of all the pictures Adam sends me of his food, but fine. Well, I hoped you enjoyed our bonus material, everybody. Like I said, write us, let us know how you're doing.
This is the Jan Arden podcast, the bonus material. We'll see you next time. We really appreciate you guys tuning in and all your support means so much to me. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.