Agree to Disagree
43:28 Share

Hello, welcome. It is now summer. We're into summer. We're into the first week of summer. Hooray, hooray. I am in Chilliwack, British Columbia, by the way, you're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm with Caitlin Green, my faithful right and left hand, left leg and right leg.

And of course, our engineer is in Toronto, respectively. They're both there. And you guys are in for a hot day today, they tell me. It's a melter and it has been for days. It was like 42 degrees was the feels like this week for a few days. Really humid. And the humidity is that oppressive kind of urban humidity at times, which I don't love.

And I didn't realize, I read this on some sort of like doomsday site recently, but the humidity is what gets you when it comes to your health and well-being because the humidity prevents your sweat from evaporating off of your skin, unlike a dry heat. And I guess it contributes to your body's difficulty self-cooling. Well, thank God for Calgary. Thank God for the arid, you know, vast desert-like quality of the prairies because it ain't humid there.

Yeah. That's why you always hope when we talk about the heat, then you'll always see like someone inevitably is like, yeah, but it's a dry heat. Like as if it's good. Oh, but it's a dry heat. It's 50 degrees. Oh, it was a dry heat though. Okay. But don't you think it's kind of ludicrous that we swing from complaining about cold weather to complaining about hot weather? Is there nothing in between? Can people not just rejoice in the fricking six weeks of summer that we have? Because, you know, really, if you actually do the math of what

the length of summer looks like. And you guys know this. So June, we haven't had any good weather in Alberta until like right about now.

So we're almost at the end of June, July, August. Guess what happens in September? We start getting inclement weather. It starts getting easy breezy. The leaves suddenly start changing the end of September. And that's it. We're in this new cycle again. And people are talking about Christmas. I kid you not. September in Ontario now in Southern Ontario is like H-O-T hot. So really it's expanded to we'll have hot days in May, but then overall it's not reliable. Then it's like June to September.

And I remember when Joe Biden won the U.S. election, so November, right?

It was a hot enough day that you were walking around in Toronto with a t-shirt on and people were like asking for umbrellas on patios because people were out celebrating. They were out drinking, cars are honking like it was wild. This is November. So I'm like, I don't know. I don't even know what the seasons mean anymore. But I agree that winter is too long everywhere in Canada and we should all shut up and enjoy the sun for a bit. Well, perhaps the season thing in and of itself, certainly since we were kids and certainly since I was a kid, I'm older than you guys. But

But I remember growing up, there was definitely four very distinct seasons. Now it's kind of going into Sprummer and Sprinter. You know, there's definitely a Sprinter going on where spring seems to be happening, but then you'll get a snowstorm and then the next day it'll be sunny. Anyway, having said that, I'm in Chilliwack and it's supposed to be 34 today here.

It absolutely is beautiful in this valley, Chilliwack. I'm looking out my hotel window at these beams of sun hitting the sides of these little mini mountains and I just went and took the dog for a really long walk and it's beautiful.

It is just, it's so nice here with warm weather in this country. It's such a beautiful country. I'm so grateful to be able to, like I started in Moncton a couple of months ago in Prince Edward Island. We didn't get to Newfoundland, but what an honor it is to go across this country, planes, trains, and automobiles, and just see where we're at. And a lot of people don't even ever travel outside of their province. It's true.

Yeah. You're a West Coast gal, but I don't make it out West very often. And when I see all your stuff that you're posting, I'm like, I really should go. Well, I mean, listen, I love Ontario. You know, I've had corporate jobs up in Muskoka, like in the middle of the most beautiful, like that second week of August where it's, you know, hot and, you know, but it's just gorgeous. And I have looked around

at what is literally three hours outside of Toronto, like this busy, huge city. And all of a sudden your car enters into this forest of trees and rolling hills. And it's awe-inspiring. And I can certainly see why so many families, the goal is, honey, let's get a half acre on a lake somewhere and let's either sit at, plunk a trailer out there. I know Cynthia Loist from The Social, our friend, Cynthia, who's done the show before, and

her and her husband, Jason, and their little boy, Jaya, they just got a little piece of property in a town called tiny. I hope you don't mind me talking about this, Cynthia. I love tiny. Yeah. They're in tiny.

So that's where we've rented a cottage there. It's a beachfront cottage on tiny beaches road, which is a very long road and tiny townships. It's the cutest sounding name in the world. And it is such a wonderful part of the province. It's just like Georgian Bay is amazing. The beaches are amazing. There's a really great little beach there called bomb beach. And they have amazing, like you just go there and have drinks and food and it's so great. I love that. Oh, good for her.

Well, I think, you know, COVID prompted them going from someday, someday, as we've talked about many times, to someday is right now. It's right now. And so I'm glad for them. I really can't wait to see how it unfolds. She keeps sending me, you know, pictures of...

You know, they're starting to do some architectural little drawings on what they might like. And it goes from really, really big to really, really small. Like they're in that state right now. Like, do we want to really vacuum this much space or do we want one of these tiny homes? Which is something I did want to talk about today because...

I am absolutely obsessed with Instagram or TikTok stories or Facebook stories about tiny homes. So if you guys hit that hashtag,

You'll come up with, you know, hundreds of Instagram pages that are exactly that. They are between 250 square feet. Some of them get up to like 700 square feet, but that would be on the bigger side of a tiny home. And they are so fantastic.

Freaking amazing. So if I was in tiny, I'd be building myself a tiny home and making the outdoor space your 7,500 square foot dream home, which is just trees and an outdoor kitchen and all that stuff. A tiny home in tiny. Yeah. I don't love them. Okay. So, but do they, I mean, I know you've- Because I live in a condo. You've grazed by them. But what if you and Kyle had-

you know, a, you know, a nice big deck and, and, you know, I think some of them can be two bedrooms. Like there's a couch that pulls up, but basically it's for singletons or people that are together or retired people. That's what I would think.

And I just, I love to entertain. And when we go to cottages, we always go in groups. And so that's kind of part of what I love about getting out of the city is being able to invite people to join you and waking up in the morning and there's like 10 people and you're all having breakfast together. And, you know, you watch movies together at the end of the night and you hang it on the dock. And like, this really is how I remember being at cottages because my parents never had a cottage. So I always was the mooch. Like I would do the mooch tour to friends cottages.

So now it's like synonymous for me with the same group of friends I've had since high school. I love that. I couldn't do it. Like I'd have to buy something. I would buy a cottage together with some close friends of ours. Like we've talked about that a lot because it's a ton of work. And so it's nice to split the labor and the cost. It's expensive. You know, you've got taxes. You've got to run heat.

you know, 12 months out of the year, you've got to pay your utilities. And we all know where that has been going the last year. Adam, would you do a tiny home? I don't know if I'd do a tiny home, but what shows up on my Instagram feed, I don't know if you guys see this, it's RV living. Have you seen like these big, massive honking RVs? I'm there. I'm all over the RV living. I have dreams of it. I have a feeling I'd get a weekend and go, I need to go home.

Yeah. But it's also a no for me. Okay. It's a no for you as well. But even the glamping. So you, you need the fact, no, I get that. I get that, Adam. I do like the RV stuff a lot. I wouldn't ever want to pull a fifth wheeler. Just the idea. Chris and I were talking about that when we were driving my road manager and we're like, how in the F?

Would an inexperienced driver back that out of anything if they had to? You know what it's like when it twists. You have to really. I mean, truckers take classes for like two months to learn how to do a tractor trailer. But yet they'll rent a fifth wheel to any knucklehead on the planet.

And out you go to try and I've seen people, and this is a few years ago and I, God strike me dead. There was a guy trying to take a fifth wheel through a drive-thru. I think it was like a Carl juniors or something. We were in the States. Oh my God. So he had the trailer wedged between the speaker. Hello, can I help you? Can I take your order? And the post on the other side and people were furious. Thank God we were in a place.

don't judge me going through a Carl's Jr. I wanted French fries or tater tots or something, but I, we were able to inch our way to back out and get out of the line. But some people were just like, no, but he went in there. Good. But it's someone, it was a rental thing. It said rent us USA or whatever.

Well, my brother-in-law just bought, so they're moving from Bermuda to Prince Edward Island. And they haven't been able to buy things in Bermuda because A, everything there is insanely overpriced and has to be shipped in. So everything is kind of recycled. It's a very effective little recycling community in terms of just furniture, cars, whatever. Everyone buys used.

But as a result of coming back to Canada, they're on a spending spree. So they are buying everything under the sun that they have not been able to purchase for the last 15 years almost. And one of those things is a giant RV because they have three kids. And they're living in PEI. They're building their dream house. And they've bought this. It's giant. It's enormous. And they're going to go across Canada with it. That's their initial plan. If they would like me to come with them, please have him call me.

I would help out with the children as long as they're not, you know, very tiny children. They're not. They're little adults. You know, we all want what we don't have, I guess. But like you said, you're in a good-sized condo and it's just not something you aspire to. And I love the idea of a group of friends. I think...

you know, you've created this, this life for yourself. And like you said, only child too, and not your parents didn't have a cabin. So I'm glad that you've been able to kind of create that story for yourself. My mom and dad took us to Woods Lake every summer, every summer. And I'm glad we made it there because my dad had a bottle of beer between his knees and he was hot boxing us with a cigarette in the car and we were winding through the mountains and my mom just grit her teeth. And

And, you know, are we there yet? Are we there yet? And I just remember it being the most fun that I've ever had in my life. My dad actually succumbed and bought us a cheap

$10 dinghy from Woolworths or something in BC and he blew it up himself. He was probably so freaking hammered and he was smoking cigarettes and drinking rum and coke. That thing was filled with smoke, I'm sure. Anyway, listen to the Jan Arden podcast. It really is summertime. We're going to be talking about a crazy planet in our solar system when we come back. Don't go away.

We are so excited to welcome another new sponsor, our friends at Cove Soda. Have I pestered Cove enough to come and join us here at the Jan Arden podcast? I love them so much. They are Canadian, first of all. They are a natural, certified organic, zero sugar soda, which includes, get this, one big

Probiotics. I kind of sounded like Dr. Evil there, didn't I? But seriously, you can get 80% of your daily vitamin C in just one can. Cove Soda is on a mission to promote gut health for all, and you still get to have a delicious treat while

while putting a gut-friendly, guilt-free drink in your body. Cove Soda is available in 12 delicious flavors all over North America. So for our American friends, you can find it. They've got this fruity lineup that's fantastic. I drink those all the time. They've got the classic lineup if you like

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!

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm Jan Arden in Chilliwack. I'm joined by Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh in Toronto. It is summer. And you know what you do in summertime? You gaze at stars. I remember being a kid lying in the grass, arms folded behind my head. We didn't care about bugs. We didn't care about mice. We didn't care about anything. But my pals Leonard and Dale and I would stare at the sky.

on a summer night and just look for UFOs. Yes, we did. I don't care what anyone says. And we probably spotted a few too. You definitely did because now they have...

They have an entire wing of the Pentagon dedicated to studying UFOs. And they've come out and said, there are things we can't explain legitimately. And now NASA, for the first time ever, has a dedicated portion of their team to UFOs. And they said, at the risk of this discrediting us or making people think that NASA all of a sudden lost their marbles, we're just going to do it anyways because we really want to get to the bottom of it. So if both NASA and the Pentagon are...

saying that we think they're UFOs, then I bet you Leonard and Dale really did see some saucers out there. Oh, I absolutely believe in it completely. But there are some, I mean, obviously we are in our little

universe here, but there's supposed to be, I don't know, 100 million galaxies in our solar system. Like the Milky Way is just hooked up. If you've ever seen those close up, beautiful images where they're always zooming in kind of on the Milky Way, and then all of a sudden you see all these little

I don't know. It just, it makes my head spin off. So Jupiter, one of the planets in our solar system that is 300 times the size of our earth, there has been a, there's a red little dot that they can see on Jupiter. So imagine that 300 times the size of earth, a gravitational pull that would probably suck the rest of the world in, in, in seconds. But there's, there's been a storm going on for centuries. Yeah.

This little storm on there. Anyway, Jupiter, I'll hand this over to you, Caitlin, because it eats planets. Yeah, they think that part of the reason why Jupiter is so big is that it has the remains of other planets hidden inside of it. That it's been eating up other planets. I know people like that. And that accounts for its ginormous, monstrous size, which I kind of love. I mean, that's just...

It seems so perfect when you consider the size of Jupiter that other planets are hidden inside of its belly. And also a kind of comforting fact about Jupiter's size. How would that even work? How would that even work? So they smash together or it opens itself up and just absorbs. Like what is going on?

Jupiter is so big that it has been protecting the Earth from almost every single stray asteroid strike coming in from out of the solar system since the planets first formed. So it's been standing guard for us. Yeah, it's so big. Well, it's probably absorbing all that stuff too, like gobble gobbles. It's like a giant Pac-Man machine out there.

Jupiter is like, and in astrology, because I kind of like astrology, Jupiter is seen as the planet of good fortune and giving and generosity. It is like the luckiest planet in the solar system. This big boy planet out there is seen as a very good omen. And it's been there shielding us with its enormous body since the planets formed. And it has these radioactive bands around it. And you're right. It is the most magnetic planet in our solar system. Like, I don't know. I kind of like Jupiter all of a sudden.

That's cool. I'm just thinking that your brother and his family could have one hell of an RV trip on Jupiter. I mean, 300 times the size of Earth in a human life in 80 years. Would that not be an impossibility to navigate, to go around? No, I guess you could.

I don't know. No. I feel like there's no chance. But anyway, the thing I always think about is, you know, they're sending probes to Mars and they're always talking about these Mars missions to get people to live up there, 50 below, no atmosphere. And I'm just like, do you not understand that the sun that is burning in our sky is going to –

supersize itself and become a supernova. I mean, it's a star. It's not going to last forever. So what the hell is the point? Am I just being a doomsday really thinker? It could be gone in what, 100 million years, 1 million years? The sun could just go poof and there is no Mars. There's no Jupiter. There's no nothing. Doesn't it just like end the entire universe? Please write us. Please tell us these questions. My therapist would call that a type two worry, which means it's unproductive.

No, but I do spend time thinking about the pointlessness of space travel because there's so many things going on here that we need to address.

And, you know, they're spending how many millions of dollars? Bezos did it. You know, Richard Branson did it. Elon Musk. The combined amount of money that the three of them have spent on space exploration in the last decade or 15 years is almost embarrassing to what they could have done here on the planet. And for what? To send William Shatner up there to go, ooh, ah, the band of oxygen is so thin, that thin blue line around the planet.

boy, it's sure small. There's not much to it. I just, I don't understand the rationale about it. I think it's just guys pulling their privates out of their pants and winging them around and going, look what we did. It's so ridiculous to me. Oh, I like it.

Caitlin's all for it. Okay, go. Tell me what. Why? Well, just because I think you never know what you're going to discover until you start to explore. And so even recently, there was a discovery made, and I hope I don't butcher this because I can feel my brain scanning through the Rolodex of things I've read about space, but

that they could grow plants using soil obtained from the surface of the moon, I believe. And so in previous trips to the moon, they had the wherewithal to gather soil on each trip. And every soil sample that they gathered from the moon on every trip was different. The compound makeup was different. And so they brought it back to a lab and they have successfully grown plants in it.

And the plants, plants get all these little messages from the soil that they grow in to tell them the things that they need. I need more nitrogen. I need more oxygen. I need more this. I need more that. And it changes the makeup of the plant. And so now, because they've been tinkering with this moon soil and the plants that they can grow from it, number one, the most important thing is they say, hey, we might be able to grow plants.

plants on the moon, which would lead to the possibility of colonization on the moon, right? Because food's going to be a huge issue. But number two, it might solve some problems we have with the plants back here. We could take some of the DNA from the plants that we're growing in this here moon soil and make them hardier and more capable of withstanding decreased nitrogen, which could happen from a result of many things. You know, they could be better capable of handling drought because the soil's really dry. So there's all this stuff that I'm like, we don't really know until we do it.

And so I think we have to keep doing it. I just get the sense that I'm like, that's kind of the way forward. I just think we're going to, it's going to seem silly and it doesn't mean you ignore the problems here, which we're very, very good at. But I do like the notion that we took these soil samples so long ago and had no idea and only now are they useful. What?

But that's one thing, Caitlin, to take soil from the moon. It's another thing in its entirety to send celebrities for a million bucks a pop up to the atmosphere for 30 seconds to be weightless and then come back down again.

So these guys, these guys are developing these rockets solely for a monumental gain to, you know, or is it, you know, a quicker flight from L.A. to New York? My God, I'm so sick of hearing that story, too. We could go up out of the atmosphere and you can be in L.A. in eight minutes. Yeah. So if you've got the money to do it. So I apologize. I do believe in exploration. You know me and Shackleton and exploring. I explorers have long intrigued me.

But that the frivolous nature of that kind of I wouldn't call that exploration. I would love it if those three guys did do something that was involving soil on the on the earth or collecting soil from an asteroid going by. But that's not what they that's not what they focus on. They focus on how can we monetize this? How can we get space tourists up there and wing around the planet? I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like if there was a more transparent partnership with the scientific community that happened for some of these tours, I can't say that they haven't had any sort of scientific data gathering while they've done these things with, you know, William Shatner offered like Pete Davidson to go into space high, probably. I mean, that stuff's objectively dumb, but also it does keep you, it does keep some people interested in it and talking about it. And there's an amount of like marketing that just is this necessary evil in life now. So I don't know. I just,

I like space exploration. I think it's interesting and I do appreciate funding it because I just think there's going to be things that we learn that we can take back to Earth and who the heck knows what's out there.

But there's also an underlying story, too. I'm just going to be the devil's advocate here. Let's explore space because we're going to F up this planet so much in the next hundred years. We've already done that. That we need to live somewhere else. I just saw an op-ed, Adam wants us to go, that the guy, they said, you know, what can we do about climate change? And he said, forget about it. It's too late. Anyway, if you're listening to the Jan Arden podcast, we'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden. It's a summer podcast. It's the summer series. We're just going to talk about summery fun stuff. Now that we've dealt properly with the end of the world, we're going to move forward. My mom would always say, well, it's not going to happen in your lifetime, so why worry about it? Anyway, I think that's what everyone always thinks. It's not our problem. It's the next person's problem. It's the next person will deal with it.

And there are so many corporations that do have that mentality. I'll just top it off that I'm not saying anything new, but it's very frustrating because the

Look at your household products, anything that you pick up. Your toothbrush has petroleum in it. Your running shoes, your clothes that you're wearing. You know, everywhere you go, you drop plastic particles off in your wake. I'm like, what? Yes. They just come off of you. They come off your clothes. Every time you wash your clothes, there's plastic particles in clothes that are rinsed out into the earth and they never go away.

So it's all, anyway. See, but then you know what I think happens overall? We like focus on ourselves and everyone's like, don't have that plastic straw. And then what we're really not paying attention to is the fact like what seven oil companies or seven major companies contribute to like 80% of the world's carbon emissions.

So it's, it's a distraction technique and people aren't very good at getting organized on a global scale. We're really good at organizing within our own smaller communities, but behaviorally we're just not set up that way. Globalization has kind of helped, I think, but I do, you know, I look at, we talked about this on our pride episode. I look at the effectiveness of like the gay community to organize and make really positive changes for themselves. And, um,

really good at connecting with neighbors. And that's why I think people should be more involved in their local governments and stuff, because that's kind of where you're going to be able to see some real changes. But we're not great on a big global scale, which is kind of what we need to tackle some of the climate change stuff. And people are just going to have to be a little more flexible. Like you probably should get an electric car, not just because gas is only going to become more and more expensive, you know, but because it's...

kind of the it's a good idea moving forward it's the same thing with solar it's like it would be a good idea if we use the renewable energy resource in the sky it would just be more cost effective and all of our power grids are going to mess up in the next little while anyways so i don't know there's some of it that i'm like people just get very emotional about it and it's like it's not very logical i prefer to just look at it from like a logical perspective these things just make sense

Well, you're not wrong. And I always learn from your viewpoint on things, Caitlin, because like you and I,

We agree on some things, but we definitely come from different ends of the pool on a lot of other things. And which I love because it does make me pause and I do go, OK, yeah, I do understand that. And I think that's the important part of people having these conversations. I was you know, we all need to be more open to.

taking in ideas. And especially as I get older, I'm not half as obstinate as I used to be. You know, that whole idea, do you want to have peace or do you want to be right? Well, sometimes I still want to be right, but I also want to have peace. Like I,

Anyway, being right is great. It's fun to be right. Yeah, let's just, we're not going to take away the satisfaction of being right about things. It is great. We should have Zaya back because I always appreciate she's someone who, she's very clear and direct and she's not going to fib about things, but she does try to put a positive spin on it because if we get really doom and gloom, people really think what's the point and then they just, everything's going to go to hell in a handbasket.

So we should have her back on because I love everything she tweets and does and her perspective is so cool and unique. Zaya Tong. Get her book. Get her book. The Reality Bubble. Yeah, I love it. It's so good. It's one of the best books I've ever read. Yeah, it's so good. It's not a novel, so I just want to be very clear. It's about making science, making science.

making things about the earth, climate change, so many different topics accessible to people like me. Yeah. That's my little brain. Exactly. That I can look at it in, in a term, in terms of, and we are not sponsored by Zaya Tong, but we would, we sponsor her. Anyway, get the book. Yeah.

One thing I did want to talk about today, this is completely at another side of the planet, is this gentleman was working at Burger King for 27 years. He never missed a day. Yes, I saw that. And this is what happened to him. Caitlin. Oh, hi. I was like, are we queuing an audio clip? And here he is talking about Zaya Tong's book. Yeah, and here he is talking about the hellscape of working. No, I'm just kidding. Is there a clip we can play? Can we play a clip?

I don't know. I actually haven't found. It's a visual. It's a better visual, so it's better to watch the clip. Yeah. Okay. You got to see it. Yeah. Adam, you and I are thinking about the same one, but there was really nothing that was very audio friendly. No, because he's showing. 27 years without missing a day at Burger King, and when you finally retire or leave, this is the crap that happens to you.

Yeah. So this started on Reddit and a Redditor is capturing the quote unquote celebration for the Burger King worker who has not missed a single day of work in 27 years on the job. I mean, let's take a moment to absorb that and that that's a very stressful, probably depleting job at times that might be a bit thankless, might not be affording him a super insane quality of life. Any of those things still goes there every day, 27 years. So what does he get? What do

What do you think you give someone for 27 years of no missed days of work? Like a vacation. A freaking house in tiny and a new car and a gold watch and free Burger King for the rest of your life.

Yeah. He got a goodie bag that contained a movie ticket, a bag of Reese's Pieces, a clear Starbucks tumbler, a lanyard, two pens, a couple of keychains, and two packs of Lifesavers. That's gross. It is. What? Horrific.

What is happening? That is so embarrassing and wrong. And so rightly so, the internet is destroying this post. Just...

Destroying it. And saying, this is why. Everyone's like, oh, we've got a worker shortage. We can't find anyone who wants to work. Here's why. Here's why. Because you treat people like crap. So thankfully, GoFundMe was created. And I think it's somewhere over $30,000 now. David Spade donated five grand to it. TMZ was talking to him about it. And he was just like, this is insane. So it's just crazy. What is...

But somebody at the head office, like, honestly, what an opportunity for Burger King, for a food chain that's not doing climate change any problems or people's health for that matter. What an opportunity for them to celebrate somebody who's been so loyal.

you know, obviously optimistic, obviously liked by his coworker. He's he'd been there that long. It says so much about somebody to have that kind of staying power in a job. That's very difficult dealing with the public, doing a repetitive task. You know, that is a lot on the human brain. Obviously the guy was,

in good spirits and showed up. You got to not feel great on one of those days in 27 years. And what an opportunity for them to celebrate that and even do a fun advertising. You know, here at Burger King, we value you and we value the people that work for us. And doing a television commercial, that would be

celebrating him, even giving him free Burger King for life would be for you and your family. You can come to any Burger King anywhere in the world and have this gold

Willy Wonka type card. What an opportunity. And I'll bet you any money, Caitlin, it wasn't even Burger King that gave him the two key chains, a lanyard and a movie ticket. It was probably his fellow co-workers. Exactly. His fellow underpaid co-workers who are the ones doing this because this is the problem with toxic workplace culture. And that is why you're seeing people talk about the great resignation. That is why you saw people burn out during the pandemic and just say, F this.

I'm not doing this anymore. This is why people are turning to like YouTube and TikTok to make all their money now because they're so sick of this type of attitude being told like this is an acceptable way to acknowledge 27 years of not missing a day of work. It's appalling. It's honestly insane. I can't believe it. I'm not going to lie. We've done a bit of fast food. I do get a baked potato at Wendy's and a Beyond Meat burger at A&W. You know, there's things that

I can definitely eat going across the country in a pinch. It's a road trip. Every single window without exception, every single building from Starbucks to wherever we've been, help wanted. Help wanted. You know, we...

apply within benefits um you know they're paying they're they're they're paying way above minimum wage a lot of these places now it's it's like it is it is about time for a lot of this stuff and um you always know the companies too where they have a great reputation where people seem to like it like do you guys have you had people rave to you about what it's like working at costco like i just have you heard the greatest things about that everyone seems pretty cheery they're they're

Rocking and rolling and, you know, especially since the pandemic. They have been busy because they've been open. They've been one of the people that have considered, you know, one of the places that needs to be. Okay. Okay. Goodbye. We'll be right back. Hey. Hi. It's me, Jan Arden. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast, episode 137. 137. Hey. We're still on season one. We are. Listen. Listen.

Caitlin's had COVID. No big secret. We're not trying to hide it. You are. It's got to be the three and a half week mark now.

Yeah, I think I got it on the 6th or something like that, around the 6th of June. We just want to take it because I want to talk about the Beyonce new song. But how are you? What's happening? You look a lot better. You still sound like you smoked a carton a day for six weeks. Yeah. So I have like an old smoker's cough. You do. I sound like someone. It's crazy. What are you wearing?

What am I wearing? I'm wearing a pack of unfiltered Belmonts for players life. So yeah, that has persisted. But I have had coughs in my life though. I had pneumonia a bunch as a kid. I talked about this before on the show. I contracted whooping cough like something out of a Charles Dickens novel a few years ago.

So I anticipated that my cough would linger and it is lingering. So yeah. And I will say, obviously I recovered, you know, I have three shots wanting my fourth, um,

But I want to wait for the better fourth. I want to wait for the like, there's apparently supposed to be one that's going to account for the Omicron variant specifically. I kind of want that one. There's some chatter about that happening in the fall. And there's also some chatter about second generation intranasal vaccines that are supposed to be really good. So that's kind of cool on the positive side of things. But I will say, you don't want it. No.

You don't want it. And every time you get it now and reinfection is super common, it increases your chances of having long COVID symptoms. So as someone who like talks for a living and my breath matters and my laugh matters, all that stuff is part of your job all of a sudden. It's not my favorite thing. I don't care for it. So no shocker there. I don't recommend you get it. And there's a lot of it going around. We don't even really know how much.

So because for the consideration of others and for myself, and just because I feel like it's a smart thing to do, I got my N95 back on and that's just the way it's going to be for a while. Oh, Poppy agrees. He does. He totally agrees.

Thank you for asking. I'm doing okay. Yeah, I'm really glad you're feeling better. I'm the only one of our trifecta that hasn't had COVID. I don't know how I've dodged it. Here's some wood I can knock on. I have been overly cautious on the tour. We're just masking all the time. We get admonished a little bit, I have to be honest. Chris was in an elevator yesterday.

here in Chilliwack and going up in the hotel. We're masking. We're in our little bubble. We're really trying to get through these next nine shows. And the guy said, haven't you heard? You don't need to do that, buddy. You don't need to do that anymore. And then there was another comment too. He said, get into the modern world, pal, or something like that. What? That doesn't even make sense. What? That's a terrible insult. He just kept his mask on. He's in a small elevator. Yeah.

And I don't know. You don't have to say snide things, folks. You don't have to say there's people that are immunocompromised. There's people that have all kinds of things. You don't have to say stuff to people. Let it go. It doesn't affect you. I just, you know, and I do feel low-grade rage. I'm not going to lie. I'm with you. And it's unnecessary. I just wouldn't say things to people. No. No.

People ask me and I then quickly had the best response. I was like, oh, I had COVID not really that long ago, actually. And I just was like, yeah. And then I would do like a perfunctory cough. And then all of a sudden they'd be like, oh. And I had one driver because I got in with my mask on. And he was like, oh, that's optional. You don't have to wear it now. And I was like, oh, I'm wearing it for you. And he was like, oh, no, I don't care. I don't really. You know what? You don't need to wear it. I was like, no, I'm just out of isolation. I had COVID. And he was like, oh.

And I was like, yeah. And I roll my window down and then he goes, do you mind if I put my mask on? I was like, no. Stop policing each other's faces, everybody. Like, I'm not telling you. I'm not demanding that you put one on, even though it would be wise because I was sick. But I don't expect you to use this as a conversation point. And again, this just returns to, I think the best

advice in life is to not talk to strangers. Just don't come up to me. Don't start a conversation with me. We've known this since grade school. I don't want to interact with you. Leave me alone. Well, listen, we've managed to get through. I talked about very early days. Our bass player was asymptomatic. We had to leave him in Moncton for five days and hire that other young fella to come and do it, to do a couple of shows. And

And, you know, Norm was really disappointed. But we got him back on board. He was testing negative and off we went. And he wore a mask on stage for me for up until like four or five days ago. He was wearing a mask on stage. Yeah, he just did it. Yeah, of course.

Anyway, enough of that said. That would be a great title for a Canadian country song, by the way. Left Norman Moncton. Left Norman Moncton. Or Left Me Moncton. Left Norman Moncton. He was asymptomatic. I wanted to touch him so badly, but we knew that we couldn't kiss with the I-95.

I've made it so hard. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, that will be on my next LP. My LP. I love it. Speaking of music, that's a lot. Speaking of. What I just did. Everybody's going off. The Beyonce single's dropping at midnight. Yada, yada, yada. I don't like it. I don't like it. I love it. I'm bursting. There you go. So whatever. I listen to it once.

on my new earbuds that I listen to really loud and I'm like okay it is I couldn't even really remember it through the first time Beyonce don't hate me because I love so much your music but I didn't get the summertime the song of the summer like no I love it

I love it. It's being called an anti-work pride anthem. It is amazing. It features like a New Orleans iconic artist, Big Freedia. It samples Robin S., Show Me Love. And as someone who grew up in the Dance Mix 93 era. I did hear that.

I love it. I mean, I like house music and I like dance music and I grew up listening to like dance mixes when I was a kid and like jock jams and all these dance compilations. And so it was so familiar to me. And then you just have her big powerful voice. And I just was like, dance music is a genre that I have been waiting to have it come back. Like Crystal Waters. I would love that kind of, I love that kind of sound. I think it's so much fun. It's perfect for pride. I'm really into it. Well,

I, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep. You don't have to just don't like it that I think it's fine. Don't you remember like being, I want, sometimes I just wanted to like music because my friends liked it. Like my older brother, he, he loved Frank Zappa so much. I'm probably saying a word that none of you have even heard of before, but Frank Zappa, his, he had, his kids were named Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa. Do you remember that?

Yes, I do remember that. Well, him and his wife, this is what they named their kids. Their kids seem no worse for wear for it. But anyway, I just, I liked, I didn't really like the music they were listening to. I didn't like Frank Zappa, but I listened to it because I wanted my brother to like me. Okay. Yeah. And I feel like with Beyonce, I don't want to say I don't like her because I want people to like me and think that I'm cool. Yes.

I know. It's very cute and vulnerable. And I just, I'm like, Oh God, I just, and I'm walking around with a dog and I'm listening to it loud and I'm like trying to be cool. And I'm just like, I don't, there's nothing. It's not sinking into my heart.

But I feel bad about it. And I'm being very earnest. I feel bad that I'm not over the moon about Beyonce. And also before we end this show, I want you to tell you that I went on Instagram and I succumbed to an ad that's this machine that you buy that eliminates cellulite. And I bought it. Oh, no. It's been a real week for you. You're upset about Beyonce? You're buying cellulite machines? Yes.

I don't know. I think the greatest thing about music and about comedy and about food and fashion and TV and entertainment is disliking things as well. Like you're allowed to dislike stuff. That's the fun of it. It's not that. They hate my music. I'm proud. Well, I don't get that. I love it. They know who I am and they really hate my music. So that's why I'm so reticent. So, Bjorn, you're listening. Yeah.

Imagine. I'm trying. And you've been listening to the Janard Podcast. Thanks for subscribing. And we'll see you next week. We're so appreciative of our listeners. We really are. And we totally do. We'll see you soon. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.