Looking Back at 2022 – Part One
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Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast. Sarah Burke, Adam Karsher with me today. And it's that special time of year. It is the best of. It's the best ofs. And so here we are with the next best of the First Lady of Iceland. And some of you might remember it was episode four of season two. And do you remember how long season one was?

145 episodes. Okay, well, that's what we're going for here. We might try and make season two 150 episodes. Yes. This is the best of it, of course, yes. The First Lady of Iceland, it was such an honor. She was so interesting. She does so many philanthropic things. She does so much for literature and reading and art in Iceland. She does so much to promote tourism. She does so much to promote women. She is an author. We talked about her new book.

And I can sprakar, sprakar. It took us a while to figure out how to say it. It's S-P-R-A-K-K-A-R. And it's Iceland's extraordinary women and how they are changing the world. I really loved talking to her, Sarah. I thought she was absolutely amazing.

down to earth. I kind of hate that term sometimes, but she just seemed so willing to talk about anything. So her name's Eliza Reed, by the way. And one thing that really surprised me about her was she logged on in a hotel room wearing zero makeup, just like had zero cares in the world. She was like, hey guys, good morning. Yeah. And she was on a pretty big press junket for her new book.

But, you know, she hails. She's got some Canadian heritage. And, of course, she lives with her husband and family in Iceland now. And the story of how they met is really funny. She put her name in a ballot box.

And he proceeded. I mean, this is before he was the president of Iceland. You have to understand he was on the rowing team. And she's just like, I want to meet that guy. And it was something to do with raising money for the rowing team. And so she put her name in about 49,000 times so that she could meet this man. And of course, of course he did. He went on to become president.

The president of Iceland, and that's why we started out talking about her as being the first lady of Iceland. Anyway, you just never know where life is going to take you. And this is one of those perfect stories of...

You really don't know. You can make plans all you want, but those things don't always come true. And I don't think this was the life she planned for herself. So it's a lesson to us all every single moment of our days.

All right. Well, why don't we throw it back to our conversation with the Canadian born first lady of Iceland, by the way, she was born in Ottawa. So maybe you've seen her around. Here's our conversation with Eliza Reed. The book is comprised of interviews with almost 40 different women. And, um,

And so I conducted all of these interviews with them under the pandemic restrictions and that whatever the rules were in place in Iceland at the time. And as you said, the book Secrets of the Sprachar, Sprachar is a very old and obscure Icelandic word that I wanted to introduce into the English language. It means outstanding women. And, you know, I can't think of any words in the English language that we have that describe exclusively women in exclusively positive way.

I'll pause for a minute to see if you can think of any, but I haven't come across any yet. No, I can't even... I mean, you know, the word fierce comes to mind or warrior perhaps in the English language, but I think it's...

what Icelandic women I think have been given this, this opportunity. I mean, for 12 years now, you guys have been the global leader in gender equality. I mean, you were, you were, I saw one of your Ted, the Ted talk and you were talking about United States being at 51. And I just wanted to give people that comparison between this big modern world power house and

being 51 with women's equality and, and in, in every sense of the word, whether it's having children or working or being entrepreneurial or being how they're treated in the workplace or changing jobs or,

in their midlife or working later in life, like all those things. It's pretty remarkable for 12 years that's been happening. And even actually 13 years now, because we, a new report just came out after, after the book came out and everything. So we still hold that, but we're always quick to say that. I'm really nailing this. I'm, I'm 2020, the book, 20, 12 years. No, it's 13.

It's very new. It's very newly 13. And, you know, we're always quick to point out that being number one doesn't mean that we've achieved it yet. We always like to point out that we still have gender-based violence. We still don't have equality in the boardroom.

we need to make sure that we are very inclusive in our definitions of working towards equality. But you're right that, you know, as a society in Iceland, we've really passed the tipping point of debating whether or not working towards greater equality is an important objective, but talking about how we're going to get there.

because I think we realize that the more equal society we create for everybody, the more it benefits everybody else. It's not a zero-sum game of lifting up one group at the expense of another. And that is really what I wanted to explore in the book and also really to paint a portrait of maybe a lesser-known country, my adopted homeland,

through this lens of gender equality by just telling the stories of regular everyday women who hopefully we can all be inspired from. Do you feel Icelandic? Do you feel like an Icelandic person? Do you feel like a dual citizen? I think it would, I'm trying to imagine, you know, moving my life and being in a country where it's very different culturally, where you're dealing with an extremely interesting language that I'm sure was fiercely complicated to learn. Just,

Just seeing words written out, I'm like, well, how do you get anywhere? How do you tell the tab driver where you're going? You make a lot of embarrassing mistakes is, I think, the key thing. But yeah, I feel both. I feel Canadian. I feel Icelandic. I'm proud to be

an Icelander. I'm proud to be an immigrant, have that experience. I'm proud to be Canadian. And I guess the main thing is that so far I've been fortunate that our national sporting teams haven't had to compete directly against each other in major sports. That I think is the major concern.

Well, I wonder how we can organize that. Is there something we can do? I'm going to tell you, October 11th, Iceland's women's national soccer team has a big game against either Belgium or Portugal. If we win, we qualify for the Women's Soccer World Cup for the first time next year, and I'm pretty sure Canada is going to be there. And I'm

I might get a little nervous about that, but I hope, I hope that it comes to pass that, that, uh, that Iceland and Canada both qualify for that tournament. It's going to be a difficult choice of who to cheer for, but I know that you can do it. Um, just before we go to break you, you met your husband in a very interesting way. And I think it's the cutest story. And it really made me laugh because who would have thought all these years later, uh, a fundraiser for a rowing team would have changed your life so much.

I know. I think the message there is give fate a little bit of a push. In a big nutshell, there was a fundraiser. Men were drawing names out of a hat to take on a date, and I stuffed that ballot box with my name. So he'd have to choose me. I didn't know he'd become president, but that's the unpredictability of life, isn't it? I just love that. So listen, when you have a chance to stuff your name into a little cup and get a date with somebody, don't hesitate. Carpe diem. Carpe diem.

Talk about meeting someone in an unconventional way. Why can't I meet somebody this way? I got to start putting my name in more ballot boxes. Where is the weirdest person, weirdest place, sorry, that you've picked up? Like met somebody that I had, I have, okay, met somebody that I've been in a relationship with.

Well, for me, it's like anybody else in their jobs. I meet a lot of musicians, like, in my work. Mm-hmm. I met people, of course, in college, you know, that went on dates with and ended up going out with. But I met this one fellow. His name was Michael McFarland. Are you out there, Michael McFarland? And we met at a restaurant called Romeo and Juliet. So I think that's kind of fitting. Yeah.

And how long did that one last? Probably went out off and on for, I'm going to say it's got to be a year and a half or two years. Okay. It was a very casual friends with benefits kind of a relationship. And I was quite young. And he lived in the basement at his sister's house. Oh, okay. I can see why this didn't work out. I'm going red just thinking about it. I'd be saying hi to his sister. Hi. Oh, Lord.

I've told you my Romeo and Juliet, very romantic dating story.

Okay, you go. What's come on, Sarah, cough it up. Okay. So early pandemic days, I'm single. I've just moved into my new condo. I needed to get blinds installed. Well, the blinds guy was pretty cute. And it was during that time where you like, you couldn't just go out and meet people at the bar because no one was going out or anything. So I fully asked him if he wanted to stay for pizza and beer. And that was like a month or two of fun. Well,

You never know. And we all thought we were going to die. Right? You got to go with the blinds guy if it felt good in that moment. Just for people listening, it's not a blind guy, like a person that can't see. This is the blinds. This is the person installing blinds because I know we're going to get people...

Saying something like, okay, well, but it's the blinds guy, not the blind guy, which wouldn't matter either. But I just want to make that perfectly clear. Well, anyways, we are going to be right back with a dear friend of mine, the Earthling, as she's known on Twitter, Zaya Tong.

We're going to look back at her assessment of climate change, and she's got some pretty interesting things to say about Elon Musk's new version of Twitter. So don't go far. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast special all-star edition. Well, hello, everybody. It's that time of year again. It's time for some really special, wonderful podcasts, kind of the best of podcasts.

And the first person up on our best of, of this segment, you don't want to miss this. We're going to look back. We're going to laugh. We might cry. I know I've cried. Sarah, have you cried? Yes, you have. Yeah, I teared up a few times this year so far. But, you know, it is a chance to remember some great moments from 2022. I don't know about you, Sarah, but I get very, what's the word, sanguine? Yeah.

I get really reflective. This is the time of year when I think about people who aren't here, things that I've done, things that I want to do. I don't know. Do you get like that? Oh, yeah, totally. And it kind of blows my mind that this time last year, I didn't know you guys at all.

Did we scare you? Did me and Adam scare you? Like, did we ask you too many questions about your lunch and your childhood? I don't think my mom was expecting to hear that conversation about the you may also like in the Indigo online shopping cart. But, you know, it's been fine. It takes a lot to scare me. Yeah.

Well, I know that you can't believe some of the things we've talked about. Can I tell you one of my favorites from this season so far? When we had Juno Rinaldi and Jenny Young on, so they were talking about their new mock late night talk show. It's called My Special Guest. You guys really like painted the perfect picture for me to learn about menopause. You're welcome. Do you remember the leather pants? Yes, it's burned into my memory. Yeah.

Yeah, like I don't think I'll ever get that image out of my mind. And we're going to send you to, you know, that episode to hear the rest of that. But we're going to go through some of our favorite moments today for sure. Well, I'm glad you learned a lot about menopause. And, you know, you listeners, you can learn too, by the way. Over the holidays, feel free to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of the older episodes.

And you know how to do that. It's a click of a button. You know I learned a lot about your Indigo online shopping cart. I did. And I'm still pissing myself about getting gardening tool ads, by the way. Give me the good stuff. And kids, if you need a stocking stuffer, according to Sarah, Indigo has them. They vibrate. That's another great episode to revisit. This is where we get all red. Adam is definitely red right now.

Listen, just very quickly, I know this is not about us right now. We've got so much great stuff to get to. But a friend of mine gave me a vibrator probably 15 years ago. I had recently broken up. And as you do, your girlfriends get together. They rally around you. They give you stuff. So I had this thing. And it was pretty benign. You know, it's in its box with its stuff. And then a few years went by and I'm moving.

And my mom and dad are helping me move. Oh, no. And I was so panic stricken. You know, of all the things in life, I'm like, oh, my God, where is that thing? My mom's emptying drawers. Well, where do you want the stuff from this drawer to go? I don't. Anyway, we'll talk about that another time. We're just going to leave people hanging through an Instagram miracle.

We landed on a beautiful conversation with Canada's Olympic sweetheart, Tessa Virtue. You know, growing up, doing any sport competitively has its challenges. It certainly did for me, socially, physically, and emotionally. And I feel like we touched on all of that with Tessa in this conversation. Hey, Sarah?

Well, yeah. And I mean, I did competitive dance growing up, but like, you know, the Olympic stage is a totally different stage, totally different level.

Well, and of course, we were very privy to, you know, engagement rumors. And I know that's so hard to ask people about their relationships. And I don't, I'm not even comfortable doing it on the show. But we really did it in loads of good fun. And Tessa absolutely opened the door to, you know, conversations that she'd had with her very famous hockey player, Tessa.

And just how difficult it is to navigate that stuff. So you guys will kind of want to get the scoop on that too. But it turned into a great conversation about her transition off the ice, after ice dancing, and going into all the business ventures that she's doing now in her, I guess you'd call it second career or fifth, tenth career. It's a wonderful conversation. And I hope that you enjoy it. We hope that you enjoy it. That transition was incredible.

An interesting one. In some ways, in most ways, it was really refreshing because it was so liberating to go from this singular focus into being able to say yes to multiple different projects and passions and whether that was school or work or diving into the corporate realm, all of it just felt like I was ready for that shift. And now, especially that I'm four and a half years out, I feel like things are changing.

sort of seamlessly integrating. Everything is starting to make sense. I'm starting to feel like I've really found my rhythm and that's also just lovely. But I mean, you, Jan, you would have experienced something similar, whether that's writing, music, writing and acting with the show and now the podcast. I mean, you're so multifaceted that you're probably in a constant state of transition. Is that fair? Yeah.

You know, I don't know. I just, I'm thinking about, I mean, I've never been athletic in my life. I think I played basketball in high school and a little bit of badminton, but I think the rigors of the physical part of a person's human life and then going, and maybe you've always been a business person and you have to have, I think people make assumptions about athletes and that is, that's their one trick pony and that's what they do. But we've seen now really over the last 15 years that, um,

You guys are moguls. You have multi, multi-million dollar companies. They're doing advertising. Advertisers seem to like the branding. They like your determination, your steadfastness, how people perceive you. You can do no wrong. I think you've somehow managed to navigate a really challenging world because there's no crap talk about you, Tessa. Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of crap talk.

But I mean, just the day-to-day of celebrity life of people that are making missteps constantly. And I don't know, and I'm sure you've got, you know, a few skeletons in the closet, but you are filled with joy. You are outwardly very positive. And I can see exactly why Nivea, for example, just these companies wanted, they want to show their best performance.

and put their best foot forward. Has it been surprising to you how many offers that you've had to field? You must have a team of people around you helping you. Is that a positive thing in your life to have a great team of people directing you?

I mean, I'm a one woman show at the moment. You are. I don't have any help at this moment. I've just separated from my management team and mostly along the way, I felt like it was important to me to, I mean, maybe this is because I'm a bit of a control freak and I'm used to being my own boss and I'm used to doing things in my own way that I've found it to be much more fulfilling when I'm directly in touch with these brands and every partnership I've built has been sort of

Um,

a genuine collaboration where it's not just sort of shilling a product, but it's actually understanding, okay, so who's our target audience and what's our strategy and how are we implementing this? And, you know, is this landing and how can we pivot and change things? And, you know, that business side of wanting to be savvy and wanting to learn and wanting to understand the different facets of that corporate landscape, that came pretty naturally. And I've tried to back it up with some academic pursuits as well, but yeah,

I think part of that's being Canadian. I don't know if you'd agree with that, but I mean, like we're so lucky to be here and everyone's kind and lovely and so supportive and especially of our athletes. And part of that is just trusting that if I can be my true self and if I have a set of values that, you know, really, you know,

I hold tightly, then decisions are made pretty easily. And I'm able to align myself with people who feel and work and act similarly. Did you ever find yourself in a position where like it didn't feel aligned, a partnership? Yes. I remember doing one interview and it was, I don't do many one-off things, but I think it was a one-off thing. And I was sitting there and they were trying to get me to say something like,

Like I was really stoked to do something. And I said, like, I hear you. I'm just not a casual person. I'm not, I'm very formal in the way that I speak, even just with my friends. And so I was like, it just doesn't, just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. And they were really pushing for things like that or for me to present in a different way. And I remember thinking, okay, yeah, this is a lesson learned. We're going to be right back. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. Don't go away.

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A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now. All right, you guys, let's revisit an episode we recorded with my friend, an award-winning host and author, Zaya Tongue.

She really is one of my very favorite guests on this show. She's been on many times and she talks about so many things. She's had an amazing career. She's an author. She's a television star, basically. She's done so much television. She doesn't call herself a scientist. Whenever I say that about her, I'm like, you're a scientist. She goes, Jan, I am not a scientist, but thank you very much for telling me that. She is an advocate for animals all over this planet. She is an advocate for

for the care and preservation of this planet. She is a filmmaker. She's going to talk about that. You can certainly go back and listen to the entire episode if you go on to the iHeart archives, right, Sarah? They can go and listen to all this stuff. That would be episode 12 if you need it. Thank you. Episode 12, season two. She does have such a passion for science, nature, and technology, and it's incomparable. It's so interesting to hear her take on what's been happening with Elon Musk and Twitter.

it's, it's hard to, how are you feeling about Twitter these days? I have a loss of words at this moment. I forget. Like, I know that you do Twitter because fricking, I tag you and Adam all the time on things, but are, are you, do you enjoy it still? Do you, do you think it's any different from when Elon took over? I noticed a huge difference, but I'm wondering if you do.

Yeah, I do. And actually, this week, I noticed that he relaunched Twitter Blue, which Zaya is going to talk about. And I don't even think we have enough data to show us if it's better yet. You don't want to go too far from where you're heading right now. If you're walking or sitting in your car, keep sitting in your car. Zaya Tong is coming up next. She's absolutely wonderful and beautiful and one of our favorites. Zaya Tong, here she comes. Jan Arden Podcast. What?

What an implosion, right? I mean, you and I have been Twitter friends as well as friends outside of Twitter as well for some time. And it's an incredible forum. And you think about it, it is probably the closest thing we have to a real-time global hive mind on this planet. And yet here we have this kind of villain, this guy who is the richest man on earth who is now destroying it, right? But at the same time,

Twitter at its worst is also Twitter at its best because the creative resistance that we have seen coming out of Twitter in the last few weeks has been one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. You know, as a medium, it's a medium that speaks truth to power as it is, right? So here you have all these corporations, you have the richest men in the world, and I'm sure so many of you have seen, you know, when all of a sudden all those, that Twitter blue, right?

he opened it up so that anybody could buy this sort of verified check mark. And you had people impersonating all these corporations. Yeah.

Oh, man. Fake Coca-Cola, but was tweeting about, you know, being the biggest plastics polluter on Earth. Lockheed Martin was tweeting about human rights violations. You had Chiquita Banana talking about invading other countries. You had Eli Lilly, you know, again, speaking truth about how they completely jack up the insulin prices and how that actually impacted their real stock market prices. So, you know, that...

that moment of destruction was also a moment of pure creation and that's Twitter at its best. So I I've loved it, but I'm also deeply sad because, you know, I've started a migration. This is a very big virtual bird migration and I've started moving over to Mastodon myself as well. And,

I think it's about time to be honest, right? Like, I mean, we've seen a progression along with our, you know, social media kind of moves. There's full movements, whether it was MySpace at the beginning or Friendster and then Facebook. And then you've got, you know, Instagram, you've got TikTok, you've got Twitter. So I'd be quite happy if there was something completely new for us to all migrate to. It gives us a different chance and a different medium and a different way of communicating.

Well, just as sort of another example to your point is when Rogers went down this past six months. Right. I think people realized when you have one or two providers, which basically Twitter is the provider of that kind of dialogue, the whole country fell apart. Banks couldn't operate. Things couldn't move forward. So I think to split the wealth up basically of

You know, they're not even sure how many users there are on Twitter. You know, you hit upon a really important point, which is, you know, media power and media ownership. And I think that's the key thing. I think the debate is the wrong debate when people talk about media censorship, because what they forget about, right, is it isn't, you know, I've met tons of journalists. I've worked with journalists all my life. I've sat in newsrooms. Journalists aren't out there to lie. But why are people so pissed off at the mainstream media? There's a reason.

And part of that, I think, is the fact that you've got a media that is owned by the richest people on earth. So you've got Elon Musk now, you've got, you know, you've got Jeff Bezos, you've got Mark Zuckerberg, you've got oligarchs in the UK owning the newspapers, you've got Richard Murdoch. And the problem is this, and I'll give you an example of the TV show, The View, which I have no problem with. My mom loves The View. But here's the thing, if you're watching a show like The View, it's not just about

It's framed as if they're having a debate, but they're not. They're actually having a really wee small discussion and they have the same discussion over and over and over again. And that's because if you think about it, even when they were looking for a new host, they had to have what?

conservative host and they had to have a bunch of liberal hosts. And so they're just having the same argument. They're not stretching the Overton window, right? The Overton window is being able to stretch the argument out. So you never see, let's say, a radical left-wing tree-hugging host on there who's talking about, you know, the collapse of the planet and the, you know, the extinction of species. They're never

never having that discussion. And that's a big problem for where we are in society and in history at that moment is the most crucial discussions that need to be taking place are completely eclipsed.

And that to me, it's not censorship. It's not somebody, you know, zipping somebody up. But if you frame the discussion the wrong way and you're only allowed to have, you know, really kind of milk toast chats, nothing too radical. Well, that's a big form of silence to me. Sarah, you asked Zaya something that got us onto a completely different topic.

Well, I was thinking about how long she's been doing, you know, the environmental science on TV thing. And I wanted to know what she noticed was like the most drastic of changes since she first started paying attention to all this stuff. We've lost two thirds, two thirds.

thirds of the species on the planet that we've been monitoring over this time, terrestrial species. And that's only in the last 40 years. So in our lifetime, thinking that we've lost two thirds of those populations is staggering to me. Because I remember...

Yeah.

At that point, it was something like 10 or 20%. It was nothing like, you know, the levels that we're seeing around the world today. So the biodiversity loss, to be honest, you know, that's the word, biodiversity. It represents all our different living species. But the other thing, of course, is the staggering, staggering changes that we've seen in terms of the climate crisis. I don't think anybody could have predicted, you know, the models have predicted things being bad, but then we're always like, oh my God, it's so much worse than we thought it was.

And this summer, I did a talk on climate and bankruptcy for some of Canada's top judges and lawyers. And it was shocking because A, I had to sit back from doing the talk myself as I was putting it together. The information was so horrifying that I would have to put it away sometimes. And the beginning was just all the rivers drying up. I did about the first seven minutes of my talk. I

thought in the beginning it would be like one river and then it was this then it was the Po River then it was the Yangtze River then it was and it just went on and on and on and I can't believe what I'm witnessing to be honest in this time in history yeah the the Mississippi River is in dire straits yeah you know this the mighty Mississippi that has been talked about in folklore and music and and it's been so much part I mean it was a huge part of what Mark Twain wrote about you know but

It is a real problem that people are still somehow able to compartmentalize that, oh, you know, I pay more taxes than other people. I can just pay more and get that water turned on because I don't care. There's still that whole idea that there's apathy is killing us, I think. Apathy.

of just not caring enough that, or it's not my problem or what am I supposed to do? I think all of those things. And I think that's why a lot of people now are really calling for system change. And really why, when I wrote the reality bubble, I mean, it's about all these invisible things that you can't see and how they all fold into the system. A lot like the matrix, right? Like in the matrix, there were all these sort of invisible sort of rules that we had to live by. And once you can start to see, I think the first step is to see what's going on.

But we really need to organize on a much bigger, much more revolutionary level if we want change, right? Because these systems, they're not going to change on their own. They're not going to, you know, everybody we've seen, for example, the food system, Jan and I, you and I talk about it quite a bit, right?

It's 50-50. So people making differences in their lifestyle choices can really shift things. We've talked about cellular agriculture. For the first time, actually, at COP, cellular cultivated meat was actually showcased there. It was not on the table just figuratively. It was on the table literally. And this is grown without animals, right? So we can really...

We can change the system. So what we can do is just be motivated, be involved, push where we can push. Jen, you're brilliant at doing that. You're always doing it. You're such a true crusader and champion with all the work that you've done with horses, especially. And I think you and I talked about that before, you know, I think to not get overwhelmed, pick

pick one thing, you know, or if you have time and the energy pick two things. Yeah. But I think people get overwhelmed when they, when they, when they're like, Oh my God, there's so many problems. I can't do anything. I'm just going to turn on Netflix. Well, and that probably led you to your plastics documentary that you're working on. Tell us about what, what it's going to be about and what you are hoping to accomplish with it. It's a documentary. I think it's the world's first feature film on microplastics. Um,

You're probably aware that plastics don't degrade. All the plastics that have ever existed still exist today. They just get broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. Plastics have been found in mother's milk. It's been found in placentas. It's been found in lungs. It's been found in livers, and it's been found in the gut. So I'm going to be traveling around the world to some of the most polluted places and also just everyday places like my own home.

And we're going to be looking at the plastics in my body, being able to measure them. We're working with the world's top scientists in microplastics. So I'm so fortunate that the production team is so, you know, got ahead of the game with all of that. And yeah, we'll hopefully have it out. I don't want to say it's going to be a year.

to jinx myself, but we're hoping for next year. We'll keep you posted on her documentary, The New Year. So please follow at Zyatong, Z-I-Y-A-T-O-N-G on Twitter, if she's even still there. You can find her on Mastodon because we're all, you know, trying all these different social media places. She shares beautiful pictures that really paint a picture about biodiversity on earth and

She always says Earthling, and she shows you the zaniest, most outlandish, beautiful, unique photographs of other living beings that share this planet with us. And it's always so inspiring. On a completely different note, we're back in a moment with what you may call my best or worst Thanksgiving story. You're listening to the Jen Arden Podcast. It's our best of Conversations of 2022.

We're looking back on some of our favorite moments and conversations. And well, Adam and Sarah voted this one in because they get some picks too. Yup. Yup. We do. Do you remember Adam, when Jan asked us if it was common in like Toronto in our childhoods to hitchhike? I do. And we're both like, no, that's not a thing here.

We looked at her like she had like two heads and we joked about being city folk. But you're young. I think we're just city folk. Maybe. My mom would have killed me. Okay. But the story was, Jen, that like living in – where did you grow up again in Alberta? Remind me. Well, it's called Springbank, Alberta. But now, you know, everything changes its handle. Kentucky Fried Chicken is KFC and blah, blah, blah. It's now called Rocky View County. Okay.

Okay. And hitchhiking was a big thing for you growing up. It was a way to get around. I'm telling you, my mom and dad worked. I wasn't driving yet. My friend, Teresa, and I were just talking about this a few weeks ago because we brought it up on the podcast. And we were 13 or 14, but everyone that picked us up knew who we were. Should you guys be doing this? Okay. So there was an element. Yeah. But...

This story that I'm about to launch into here, which I remember vividly, because it's such a great memory of being with my mom and how kind of chill my mom was. It's a day that I will never forget. It could have gone very wrong. So I am not advocating picking up hitchhikers. So may I just say that right off the horn here?

Don't pick up hitchhikers. I would never, ever, under any circumstance, pick up a hitchhiker again. I think if I was with five people in my car and someone came out staggering out of the ditch looking for help, I think then I would at least roll the window down and go, what's going on? I'm not going to drive past you if you're maimed crawling out of the ditch. But I'm still scared. Now I can't believe how cavalier I was.

But my mom was there, so she could kick ass, right? Well, let me get us into this flashback, okay? Okay. So this is episode five when I'm just getting to know Jan. And she tells us about her mom letting a stranger with knives into the car. Roll the clip. My mom and I, not so many years ago, probably 15 years ago, before my mom was really in Alzheimer's land. I think she was just beginning Alzheimer's.

We were coming back from visiting my brother in jail, as you do. And there was a girl on the side of the road standing there with her thumb out. I went by her and my mom said, you can't leave her there, Jan. That poor girl. So I stopped and I pulled back because I thought, I don't want to pick somebody up with my mom in the car, but she is the one that recommended it. So we pulled back and it was this 20-some-year-old girl, late 20s. Her car was in the ditch.

She said my transmission blew up or whatever. And she goes, thank you, thank you for stopping. I'm trying to get to my sister's. It was for Thanksgiving. And she said, can I just grab my stuff? And I'm like, okay. And so she came. It was sitting in the dish and it was a big canvas bag.

And it was filled with a large rolled up thing of knives. Oh, God. She goes, before you let me in, I just want you to know that I'm a butcher by trade. And I have all my knives with me. And I need them because I'm going to my sister's. And my mom says, that's fine. I'm like thinking this could be possibly the worst decision I've ever made in my life.

And I'm thinking, could my mother and I overtake this girl? If need be, would we be able to? And her bag of knives. So I just thought it was funny, but she was very forthright. I do have a bag of knives rolled up in here because you could hear them clanking. Very large vat of soup in a Tupperware container, huge Tupperware container. I thought, well, I don't, I've never heard of a murderer that carries Tupperware containers filled with soup in

So I felt pretty okay there. Anyway, we got her in the car. I was not going to Banff. I was going south the opposite direction. Banff was west. I was, however, going to be crossing over the Trans-Canada Highway and right at the junction of the 22 and the 1A, there was a giant petrol can. And I thought, she can get a ride from there. At least she'll be going in the right direction.

And, you know, we were chatting a little bit and we were only a half an hour away from that point. So she was telling me about her sister and Banff and what she did. She had no idea who I was. That was my next question was like, does she know she's riding with the Jan Arden? She had no idea. And I had, you know, a ball cap on and mom and I probably look more like murderers than she did. Like.

We were the ones that should have been a concern. So I told her, I said, listen, I'm going to get you to the Petrocan and it's a trucker thing and really Banff is 55 minutes away from there. You should be fine. And my mom looked over at me.

And her little bony hand came over and tapped me. And she's just like, just drive her. And I'm just like, the woman is 18 inches from my head. She's going to hear you talk. Not like the movies where we're suddenly having a sidebar conversation where someone's sitting in the back seat, right? Right. They're not privy to your conversation. She can hear you going, can you just take her? So I got up there. I pulled over. She's thanking me.

you know, oh, thanks a lot. She's like gathering her stuff and she's got her giant Tupperware wrapped in her arms like a child. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to take you. I'll just take you. My mother, mom says out loud, well, thank God. I'm like, Jesus, can someone be on my team here? So anyway, we took the young woman out to Banff and, uh,

There was no sat-nav in those days. Like, I don't recall there being any kind of, you know, that kind of an app on the phone. I don't even... I think I had a BlackBerry in those days. I don't even think I had an iPhone. iPhone wasn't even... Was it worn yet? What year was this? I'm going to say 2002. No iPhone yet. No BlackBerry. Yeah. So...

She got us there. We were, I don't know, some miracle. We found her, her sister. They were all waiting for her and they were so relieved to see her with all her stuff. And her sister knew who I was. There we go. When I dropped her off, you know, I'm kind of getting out and mom was like, I wouldn't mind an ice cream. We're here anyway.

So we kind of made a whole thing of it. But the juxtaposition of coming from the prison, visiting my brother to picking up a woman with a satchel full of knives and driving to Banff. And then her sister was just the look on her face when I stepped out of the car. I'm like, hi, I'm glad we could get her here. And

Hope the soup's good. Well, why don't you guys stay for dinner? And my mom's like, she was like there for it. Staying for dinner. We are going to go. So I guess the lesson on all of this is, you know, sometimes it's okay to trust people.

I think we're the ones that needed to be trusted. You know, she was in peril. Her car was left in the ditch. I would have loved to have known the end of the story. Like if she got her car back, what happened? You know, if they still talk about that. Do you remember when Jan and her mom picked you up hitchhiking outside of Olds?

But it's a fond memory for sure. When I think about my mom and how intrepid she was, you'd think it would be the opposite. You'd think it would be, you know,

Not my mom cajoling me to pick somebody up or drive them. The other way around. But it's such a cool story about who my mom was and how she was and why I'm the way I am. Jen, one of my favorite parts about working with you on this podcast is the memories that you bring up of your mom. So thank you for sharing that one. I do want to talk to you about some of your holiday traditions with your mom on the next episode because it's going to be Christmas Eve.

Well, we can certainly, I'm all game for doing that. And hey, next episode, it is going to be Christmas Eve. It is going to be Christmas Eve. Are you kidding me right now? Yeah. So there's a few things we should mention.

There's a couple of things. I mean, if you've missed Jan Alone for the Holidays, there's a encore airing Saturday, December the 24th, Christmas Eve. So if you missed it on the 10th, it's going to be on Christmas Eve, 9 p.m. Eastern. So if you're sitting there, you want a reason to get away from your relatives and go and have a Bailey's and a coffee in the other room and eat more stuff. 9 p.m. Eastern Pacific Time on CTV.

Or you can also watch it at ctv.ca, a lot of people like that. We've put together a Christmas-themed episode where you're going to hear from the long-lost Caitlin Green. We're going to hear her as well. New holiday traditions, we're going to be talking about her new little guy. He's given her a real...

Run for her. I mean, it's been challenging. I haven't talked to Caitlin a lot because she has, this guy's been keeping her busy, which is absolutely fantastic. So we're going to talk to her and we're going to revisit some holiday cheer with Brian Adams and George Strombolopoulos, who said I was saying his name perfectly. And we're going to talk about their amazing moms. Oddly, both those guys shared wonderful stories about their moms.

And, well, thanks for listening. Honestly, we appreciate it. Week after week after week, hit that subscribe button. You can find us on iHeartRadio. You can find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. You're going to find us. And we're going to talk to you next week. We've got so much more to come. So much Christmas stuff to talk about. See you next week. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.