Don't Worry About Your Chins

0:07  
hi everybody. Jan Arden here. Jann Arden podcast, I feel like I haven't been here for about six months, but welcome. It is a beautiful, sunny day here in spring bank, Alberta. It has been 49 below. I don't know what it's been like for my co host Caitlin green and Sarah Burke, who are in their respective homes in Toronto, Ontario, but it's good to see you guys.

0:31  
You too. You too. 49 below, that's too, that's too damn cold. You

0:36  
know when you get the feels like, yeah, minus 40. But it has been minus 18, minus 20. And then you get a bit of, a bit of a breeze, and honest to gosh, like Air Canada would not let you on with your breasts because they would be considered sharp objects, so they will turn you away at the gate.

0:54  
You just be slicing into your seat belts,

0:58  
exactly. But yeah, it's been it's so nice to see the sun out again. It really is. And seeing you with Jax was amazing. But even then, I still sounded I listened back to the podcast, I still sounded like a I was plugged up. Yeah,

1:14  
you weren't. If you remembered too, like I was so sick all of last month pretty well. And I think there were at least three episodes that we did where I just, I sounded like crap, and then, Sarah, you were right before that.

1:25  
Yeah, we've had a really good sick marathon.

1:28  
Well, I think that's that's been the story, really, of the latter part of 2024, is everybody's been really quite sick, and it hasn't, for the most part, been COVID related, like, these are just respiratory stuff. Anyway, the cold and all colds. My poor cousin, who's a defense lawyer, so she's up there, you know, gunning for people that need her help, and she said she can barely speak to the judge, and it's hard to go about your day to day life. And especially, I'm on week four now, and I've tried everything under the sun. I don't know about you guys, but I definitely peruse the internet to look for things that are people are doing. And there's the usual suspects, there's oregano oil, there's cold FX, which is like 60 bucks for, you know, 30 or 40 caplets of cold FX. They're making a fortune. Those people. I can't say that. I noticed a difference with cold FX, so lemon and ginger and the shots and vix Vapor Rub and, you know, taking a cough syrup at night and standing in a in a shower and just steaming myself and then being worried sick about the water that I'm wasting, you know, standing there.

2:32  
What about the onion? Onion on the feet, rubbing it on your feet. I did not do that. Chop it up, and you put it in a bag, and you put your feet in the bags, socks on top of the bags, and in the morning, this is especially good for kids. Caitlin, too.

2:45  
Have you done this? I am never doing this like it's

2:49  
stinky. Okay, I haven't done this version. But there's also a version where you just cut up an onion and put it like on your side table, and it's supposed to absorb the sulfur. It's supposed to absorb any toxins in the air, and so I have felt better from doing that. If I had, like, something small going on. I have not tried the socks feet thing yet. Just

3:10  
don't know if I could get myself arsed up to chop up an onion and put it in a sock and stuff like that. Donna, you've heard me talk about Donna over the years. She was Rhonda on the Jan show. Donna Ronda, she used to swear by getting a piece of flannel like, I don't know if it was cutting up a flannel sheet or what it was, but she would put a mustard and honey poultice, I think, sprinkled with cayenne pepper, and you literally soak the flannel the mustard. You can imagine how disgustingly gross This is. And you put it against your chest, and then you put your T shirt over obviously, because your sheets would look like there was, you know, some kind of crime scene, and she swears by it like she swears by it. No. Anyway, I'm finally coming around the corner, and it had really knocked me out. I don't think I've ever had a cold this bad in my life, and this is the second time I've been sick in four months. That's the

4:07  
story, like you said, That's the story of this fall and winter. And like, my husband confirmed pneumonia, definitely my son had it. He went on another round of antibiotics before we went out east for Christmas. I actually did the the IV bag thing, and I talked about that with you guys a bit, and it really helped me. My husband couldn't tolerate having his arm with a needle in it for that

4:27  
long. Yeah, some people are really sensitive to that. How long is

4:31  
it you sit there for like an hour, probably because it has like, slow drip, right? And so for me, I've had so many surgeries and procedures like this is light work, like they actually did put the IV in first into my left arm, because they always try to go with your non dominant arm first, and I have good veins, so I they did my left arm and it wasn't taking like the drip wasn't entering my vein. And so Kyle, who's afraid of needles, is looking at me going like. What? And the naturopath is sort of there, going, um, maybe it just, like, triggered your valve, and so your blood, you know, it's not taking it. And I'm very relaxed, Kyle. And I was like, we both need to leave. This is a cursed situation for me. I'm Kyle, yeah, which is common, like, I get it. And then I said, Okay, no. I was like, just do the other arm. And Kyle's like, what? And I'm like, yeah, just do the other arm. Like, I don't know, just, I'm like, don't try to stick it in this arm again. And she's like, Okay, if you don't mind, I think I will switch to the other arm. And then it was completely fine. But the whole that starting point I watched set off an anxiety situation for Kyle, and so Kyle had to ask him to stop doing it.

5:36  
Was it already running? Like, was he in the process of it was going in? And then he's like, no, no, no, I can't have this in here. I

5:42  
think he had taken in like half a bag. And so at this point, I'm like, why don't you just sort of like, stick it out. Hopefully our

5:50  
listeners aren't too squeamish, but I'm sure there's people out there listening right now that some of you guys don't like needles and don't like getting blood tests and things like that. It's a really common sort of phobia. Oh, yeah. People don't like procedures. Yeah. My friend Leah that I work with is she's just mortified about having, you know, I can't even say to her, Oh, I'm going for a blood test. She's like, stop talking to me. But I wonder if she would be good in an emergency, I think she would be, yeah, I think people rise to the occasion. It's amazing what adrenaline can do anyway. I definitely am glad to be on the other side of it. And here we are in a new year, and I had a blast on New Year. I did the Adrian Arsenal extravaganza with CBC, yeah. How was that? And it was six and a half hours of live television, and at one point, the teleprompter went out, and it really goes to show you. And it wasn't like they were scripting everything we were saying, but we knew what was coming up. We knew where the throws were going. We're going to Newfoundland, we're going to Winnipeg, we're going to echo it, we're going to Victoria like it was all over the place. There was so many roving reporters out there that were literally talking about what Canadians do on New Year's right across the country. It's the biggest live event they've ever put together in the history of CBC. Like they've never, yeah, they've never taken on something that big. And it just was to see Adrienne click into this thing. I mean, she is a war correspondent. She's been a journalist for probably 30 years. She does the national news. She's obviously one of the predominant talking heads in this country for for news reporting. She just clicked on and I could hear the producer feeding her stuff in her earpiece, because I was hearing what Adrian was hearing, and she just picked it up. Meg was talking to her, and she's looking at the camera and making it look like everything's fine. I was like, What do I look at? What do I say? Who do I and then she turned to me and asked me a question, what do you think of that, Jay? I mean, it was a marvel.

7:55  
I was gonna say, Do you feel like at a certain point in the night you're like, I'm running out of steam. I'm running out of things to say.

8:00  
No, no. It was, it was endless. There was so many things going on. There was ski hills and people skating, and there was people eating Chinese food in in Prince Edward Island, and they brought us Chinese food, and Adrian was eating the world's biggest chicken ball. And then they took the food away from us, and then the next thing came in and and then we had live guests down at Harbor front, you

8:24  
guys trying to find the Toronto reporter. Was pretty hysterical. I turned it on for a few minutes with my parents. They were like, where are you? What was your name again? Was it Charlie? No, no.

8:35  
David. David, okay, David. I'm sorry, David, but yeah, he was out there. There was hundreds of people skating down at Harbor front, and it was raining like who would have thought New Year's Eve in Toronto, which is usually, you know, two feet of snow down Spadina, and your walk trying to walk over these giant mountains of snow to get anywhere? And there wasn't anything. It was raining. And there was people, young people walking around in skirts that were, once again, not as long as their private parts, and everyone was vaping like all these young people are just standing there, and they have their fists in front of their faces, and they're they're vaping and but everyone was just elated. They were having a great time, but it was two degrees that is so Canadian. But anyway, we had protesters that showed up at one point with megaphones right behind us, and I just followed Adrian's queue. I just looked straight forward, and I thought, you do have every right to protest. And you know what's happening in Palestine and over there is, is, it's awful, it's, it's a very complicated political, economic landscape that the three of us are not going to I can't comment on it, other than to say it's heartbreaking on every level. So they were there. We live in a great country where you can stand behind a live reporter and yell into a megaphone. So so gone. Damn loud. I couldn't hear the earpiece, and Adrian was just laser focused. And she said, You might hear what's going on behind us, and that's the country we live in, and you're allowed to. She did address it, and then she just got back onto it, and off we went. And then they finally gave up. They finally moved on, I think because we weren't responding and turning around, she goes, Don't turn around. But then I felt kind of weird having my back to all the stuff that was going on behind me. And it was unnerving. It was unnerving not, I don't mean being hurt or anything like that, just having your back focus and I couldn't see what was going on behind me,

10:40  
it would throw me off my game a little bit. It's like when you see someone at the like the at a basketball game, they're at the free throw line, and they always try to distract them somehow behind

10:49  
they got those squamous things going yelling at them, yeah? But what an experience. And just so everybody knows out there, all our listeners, I did not get paid this giant sum of money. I basically did it for a song, almost literally. I just went in there. I thought, this is something I want to do. I'm so proud to call Adrian friend and to work and to get that experience beside somebody, to learn that kind of skill. And I'll tell you what I would do it next year in a heartbeat. I hope it doesn't rain next year. And also the the, I guess the finale to this whole night was getting out of harbor front. So you have 1000s of people now leaving after we rung the bell right after it's New Year's blah, blah, blah. We I did a streamer thing. There was one little streamer that came out of it. It was very anticlimactic. I thought, did I do it wrong? I opened this thing now we got to find an Uber. Guess how much the Uber was to get out of there?

11:49  
100 bucks. 60 bucks. 425, 425,

11:53  
oh, my God, to

11:54  
get out of harbor front. That's why they were pricing in that moment, I was 10 blocks. I'm a I'm about 15 blocks. I'm over. You guys know where I am? Yeah, I'm like, Queen and Bathurst, but I'm Adrian drove us. She's like, let's just walk to the CBC building. It's like, six blocks, yeah, and I'll drive you from there. It took us 92 minutes to get from the CBC building over to Queen and Bathurst.

12:20  
Oh, my God,

12:22  
I hope you had snacks. But we had such a good visit,

12:24  
and we were just dying laughing at, you know, things going on in this country. It kind of had an SCT quality to it, because there was so many these little charming things, and people were so cute, like nobody was going into the camera like in in quidi Vidi Newfoundland, for instance. You know, the journalist is there. They're the first people to ring in the new year. Everyone's getting drunker and drunker at this place. It's a brewery, and the wonderful host is there with her beautiful red sequined dress on, and she has this live. It's live. And people were leaning in. I just want to say hello to my aunt Selma, my two sisters that are home right now. Like the the spirit was so genuine, and nobody was like leaning in and saying disparaging things or doing, you know, F Trudeau, you know, when you have the opportunity to have a live camera and you're drunk, it's kind of tempting to do naughty things, not one time. That's great. Good on Canadians. At one point, she was sitting in a row boat with these two old Newfoundland guys, and they were, you know, gonna go 10, 9876, when the New Year's thing. Well, the one guy was saying, Well, you know, we have to run 600 feet of cable underneath the harbor to get up to the, you know, to light up to get power up to the ridge. And I'm looking at Adrian. I'm like, did he just say they ran electrical cable underneath the water like, I didn't understand it anyway, what it was like, 54321, and they hit the switch. This little tree lights up at the top of this ridge, and I'm like, Oh, my God, was that? It was that? Was that the tree and it was my heart literally exploded with this kind of joy. I can't even explain a small town joy, small town joy. And it was like that every single spot across this country, of how people were celebrating who they were cute. It was a really nice evening.

14:31  
What would you have done on New Year's if you weren't with Adrian, I would

14:34  
have been in bed by eight o'clock. Yeah. I just, I dream I'm just so many people I was getting texts on my phone saying, I can't stay up any longer. How long are you going to be on and there, it's like, not. It's like, nine o'clock till midnight. 11 O'clock. Well, when they told me I was broadcasting till 1:45am my heart sunk, because I'm like, I'm so tired because I had just come from Europe. So I flew got back to Toronto the one day, went and did the. Podcast with you guys, with Jax, which was really fun, by the way, that call, I we did a cold call, if anyone's wondering what I was referring to.

15:09  
Hello, hey, you take your burden. Oh, sorry about that. Is the missus there.

15:16  
Just hold on a second. All right.

15:19  
I said, Thank you. Hello, Hey, you. How are you good? Is this Betty? Betty? Who? Betty McDonald? We don't know Betty. Betty McDonald. Oh, shoot, okay. Do you know Jan? No, don't know Jan, either. Jan. Arden, Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, you know Jan?

15:39  
Hi, how you doing? It's Jan. I'm just a Canadian singer. I

15:43  
know you were. We have a few of your albums, yes and and read your book as well. Oh, read your book. Love your shows when they were on too. Oh, gosh, how come they're not on anymore? Well, I think it's

15:55  
that darn Rick Mercer. He just, he just made he freaks up everything. She calls

16:00  
him the East Coast cold calls. And so what it is, is Jax basically goes on social, like, on her Instagram and her Tiktok, and she's from Nova Scotia herself. And so she really can put it on, and she does this whole shtick where she calls random numbers in the Maritimes and waits for someone to answer and sees if she can get a back and forth going with them, like, how long they'll stay on the line with a stranger. And just because it's a very chatty part of the country, you can see that some people will really stay on there. And we just genuinely called someone and they were a fan of yours. It was the cutest thing I've almost ever listened to. Hey, you. This

16:36  
was an older lady too, I mean, and of course, my fans, I mean, I'm 62 and if people have been listening to me for 30 years, and if they were 40 at the time when they started listening to me, you know, they're 70 plus years old. So do the math. Anyway, Jax is so great at that. She's a really smart, enterprising young woman, and she's got the studio in her house. And you guys, if you watched last week on YouTube, you saw this great studio that she hooked up, but kind of hooking on to what we were just talking about, these really special, seemingly small, earnest moments that we saw unfold across the country. Jax Erwin taps into that Canadian persona when she makes these calls. And I will say that we probably made five calls until someone finally picked up the phone, because it's, you know, middle of the day, and people are doing stuff, and it's a landline, so this is stuff she gets out of the phone book, but reading the comments to that was heartwarming and so funny, and it really made people feel

17:39  
good. I like how she didn't have Jan's face on the front of it or anything. It was like, you didn't know Jan was coming. Yeah,

17:45  
she wanted it to be a reveal, and thought that that would be, like, the funnier way to do it. And I could not agree more.

17:50  
Well, I was looking, you know, through some of the other calls she'd done, because I was curious, when you told me about it. Caitlin, you know, some of these calls have a million and a half views, I know,

18:01  
yeah, it's because it's heartwarming. People want that, like heartwarming, nice kind of moment. And she was talking to us about how she sees that the prank calls, which I guess this technically is sort of a prank call, but it is not mean spirited in any way, but that prank calls are this huge sub category now on Tiktok, of content creators doing these calls, and she liked some of them, but found that some of them would be too mean, and it wasn't really her sense of humor, so she made this very much her own. And I just I love them. People get a kick out of

18:39  
them. Speaking of New Year's, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you guys resolutions and how you feel about resolutions in general. Like, what do you think they hold? Any weight water importance? Like, I

18:55  
just drink more water.

18:58  
I don't know. I don't feel like it's it doesn't really resonate the way it did for me. Like 20 years ago, I think I actually took them to heart, or at least I remember writing things down that I didn't want to have happen in my life that I wanted to get rid of. And I would be with girlfriends and we'd burn them in a fireplace or with a candle and put it in the bathroom sink or a toilet or something. It was very ritualistic. We used to actually make things, and then we'd write the other note of all the positives that we did want, and we'd make little paper airplanes and just send them off of, you know, the back door of your house. I mean, you could collect them the next morning, but it was just sort of that ritual of, this is the stuff I want. I'm going to send it up into the air, and I just don't do stuff like that anymore, so maybe I'm missing out. But what, what did? What did you do?

19:47  
I have no resolutions, and I really never make them, because I don't. I just feel like success is a slow build, and a lot of them are very drastic. I mean, if I had to adjust them in general, I would say, try. Be more mindful in general. So I'm just like taking care of yourself, trying to get some sleep. It's always a time of year that I think it's before this you have so much indulgence, there's so much socializing, there's so much going out. It's a very it's a huge burnout time of year in really the months of November and especially December, and then there's always a lot of drinking, there's a lot of eating, there's just a lot and there's a lot of spending. So everything goes into excess mode. So I think it's nice in January to say this feels like the right time of year to do a little bit of hibernating. And like Sarah was saying, Drink some more water. If I can make it to some Pilates classes, great. If I can eat a little better, great. But I try not to go into a place of restriction in my head, because for me, at least, then I know that I'm setting myself up for failure. Because if I feel like I'm depriving myself of something, or if I'm setting too lofty of a goal, I may not mean it, and then it'll sort of be like self defeating. So I don't, I don't usually do much. Sarah,

20:54  
I'm like, a great candidate for resets, but I don't really do the resolution thing. So I appreciate a reset. And like Caitlin was saying, it is the perfect time of year for it, because everyone's kind of like back into a routine right now, and it's easy for you to focus on yourself when everyone is in that same kind of headspace. But I mean, there are certain things I need to take care of immediately in my life that I am resetting hard. So like, what I haven't smoked. I have no joints in the house. Woo

21:22  
hoo. For me, that's great. That is

21:25  
really big. And can I ask, and you don't have to answer. But why is that?

21:29  
Because my baby lungs are not in good shape, and I know better, right? Like when Caitlin and I recorded the last episode of the year, later that day, I had like, a therapy session, and I had like, a really wild breakthrough about why I go to bed so late too in therapy that comes all the way back to, like childhood, and why I even wanted to stay up so late when I was, like a 10 year old, right? So I've been like, piecing all these things together and just focusing a little more on, like, the why I even do those things. And so making a little change like this, I'm not missing the joints right now. I'm fine. It's actually quite easy. And I think even the going to bed part, I'm being a little more intentional with my time. I'm finding sleep is super important. Yes, oh, I need the sleep reset so bad. So yeah, I'm off to a great start seven days in. And the whole idea is not for this to be like a just January thing. This is like my new lifestyle. I need to, I need to change that. Well,

22:31  
I mean, I guess, in a way, that is a resolution. And maybe the, you know, the flipping of that calendar page is a metaphorical representation for people to do something. All I can tell you is, I'm freaking very glad that the holidays are over. Yeah, the month leading up to Christmas, the weird and it is lovely. People are somewhat more cheerier. You know, Merry Christmas. Have a great hope. You have a lot of enjoy your family. I mean, there seems to be a little more salutations when you go in to places, because, let's face it, they want your money and they want you to be in there. But when, when it's when New Year's was over, we flew home the next morning from Toronto to Calgary, because I just wanted to get home. I felt like the weight of the world had lifted off of me. So I did feel the changing of the guard, so to speak, of the year, and I really cannot believe how fast this year went by. For example, at this time last year, three days from now, I cracked my head open from the virtual reality goggles. Yep. So that was a year ago, and I'm just thinking about, I feel like I did that like two weeks ago. It is just time is absolutely evaporating. Maybe it's an age thing. When you're young, all you want to do is be old enough to do stuff you want to be, tall enough to go on the rides you want to be, you know, you want to buy the big girl clothes. You want to you want to do stuff you want to have. I want to stay home alone. I want to sleep over my friend without, you know. And then you get to an age where it's just

24:20  
that's weird, though, because when you say that, I'm like, how has it been a year? But then I'm like, it feels to me like you cracked your head on that VR goggle situation. It feels like that was 10 years ago. In many ways, does it like that? Feels like that was a long time ago? But then there are also things where I'm like that that doesn't feel like it was that long ago. Yeah, time is collapsing in and itself, and I don't quite understand its passing, but here

24:42  
we are, even when we were picking guests for, like, our end of the year recap, we're like, Wait, was that this year or was that last year? It was really hard to tell Yeah,

24:50  
I didn't have my phone and, like, my iPhone library to go back to when things happen. Like, that's how I date everything now. Or I'll go back to my Instagram Stories archive, or I go back to my posts. It's such a helpful thing as I've aged in terms of keeping track of dates, something I've always been bad at. But it does, it does help me, because I'm like, how the how the heck is will this old weight he was doing what at this time last year? Like that stuff is really confusing

25:14  
with a child. I would imagine the the optics on seeing time are mind boggling, because you literally wake up the next morning. You're like, Honey, come in here. This child is two inches longer. Yeah, like, it's just, they're just growing like crazy.

25:32  
Oh, and I joke that at some some nights, he wakes up the next morning. And I joke to my husband that he's had a software upgrade because he's there's something that's, I'm like, his iOS updated overnight. I don't know something's up. Like, he's way more talkative. He's getting things, he's asking more questions. So they're making these developmental leaps all the time. And yeah, it makes, it makes the passage of time kind of a crazy thing. I know that

25:55  
we have talked about politics on this show. We've certainly like the rest of the world, watched, you know, the the lead up to the the you US election and things like that. And I promise you, we're not going to dwell on those things this year, although we're going to have to talk about it from time to time, because there's just going to be things that will be ridiculous. But we promise not to inundate you. I think we do need to address Prime Minister Trudeau stepping down. We're obviously pre taping this, this show, but yesterday, in the real world, he came out in front of the house. And we're very used to that scene during COVID. He came out with his beard. He came out with his long hair. He came out, you know, and did the the daily or bi weekly updates about what was happening in this country. So it was a very familiar setting to see the Pope. To see the podium and familiar faces standing around him and literally resigning as the Prime Minister and as the leader of the Liberal Party. So I just wanted to get you guys take on it. It made me feel sad public service, no matter what you do, whether you work at a dry cleaners, whether you drive a taxi, whether you're a singer, whether you're a podcaster, dealing with the public is not easy, so on that scale, it's an impossible task.

27:12  
Yeah, I made me sad too, not necessarily, because I think it was the wrong decision. I don't I think it was the right decision. I agree. But I think when you're a Canadian and you see your leader is leaving and making this announcement, and then it becomes this world headline that your leader has resigned, there's a feeling of like, I don't want to say failure, because it's not mine or necessarily even his, but I just mean, there's this feeling of like, oh, it's not going well in Canada on the world stage. That is a bit of a bummer, I think, when you are a Canadian, and then there's also a lot of questions now that pop up about where we are at politically as a country, who the next leader is going to be elections, just sort of everything. But I am not I am not surprised he has been in power for a long time. And I think that any any party who has that length of stay in office is gonna end up having a changing of the guard. And the longer it goes on, the more you were opening yourself up to the chance of something kind of unusual, like a resignation happening, just because, you know, you got through the pandemic, you got through Trump. I mean, who knows? Maybe he went down to mar a Lago and just said, forget it. Like maybe he went down, I'm not dealing with this guy. This is not gonna work. Who knows? Yeah, it's a tough gig, man. And a guy that I went to high school with, he was actually the VP of our, of our high school when I was there, but I was older than he was. He is now the Minister of Housing. Oh, he's been handed this portfolio. So he's now the Minister of Housing. He was an MP in the area that I grew up in. He's, his name is Nathaniel Erskine Smith. He's, he's quite a talented, sort of, like rising star in the party. He's

28:53  
been so wonderful with the horses, just as a sidecar. Yeah, he's great

28:57  
one animal rights. Animal Rights is a big cornerstone for his platform, well being and sort of like their safety and so, yeah, so he's been handed this very challenging portfolio. Because anyone around the world, we know that housing is an issue. It's not just in crisis. Here in Canada, they need to build more. They need to figure out how to roll back some regulations so that they can expedite building all the above. So I thought about him too right away, because I'm like, wait a minute, your leader is gone. Like, what is gonna happen? So, yeah, it was weird. It was weird to see I don't know why I knew was gonna happen. I knew it in my heart. I knew it. And I had, I had said he should do this to my friends, like, in private conversations. I was like, I think he should step down. Supports at an all time low. They really need to reevaluate the leadership of the party. And then he did it, and I was still kind of like, oh, it just felt sad to see him do it. Well, it's

29:42  
going to be an interesting time to see who steps forward. They're saying that there's about 12 people whose names have circled around the clouds of who might step forward. You know, in a perfect world, I'd love to see Marcy Ian throw her hat in the ring,

29:57  
really. Yeah, I don't, I don't know much about. As a politician, she has

30:00  
a portfolio of women's health, women's issues, I forget what the portfolio is called, please forgive me, but she's superb. And you know, Chrystia Freeland, name has, of course, come forward. She resigned as the Deputy Prime Minister, I think, five weeks ago, four weeks ago, not even that long, and that just started the dominoes rolling down the hill. Anyway. It was a sad day for me. I hope when the dust settles, that we can, you know, as a group of people, concentrate and focus at some point on the good things that he did and on his many accomplishments. Because I'll tell you what anyone that stepped into from 2020, forward, the fallout from the COVID, you know, the supply chain, oil and gas, petroleum, housing, unhoused people, everything that sort of exhaust. It just got exacerbated. And the focus on where things were marginalized, COVID just exploded those seams. How, you know, health care, elderly care, like nursing homes, it has been a really trying four years, and I don't care who would have been there if JC leader had been sitting there, or, you know, Pierre poilievre, or anybody, they would have been sitting in the same exact place for that he is so mercy. Ian,

31:25  
by the way, is Minister for Women and Gender Equality and youth. Yes, thank you. Okay,

31:29  
thank you very much.

31:30  
Anyway, weird day, and you hit on something too. Caitlin, the perception internationally made me feel a bit weary, because you do look at those things going, what's wrong? What are they doing wrong is there? Is it perceived as weakness? And

31:45  
then Trump is suggesting, oh, just come on over and be part of this United States of America.

31:51  
Well, I'm like, and every single, every single leader, I believe, who was sort of like the perceived incumbent. And and I forget a part. I listened to the Ezra Klein podcast of like very often. And it's a great one. It's a great one. And he did a rundown of all the leaders and their popularity having decreased. And he applied it to leadership in France. He applied it to leadership here in Canada, and to Joe Biden in the US. And he said, on both sides of the spectrum, whether it's, you know, conservative or liberal, everyone who was sort of sitting through and got everyone through the pandemic in the last however long, their popularity has taken a nosedive. But he did highlight, he did highlight our prime minister, and I think roughly the term used to describe his popularity, his approval rating was like, somewhere around, like, horrifying, like, he said, like, horribly unpopular. And I thought to myself, you know, he he is, whether that's necessarily well deserved, or if you want to, like, break down, because sometimes I do feel like it is hard in in Canada, because a lot of the complaints that we have about the federal government or the provincial government, there's overlap there, right? Like, we'll complain about something with the provincial government, and then it's like, oh, well, actually, that's federal. Or we'll complain about something, and we'll say, Oh, well, the government screwed it up. It's, you know, it's Trudeau, or it's Harper or whoever. And you're like, actually, that was your provincial government. So there is some areas there, I think, where there's misunderstandings that happen. But overwhelmingly, I don't think he was slated to win whatever election is coming up, and that's ultimately why the party would have moved in a different direction. But I am left to wonder about Chrystia freelance, and if her stepping away from him and trying to separate herself from him and his policies and his unpopularity at this time was maybe a move towards trying to go for leadership of the party like I do. I thought about that at the time. I was like, I don't think she's leaving politics. Like, what? What does this say about the next step?

33:41  
Yeah, anyways, I couldn't do it like, I've actually had people over the years like, I know I jest about this stuff. Sometimes I'm going to be running for just saying, would you ever be interested in like, running for in your in your community, you're running as an MP and I'm just like, never, ever, never, never, never. I just think it's even getting increasingly more difficult going into this as a profession. And let's keep in mind, folks, this is a profession. This is somebody's job that they want to pursue, like poli sci like people take this in university. They get PhDs in politics and how the world works and economic policies and all that stuff. So it's a career, but no one should be able to have to have security in their career. You shouldn't have to be surrounded with a security guard. And I remember when last year we had Neha Denshi on our show, and he's now the leader of the provincial NDP party, and before he announced it officially, he and I had had lunch, and he was talking about, he said, you know, you're probably going to hear this very soon, but I'm definitely going to throw my hat in the ring for the leader of the NDP. But he, he said, I needed to speak with my family first and have a really, you know, heart to heart conversation about how it was going to affect our day to day. Safety and like I was just looking at him across this little table at this diner, and I just felt heavy hearted to think about he's actually risking his wellness, whether it's people throwing crap at you or the heaviness of the vitriol of social media, because you're never going to win everybody over. So I think about and we'll move on here, because there's a whole bunch of things I want to talk to you about that You sent Me, but just the vitriol that that Justin Trudeau has faced, I know, you know, all the bumper stickers and the fu thing that we have seen, really, for the last four years. You cannot tell me that a man with children and a family, and let's keep in mind, his marriage also dissolved in the last few years, and I would pretty much bet my very good new glasses that that it had something to do with his political career and his life, and how it changed it for his kids and for his wife. So I don't think so he

36:02  
wasn't he was there for a long time. So you got to imagine who he was and how things were going when he started to today. That is a vastly different political landscape and a very strange world to occupy for that long. I feel like if I was a leader of any kind, I would set a term limit on myself, like I would come out and be like, I am only going to do this for this long. They need to do that here. I think they do

36:26  
anyway. We need to talk a little bit about the Golden Globes, because this is the first award show that starts an avalanche of award shows that we are going to be besieged with. And we're going to be seeing the same films, the same television, the same faces. We're going to see Nicole Kidman, ad nauseam, we're going we're going to see the same stuff. So there was a real backlash against celebrity. Last year. People were unfollowing them. There was these big movements to unfollow celebrities on Tiktok. I know that they might have taken a little dent out of one of the Kardashians, or a couple of them by losing a few million followers because people just went in and unfollowed. So how do you feel about award shows? And do you have any comments on what unfolded? I didn't know a lot of the movies. I went through the list afterwards, you know, just the next day, and I was like, I don't know. I don't know a lot of these. I mean, I will look them up and try and watch them, because that's what we do, right? Yeah.

37:30  
I mean, wicked was in sort of the, like the blockbuster, like the popcorn category. So I think a lot of people are familiar with that. Obviously, Jan, you've seen it and said how much you enjoyed it. I haven't seen it yet. My friend hated it. Oh, really, yeah. I mean, some people it's amusing. It

37:45  
was the worst piece of crap you'd ever seen. And he says, I didn't even make it to the end. Oh, yeah. And I said, Well, that's the best song.

37:52  
Well, I do think that this was a year where I have a lot of friends who've seen the substance, and so Demi Moore won for that. I have issues with, I'm queasy about body horror, and so I know that the substance is dealing with a lot of body horror stuff, and, oh, I do want to see it, but I just, I'm worried about how grossed out I'm going to be. And I primarily tend to start a movie while I'm eating dinner, and then I keep watching it after, and I actually can't eat anything if something gross is happening, yeah. Like, if I even I could just, I have a weak stomach for that type of stuff. So when I heard about this movie, I was very interested, but still haven't watched it. That's really the only one that I feel like I'm very familiar with. In terms of the winning category for films, I know very little about Amelia Perez, and I know that it's about a

38:40  
tell everybody who Amelia Perez is in the movie like it's a movie on Netflix.

38:45  
You want me to bring something up here? And it did really, really well,

38:49  
I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna actually watch it in the next couple of days. Is

38:53  
it like a transgender drug cartel leader,

38:55  
a Mexican lawyer is offered an unusual job to help a notorious cartel boss retire and transition into living as a woman fulfilling a long held desire, okay?

39:03  
Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty original idea. I mean, we have been inundated, sorry to interrupt Caitlin. We've been in inundated with part twos and franchises that just keep cramming those old like, Do you not have an original idea in in Hollywood anymore? That sounds like a freaking original idea to me. Yeah, mob boss transitioning. I'm sorry that's not your everyday boy meets girl kind of thing. Correct

39:28  
me if I'm wrong. But is it a musical? Because there was a winner in the musical and comedy category that people were very annoyed by,

39:34  
oh, it says a French musical, crime comedy in another thing that came up. So you're right.

39:40  
Okay, so I believe it is a musical, and so there has been some backlash, I've seen, again, just on social media, from Mexican nationals who believe that they're making light of the drug cartel wars and the impact that's had on people in Mexico. And it's a French director, and he has been a. Doing some interviews where they were like, Oh, how much you know research did you do into Mexico? And he essentially was like, Oh, I already knew a lot. And then Mexican nationals are like, we can tell, because if you've had a bunch of family members die in the cartel wars, you wouldn't have made this movie. Yeah. So there, there's that. There's always going to be that now, though that's the time we live in, no, and so that's I don't I don't know enough. I have not seen the movie. I'm really just kind of learning about it now as its award fervor picks up, and then the next big winner was the brutalist. And this is another movie that is so long I think it has a three and a half hour run time. No, it does not. Yes, it does. There's an intermission. And it's about a Holocaust survivor played by Adrian Brody, who I feel like is now synonymous in my mind, with playing someone in like, a holocaust, like, world, yeah, because the pianist. So I'm like, okay, so then he comes back to America and becomes a very famous, like, Mid Century Modern architect. And I don't even believe it's in its full wide release yet. So again, movies that I don't know anyone who I don't know anyone that's seen these movies, and I don't know anyone who's passionate about them. So I do think this is a year where I'm kind of like, I really don't think, feel like I know what's going on.

41:16  
Have you guys both watched the penguin now? Yes, no. So yeah, there were some TV categories too in there, right? And, yeah, the penguin is one that, like, keeps coming up. I keep seeing ads, and I want to watch it. I haven't yet. Don't tell me, could not love

41:30  
it more. Is that the Batman

41:32  
offshoot? Yeah, and, but it stars Colin Farrell, and you'd never know it's him. Oh, my God, you'd never know he's playing the penguin. And his co star in it. She's fabulous, and her name is escaping me right now. Oh, and hacks, hacks won in the comedy section. And I love that, because I love that show so so much. And I thought the stars looked incredible. Oh my god, Gene smart, and Hannah einbender just looked so good on the carpet, and then their socials. So that was that was fun to see them win

41:58  
well, and especially women, we always say women of a certain age, which drives me crazy. But Jodie Foster also, I don't know if you mentioned that, but I loved, I loved. She did an interview backstage that I just happened to catch online, and she talked about something happening to her at 60, like she said, I can't describe what happened to my brain and my soul and my being? But I just stopped caring about pointless things. Stopped caring about things that I couldn't control, whether it was her appearance, her weight, her the wrinkles on her face, LIKE it encompassed everything that all of us women go ahead, you were dying to say something. I want to know what it is. Well,

42:43  
it's related to that, because they say that when you go through and finish menopause, that the hormone you lose is the caring about others hormone. And they they call, like some lawyers jokingly call the divorce hormone, because it'll be women who are like, I've spent so much of my life caring for a husband who maybe hasn't necessarily been caring for me in equal measure, and they just say enough, and they it's very specific, and it also poses a unique issue for older parents. So for women, where when you have this hormone in much higher levels when you're younger, it allows for you to be more easily selfless, and that you need a lot of that when you're a parent. So now, if you have children when you're older, you're gonna lose some of this hormone about caring for other people and caring about what other people think about you, and you're still but you're still gonna have kind of a young child potentially. So there is that conundrum, and that, I think, is really interesting that Jodie Foster would have highlighted that specific time. Yeah, she said

43:41  
she really found it difficult to describe, and that she really worried about as her career progressed. And this is a very, very intelligent, extremely academic, well educated person. She left the industry for a long time. To you should hear her speak French. But anyway, I felt a real sense of camaraderie with her, because I feel the same way. You guys have heard me talk about that. I would really love to hear from our listeners about this topic. If you have time to, you know, check in with us on Patreon and leave a comment there. I think we will make sure. We'll start a banner. I'd like to start a little a place that we can exchange ideas about that, because I really want to know where you guys, are you women are you girls and men too. If you want to weigh in to getting older, I'm not opposed to hearing where your stories are probably different from ours. Men seem to get more distinguished. Leave us a voice note, yeah, please leave us a voice note or or just comment on on the Jan Arden pod page, or wherever you want we I'd love to hear what our listeners are thinking about just this topic, because it really hit a bone with me. I'm just like, wow. And I think. She's surprising herself, and she's elated. Jodi seems really surprised by the joy, the ease, the happiness and the satisfaction of leaving behind your doubt, leaving behind that constant self examination that we all do. I was just saying to Caitlin yesterday, I hated how I looked, you know, with Jack's, you know, recording studio. I know I thought You look great. It's so funny. No, I'm gonna be really, really frank here, yeah, like a really honest because I want people to know that I don't think I'm unattractive. I don't, I'm not, but there's things certain pictures, and for me, it's like my chins and the way I was sitting on the couch, and then I kind of shook it off. I just thought, why are you doing that to yourself? Yeah, but I want to share that with people, because I want you to know that I'm Yeah, I seem like I have a lot of ease in my life, and for the most part, I do. I have a lot of grace. I'm not near as critical of myself as I was at your age. Yeah, you know that dogged me a lot more when we look at my eyes. It's

46:11  
true, because I get, I get one of my eyes when I'm not feeling 100% when I get migraines or, like, whatever I'm going through, gets a little bit smaller. And I was saying to Sarah that I noticed it in a past episode when I was really quite sick. And I forget which one it was, what we were talking about, but it was just the three of us. And I remember wearing a red shirt, and I went like, Oh, you've got your migraine tiny eye, but like you do notice that. You notice it about yourself, and everyone's so their own harshest critic. And must be very freeing to feel like maybe you've reached the age and the hormonal stage where you're like, don't care anymore.

46:43  
Or, Jennifer Coolidge, I'm sorry, but just to bring it back to Golden Globes for a second, I feel like you both online commented on her being like, Oh, you can eat whatever you want now.

46:52  
So good. Yeah. And I think the question from the journalist is, you know, was it something about, how is it getting older? Or what was the question, what's

47:01  
exciting you most

47:01  
about people? Well, maybe in Hollywood, in 2025

47:07  
you can eat whatever you want now. So for her, it really was. And Jennifer has clearly, you know, put some weight on. And Hurrah. I'm so glad that any kind of new year's resolution that I ever had, even growing up, even as a young woman, was never losing weight. I never, you know, went to bed on December the 31st January 1, and went, This is it, I'm going to lose weight. I never, ever did that to myself. But getting back to the, you know, looking at my chin and then the way I was moving my head, and I caught myself. I'm like, Why in heaven's name, would you do that to your kind heart and your fierce spirit? Why would you do that to yourself? Nobody else is saying it to me. We all

47:58  
need to hear you say that. Yeah,

48:01  
like, why would I? And I did. I got caught myself, and I felt foolish. And I'm not to say, like, you guys know I'm still doing Noom, and I'll tell you why I've kept doing it. For one thing, I buy mistake paid for a year.

48:16  
First of all, I'm trapped.

48:18  
First of all, I am trapped. Thank you. Caitlin,

48:21  
the user experience is tricky, as I mentioned, but I just

48:24  
was looking at the different the subscriptions, and I'm like, a month isn't gonna tell me anything. That's true. So I signed up. It was like 200 and some odd dollars. It's not cheap 12 months. So what's that? It was the greatest savings, okay, and that really is still me the greatest savings. During touring, I tried to, you know, log in. I was exhausted. I was starting to get it. Was chipping away at my energy and doing the shows. And I was like, anyway, it was impossible. And I really felt out of sorts, because I really enjoyed for me to have the regimen of just making sure I was eating nutritious things, making sure that I was, you know, it's pretty cool when you're tracking your water, when you're punching in. I've only had one glass of water in the last 36 hours. I need to fill this in. So that's what the app does for me. The the side effect. One of the side effects of Noom is weight loss. It's not the goal, and I was never eating often enough. That's my problem. Yeah, that's another one. I just was never eating often enough. And when I'm on the road, I told I'm sure I've had this conversation with everyone, I can't eat past 2pm so I eat breakfast, and then I'll eat like a heavier lunch, and I'm done for the day until the next morning. And I always am too hungry, like it's a screwy thing. So I'm really happy to be now a week into Noom again, and Noom welcomed me back. Feel free to sponsor me. Noom.

49:59  
I'm gonna restart. My Noom journey as well. So

50:01  
I think, I mean, there's a million of different apps you could be using, right whether Noom is your choice, there's no tracker things. So for me as someone who's, like, really into my fitness and everything, at one point when I was working with the trainer, like, May, June, July, August, when I just got some, like, programs I could do at the cottage on the dock, versus, like, paying for a gym membership for those few months, and he had me tracking everything in my fitness pal. And let me tell you what, the second that that program was done, I logged the fuck out of my fitness pal,

50:34  
because I was somebody had to say the F word, because,

50:37  
you know what, like, it became like I was feeling like a pressure about it, right? And although it's still so interesting, I still find it interesting. I'm back on it now. My on my fitness pal, because I like the tracking now, yeah, but it got to a point where I was like, This is making me feel worse, so you have to, you have to check in with yourself regardless of what app you're on.

50:55  
I'm not mad at myself if I don't do it for a day exactly, because I in my mind now I don't. And Caitlin's the one that introduced me to to us to this, yeah, I know calories now I have such a better idea of food and treating myself. And yeah, I'm gonna have that. Nigel and I split a cupcake last night, and it was like, if we split the cupcake, it was 170 calories each. Yeah. And the type of cupcake, I'm not going to say what kind it was, was in the freaking app, and it told me exactly. And so I'm just like, good. That's great. I still have a little bit of room. And I had a really good day. We had really beautiful meals yesterday, nice food, and I was all within what I did because it was so vegetable forward, and they accommodate for anyone's if you're a fisherian, a pescatarian, if you're a triatarian, like whatever snow itarian, I'm

51:55  
trying factor meals this week. Okay, good. Okay, feel

51:59  
free to sponsor us. Factor, because I've heard lots

52:01  
of good things. Yeah, I've been on factor for months. And again, another really easy way to know how many calories you're getting and all the nutritional info on your meals. I really like them. And Jan, you'll be pleased. They're vegetarian and vegan options that I've tried have been delicious anything from them. So Sarah, my favorite of their meals are always like, the bowls. I'm less of a like, chunk of meat and then sides, yeah, I like a bowl of stuff, yeah? So yeah, that tends to like a bowl wearing, yeah, I'm a rice bowl kind of person or salad. But

52:34  
to be honest, so much less money than groceries, and I'm gonna save myself a bunch of time while I'm like, head down this week, getting back to work. Yeah, so Well,

52:42  
I just want to do a little shout out to the keg.

52:46  
Wasn't not what I was expecting. A little shout

52:49  
out to the keg. This is very food oriented. In the keg, normally, when I go in there, I'll have a wedge salad and I'll just swap out. I'll get oil and vinegar, which is great because you get the tomatoes. I don't have the bacon, and it's delicious. I love it. It's crispy. You can't go wrong. And they always have that wonderful sourdough bread that they bring out. And I always have a baked potato. I have a baked potato. It's delicious. I pile the onions on there, and I get, like, the steamed broccoli, and I'll stuff that in there. I always leave the cake satisfied. One thing they do is they have frickin a ton of vegetable side dishes when we went, because I took Nigel and took a couple of my girlfriends to the keg, they had a vegan shepherd's pie. Oh, cool. So I don't know what happened, but they have like, V's beside everything. And I thought, thank you for making it. It's such an interesting thing to see that shift so that people have choices at the keg,

53:45  
of all places, the most meaty place you could go,

53:49  
the Canadian like steak chain, I

53:53  
know, but still I think, I think it says a lot about them. And I didn't order it. I was already No, do what you want to do. Yeah, I was already done the table behind me. The woman ordered the shepherd's pie for her kids to split because they loved lentils. I could hear their little voices behind me. Can we have the lentil thing? I'm like, what's happening in the world? This is cool. Anyway. That's enough. So I just, I just wanted to give them a shout out, because I was like mind boggled. You wouldn't have seen that three years ago. You just wouldn't have sometimes those brands, they stay, they stay where they are. They're not going to budge. And obviously they had had enough requests to waiters or whatever, of people that are, you know, trying to cripple a meal together, that they had that. And the kids had it. They could have had they had the chicken fingers on there for kids. They have a kids menu that they'll bring out anyway. Delicious. It looked delicious. Um, listen, we're at the end of our road here. We've discussed things. We had a bunch of other stuff. We're so happy to be back. Leave us voice notes. Patreon

54:55  
view for us today, if you want to listen. Oh, you know what? Let's let's

54:59  
leave. Doing the right thing, and are we going to before we wrap up? Are we going to do the book next week? Because I want to get started on our book club. Oh, so there's

55:09  
two pieces of housekeeping. Go, see, don't

55:12  
listen to me anymore, people, because I don't know what's going on. Well,

55:18  
we do. We want to start a book club this year, like a Jan Arden podcast book club where we each discuss, we pick a book. Want to also pick a book each month, and the everyone will read it, and we can discuss it. So we do want to start that. I'm not sure exactly when we'll roll that out, but probably I would guess in the next few weeks. Yes, we're

55:37  
rolling it out. I'm so chomping at the bit. I've got four books ready to go, but we're each

55:41  
gonna pick up with Jan. Okay, okay,

55:44  
yes, so we're just gonna pick one. I haven't read

55:46  
them. I'm gonna be reading them with you guys. Yeah, these are things that I want to read. Okay, go

55:50  
together. We need to make good on our holiday party that we had to reschedule. Yes, Jan had lost her voice, so we are thinking we're gonna be doing this next week.

55:59  
Yes, yeah, well, not thinking we planned it. We got a date. We got a time. Okay, so

56:03  
Sarah, you go take us away on that in case I Sarah,

56:05  
take it away to

56:07  
Tuesday, January 14, at noon, Eastern, which for Jan will be in Mountain Time, 10am if you're also

56:18  
nine hours by then. Very, very

56:21  
true. So yeah, with many of our listeners being in Eastern Time, we just figured we would try to aim for that, you know, lunch hour, so that if you are back at work, that you can still join us. And just a reminder for access to this holiday party, we've already picked our winners, and you're going to get an email with the new details, but you just have to be a member of our Patreon. An active paying only Jan, you will get access in Patreon to this link to come and join us. You'll be able to watch us record next week's show, essentially, and we'll be able to have audience feedback, which will be great. And for the book club, just to circle back to that, Caitlin, you also need to be a member of Patreon for where we will do our book club discussions and meetings. There you go.

57:07  
I'm really glad that somebody knows what they're doing. I have really missed everybody. I'm so sorry about canceling those shows. I still think about it. I think I'll be able to make that up in May in Calgary. So I think a lot of people chose to hang on to their tickets, because we will be back at the Arts Commons and be honoring your seats and your all of that. So for people that didn't get a refund and decided to keep their seats, I can always sing a Christmas song in May. Yeah, to make up for it, I can do Can you imagine? And now we're gonna do a 15 minute tribute to Santa. For those of you that missed out, you

57:48  
know, we had a lot of listeners write in about how they got specific sweaters for our holiday Patreon party. Hey, well, please wear them. Please wear them. Well, keep things festive if you're coming, and remember that there is an opportunity to participate from the audience where you would be on video. So wear your holiday, whatever you want to wear

58:06  
exactly. Then don't worry about your chins. Okay, don't worry about

58:10  
your chins. Couple voice notes here. Voice, notice, okay, here we go. Voice, notice,

58:16  
is the podcast still on? I usually watch on Apple podcasts and haven't seen or heard sorry, heard anything for a while?

58:28  
So we're back.

58:32  
No, you're exactly right, listener, we did take a little bit of a break. We the girls did a special because I literally I was like, I sounded like I just sounded like I was underwater and inside of a whale. So yeah, we did disappear, and you're absolutely right. We're back, and we're on schedule, and we're not going anywhere anytime soon. So hope you'll, hope you'll find us back on Apple whatever.

58:56  
Here we go. Number two,

58:57  
hello, Jan. Pardon my name is Annie McCauley, calling from Halifax. I'm just want to listen to your podcast, so I thought I'd tell you that I was just listening to you and Jax, which totally loved Jax. Anyway, I've seen you hundreds of times anyway. So thanks for doing your podcast, and always make me smile. Thank you. Bye.

59:22  
You're very welcome, and thank you to Jax. I feel like I need to give her a finder's fee.

59:28  
I want us to find the woman who received the call, please. If you know this woman on the Jack

59:33  
did, Jack's called her back. So Jack called her back. She's reconnected with her, and so she was going to send her a copy of the video so that she, yeah, she has her because she has her number, obviously, I will

59:44  
sign her a book. Also, if jazz can find out what she was reading, I've got every book here in the house, and I will sign one, and I will FedEx it to the address like. Amazing.

1:00:00  
Let us know what you think of the pod. Thanks

1:00:02  
for listening. We had a great year. Thanks for to all our Patreon. Once again, five bucks a month. We have bonus content. We always record after we do this official podcast, which is available to everyone, always for no money at all. So don't think we're trying to pull one over on anybody, because we're not. But just for the little extras to be part of the you know, the things that we do, the contesting that we do, first in line, access to live events, which we're planning. We're hoping to do three this year, and we will have more information about those coming up very soon as well. And of course, our book club starting in the next couple of weeks. So you guys, thank you so much. Great to see you. We'll see you next time. Don't worry about your chins. Totally Do you.