It's A Show About Nothing 44:51

Welcome, welcome everyone to the 3000th, no it's not, it's like 76, 75, the Jan Arden Show and Podcast. Adam Karsh is with us, Caitlin Green is on a bit of a break.

It's 74? 74. Episode 74. Julie Van Rosendal joins us today. And Julie, for this special occasion, which is Saturday, because Saturdays are special, has made scones. Scones? Yes. Scones. It's scone. It depends on where you're from. But I did ask a few Scottish friends and they say it's scone. And the way you remember is you eat it till it's scone.

You eat it till it's gone, which is what I'm doing right now. Okay, well, there's some silly things going on in the world. And I saw Don French. Don French, shout out to you. We love you. Don French from French and Saunders, amongst a billion other things that Don has done. Vicar of Dibley, delicious on acorn. Anyway, I'll stop gushing in hopes that

Dawn French reaches out to take me bowling or for a cup of coffee sometime in the near future. She had a little bit of a debacle on her Twitter feed last year about what goes on with scone first, the clotted cream or the jam, or is it jam and then the cream? So I'm going to just refer back to you. This is such an exciting show already. Can you feel it?

Yes. We're talking about food. The question is what order do you put the spreads on? What is it supposed to be? I don't, I don't know if there is an instruction that is proper. I say, however you want to do it is the way to do it. You know,

I think I would spread the clotted cream on first and then put the jam on top because it's hard to put a firmer substance on top of a softer substance. You can't spread clotted cream. You can dollop it. Also depends on the texture of the clotted cream. Could they not have named it something other than clotted cream? Like I'm sorry. I think from a marketing point of view, a branding point of view,

It's just, it's just not a great optic. It just doesn't sound good in my head. Yes. Can you pass the clotted cream? Like, I think that marketing wrecked it for clotted cream, not the other way around.

I feel like it existed before, you know, before marketing existed. And so, yeah, we have, we associate clotting with like arteries. What is clotted cream? Well, hey, they're not wrong. Clotted cream with the, you know, cream. You don't want to be doing a lot of that. What, what, where, what is the origin? What part of the dairy is clotted cream? Is it?

It's not butter. It's very heavy, heavy cream. It's not butter. No, it's not butter. But it's been heated and it sort of scalds on the surface. And sometimes that sort of the heavier cream rises to the surface and it's scraped off. I have some wonderful Middle Eastern clotted cream in my fridge right now that sort of enrolls because the scalded surface cream has been scraped off after it's been heated. But it's

Here in Canada, we don't see a lot of true clotted cream. We sort of see a lot of heavy whipped cream. Can I just go back for a second, Julie? Please do. Rolled up cream? What does that mean? It's so thick. Sorry, I'm gesturing. I'm gesturing and I realize this is an audio podcast. So...

Have you ever seen those, the rolled ice cream? You see it on Instagram a lot. And so the people who make it make the cream, the sweet and cream mixture, and they pour it on a really cold slab and then they scrape it with a, like a putty knife or like a scraper, right? They pour it on their mother-in-law? They pour it on their mother-in-law who is,

ice cold and it freezes instantly and then they scrape it off of her and so they scrape it off with like a like a knife or like a bench scraper type of thing and it makes a roll right so it's very Instagramable you see it or you did a few years ago it was like all over Instagram same thing so it sort of scraped off and it's thin the thin layer is scraped off and it rolls as you scrape it kind of as if you were like peeling off paint or a fruit roll up a fruit roll up only it's heavy heavy cream

Okay, well, I won't make our listeners linger there. I just want you to know that Julie made scones, scones till they're gone. And they look delicious. And I think it's a little bit malicious in a way, Julie, that you held up the platter to your camera. Yeah, those look good. And now you're taking a bite. What's the flavor? The flavor is butter. Okay.

But is it blueberries? Can I ask you what your mouth is full? What, what is your favorite thing to make? And I've probably asked you kind of sort of that question, but do you have a go-to that you and Willem are like standing in front of the fridge as I do four or five times a week now going, I want to make myself something because we're not eating out. We're not doing that as much as we were. What, what is your go-to for you guys? You know, I don't,

Very many go-to's. There are things that I make often, you know, like poached eggs on toast, you know, sort of quick things.

But I'm always testing new things. I'm always trying new things. I'm always working on recipes for books or stories or whatever. So I don't have sort of a regular repertoire, but I am trying to teach him some basics, especially when he's home a lot. He's home this week, just my choice. But now the junior and senior high schools are going to be closed in Alberta starting next week. So a lot of kids are going to be home.

And every day we have opportunities to learn new skills, right? So his go-to has become omelets because I taught him how to do it. He can come down, he can crack a couple eggs in a bowl and pour them into a skillet and fill it with whatever, cheese, whatever's in the fridge and take it back upstairs while he's doing his work. So- That's great. He's 15, right? He's 15, yes. But to answer your question about what I like to make, people ask me this often, what's your favorite thing? It's like-

It depends on the day. It depends on the time of day. I don't even mean favorite thing. I mean, just making that mindless autopilot. It's almost perfunctory.

Mine's always toast of some kind. Toast with beans, toast with mushrooms, toast with, I've done toast with leftover macaroni. I've done toast with spaghetti on it and squish it into a frying pan, which is so frigging awesome. Cold spaghetti, don't ever, ever get to the point where you want to throw that out. Literally squish it onto a piece of toast. And what I've been doing lately too, is I don't do it in the toaster. I've gotten out of my, my,

my habit of just toasting toast, I get my cast iron frying pan out and I grill it. And I want to thank, you know, the internet for that once again. Donna Hayes from Australia, that wonderful chef from Australia, Donna. Oh yeah. She grills bread all the time. So anyway, I interrupted what your favorite thing, but if I can't make up my GD mind.

Oh my God, it's going to be bread. And that's breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, whatever. I now grill bread in a frying pan. I chuck anything on tomato, avocado, hummus, whatever. I love it. Toast is a vehicle for everything. Toast is the world's most perfect food. And that is what I eat the most of. And you're right. Anything, creamed mushrooms on toast,

One of my favorite things. It's so funny that you mentioned spaghetti on toast because that was spaghetti sandwiches was Willem's favorite when he was little. And we always made. How did you make spaghetti sandwiches? Well, we often made them open faced and put cheese on top. I have not grilled one, although he's recently discovered grilled ramen grilled cheese. So you toss the ramen with a packet. I feel like we talked about this before. No, I don't.

Adam, have we talked about ramen grilled cheese? I don't know. Please do tell. If we have, we can talk about it again. I don't even understand what that is. You make the ramen, you boil it? You cook the ramen, you toss it with a bit of the seasoning packet and some butter. So you don't want broth to make your sandwich soggy. And so the butter kind of lubricates it, seasoning packet, you toss it, and then you put it in a grilled cheese with

your cheese of choice. Yeah. Cheese slices or whatever cheese. And it's amazing. He saw it on TikTok or YouTube or something. Of course he did. And it's fantastic. But that's so funny because last night we had leftover spaghetti and I was like, I haven't had a spaghetti sandwich for ages. I'm going to make it. And then he ate it. And I was like, oh,

I don't get my spaghetti sandwich. I haven't had one for years. So funny. Here's a little fun fact for you guys. What do you think the most commonly bought item in Canada is at the grocery store from coast to coast? Oh my gosh. I just heard this and my brain has, uh,

ejected the information. I just heard this and I thought I questioned where this information came from. Most commonly bought item in a grocery store from coast to coast in Canada. Is it a loaf of bread? No. Milk? I think I guessed bananas at the time, but I remember the answer surprised me. Now I'm starting to annoy myself. Okay, here's what it is. It's Kraft Dinner.

Right. That makes sense, actually. I love Kraft Dinner. And did you know that we eat more of it per capita in Canada than anywhere in the world? And it's only called Kraft Dinner in Canada. Everywhere else, it's macaroni and cheese or mac and cheese. It's Kraft macaroni and cheese. Yes. So which begs the question, do we buy the most Kraft Dinner in Canada because it only exists in Canada? No. No.

Well, really, really? What's the source of this data, Jan? I don't listen. I have no source to my data. It's my phone, Julie, which is always great. Oh, okay. Screw you. Do you put ketchup on your mac and cheese or are you au naturel?

I'm a ketchup person. Back in the day when I did, I make my own mac and cheese now because, you know, the vegan thing. But I still do ketchup on and I mix it with hot sauce. Or I'll make ketchup mayonnaise. Do you know that Heinz is now selling ketchup mayo? Mayo ketchup. Mayo ketchup. Mayo ketchup. Mayo ketchup. Mayo ketchup. I'm Googling. Mayo ketchup. Mayo ketchup.

Mayo chop. I'm going to call my next dog Mayo chop. That's what it is. Heinz Mayo chop. Would it kill? Yes. I like that. Would it kill craft or, or Heinz to sponsor the show? Like for one second, I feel like, I feel like some poor fool is going to wander out there and buy Mayo catch and try it instead of making it at home yourself.

It's easy. Put them together in a bowl. And it's essentially what the special sauce on a Big Mac is. Or, you know, the Shake Shack special sauce. It's usually ketchup, mustard, and mayo. Adam knows this because he's a burger genius. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's what I do. I make my own big quote, air quotes, Big Mac sauce. Ketchup, mustard, mayo. Stop. Get out of my mind, Adam. I've been making my own Big Mac sauce for my burgers.

And it is out of this world. And you can just go online, hit vegan Big Mac sauce or just Big Mac sauce. Okay, that's it for this segment. When we come back, we're going to talk very quickly about

Clutter and intelligence. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. Welcome back to the Jan Arden show and podcast and variety hour. I'm with Adam Karsh as always. Julie Van Rosendahl joins us from her very fancy studio in Calgary. She's got headphones on. She's got a windscreen on her microphone. Um,

I'm, I just worked out. I have some kind of ball cap on that doesn't really fit me, but I did put on lip gloss and I hope you guys appreciate the effort that I went to today.

Yes. Okay. We do. Here's something for you, and I believe this to be true, although I am not like this, so what does it say about me? And here's what I'm going to say. Albert Einstein's messy desk, okay? In 19, one of the smartest men on the planet at that time was absolutely unequivocally Albert Einstein. His theories were

revolutionizing physics and making people think in ways that they couldn't even have imagined. And a lot of his stuff still stands up today. And I should know nothing about this because grade one was the best four years of my life.

A famous photo taken in Princeton in New Jersey, 1955 shows Albert Einstein's office on the day he left this world. And I think a lot of people would imagine that someone with such an extreme high intellect would have, you know, systems in place to organize everything and something that made sense. But on the contrary, you know,

It, it was absolutely, it looked like a bomb went off and I'm looking at a photograph right now on Twitter. And if you guys want to go to a handle, it's at amazing science, just the way it sounds at amazing science. They posted on April the 1st, which I know is, you know, April fool's day, but however, this is an actual photograph that smart people posted.

apparently through a lot of studies have a lot of clutter around them and are very unorganized thoughts on this like i just and that i guess is a proven factual thing that really smart people normally their desks look like dog oh oh julie is showing us her desk okay well you are released what is on your desk julie

I, oh, a lot of important stuff. Okay. Well, I'm intrigued because you are so unbelievably clever.

I've got a bag of seeds that I just ordered. I've got some hand sanitizer. I have butter. I've got scones. On your desk? You have butter on your desk? Of course. At all times. It also makes a great lip gloss in a pinch. It tastes way better than... She's putting butter on her lips right now, ladies and gentlemen. Listen, I wish you could see what I just saw. Julie, your desk really looks...

I've got a puzzle. I've got like 18 Sharpies, a hat, a couple games that I brought up in the basement, some cookbooks, of course, my camera.

Yeah, in a nutshell. And some scones, did I mention that? Yes. Well, research published in Psychological Science, which is a magazine apparently, has good news for messy desk people just like you. A scientist named Kathleen Bowes, V-O-H-S, and a team at the University of Minnesota found that both clean and messy workplaces have their own unique perks. A series of experiments that they did, participants were seated at a desk,

That was either clean or messy and then asked to answer survey questions and make various decisions. I'm reading this from the psychological science. I just want to credit them for this little monologue that I'm saying here. Participants seated at a messy desk generated more creative ideas during a brainstorming exercise than the people at the clean desk. I don't know about this.

They also chose new or novel products over established ones when presented with options. In contrast, those seated at clean desks behaved more conventionally, doing what was expected of them when presented with either an apple or a piece of chocolate for a snack. For example, participants seated at clean desks chose the healthy snack.

More frequently. This, I mean, is this taxpayer's money? What do we do with this information? It just makes us feel better for having clutter around us all the time. Well, you know, with clutter, you have a lot more choices. I have a lot of stuff on my desk where I often write in my little music room, but it's really organized. Like I will go and put a pencil straight on

I have, I'll take a picture of it later today and post it. So you guys can go on to the Jan Arden podcast or at my handle Jan Arden, and I'll take a picture of my desk and you be the judge of what's...

If I went up to my desk right now, my desk is way more organized than my dining room table. My dining room table is sort of a catch-all of everything in my house. I live in a 1906 house that has not one closet on the main floor because people didn't have stuff. Well, how do you come out of the closet at your house? You can't do it. There's no closets to be in. So you're just out. I like it. So...

It doesn't always look like this, but my dining room table definitely. And I feel like a lot of people are having this experience this year with their kids at home and working from home and that they're cleaning the kitchen. Oh, I'm sure it's changed. So I go through and sort of organize things and I feel like it makes me mentally more... I feel like I have a handle on things when I organize it and I put things away and there's less clutter.

But I definitely don't have a lack of ideas all the time. Maybe. So maybe it is all that. No, I mean, you're very creative, but I have kind of read similar things to that before, you know, you'll walk into somebody's,

a space and be kind of astonished at, at what they've accumulated. But most of those people will tell you exactly where everything is. Like you'd think they're never going to find that piece of paper or they're never going to find that article or that folder. And by Jove, they'll scoot around in a corner and they know, and they just pull it out anyway. So all of you guys at home that have, um,

kind of busy spaces right now you're extremely intelligent and probably very good looking which wouldn't be me and you would choose chocolate over an apple could we have both pretty alternate apples and chocolate I feel like you can be you can have clutter and be organized like you just said I love it I love that they presented people with a snack right you're so I do too

I mean, if someone is offering me a snack and it's an apple or a chocolate and they're assessing me, I know that my decision is going to be marked down. Would you ever do, like if someone had approached you because of the nature of your business, especially with food, Julie, and all of that, would you ever participate in kind of a study that

You know, do people know what the study is? Like, obviously those people went in and sat at desks and I'm sure they were not told you're going to sit at a clean desk. Your colleague's going to sit at a messy desk. Would you agree to that? Not knowing what you're being observed for? I know I wouldn't.

Oh, I probably would. Depending on who it was who was asking, for sure. I would probably be sitting at the desk wondering, trying to solve the mystery of what I'm being assessed based on. What are they trying to learn about me? And then you could kind of mess with them, right? And give these really random answers. Yeah, I think it depends. I think it depends on who's doing the asking. And if there's chocolate involved or apples.

Would you have you ever been approached to do the kind of taste testing for new products? Like if there's a new yogurt coming out or if there's a new candy bar, has anyone ever approached you to be involved in something like that? And who and how do we get involved with those things? Because Adam and I would like to throw our hats in the ring. Right, Adam? Oh, yes, please. You're such a food guy. Oh, yeah. I'll taste anything for sure.

Like a tasting panel. I don't believe I have. I've tasted a lot of new products and I've helped out certainly with, you know, chefs who say, can you taste this? We're developing a new menu. Like, what do you think about this dish? But actual products going out onto the market, I don't know if I have.

Haven't you ever been to a restaurant, like new restaurants opening, you know, pretty much constantly before the pandemic, but you must be the go-to person that they're like, come and do our tasting menu. Yeah. Often I do get invited to come and try it out. I don't write about restaurants. You know, I'm not a critic. No, but I mean, you can certainly pass along your opinion to them. Oh, totally. Yes. What do you say if it's crap?

Do you say, listen, this has got too much ketchup on it? I don't. Yeah, I put lots of ketchup on it. And that's an indication that it needs some flavor. I don't say it. I would say, you know, and I did have this. I have had this happen where, you know, I think that a dish could probably be improved by, you know, a bit of acid or some crunch. A bit of turmeric. A toss of turmeric. Yeah. So I just sort of give feedback. Like, oh, you know, it'd be really good. Blah.

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Just a cup of coffee, a sandwich, and you. Welcome back. I am Jan Arden. I am your host. I'm here in my home. My Christmas tree is still up. And if you've been following along, my Christmas tree was staying up until I got vaccinated. Well, by the time you hear this podcast, which is Saturday afternoon, welcome to Saturday, I am

will have been vaccinated, my first vaccination shot. So I'm going to go do that this afternoon. You know, there's a lot of people with a lot of opinions about vaccinations. And I think everyone is entitled to that. And I think we have to be really mindful to not admonish people for not wanting to do it for myriad reasons.

Really be careful with your language on stuff like that. As much as I'm getting it, I don't want to hear like, why would you get that? And how come you're getting it? And my mother hasn't got it. I'll tell you right now, I've been fiercely persistent about finding an appointment. I have phoned people.

consistently to pharmacies constantly all the time. Whether it's Safeway shoppers, the Alberta health service, whatever I have got my family doctor, like trying to give me information of where I can phone and put my name on a list. Hey, I'm 59 years old. So, and plus I have a heart history. So that puts me kind of in the right place, but I'm in the right age group to do this now as well. But just so everybody knows, sometimes you have to just get out there and

advocate for yourself. They've had a lot of cancellations. A lot of people don't show up for their shot. And I'll tell you, if that shot's been assigned to you, you know, you got to make sure you either cancel your appointment and let them know that you can't come because a lot of these clinics, and we're talking about, you know, not enough vaccines to go around. They're having to disperse with the vaccines that have come out of the refrigeration or come out of storage. So if you've got a hundred people that didn't show up for one particular day at the whatever center, you know,

They can't use them. So anyway, that was my little, I told you I was going to do these little diatribe things. Anyway, by the time you were listening to me do this, I've done the shot and I'm a little nervous, but I'm also, I know that it's not the end all be all that I need to practice social distancing. I need to wear a mask. I need to do everything that I can do to protect myself, to protect the people I love, to protect people I'm walking down past the street with.

And, but we'll get there. And this is part of a, of a bigger solution. Julie has talked about her mom and dad and Julie, give us a little bit of background on your dad and what you've been dealing with on the vaccine front. Cause your dad is a very brilliant physician and you know, your mom and dad, and I hope they don't mind me talking about this. I've come from little different ends of the pool on this. So I'm just going to hand it over to you. Okay.

Well, yeah. So my dad is a retired gastroenterologist and has some history of working on pandemic planning. And so he's very knowledgeable about this stuff. And, you know, they've been isolating since March 3rd of last year because they saw it coming. You know, the physicians in my life who were sort of more in the know, I watched their reactions leading up to the, you know, the

them declaring this a pandemic, the closures, and they predicted how it would all unfold with such accuracy. And so now, yeah, my parents, you know, they're in their 70s. There's been some disagreements about

which, you know, vaccine to hold on, hold out for. My, yes, my parents are not disagreeing on this particular issue. And so, yeah, my dad wants to wait for a specific one. My mom went yesterday and got hers. And so, yeah, it's tough, you know, it's tough that there are so many questions, so many concerns have arisen around COVID.

blood clots or you know negative reactions or which which vaccine is is more effective toward the variants or if you're over 55 there's so many factors yes and having those questions in the mind of everyone who just wants to be safe just wants their families to be safe just wants to do what's best and and we don't have all the information you know to make those assessments so um

It's just, it's tricky to navigate. But I think that, you know, getting, physics was not my forte in high school. So I am going to leave it up to the experts and, you know, the risks have been pretty substantial.

Pretty low. I think we're looking for negative reactions to, you know, everyone's sort of so on edge about how fast this has all happened and how fast things are changing that we're really hypersensitive to any potential harm or risk. And that's why I was just cautioning people to

you know, just be kind of kind on people's decision. And your mom and dad are perfect example of a family, you know, husband and wife that have been married for almost 117 years, 112 years of summer. And, you know, there's a difference of opinion, but there still can be respect and support. And I'm sure your dad was like, go for it, honey, you know? And, and I, yeah,

A few more words than that, but yes, ultimately that's where they landed. Yeah. I mean, I love that your mom makes up her own damn mind. Yeah. That's awesome. And he supports her. And so, you know, and living, living in close quarters with somebody for a year and a half, I think is wearing on all of us, you know, just so there's, there's that.

Well, I, anyway, it's, it's such an interesting time. And next week I will certainly speak to everything that happened and how it goes, but getting back to my Christmas tree, sorry, this was such a roundabout story. I vowed to my friend, Nigel, who's in the UK. He has had his shot. His mom has had the shot. They've actually had both their shots now in the UK. They're, they're hustling along over there. I said, I'm leaving my tree up until I get my shot.

Well, I have like, I'm starting to hate this tree. I'm starting to really resent this tree. Like I look at it when I got up in the morning, it is 12 feet high. Like the candy canes this time of year are just bombing me out, but I was determined and I had this thing in my mind. I can't take the GD tree down until I get vaccinated. And it was almost like this challenge to myself. It was so dumb. I know, but tomorrow I,

My two friends that are allowed to come over here are coming to help me take this 12 foot tree down. But listen, I have to, I have to tell you a little bit. It's Teresa and Case and Julie knows these, these friends of mine and Case, was it three months ago? Not even three months ago. It had open heart surgery and a double bypass surgery.

Three years previous to that, he had stage four lung cancer, went through all the chemo and the radiation. The doctors think he's a walking miracle. He has been tested clear now for the last six years. His scans come in. Anyway, he is the one that I have cajoled into coming to help me take down this 12-foot Christmas tree. What kind of an a-hole am I? Yeah, you think your husband is healed enough to climb up that ladder? No.

Have you had to dust your tree? Like, because it's been so long. I'm afraid. No, I haven't dusted it, but I'm going to wipe all the ornaments off as I put them back into their plastic tub to go downstairs. And now Nigel in the UK is going, why don't you just bloody leave it up? It's almost Christmas again. I'm not leaving it up. I said, it's blasphemy. You can't put a tree up until after remembrance day, at least.

Right. Anyway, that's my, did I take up the entire 10 minute segment with that most boring story of all time? No, it was a good story. It was a good story. You still have 90 seconds. Well, here's something for you in 90 seconds. You know, all these celebrities are, you know, doing different things now because, you know, stuff's going down. Steve Urkel, remember Steve Urkel? Yes. Well, he's selling pot.

He's got a pot company and a cannabis, sorry, Jaleel White and his, his company's called it's purple. And so he played Steve Urkel on family matters. Well, he's, he's launched a new cannabis company called it's purple P U R P L, which a cannabis, it'll, it'll feature diverse variants of the fire purple weed strain called purple Urkel.

I don't know anything about pot, but he's an actor and apparently he's an entrepreneur now. And he's launching a pot line. I mean, Seth Rogen also has an interesting marijuana line that he's doing really well with. And he makes a lot of pork pottery ashtrays that he has on Instagram all the time. Anyway, that was my 92nd thing, Steve Urkel. So if you're looking for a purple strain of some kind of marijuana, look him up.

You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Jan Arden show and podcast, the podcast where we don't really have a topic. And I think that's what has made us a raging success for a year and a half now is that

We don't saddle you with a theme. Like we're not going to put you through that for 45 minutes. Here's our theme. Here's what we're going to do. We don't know what we're going to do, do we? And we're proud of that, right? It's Adam, right? We're proud of that. I'm very proud of that. It's a show about nothing, right? Yes. So here's my question for the both of you. And it's pertinent to the times in which we are living. How do you keep your cool doing things?

during a really emotionally taxing conversation? How do you keep your cool or do you just lose your knob? Do you just throw your hands in the air and just rage on? Or like I have found myself in a few of those conversations, which we kind of alluded to in the last segment of dealing with people that have a very strong opinion about what you do or do not do during this time in life.

I mean, I know little things that I'm doing that I'll talk about, but Adam, I'm going to ask you first, what, what do you, where do you find the heart of that? What are you doing? I'm cleaning. Okay. I clean, I clean. That's how I, cause I got, I'm focused on something else. I'm wiping the counters. I swear to God, I'm cleaning. I'm doing the dishes. Like I'm cleaning. That's how I keep my cool.

And you just, do you talk while you're cleaning or, or you do? And that somehow keeps it from a 10 to like a, what, a four? Yeah. Yeah. It's a good distraction. I think because I'm focused and I got to talk and I'm cleaning and I might be, I might be mad. Now, if I was married to you, I would pee you off all the time.

Just be like, oh, if I make Adam mad, he'll change the sheets on the bed. I'm not vacuuming because you can't have an argument over the vacuum. But, oh, yeah, I'm Lysol-ing the counters. Oh, yeah, I'm taking dishes out of the dishwasher. I'm putting them away. Oh, yeah. Breaking them. It's like a Greek restaurant in your place. I'm not breaking it, but yeah.

Julie, what do you do? What do you do? I agree. I am rage cleaning the floorboards. Oh my God. Were you two separated at birth or what? Possibly. They, yeah, the floorboards would never get cleaned if it wasn't for, you know, waiting for medical test results or rage cleaning.

But rage cleaning, I send a lot of texts to my sister and friends, texts that I want to send to a person that I know I cannot send to a person who is instigating the rage. And I'm lucky to have friends. My friend Amy in Toronto is a great editor and she has helped me edit some emails this week.

But yeah, I think holding it in is not healthy either, right? Like you got to get it out in the whatever way you can and then compose yourself and react in a thoughtful and productive and uplifting way.

Doesn't anybody like fight anymore? Like, Oh yeah. Just get, get, roll your sleeves up and have an argument. And I'm not talking with total strangers. I think you guys both understood the question. It's, you know, how do you keep your crap together with your loved ones, your sisters, your parents, your relationships, your kids? No, I mean that too. I mean, externally to that, we have interactions with people in stores and things like that.

I have kept my mouth shut. I'm going to say 19 out of 20 times. I think in the last year I have said one thing to a person and they just walked out of the store. They didn't have a mask on. And that was probably last June. It was a bakery and there was two of us standing there and this, you know, person came rifling in and didn't have a mask and just kind of stood there like, I'm like, sorry, you can't.

And I could see the bakery people like panicking. And I just said, sir, you have to have a face covering to be in here. He told me to F off, but I didn't, that was it. But other than that, I have been keeping my mouth shut lately because everyone's wearing masks around me these days. And it's hard to know when to, you know, what, what fights to take up, what to, when to say something. Yeah, tell me, I need to be educated.

on that. Well, and I just actually took an online course, a virtual course with UFC earlier this week, and I had Willem take it with me, my son. They do these bystander intervention training workshops online, and it's open to everyone. And I think that it's really useful because, you know, we, we, um,

often are presented with situations and I've come across a lot of situations in my life where something is happening and people aren't reacting and then you get the bystander effect, right? Where no one else is doing anything. So I probably shouldn't do anything. What's the right thing to do, but those people aren't acting. So I'm not going to act. And then no one does anything or they're contemplating what the right response is. The situation passes. So I think it's important that, you know, when we're out in the public and witnessing violence,

you know, situations where people are in distress or being abused or, um,

you know, that we are sort of prepared to react with some strategies that we can implement. So I think it's great that they're doing that. Oh, I think that's a, I think that's a fantastic idea. You know, how do we be a good Samaritan now? Exactly. How do we do it effectively? Well, especially in times of COVID when people are afraid of close physical interactions and, uh,

worried about putting themselves at risk and how do you help this person without, in an effective way anyway. So I think having those tools and knowing what agencies to call where you are, how to react, how to, and even if it's reacting in a way that sort of diffuses the situation, that you're stepping in, you see an uncomfortable situation on the bus or out in public and you kind of interject and insert yourself in a way that distracts from what's going on,

you know, pretend, you know, the person, Hey, how's it going? Let's go here and check. You know, there are a lot of ways that you can distract from the situation without escalating it. I think anyway, this is, this is not what you asked. I'm sorry. No, not at all. You did. I think it's great that there's information, especially for younger people that we are all reluctant to step in and help because we

do we have time to get involved? Do we really want to like, I got it. You're looking at your watch. I got to get, you know, my mask. I don't know these people. I don't want to be, I don't, you know, there's so many excuses that we give ourselves, but I think you have to trust your instinct and trust your gut when you really do need to step up to aid somebody to at least give them that your support or to tell them I'm calling the police. I'm calling something. I see you. Do you want to come into my store for a second and just,

to have a fellowship. And you don't even have to get in there and separate people, but just say, I'm watching you, I'm observing this. And we're seeing this all the time too. There's so many people that are recording on their phones when things go sideways, whether it's a fabric store or whether it's in a grocery store. I remember those kids running through the grocery store. I think they were both arrested, but they were touching all the vegetables. They ran through, they're 15 year old yahoos

Picking up the bananas, touching everything. And people are in the grocery store watching these kids fly through there. And it kind of makes me laugh because they weren't stealing anything. They were being ding-dongs. But people were filming them. And their parents were so embarrassed and they had to do community, whatever. So your phone is a good tool as well. But you've got to know when to lay your phone down and to actually put it in your GD pocket and step in and help somebody. It's all fine to have it filmed.

I don't know if you're trying to win money for the funniest home video $10,000 prize, but yeah. Yeah. And then rage cleaning, I think is very effective as well. Screaming into your pillows.

I did not expect that. Working out. There are a lot of ways to... But there is a lot of stress to be relieved these days. Do you want to be right? Or do you want to have peace? Exactly. And it's hard, you know? And it's like, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Do you want to... Yeah. Is it bad to say that I want to be right? I want to be right! Well, and there's like... Do you...

Do you want to be right, Adam? Sometimes I want to be right. When I'm right, I have to be right. Sometimes I'm wrong, but if I'm right, oh, I'm right. I'm right. Sometimes I'm just right. I know I'm right. That's good too. And then there's the question of letting people get away with things, you know, when you know that they're not acting in an acceptable manner. That's right. Well, I'll tell you, it was refreshing to not have to talk about

the Trump family in any way, shape or form these last five months. Yes, absolutely. Ivanka had her first tweet and all hell has broken loose, you know, cause she hasn't tweeted in a few months since it all went sideways. And I guess all the, uh, the folks are not happy. You can't please all the people all the time, but you can please some of the people some of the time. And that's our, that was not our theme today, but if there was going to be a theme that would have been it. I want to thank Julie and Adam.

for being with me. Julie's been with us for three episodes and she's going to be back. Absolutely. But it's always a pleasure. And we want to get updated on Buttergate. I know there's a lot going on, but we have like 14 seconds left, so it's not going to happen right now, but we will get to it. In the meantime, be good to yourself. The best is yet to come. Good things come out of bad things.

And patience. Patience will prevail. And be as nice as you possibly can to people. Unless they're really, really awful people. Then you can yell at them as you're driving by in your car, safely, leaving the scene that they can't catch you. And what good advice is that? It's not really, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's okay to yell things out your car window. You're listening to the Janard Podcast. Totally do.

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