Free Range Children

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Music.

Jann Arden  0:08  
Well, hey, what a great day. It's me, Jan Arden, and this is the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin green and Sarah Burke. And gosh, summer is rolling right along. It is September, and actually, this has been the most beautiful few days that I have had all summer in Alberta. A little bit of rain at night, which is perfect. I

Caitlin Green  0:27  
think this is beautiful weather. I don't enjoy what it means when the weather changes to slightly cooler, though, if it just stayed this way, I could really enjoy it, but I know that it's a harbinger of doom, and so I struggle with that part of it.

Sarah Burke  0:42  
The temperature swings are a little intense. Like, you know, we went from like 26 degrees to like 16 degrees. The earth is menopausal. Yeah,

Caitlin Green  0:50  
it is, yeah, she's having hot flashes, so especially here in Toronto. But, I mean, you can't argue that the weather was spectacular this past long weekend. I mean, it was just Yeah, absolutely perfect here. Yeah, yeah.

Jann Arden  1:02  
It was pretty great. I had a very chill weekend. I mowed the lawn. So my plan was to not mow the lawn again, because normally I mow it that third week of August, and it just doesn't have enough energy to grow anymore. And I'm like, Cool, nope. Four inches of grass. I was out there mowing again, so it looks good, and I think I'm gonna have to do it one more time before it's all over. But having said that, oh my god, I stand there like an aged man with my hands on my hips, staring out at my yard, and when I realized I was doing it, I felt like I needed to, I don't know, never go out in public again. I really was so glad that no one could see me in that moment with my sunglasses on, hands on hips, staring at the longer dress mode.

Caitlin Green  1:47  
Caitlin, because you're satisfied by it. Don't you think that, really, that those dads, those older men in life, had it figured out, if they gleaned so much satisfaction from just that simple activity, that maybe they are the ones who have it figured out, and now you've joined their club,

Jann Arden  2:02  
I guess so. Anyway, one of the topics we were going to speak to Jen's like, No, it was embarrassed. Was, no, what is it? What is a simple pleasure in life that you think is underrated? So this definitely falls into that category. I had such joy from that

Caitlin Green  2:19  
right? See, I think you've got it figured out. It's the same way. Anytime I clean, anytime you improve your surroundings immediately. And you look at it, and you're like, yeah, like, that's what you were doing. You were like, look what I just did. This looked bad, and now it looks good. This was filled with things I didn't want it to be filled with, and now it's improved. Like, I just feel like it's it's so satisfying. So cleaning would be that for me one day. Hopefully, if I ever have a yard somewhere, I will do the same thing. I will bask in the glory of a tended yard.

Jann Arden  2:47  
Well, my geraniums have suddenly come to life, see. So the last two weeks, I was like, okay, end of summer, that's how it goes. They just had given up, and as we do sometimes, and then I am glancing over, and I felt so guilty because I'm like, I haven't watered these for six days, and they've decided that, no, we're we've still got shit going on. So they're going, my friend Nadine is like, my what's going on with your flowers? My geraniums have suddenly sprung to life. So these really are things that are underrated, simple pleasures, you guys, I'm gonna go to you Sarah, a simple pleasure that you think is underrated in your life, that maybe other people wouldn't appreciate.

Sarah Burke  3:27  
Golden Hour sun in this condo is the most beautiful, like when it's that golden hour before dinner, it's so gorgeous. My plants like glisten, and it just makes me so happy. Like, put on Casey Musgraves Golden Hour, and you got yourself just a

Caitlin Green  3:43  
heck of a night. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  3:44  
Did you think you'd

Jann Arden  3:46  
be at an age where you took the time to really understand that that was a moment to revel in, that that was that moment that you should pause, commit it to memory, stick it away there sometimes, for when days are tough, you can go, oh, but I've got that that sun set to to kind of lean on. I think when we're young, we're just busy being and you guys are young. I didn't appreciate a sunset till I was 15 fucking years older than you guys are Okay, excellent. I don't think so. I don't I think I was on the road constantly. I was in a bus, I was in a hotel. I was so busy trying to make something of myself that I wondered if I stopped enough to go a lot of it, I don't even remember, to be honest,

Caitlin Green  4:30  
I think a lot of it does come with like, because it started from this Reddit thread that popped up about, you know, simple pleasures in life. But I think a lot of it is just when you take a moment to, like, slow down and not be this hustle culture, goal, obsessed on the go, person trying to, you know, acquire things. If you're actually focusing on enjoyment, then it really your list kind of comes into focus where you saw your list. I mean, cleaning is definitely one for me. Like cleaning is. Yes, I love it. I'm I'm settling into, it's so satisfying when it's done. And the same thing with like, like, self care, oh my gosh, if I just have, you know, some time to really oil my cuticles and, like, have a lengthy bath. I mean, I just, I love that. It's the same thing with, like, baking, like, when I have a bunch of I'm like, Oh my God. I have so much, so many different flowers. I have, like, almond flour, coconut flour, like, I have way too many things in my baking cupboard. I'm like, You should just make stuff. Stop buying baked things, or just make them when I finally turn a bunch of ingredients into a thing that I enjoy. That is, that's really, that's it for me. And of course, like sun, like, you know, a sunset, yes, a walk through a park. Always all these things

Sarah Burke  5:42  
in the water or the ground, the ground, like, I don't know I was really needing, like to ground myself in nature this weekend, the things

Jann Arden  5:49  
that are seemingly the stuff that really doesn't take money. Yeah, it's not about going and doing shopping, retail therapy. No things that are available to each and every human being walking on the planet is to enjoy sunset, to walk somewhere where you're outside. It's so important to be outside. I absolutely love it here. I swear to God, where I live is adding years to my life, because I'm not dreading going back to work. As per se, I almost feel like I've been a kid enjoying summer holidays, because I have had quite a bit of time to myself this summer, but when I glance at my schedule, I can't even take it all in. I even tell my road manager, Chris, let's not work a month in advance. Sometimes we have to, because we have to book flights and hotels. And do you want to stay there? Do you want this flight at six? Do you want the one at 2pm like he has to run that stuff by me. But I have to admit, I'm, I'm lamenting this time that I have had to do exactly what you said, Caitlyn, which is those underrated pleasures that we don't always take time to jot down in our little memory books. Yeah,

Caitlin Green  6:56  
I really think it's about, you know, it's not about acquiring. It's about being. And I don't just mean acquiring in terms of material goods, but I mean, you know, are do you finish an achievement that society tells you is important? Like, all that stuff is fine, it's fine to do. I just as I get older, I sort of ruminate and wonder, like, how much happiness does that bring everyone? Like, I don't really know. Like there is a happiness, there's a lack of happiness, I should say in our society, and I feel like maybe that's why, because there's no sort of importance placed on just like going to the library. Like, I love a library. When I was a kid, I used to play library. I would pretend to be a librarian. If you can imagine how exciting that was for the other children to play, where I just shushed them and told them to check out a book and sit and read. But like, I love a library. I love just like, a big space that's quiet and, like, filled with books and just people learning stuff, and so I like those types of things. And honestly, when we were away in Princeton County, and that was a weekend that was filled with, like, activities and socialization and a lot of like, you know, big, busy activities, all of our friends said when we were going to bed, how excited we were about coffee in the morning. All of us were, like, talking about coffee, we would set up a coffee bar for the next day. Like, we were like, who's having an almond milk latte tomorrow? Like, who's having regular coffee? Like everyone said, we just, it's so easy and such a simple thing, but we go to bed, like, looking forward to that the next day, which probably is a bit of an addiction. Also,

Jann Arden  8:20  
it's a blessing to note those things. It's a blessing to take time to note those things. I mean, how much have I been talking about my camera, bird feeder? Yeah, you know, to some people, and I'm sure if you're 22 years old and clubbing, you're not going to appreciate that. But I always challenge people with this the day that you without even your noticing it happening, you're looking at a bird, and you're watching it poke its little head into a puddle of water and cleaning its little wing and flapping around and looking like a little beam of sunlight on it when that day catches you. I think you really realize the preciousness of living because there's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of things attracting our attention. There's a lot of things pulling us in a billion different directions every day. You know, kids, jobs, desires, you know, bills, wanting to get to where you're going. But when you have that second, and I remember it happening to me, Mom always fed the bird. She was always I've talked about that so many times, but just standing there and looking at like a Robin making its nest. I noticed it up in the corner of my garage, and I'm like, What is he doing with that stick? So I went and got my dad's binoculars see and I bet, yeah, I was sitting there, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you, it was 90 minutes. I had a drink. My elbow was getting sore. I kept switching arms. And then all that summer, this was two years ago. I mean, I was watching birds long before this, but watching him make a nest and then watching the birds, watching her come in to feed those little heads that came out. Anyway, it's not it seems like a very banal, unimportant thing, but one day, you'll notice things like having a coffee in the morning and and realizing. What a privilege it is to think about what kind of a coffee you're gonna have in the morning. When Nigel's here, he lines coffee cups up every night. See, that's insane. It's an OCD kind of a thing, but it's also the joy of he cannot wait to get up. He has two cups of coffee. He has his pod from the Nespresso machine set. And if you open my fridge, the milks are lined up. If they're out of order a little bit, they're lined up.

Caitlin Green  10:25  
So Nigel and I are cut from the same cloth. The ritual side of things, like, I like matcha green tea. I like it well enough. I don't love it. But what I really like about it is the ritual of, like, making it with a little whisk and all that. I haven't gone full in onto it. But I I see it on social, and I see chefs I follow doing it, and they talk about brush and the buying and, like, just everything about it. It's this whole ritual. And I like those things. I feel like they're they are grounding and they're relaxing. And I again, not to, like, beat the drum of awareness all the time, because, like, my god, we don't need to be aware of everything always. It's exhausting. But, like, sometimes I do think to myself, like, I'm a bit bored, and then I think, What a luxury it is to be bored. Like, honestly, so many people are, like, out here, just like, literally fighting for their lives. And you're like, I'm a bit bored today. I'm like, Okay, well, being bored is a luxury because there's so much stuff you have to do. People have so many responsibilities and duties and things that like to take a minute to be bored is, in essence, like, you know, it's nice. That's why kids are bored, because it's like the luxury of being a child, that they don't have a lot of the same responsibility. It's like, if my son ever tells me, like, oh so bored, I'm going to be like, you. Enjoy that. Enjoy that feeling.

Jann Arden  11:33  
Well, contrary to what you just said, I think ritual is very much lacking in our in our society. So the idea of ritual and things that we do. I mean, we do a lot of things repeatedly. Whenever I'm making my bed, I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm making my bed again. I feel like I just made my bed. Well, you did just fucking make your bed. Like, 20 hours ago, you just made your bed. But, yeah, I think we're lacking ritual, and I don't think we're instilling that in kids, to have something that you do for yourself that's going to bring joy to your life, and maybe you have this opportunity to instill that in will, whereas I don't recall my mom and dad ever taking the time to have me think about things in a way that would benefit my mental well being. I got we were talking about parenting last week, but yes, I just don't, I just don't recollect my parents ever saying, you know, if you do this, you'll, you'll feel better tomorrow, like I had no guidance. I really feel like I raised myself.

Sarah Burke  12:31  
Goes back to the they were surviving, right? They were just surviving. I know, you

Caitlin Green  12:35  
know, what a testament to the success of everyone's, you know, the of all the generations. And again, you can have individual cases where you feel like I'm not for me, though, but overall, I would say, you know, your our your parents generation, they were like my grandparents, so busy with survival mode and so busy getting things done that they raised you up a level from where they started, and now you're able to look at things and say, How can I improve my mental health and well Being, instead of just my physical surroundings, because everyone's improving it. That's the idea is that you as the previous generation shoulder that raise for the next one. So it's like, I can wrap my head around how to do this for will, because some of the concerns that my parents had I didn't have, like I didn't they gave me a better chance at things than you know, they probably had, and I think they still had it like, all things considered, like their parents did a good job for them, and it's like, kind of like, that's the whole goal, that's the whole goal in life. And I think about this speaks to the back to school of it all, because this is the back to school week, and I see so many kids going back to school, and I do think about their happiness level, the stresses of this younger generation that I didn't have, especially around technology, I mean, especially around what I see from kids now being stressed out by social media, and, like you said, lacking in those rituals that we don't have as society. And like how as a parent, I'm constantly trying to think about how to be more aware of like bringing will into the here and now and feeling happy with what he has, and building those sort of fulfilling rituals for him, it's a huge priority. Well, you're

Jann Arden  14:03  
not going to repeat the mistakes of your parents. And I think that, oh no. I mean, I'm sure we all do things without us even knowing. I'm sure my mom and dad both brought things with them that were legacy stuff, and as did my mother's mother brought stuff from her. I mean, my God, it boggles the mind. If you think how far back these kinds of behaviors go, and legacy trauma or legacy challenges or whatever, our parents kind of this is what we learn. We're gonna give this to you. But I feel like, like most of the parents that I know from like my generations. I'm one step ahead of you guys, but I feel like everyone stepped up to not do what their parents did. Yeah, my friend Teresa and I talk about this a lot like free range children, right open the back door. We'll unfuck and lock it. When it's 6pm you can come in, but literally, the back door could be locked at sometimes, no, you're not come. My mom would say to me, You're not coming in here. Her, but she wanted time for herself to do her needlepoint, or she was probably doing laundry or something. But, yeah, I was a free range child, but I don't think there's a lot of free range children these days. You can't really afford to do that. Like, just boot them out the back fucking door and go, we'll see in nine hours. Like, it's not

Caitlin Green  15:18  
quite like that, obviously anymore, but I do think, and I had sent you, I sent you both in our little podcast DMS that we have on Instagram, but I sent you around back to school, this shot of a school that had implemented a no phone policy. And there's a really fantastic writer and sort of behavioral I think he's either a behavioral scientist or psychologist, but his whole milieu now, his area of expertise is in removing phones from children. He does not want children to have phones, but he recognizes that there's social pressures to have one if all your friends are on one. So he really says, parents, school society, we all have to get behind this movement of unplugging our kids a bit, because it really is damaging them, and we now have data to support this. We know it's harmful. We know it's terrible to have in schools, and it's eroding everyone's ability to bring attention and focus onto learning and friendships and in real life. Life.

Jann Arden  16:13  
Where is it? It's in the States. Caitlin, yeah,

Caitlin Green  16:15  
this is a school. I'm looking at it right now. It is a school in the US, and what they're doing is putting their phone smart watches and other devices not related to their education in what's called yonder pouches. And it's a pouch that prevents the like you can't access it. You put it in a little pouch, it locks. It's not going to get any service, and it's a locking bag that they are only able to open using magnet devices that are available at the end of the school day. So they said their goal is to address the deterior impact of smartphones and social media on adolescents and enhance their learning by addressing school day use of smartphones. So he said he co signs on this and said, Let's give students six to seven hours a day to focus on real life away from personal internet drama. And I think it's great. It's a school in LA. It's called the Windward school. I

Jann Arden  17:03  
agree completely.

Caitlin Green  17:04  
I do too. I really do. I think Wasn't there

Jann Arden  17:07  
a teacher in Ontario that did this three years ago that faced a lot of opposition? She wasn't allowing any phones in the school, so she was very ahead of the curve. I wish I had her name handy. I was just reading about her a few days ago. In conjunction with this article, they were saying that a teacher in Ontario was preemptive about this and had her students. I don't know if they left them in a box at the front door. Obviously, it wasn't that technically advanced, but they certainly weren't allowed them. I would imagine, you know, when a teacher does look out at I'm sure they have 3540 students in each class. That's kind of what teachers are looking at these days. On the average. I just read that two weeks ago. That's a huge class size.

Sarah Burke  17:47  
And this September, they banned cell phones and classrooms in Ontario. Yeah,

Jann Arden  17:51  
but this woman was like, two three years ago in her particular class. You left them at the door. But anyway, this, this one teacher that they spoke to said, when she looked up or turned around from writing on the chalkboard. Every head was down, and every head was looking at a smartphone. So if she was even to go and have them engage in answering a question, they literally didn't know where they were. They were looking at Tiktok. They were they were just being drained of their attention. I mean, you're a kid, you're you're like a golden retriever, you're like a fucking Crow, something shiny, you're gonna dive down to get it.

Caitlin Green  18:23  
It's negatively impacting their sense of self and their connection to others and their ability to socialize properly. It's eroding a lot of really important things, and because it's a generation of guinea pigs for being born with these phones and tablets all around them all the time, you are only just seeing the data now to support all these doctors and behavioral psychologists saying we gotta get on top of this. So we'll include his name. His name's Jonathan. I think it's height H, A, I d t. I've seen it written, but never heard it pronounced. So we'll include that in the show notes as well, because his work in this area is really interesting, especially to me as a parent, but it should be to everybody, because, you know, we're all gonna grow up in the same world together. So you want everyone to be as well adapted as they can.

Jann Arden  19:07  
Yeah, I think by the time will gets to, you know, school, this stuff will be dealt with, and I think they'll have a really great plan in place. You know, it makes me think what my version of the cell phone was in my day, so let's picture me in 1969 and second grade. It would be notes, passing little notes. We had notes that would start and you'd scribble another thing on there, and it'd be about, I can't even imagine what we wrote about. We certainly weren't writing about having crushes on boys in the second grade, I would like to think, but they were just silly things like, want to meet here who's going to be on whose team, but notes were crazy, and I remember the teacher absconding our notes to the front of the class by an ear you.

Anyway, moving on. Summer concerts have been a thing, and watching Taylor Swift's stuff unfold the ticket sales, obviously, sometimes were very successful, sometimes they were an out note. Disaster Oasis faced a very similar challenge when they announced a tour. So having these brothers back together has been the talk of the town of the music world for the last three weeks. So what the hell is going on with their ticket sales?

Caitlin Green  20:29  
Well, they broke. Well they broke. They crashed Ticketmaster, and it was their reunion tour. And demand for their reunion tour, tickets overwhelmed Ticketmaster UK, because more than a million people log in at once, and the site just completely freezes. So Ticketmaster said their AI logged off others believing that they were bots. There were all these issues with the rollout because their systems just can't handle the demand for this happening all at once. And it's the same thing that happened with Taylor Swift, and now it's happening for the I guess, the elder millennial Taylor Swift, which turns out to be oasis. So yeah, now they're saying resale for the best seats, because it sold out right away on their 17 night tour is going. They're going for $8,000 like $8,000 I like Oasis as much as the next person, but that's, that's too much money. That's too much money for a ticket. That

Sarah Burke  21:21  
Will Make Me Look Back in Anger Exactly.

Jann Arden  21:24  
I'm sure I told you guys this, but I was playing at Massey Hall years ago. I was playing at Massey Hall for four or five nights in a row, and I was staying at the Pantages, yeah, right across the street. I had stayed there for years, so I would literally walk to work. So on like night three, I'm walking over there. I have my hat on. I go early. This is like, at four o'clock in the afternoon. I got in the venue early so that I didn't have to deal with walking past people anyway, of course, who's out there at four, 430 in the afternoon, is the scalpers. And I had a guy trying to sell me my ticket. I got tickets to Jarden. I'm like, Oh, I got really great seats. Where are they? I'm right. I'm like, right, almost on the stage completely. And I just thought it was so funny. And I once got, I did, end up buying it. It was a kind of a counterfeit t shirt. Oh, and it was the worst picture of me I'd ever seen. It looked like an AI. This would have been like a 1997 it looked like aI had done. I had the Jimmy eye or something going on, but, but, yeah, so scalpers, $8,000 is a stiff, pretty stiff ticket price. But I had heard at one point, and this was very beginnings of the Taylor Swift debacle, that's $15,000 for a pair of tickets. So that's still a pair, but 7500 bucks a piece, and they weren't even that great of tickets. It's not,

Caitlin Green  22:39  
I know that's the thing, like, you're not, like, yes, you can say that you're there, but like, truly, what is the experience you're having? I just don't know, because I kind of grew up in the era of being able to get good seats at shows for major artists for not cheap, but like, not nowhere near, like, nowhere near this amount of money, nowhere near, like, a Super Bowl ticket price, yeah. So I think I just, I can't I'm this is an area where I'm like, Okay, I'm just, like, of another generation, because I will never pay that. I will absolutely never pay that. It just won't happen. I'll never enjoy the show that much. Chris

Jann Arden  23:15  
and I did 600 US for the Adele show in Vegas. We never ended up being able to go. We actually got the tickets to his mom. You remember that long time ago, but, but 600 bucks us? I thought, gosh, that's a 900 $800 Canadian ticket. And then the seats were okay, we're on the first balcony in Caesar's Palace. But yeah, I I'm not going to feel bad with taxes and with something else they ding you with at Live Nation or Ticketmaster or whatever. I think my highest price ticket would be like 130 to come and see me for an orchestra seat, and that's with all your fees put into it. That's

Caitlin Green  23:55  
not a lot, and I think that's a super reasonable amount, especially for like the quality of show like you're putting on. And I also feel like there are so many artists that I truly adore that are like some of my favorite artists, that are not the biggest name in the world. So I can go and see artists that I regularly listen to and follow closely for far less than that. So it's just again never going to be worth it, because my taste in music is not only big, massive, Taylor Swift level artists I'll just go see the, oh yeah, that I like just as much, if not more. Quite frankly, there's

Jann Arden  24:27  
lots of artists that I've seen too, that I can go see. There's a lot of people I've seen in clubs with 400 other people. Just up and comers. Are people that are just, I agree completely, just supporting that aspect of of live music. I've even gone to live music that I haven't even heard of the person. I'm like, I'm gonna go see what this is. Yeah. And I've always, I've always left going, I really love that. I don't know if I would buy that record, but I really love the music. It's so important any kind of arts. I've went to a ballet once. I don't even really like dancing. It's not part of my i. Real house in my mind, but I appreciate it, but I just left there gone. That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And I was kind of dragged to a ballet. And I know I'm not knocking any of that. These people were working extremely hard, and it was beautiful, and music was beautiful,

Caitlin Green  25:16  
but you loved it, just a great experience. That's how I feel. I like classical music, and that was 100 bucks. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not like but I'm not turning classic music on all the time. I'm not watching ballet all the time. I'm not like an expert in either area, but when I've gone to a symphony, or when I've gone to see a ballet, again, experience wise, I've really enjoyed it, and it's not costing me $8,000 for a ticket. So and I've also, I feel like I'm again, fortunate in the sense that I've seen oasis. I saw them at their prime. I mean, I saw them when they were just, like, killing it. So I'm like, these two brothers hate each other so much. Ordinarily, when they're not both going broke, apparently, like, I don't know that they've actually have they rekindled their relationship, or they just broke. So, I

Jann Arden  25:57  
mean, Bruce's take on this would be they, what does he think? Yeah, they do. He would, I'm speaking for him. He would say they need money. So usually, when you see these things, they need money. The only exception that I will say would be Abba, they did not need money. They will never need money. They didn't need a single dollar. When you think about what Benny and Bjorn have created, the Mamma Mia series, the movies, the the Broadway musical. They must be played 1000s and 1000s of 1000s of times, every hour globally. So they they're in another realm, but yet they put this, that show together that is basically all AI stuff. And I, if Abba got back together, they won't. They're 80 years old. I would, I would pay $20,000 to go do that. Oh, my God, no, I'm telling you right now, I would forego I would do something. I would sell my jeep, my old Jeep. Every time I drive, I have a 20 year old guy. This is of Sue so yes, it is, because I'm gonna go to Abba right now. That's

Caitlin Green  26:56  
the value of it to you. And there's got there. So apparently there's someone out there who's been saying that about Noel and Liam getting back together. I just no desire to see that. Yeah, like I've seen it. It's great. I love them. I love their work. I just, you know, I hope everyone bought the insurance Ticketmaster's insurance before you can have a follow to any given moment. And you never know. And they're also moody Brits, so who knows what could happen? They could have a crazy fight on tour. Maybe they'll get into a fight over the

Sarah Burke  27:21  
announcement the guns are down. Like, how dramatic is this?

Caitlin Green  27:25  
The guns are down and you need $50,000,000.50 Go ahead.

Sarah Burke  27:30  
Did you guys see what Jack White is doing on this tour? No. So he's doing surprise shows, where they announce what it is that morning it goes on sale. And then if you're in that city, you scramble to get tickets. And he did this a while ago, like, I remember, I want to say, like, 15 years ago. I'll try and remember the date he played, like, the ARVA Flower Mill, like really weird venues, which was, like, just outside of London, Ontario. And imagine getting like, you know, you're 500 people in a flower mill for a concert. But anyway, so it's more like club shows, but he can, he can do more than club shows now, which is what makes it so special and like a really fun way. Maybe I should do that. I just think it's such a good idea. Yeah,

Jann Arden  28:12  
that's a great idea. I saw sting that way once. Oh, I forget where it was. It's probably Massey Hall. Well, one of those venues could have been something else, but yeah, he did kind of an announcement. He was on tour. This would have been the 90s, yeah, and we went and saw him. I had one extra ticket, and I didn't even sell it. There was somebody there, and I gave it to them, and he's like, No fucking way. I said I didn't pay for it. I'm not charging you for it, because somebody had given me these three tickets, and two of us went. So I literally said, Does anyone need a ticket? And I'll never forget the look of the man's face, like, I'm gonna take $300 for somebody that gave me a ticket. I couldn't live with myself. I

Caitlin Green  28:49  
don't like waiting in line. It's not for me. But I do think there was a point in time, and I I want to say it was Arcade Fire. I want to say that Arcade Fire was doing pop up shows, and it was like, same thing, night of announce, block of tickets, you rush and wait in line. Yeah, it was Arcade Fire, and I was working freelance at the time. And so out of our friend group, I was the one who was most capable of going to stand in this line. And it was a Danforth music hall, I know the venue and and so I waited in line for like hours. I just, like, sat there on my phone and then, or Blackberry, probably at the time, and went and got your Motorola, my Motorola, my razor, or whatever it was. And we were back in the day, huge Arcade Fire fans. And so I think I got us all, like, second or third row at Danforth music hall to see them, because I went and I sat there with a lawn chair like somebody waiting for, you know, Boxing Day sales. Yeah, and I did it. I pulled it off. So that's the only time I did that. I would do that for Rihanna. I would 100% do that for Rihanna,

Jann Arden  29:53  
you know, the last and I bet you'd pay 2000 bucks for Rihanna too.

Caitlin Green  29:57  
I can't see myself.

Jann Arden  29:58  
How high would you go?

Caitlin Green  29:59  
I can't. Myself blown over 1000 I don't think. And even then it would be hard if it was a crap seat. Do you know what I mean? It's like, I'm saying I'd pay $1,000 for a great seat, but a great seat would be more than $1,000 so like, who knows what I would

Jann Arden  30:10  
get? It would be a shot in the dark, wouldn't it? It would. I'll

Caitlin Green  30:14  
take it up with Rihanna my closest Yeah,

Jann Arden  30:16  
if I can ever help you get a Rihanna ticket. I'm going to I once helped a friend of mine get a meet and greet with JLo. Shut up. I'm not kidding you. I don't have a lot of connections, but I knew a guy, Lynn Holt shout out to you. They're good friends of mine, him and his partner, Josh. Anyways, Lynn was running like the entertainment wing of the MGM group in Vegas, and JLo was doing that show in Vegas, so I just sent a flare up to Lynn. I said, Is there any chance at how my friends going to the Vegas show? Does JLo do any meet and greets? And he actually arranged it. He goes, I don't ask for much, but I'm going to put her on the list to do it. And it was Melissa. It was Melissa grello, no, it

Unknown Speaker  30:58  
was not, yeah, it was. It

Jann Arden  31:00  
was her, Oh, my God,

Caitlin Green  31:01  
you're the sweetest thing. Because she's obsessed with her. Yeah, she loves she is to I even know that about her, like, just from watching the social but, like, I feel like, yeah, so she is to her what Rihanna is to me. And so, yeah,

Jann Arden  31:15  
I can't What Olivia Newton John is to me. And what would your version be, Sarah, what's

Sarah Burke  31:19  
Weezer? Yeah, rivers Cuomo, by the way, they're here this weekend. I'm going like, you're connected

Caitlin Green  31:24  
in the music industry, especially in, like, the indie, like rock music industry. How has this not happened?

Sarah Burke  31:29  
What that I haven't met rivers yet? Yeah, slept with him. Well, we've

Caitlin Green  31:33  
anticed up. I

Sarah Burke  31:34  
don't know. Like, there was a point where my colleagues at the radio station were calling it like a Weezer curse, because every single time it was like they were coming to a music festival in London when I was on the air there, and the interview was booked with universal, and we were like, ready to go, and then, oh, they ended up going to play the tonight show the night before, and so they canceled their press like there was something every goddamn time. My last interview with them was with founding members of the band, but not my guy. He wasn't there. Okay,

Caitlin Green  32:03  
well, this is a wrong that needs to be righted. We need to get Sarah to meet rivers Cuomo. Because I'm like, this should be this feels based on your space. I'm like, this does not feel unattained. It's the

Sarah Burke  32:13  
30th anniversary of the blue album. So I am jacked as all hell. Formative album

Caitlin Green  32:18  
for me that I re listened to when we were away on vacation, not like it was a couple years ago. And I turned it on while Kyle and I were, oh, we were settling into a full day of cooking. We had rented a house in the Eastern Townships, and it was one of our days to stay at the house and just cook by the fire and do that. And I turned on the blue album while I was starting to make a pie, and both of us were like, This album still kicks ass off later.

Sarah Burke  32:38  
The world is right. Left me here. Ah,

Caitlin Green  32:40  
oh I like these are some of my greatest karaoke pics. Much to the chagrin of anyone who's ever seen me perform karaoke, because I cannot sing, but it was such a formative album for me. Oh my gosh, here's

Sarah Burke  32:52  
my hot tip on Weezer karaoke, you just sing the guitar parts, and then you don't have to worry about the words.

Caitlin Green  32:59  
What's really embarrassing is that I also would do gangsters paradise, yes, try to keep a straight face. Oh, I would, I would keep such a stone cold straight face. I would imagine myself as Coolio rest in peace. And I would do like, individual points and shout outs to people and all of my friends would, like, cringe into another dimension and be like, we can't know you anymore. It's like, oh, it's who I am.

Jann Arden  33:22  
It's the 46th anniversary I've been living in. John's totally hot. It is. There's some great songs on totally hot and magic 1980 you got to believe we own ELO, the the big movie, magic Light Orchestra, yeah, yellow. Electric Light. I love electric light. Orchestra. Okay,

Caitlin Green  33:41  
here's totally hot. Look at the cover for this black leather outfit. Very chic. It's very like this could be today, but like she's leaning against this big marble column she's in like an oversized leather bomber, like she looks, she looks Oh, currant, like she looks good. Okay,

Sarah Burke  33:57  
you know we can bring this back to our back to school. You know, what was so hard about that movie Grease was when they went back to school, right? Oh, they struggled with where the romance just ended,

Jann Arden  34:09  
course, because he had to ignore her. He couldn't be seen with her. He needed he was tough. He needed a tough broad. He needed a broad that put out. He needed a broad that was loose and easy that did it in the back of a car. Sandy, no, Sandy couldn't, but he couldn't let the guys know that.

Caitlin Green  34:25  
No, he had to pretend that he slept with her. I was like, we didn't address that portion of Greece properly at the time. But upon revisiting bit of a liar, bit of a liar that John Travolta character, yep. And

Jann Arden  34:39  
what a terrible thing to do to a woman, really. I mean that women are labeled slots and whores and all and easy targets, because men say that. They the guys say we I had it with her. I did that with her. And nothing of this sort happened. I think that happens all the time anyway. That was her energy. That was the whole premise of Greece,

Caitlin Green  34:58  
I know. And then poor. Rizzo. Everyone made Rizzo out to seem like she was some sort of like, floozy. Just knew what she wanted. Rizzo knew what she wanted, and she had a man. So I was like, What's the problem here? Rizzo is like, in a committed relationship, and also, virginity is a social construct, and she figured that out early. So good for her. Maybe she's a feminist icon. You

Jann Arden  35:26  
well, going back to school was probably one of the most exciting, thrilling days of my entire childhood growing up, and I had wonderful summers growing up, I played with Leonard and Dale. We just ran around like Huckleberry Finn. And it just it was, it was so idyllic. I had a great childhood. I really did few bumps along the way. But hey, it happens. But going back to school, to spring bank school, spring bank junior high, getting to have a new outfit from the co op. Mom would take us into town, and I remember having these rust corduroys matching shirt that had little corduroy elbow patches on it. And I just thought, this is the nicest outfit I've ever seen in my life. And going back and seeing my friends, and there was like 40 kids that I went to school for, you know, 910, years with. It was fantastical. I'm going back to school, and I love school so much. I loved every second of I thank God. I learned to read and write, but it was such a social endeavor for me bringing my lunch kid on the bus. And I don't care if I occasionally had a wiener and a thermos, that's okay. Didn't always work out,

Caitlin Green  36:33  
but sounds like a X rated movie, yeah.

Jann Arden  36:37  
But mom did her best to put lunches together and and I don't know, I just, I know going back to school can be so traumatic for kids, and tell me why you hated it, because

Caitlin Green  36:50  
I didn't like school. I'm going to be honest, didn't like it. Can

Jann Arden  36:53  
you give me an idea of the size of school? I know that that junior high and senior high are very different, but was there four or 500 kids? You know, probably

Caitlin Green  37:00  
I can literally Google, oh yeah. So currently serves just over 400 students. And where was that? Give us the in the beach, okay, so in the beaches area of of Toronto, wonderful school, incredibly well rated, great little neighborhood I could I could always walk to school. I never lived very far from school at all, and all my friends lived around school. But I am, at heart, an introverted extrovert, like I didn't really like and I don't learn well from sitting still. I'm not a sit still and learn person. So immediately, as soon as I could, I gravitated towards like performing arts. I wanted to run around an auditorium. I wanted to go to gym class. I wanted to take music class. I wanted to join choir. I wanted to go to the library. The notion that I went, I remember thinking, Oh, God, another one of these days where you walk into school and you just sit at your desk and you're at your desk the whole time until lunch. There's that you just sit at a desk until lunch. Like I was like, Oh, this is brutal. So like that of recess, we had recess, but recess in the morning was like 1520 minutes. It was small, right? It was like, Get get your energy out, and then you had lunch, and then the afternoon included gym, so that was more tolerable. But then back in elementary school, I mean, really, until we got to high school, we didn't have a drama class. We didn't have, like, a debate class that took place in other physical spaces, and again, something you learn as you get older. Like I needed that change of physical surroundings. I loved when we had library class because I could go to the library and choir was in a different room. But other than that, I was like, God, these days drag on in the winter, and then you go outside and it's like cold and you're just in the classroom all day, and it's like you get yelled at for talking to other people. And I was like, What the hell am I supposed to do? Sit here and stare at a blackboard like it was boring and I'm an only child, and so the social structure of group dynamics for children like also eluded me. I didn't understand it. I was like, I don't know. So it wasn't it truly was not for me. But then when I got into high school and I had drama, oh, that was that was great high school. I loved

Jann Arden  39:01  
I think the arts just saves kids. I wish they would pour more money, more resources, more time and effort into the arts. I think that's what's going to change how this world is shaped and how people communicate with each other. And I'm not just saying that because I'm an artist, but I have seen how it saves people, how how it helps kids. I remember my friend's daughter was struggling so much growing up. And I mean, 1112, 1314, 15, tough years, those formative, really, really tough. Put her randomly my friends like I put her in a drama class outside of school. This kid went from zero to 100 in a week, like of two of these drama classes a week in the evenings, she met people that were unique and individualized and and just thinkers and, and I don't know, it just changed her life this. She's such a good kid. You know, she's grown up now with her own kids, but it. Literally saved her. I

Sarah Burke  40:01  
would say it saved my life too. I went to how So speak to that. I went to an art school that you had to audition to get into for grade seven and eight. And before that, I was kind of this, like, bookworm kid. I remember getting bullied a lot, and kind of like felt left out because all of we've talked about sleepover camp. All the girls went to sleep over camp. We come back to school, they're all talking about sleepover camp. And I was like, Oh, I didn't go, right? So anyway, when I went to this art school, which is called baythorn public school, if anyone knows that, school in Thornhill, Ontario, all of a sudden, you know, people aren't talking about camp. They're talking about, what's the play this year? What instrument Are you gonna play? Right? So we had to take instrumental, vocal class, dance and drama and visual arts.

Jann Arden  40:42  
I would love that.

Sarah Burke  40:44  
I love the dance part, because I did do dance outside of school too, but the visual arts was, like, kind of tough for me. I was like, crumple up, throw it out, have a tantrum, come back the next day. Type of girl, yeah, it totally like, made school a different and that's why I'm outgoing today. Is from that experience I know that precisely. I know that, yeah,

Jann Arden  41:02  
dear government, dear government. Always

Caitlin Green  41:05  
it's crazy that parents have to like source this outside of the school. I am very keen on paying attention to like what is offered at the schools that are going to be in various like areas of Toronto, because the catchment that you are in for your kids school in the city makes a massive difference, and we pay so much in taxes already. Like, why should you have to pull your kid out of the public school system? Like, it's just it doesn't make sense. So, yeah, I think as soon as will shows his own inclinations, it's like, I want to find the schools that sort of support that it may not be performing arts at all. He might be really athletic. I was not, so he would be going against the norm for me, but like he might be, if he likes performing arts, I'm going to be like, we're going to find you a school with a sick auditorium and a drama teacher who knows how to do things, and you'll just thrive. And it improved my other classes. Like, once I started having a reason to look forward to going to school every day, then I was more inclined to go, because I'll tell you I was not. I didn't care for rules. If I had saw no reason to go to school, like, I would skip class, like I didn't

Sarah Burke  42:05  
care. Oh, ask me how many times I made it back after lunch. Oh, I know, see, and that's the thing I like some people were, I lived like, walking distance from school. I would go home for lunch, and then I'd be like, not today we

Jann Arden  42:16  
had, we had nowhere to skip to. Oh yeah. We were like, I still drive by the school once in a while. I'll go by there, and it's attached to the arena, which was so awesome. There was a pop machine in there and a chocolate bar machine, and french fries. Curling rink was there, but there was nothing else there. So if we skip school, there was nowhere to run. It was almost like being incarcerated in Siberia, like you can get out beyond the gate, but we'll find you it's flat. You might get killed by a cow, but oh my god, just I just love school. I loved it. Maybe I loved the kids, but I have such a visceral memory of elementary school, like the fifth grade at elbow Valley Elementary, and they sent a note home that, you know, you give to your mom. And it was about getting one of Dad's old dress shirts for art class. And I remember the teacher rolling up the sleeves of this printed man's shirt. It was probably, oh God, down to my ankles. It's just a long dress shirt, and having it buttoned up by the art teacher. And, you know, with paint brushes and stuff, I was in my glory. I just things like that I can think about. I'm like, God, are those memories even real? Love school. So I do, like I said, going back to this, this whole idea of kids being stressed out. And, you know, especially when you start a new school, like I would imagine when you jump from elementary to the junior high. What is it in Ontario? I know that CNI

Caitlin Green  43:45  
is Junior High, and then 910, is nine to

Sarah Burke  43:49  
12. Most people just say public school, and then high school. Like, I don't hear a lot of, okay,

Jann Arden  43:54  
so high school is an optional you can go where you want in high school, correct? In Ontario, no, it's still been no where you live, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you can't just go, we're going,

Sarah Burke  44:04  
unless you audition for a program where you're, like, paying into something. Yeah,

Caitlin Green  44:07  
there are some certain schools like that are, it's, it's an audition like process. What Sarah outlined, like, I know that like Etobicoke School for the Arts is the same way. I think there's another one called Wexford. That's the same bill High School, which is Markham. Yeah. So there are some special schools, and they'll take you based on your, you know, qualifications or skills less than, like, your catchment. But I went to the school. I went to the high school that happened to be like, I was in District Four, and it was fabulous. It just happened to have a great drama teacher and an auditorium, and so that's what I mean, like, it's really worth researching what, what the school district is. When you buy a home in Toronto, it's incredibly important, because if you wind up in a bad school district, oh God, like it's just it's so stressful for the parents, because you're constantly hedging against this terrible education that they're

Jann Arden  44:53  
getting. Well, I know that some families here in spring bank, where I still live to this day, I know. That quite a few of the wealthy families took their kids out of spring Bank Community High School, and they went into town, because I remember, you know, just even keeping in touch with kids all these years later, I'm like, Oh, you left in grade nine. Didn't you? Like, yeah, I went to Bishop Carroll. My mom sent me in there with my sister and blah, blah, blah. So we lost quite a few kids. I mean, we barely crippled together basketball teams and volleyball teams. It just was dismal. And

Sarah Burke  45:26  
everyone was on the same team. Like hockey,

Jann Arden  45:30  
I was on every team. Like, if you tried out, if you tried out, and made any effort, you would get on a team. I mean, imagine me playing senior high school basketball. It was laughable. That's cute. I mean, five foot nothing, but I could dribble like a bat out of hell. But I don't think my coach ever, don't ever shoot. Don't waste don't waste your shot. Pass it off. Pass it off.

Caitlin Green  45:50  
You were just, you were just dribbler. Jan, yeah, just a dribbler.

Jann Arden  45:54  
I think I just went between. I was like a Harlem Globetrotter. I was like a trick player. I'm so short, I would just buzz around people, and I was they were too tall to freaking swat the ball away from me. It was just too low to go anyway. Before we leave, I do want to address the Paralympics, because the Paralympics, they take place after every major Olympic event, Olympic year, and they're always really exciting. They're always, you know that gut wrenching moments where you see a lot of tragedy being triumphed by these great success stories, people that have overcome physical challenges and lost limbs, or, I mean, the array of stories that are behind these athletes when they do those personalized, focused stories, you're like, what the actual shit? How is this person even standing, even smiling? And they really are, if you're if you've not watched them, not been watching them, you missed out. But one of the main stories that have come out of this course Caitlin sent this to me, was the break dancers. And the headline of this particular story is, the Paralympian break dancers are further proving that ray gun, the terrible Australian break dancer, needs to reevaluate her life.

Caitlin Green  47:07  
Actually, I wrote, Oh, you did that commentary.

Jann Arden  47:11  
Oh, my God, writing the fucking headlines. I laughed out loud. So tell me about that. Listen, I'm gonna put you down to write headlines for newspapers, because these are things that capture my

Sarah Burke  47:25  
fucking attention, the Caitlyn times,

Caitlin Green  47:27  
the Caitlyn times, the

Jann Arden  47:28  
Caitlyn times. I'm down. I'll be your first in line to subscribe. Yeah.

Caitlin Green  47:32  
So this sort of starts making the rounds because it was actually, it turned out that it was a group of Paralympic break dancers, and their name is ill abilities. And it's a breakdance crew of disabled break dancers that actually opened the break dancing at the Paris Olympics as well. And so everyone's like, this brings into focus just how terribly under qualified she was to be there, and makes her performance all the more embarrassing, because this breakhand crew, like, holy smokes, they are good. What they can do with, you know, missing limbs and on crutches is just, can we

Jann Arden  48:12  
link that in the show notes? Sarah, it's incredible. Yeah, you really need to watch this one particular clip, because it's, you don't even, you can't get your head around what's happening.

Sarah Burke  48:21  
And what's so weird is the break dancing was not part of Paralympic Games this year, even

Caitlin Green  48:27  
though they're amazing, and they opened the Paralympic and there's talk they might

Jann Arden  48:31  
be, yes, there's talk that the next, in four years from now, that that this could very much be one of the sports Yeah,

Caitlin Green  48:39  
their their content is now circulating because the Paralympics are trending, and everyone's like, Hey, did you see ill abilities? Because I feel like they kind of got swept under the rug in the Ray Gun story, taking the headlines out of the Paris Olympics, because they opened it and they were fantastic. So the other thing that's that's been making headlines too out of the Paralympics is this Archer named Matt Stutzman. Have you seen this? The armless gold medal winning Archer? No, it is so incredible to see this guy. He has he not have any arms, just no arms. He has no arms. He has an apparatus. And basically he they're saying he's completely redefined the sport of archery for the Paralympics, and that he can hold a bow with one leg, pull the bow string back with his jaw, and then hold all this potential energy and and release an arrow so accurately that he's winning gold medals and he's he's doing his accuracy, his speed, all The all the measurements for success and archery, he's outperforming most people with arms. I mean, this is crazy. So his backstory is really fascinating, because he was born without arms, and he was adopted at only four months old by a family of hunters in Iowa, and so he grew up. Wanting to do what his dad and his brothers did. And so his dad, you know? And this is the great thing about parents, they just look at their kids as people, you know, born without arms. They're like, you know, what? Figure it out. Son, very let's figure it out, you know. And so they just, they did it, got him a bow, figured out how to do it, and now he's redefined the sport. And there's another, a woman named Sheetal Devi who has also doesn't have arms, and because she's been studying the way he does it. Now she is at the Paralympics. I think she won bronze in a certain category for archery as well. So they're like, this guy has redefined how we can do archery. And I just, I love the Olympics. It was actually really fun to watch parts of it this year. But man, you want to be impressed. Tune into some Paralympics, because, holy shit. Just

Sarah Burke  50:47  
defying all odds, I

Jann Arden  50:48  
watched the 100 yard chair dash. These chairs are like state of the art. One huge wheel, their arms, their upper body strength. I'm telling you, you can't fathom the speed in which these athletes are going down a track. Never mind that the direction, like they're going so fast and they are bull straight, like they are just down the line. There's nobody crossing it like the three of us we're about to sit in a wheelchair and try and go anywhere. I mean, I know this is years and years of training in the lifetime of being in these chairs. But the Yeah, the athleticism is is beyond belief. You really learn to appreciate and understand you know what it's like Look after yourselves, for crying out loud, because and what people deserve to have in this society further that, like make sure they have everything that an able bodied person has, it's still these, these games bring awareness to so many different parts of our society and how marginalized people are still, in this day and age, fighting for any kind of equality. It's disgusting. So

Caitlin Green  51:56  
I also feel like sometimes I look at this and you're like, yeah, like, people with disabilities don't need your pity. They need some they need some funding and some resources and some help, like, being empathetic. Yeah, being like, empathetic is like, one thing to the fact that, like, they're going to be disadvantaged the way our society is set up in many ways. But I watched this and I was like, You guys are so much better at this than I would ever be. Like, truly, it's just, you know, some people walk with their legs. Some people get around with a chair. It's like, you can see here that they've, like, leveled that playing field and just done so much. I was like, I cannot stop watching footage of it. It's just blowing my mind. You got to

Jann Arden  52:33  
do it. Be inspired. Listen, we got a lot of talk about in Patreon for our only Jans. And believe it or not, I want to talk about periods. Oh, we're gonna be talking about periods a little bit. I've got a few tall tales and a few interesting little stories about a friend of mine, okay, and we talk about periods, and we're still in our going back to school theme. There's some things about sexual awakening that we're going to be touching on on the other side, which is quite interesting, things that I've had to think long and hard about, and trades that I made, trade offs that I made that could have been the very beginning of young Jan at the trading post.

Caitlin Green  53:12  
I don't even emphasis on the long and hard, okay, but

Jann Arden  53:17  
emphasis on long and hard. But I'm not going to talk about it here. We're going to say goodbye for now. We're going to leave you with some voice notes that we haven't even heard. So a lot of times, you know, we'll review them because, God forbid, someone says something terrible about me, or Caitlyn or Sarah,

Caitlin Green  53:30  
or makes someone a microphone appearance,

Jann Arden  53:33  
makes fun of your Caitlin holds her microphone, as you can see right now, and I've had so many people I don't know why you're not seeing these not have a stand? Does she not have a stand for her microphone?

Caitlin Green  53:44  
Okay, first of all, just because I look like I'm emceeing a wedding doesn't mean that my microphone is low quality. It's a good quality microphone. Nobody has said shit about the quality. Girl I know, but they want me to like, they want me to have it like here and I just the height of my table. I do have a microphone stand, but it wouldn't go low enough, and the way that I'm situated, this just is more practical, although now I should maybe, in fact, look into like an Amazon level mic stand now. Now the haters Go ahead.

Jann Arden  54:11  
Do not change anything. Look at mine. But people are like, I get comments about my hair. I get comments about you looked tired today. Jesus.

Sarah Burke  54:20  
Thanks.

Caitlin Green  54:21  
No tired. Shut up. We're all tired. Life's tired,

Jann Arden  54:25  
but here's me. So this morning I'm like, oh god, I've got to pick up my because our YouTube game. I've got to make an effort. So I worked out early this morning. Well, yeah, so you did? You guys look as cute as can be. You always look great. But people are like, Oh. So I showered, I blow dried my hair. You know I was now my headphones are gonna wreck my hair for the day, but you know, I'll get past it anyway. Here's some voice notes without any other further ado. We have not screened these damn torpedoes. Let's go.

Speaker 1  54:54  
Hey, ladies. My name is Nicole, and I just wanted to leave my very first voice note. You. Have officially popped my voice note cherry. Woo. I just wanted to take a minute and thank you all for getting me through an absolute horrifically difficult year. So far, I'm helping care for my elderly mom, who has started her dementia journey, and while we struggle to find any type of home care in Ontario, I am her caregiver. So once a week, I do the two hour drive each way to help, shower, bless you prepper meals for the following week, laundry, all of the ins and outs of her daily world. And I was finding the drive home to be such a difficult, dreadful drive, it was filled with tears of exhaustion, sadness and endless thoughts of I hear you. You know, did I do enough? Am I doing enough? What else can I do? How much vacation time do I have? How am I going to balance next week's, you know, budget with gas and medical needs and all of the things that it was starting to take a very strong hold in my mental well being. And I never actually listened to a podcast before, so I tuned into yours, Jan. And honestly, you're now the sole reason I can do what I do. I laugh, I cry, and the drive home is something that I no longer dread. So thank you from the absolute depths of my heart for making this journey that does not feel traveled alone. Keep on, keeping on, all three of you.

Sarah Burke  56:12  
Oh, that's so,

Unknown Speaker  56:13  
oh my we love

Sarah Burke  56:14  
you, and that's so all the power to all the hard things you're doing. Geez, so many Oh, been

Jann Arden  56:21  
there. I don't don't envy you, Nicole, I don't envy you. And I will say this, it was the worst part of my life. It was the hardest thing I ever went through. And we all know this. With Parents, you've had stuff with your dad, Sarah, you've had stuff with both your your mom. You know, recently it parents are tough, and as they get older, it's tough. Worst part of my life has turned out to be the most wonderful aspect of my character is was looking after my parents. I stepped into a part of myself, and I became the person that I always knew I wanted to be, and a person of my word and that I could do it so it's filial piety. And what I mean by that is that honor of our parents, whether you have shit memories of them, whether they were terrible parents, whatever they did to you, the whole concept of looking after them, no matter what, like, trust me, I would have liked to have just put my dad somewhere and fucking go. There you go. This is what you deserve, and this is what you did to yourself, but you don't do that. Love doesn't work that way. It you find a way through it, and even looking after him and forgiving all that shit good for you, Nicole, it is going to benefit you in so many ways, I'm proud of you, and we're really, really grateful you listen to our jargon. We have a lot of fun. We're friends, and we've gotten to know each other these last few years, and and we're just really grateful listening some not

Caitlin Green  57:55  
just because you chose to listen to us, but choosing to pair something, or identifying that something is very challenging for you, like this drive home and then pairing it with something you enjoy. Is actually some great cognitive behavioral therapy that I don't even know that Nicole was aware she was doing, but they do tell you to do that, to sort of pair it. So, you know, frequently, my therapist would tell me, if you have something you don't want to do, or you're dreading, look, it's going to be challenging for you emotionally. Try to pair it with something you like, whether that's save a podcast you really want to listen to for that drive home exactly as she did, or grab a cookie, or always tell your like, just reward yourself somehow. So you've already done that, so without even knowing it, you're actually great advice doing the right thing.

Sarah Burke  58:37  
We're here for you. Yeah, okay, here. Great advice. Another one. Hi,

Speaker 2  58:40  
Jan. It's Janice sumpton or Jan from London, Ontario, and I love your podcast. You three ladies are amazing. I listen all the time when I am driving back from Waterloo to London when I have visited my 91 year old father, and you keep me company on the 401 which anyone Ontario will know is insane, so please keep up the good work. This is my very first voice note. I am 65 as of a couple weeks ago, so happy birthday. Nervous, but I thought I'm gonna do it and keep on singing. Can't wait till the new records out. I'm an avid concert goer and please keep that podcast coming. Absolutely love you. Three Ladies, thank you. Bye.

Sarah Burke  59:49  
Thank you. Thank

Jann Arden  59:50  
you so much.

Caitlin Green  59:52  
Okay, we got a few there's a theme materializing. Let's

Sarah Burke  59:55  
see if we got people are looking after

Jann Arden  59:56  
their freaking parents and driving home with us. So it's coming. Yeah, oh. Yeah,

Sarah Burke  1:00:00  
we know our target demo.

Speaker 3  1:00:01  
Hi there. Jan Caitlin, Sarah, it's Donna from Toronto. And yeah, I've been listening to your podcast now for a year or so, and just love it. But just tell you a little experience. I got back from visiting friends and my family in Newfoundland, so I'm walking on my way to down into the Taylor Creek over here, and I'm listening to that podcast, Jan, where you were talking about having to go pee when you were on the on the mower. So I'm walking and I'm listening to this. And wouldn't you know it, but I just have to start to go now. So I'm no longer enjoying my wonderful walk and listening to you guys, I had to hightail it down to the creek, find a few bushes, and yeah, had to pull them down under my grandpa Donna try and do a pee without peeing on my feet. Anyway, I just want to say, absolutely love the podcast. And, yeah, you make me laugh every day. Take care, everybody. Oh,

Sarah Burke  1:01:13  
thanks. Donna, one more, last one. Yes, God, I

Unknown Speaker  1:01:16  
know exactly where she was hiking.

Caitlin Green  1:01:17  
And there is actually, like, there is a Tim Hortons and a Starbucks not super far from there. But I mean, who wants

Jann Arden  1:01:22  
to pee in a building when you can appear outside on your feet,

Caitlin Green  1:01:25  
you're meant to pee outside in that situation.

Speaker 4  1:01:27  
Okay, here we go. Hi, Jen pod. This is Leslie from Toronto. Leslie, Jen, I've been a fan of yours since I would die for you. I would die for you, and I love the format of this podcast and the perspectives that each of you bring to the conversations. I have a question for you about imaginary friends. Did you have any as a kid, and do you still have them? I listen to you when I'm out walking my dog on Saturday mornings, and now that you've got the only Jans on Patreon, I'm starting to feel like the three of you are my imaginary friends. I did get to meet Jen once about seven years ago, which was a thrill. And Caitlin, you and I live in the same neighborhood, so when I'm out walking, I keep imagining that we're going to run into each other. And I hope you do one of our local breweries. And Sarah, when I ride my bike west along the Lakeshore, I think, Oh, we could go for a bike ride or a run together. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to meeting you all IRL at the live event in October. And I mean that in a non creepy and non stalker. So thanks again for all you do.

Caitlin Green  1:02:28  
I also love that she's a Leslie villian, and her name is Leslie. That's

Jann Arden  1:02:32  
fantastic. And thank you for listening. Thanks for yeah, thanks for the question. And as far as imaginary friends, I will say I I talked to myself a lot as a young a little person like I did. I talked to myself a lot, and I played a lot by myself. Both my parents worked my brother, my older brother was off committing crimes. I think my little brother was going to university, so I was alone in the house, and I played teacher a lot, but I talked to I talked out loud to myself. I listened to records, once again, the arts and the music. I listened to records and played and played and played and played my mom's guitar. So I think my imaginary friend was my creativity. And yeah, but thanks for the question, yeah. His

Sarah Burke  1:03:10  
name was lob that's all I know,

Unknown Speaker  1:03:12  
Bob, l, O, B, yeah. It

Sarah Burke  1:03:15  
was like, I feel like I can remember playing on the playground. And like, yeah, just like telling a friend, like, Oh, we're not alone. Lobs here.

Caitlin Green  1:03:25  
I wanted an imaginary friend, and it's a part of childhood that I felt left out of lob would love you, but Oh, that's nice of him. I can borrow. Law

Jann Arden  1:03:34  
is the greatest name. You know what I mean? It's also

Caitlin Green  1:03:38  
like how it's also like how it's also how you would pronounce love if you were a little kid, like,

Unknown Speaker  1:03:43  
I love you,

Caitlin Green  1:03:45  
I love you. So friggin cute. I loved my stuffed animals, and I had stuffed animals who I carried around with me all the time. No, but my imaginary friends were usually Calvin and Hobbes. Like, I really had an unhealthy parasocial relationship with Calvin Hobbes,

Jann Arden  1:04:01  
but that's your imagination once again, too. You can transport yourself. That's what young minds can do. You can transport yourself into that world. And I love it. I love our little minds. I hope we don't ever truly, really, really, really grow up. I think it's the only way to change the narrative of this world and how shitty and angry everyone can be sometimes, but man, are there ever good people out there. This podcast reminds me of that week after week. So thanks so much for listening. We're now going to go talk about periods and love stuff and maybe a little bit more. Lob anyway, we cannot wait to see you guys. It's less than a month away now, October the first less than a month away, and hopefully the weather's still going to be good. And we can't wait to meet you guys, and you can be as creepy as you want, honestly, lob will be there as well. I didn't know lob was going to be there, but we're going to interview lob.

Caitlin Green  1:04:52  
I'm going to interview lobster. We'll

Jann Arden  1:04:58  
see in. Next time, Jan Arden podcast and show, subscribe to us. Give us a review. Five stars would help. It helps people find our podcast on all the platforms. Okay? Next time, totally do you?