Things we wish we learned in school 43:26

We're back, we're back, we're back on the Jan Arden Podcast. You know, trust me, I'm working on new music right now for this podcast. That sounded pretty good. Thank you. Yeah. Welcome back. It is January the 40th, 2037. How are you guys?

I'm great. I can't believe that it's January 40th. No, I'm kidding. I can't believe that it's actually like this far into August. I am shocked. I booked a week long visit to a cottage in North Ontario with some friends for the very, very last week of August. And I did this way early on in the summer. And I knew that this was going to like mean that the summer was ending like when this week came up and it's here and I'm shocked. You are just hearing from Caitlin Greene.

And also with us in his Toronto studio basement, basement studio rather, is Adam Karsh. And yes, August is Zooming along. I cannot believe, if you are Canadian and listening to this, you know full well that we have 17 days of summer left. Yeah.

Right? Yeah, basically. I mean, I do have to say, like, not to, like, make, you know, anyone else jealous, but southern Ontario, it's pretty good for September as well, overall. It can be sometimes. Yeah. In Alberta, and I'm in southern Alberta, but if you look at the map, Toronto, and certainly southern Ontario, as mentioned, is way further south than we are. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So you guys are practically tropical. Oh, this year especially. Plus Adam's in his basement, so that's even more south. Well, Caitlin, you're more south than me because I'm north of Toronto. I live in the suburbs. So, Caitlin, you're even more south. You're the most southern here.

I can see the lake from my bedroom window, actually. Well, now you're just bragging. That's right. But yeah, like it's been four, there have been days here where it is 40 degrees, where if you're going for a walk outside and you happen to go past a building that's been painted black, you walk past the building and it'll be eight o'clock at night and there is just heat

heat radiating off of the building because it has been so scorching hot here all summer long. And yeah, I mean, then there are parts of the world, like I read that in New York now they're considering recategorizing it. And I don't know if it's like subtropical or semi-tropical, but because of the, because of climate change, they're actually going to, they have cause and they have the data to support changing its climate status. Like it's actual like temperature status. Well, those buildings are menopausal.

those black buildings because if I were to wear, you know, black on certain days and if you were standing next to me, Caitlin, you would feel heat coming off of my body. Like, you could cook things on me. Yeah.

especially here. It's crazy. You can't wear black out in Toronto. You certainly can't wear black. If you want to sit on a patio, it's been hot. H O T hot. I'm digging the warm weather. I love it. The hotter, the better when there's a heat alert, I'm excited. Have you guys given any thought at all, or have you been like good at your keeping your mental game strong? But have you thought about winter at all? I have thought about winter.

And I know this sounds kind of like a lame thing to be thinking about already, but I just got new gravel put on my gravel road. And the reason that I had to get new gravel put on, there's me and I have three other neighbors on my one mile long road in the country. So last year when the snow plows came, they took off the fricking gravel.

So there's plowing the snow, but so this spring I could see these piles of gravel on each side of the ditch. So we had just a clay crappy road that got wet and washboardy and muddy. And so they came and gave us all this new gravel. So I was already thinking about this. It's funny. You should bring it up. So tonight I'm lying in bed going,

Those buggers, they're going to take off all my new gravel when they start plowing the road. And I'm thinking, oh my God, 75-year-old man, what has happened to your mind?

I thought about it. I thought about winter too, but not in terms of a gravel road, more in terms of like a bunch of winter clothing items were on sale. And I thought I should just buy them. And they arrived in the mail. And I was like, what am I thinking? Why did I do this? Now I'm thinking about winter. I'm not really looking forward to winter. Not that I don't like winter in general. I do. But yeah,

I mean, it's been such an amazing summer. I feel like there's been so many days, at least for me, that have felt totally COVID-free, like sitting in a backyard with a buddy having a drink or going for a walk in the neighborhood or going for a bike ride. There's so many opportunities to have COVID-free experiences in the summer. But I'm looking ahead to the year. Like, is there going to be Halloween? Probably not. There's no...

There's no Halloween, right? You're not going to take candy from other people's houses and the winter. Okay. You're going to show up, but there's no winter vacation. There's no going away. There's no traveling. So I'm, and it's not going to be as easy to see friends and family and get together with people in the winter. Cause if it's a blizzard, you're not going to want to go outside. Well, thanks for being a harbinger of doom.

This has been a great talk. Sorry to be a downer. I was just excited about, about the sale of clothing. And then I realized that I was pushing myself forward into a new season just because I wanted the discount. And yeah, no, I'm not mentally prepared. I don't celebrate Halloween anyways. I'm childless. So I don't, I don't think about Halloween in those terms anymore. I don't think there'll be any Halloween parties though. Although maybe there will be, maybe some dummies in Toronto will still get together. Well, what a perfect opportunity to wear a mask.

I mean a real mask. Hey, actually. Like a Robert. Mind you, would you have a mask on under your mask?

This could be very difficult. They could have just people like dropping from heat exhaustion inside their suits with a mask under their masks. Anyway, we can't think about that right now. Yes, it has been an incredible summer. I know that half of this country is praying for rain. I didn't realize that, but I've been seeing little snippets of news that says,

Saskatchewan farmers are really wanting rain. Hey, here's the Saskatchewan little piece of trivia for you. They don't do daylight savings. Yeah, true. So there's one piece of trivia. And the second piece is, I happened to come across this in a vegan news newsletter. And the Saskatchewanians, or whatever you want to be called, Saskatchewanians, Saskatchewans, Saskatoonians, what are they? Oh, you want me to Google this?

I only know, I only have abbreviated Saskatoon to be the tuner. And then I call anyone who's from Saskatoon a tuner. Saskatoonian. I don't know what, like an Albertan. So what's a Saskatchewan? Saskatchewanians. Saskatchewanians. Yeah. Saskatchewanians. Okay. Anyway, they grow like 80% of the world's lentils. Of the world's lentils. Wow. What?

Yeah. But anyway, it has, it's been a great summer and I do agree with you about, about winter. Obviously there's a few more little complications. Anyway, fast forward. I've been dying to talk to you guys. I've missed you this week. Last podcast, our last show, I spent kind of getting to know you guys. And then I started thinking about, you know, Adam having two kids. I know that you don't have kids, Caitlin. I don't have any kids that I know of.

But I was thinking about my friends who do have kids that are looking at going back to school in September. And then I started thinking about a conversation that I had a couple of evenings ago on the phone with my friend. And she said something to me that really resonated. And this does hook on to kids going to school. Trust me, there is an end game here.

She said, I wish they would have taught us that in school. And what we were talking about was emotions, dealing with stress, dealing with relationships, dealing with life skills,

And she said, you know, and how many times have you guys heard this? I wish they would have taught us this in school. I wish we would have been more prepared for this. I wish I would have known how to navigate this in my life, especially as a young person, especially as someone going into their early teens. So I'll ask you guys separately, but what, Caitlin, like we're looking at a, you know, an academic perspective.

plan that has been in place probably for 50 or 60 years the maths English sciences and That part of teaching that you know without question is important But there's this whole other thing about becoming a human being and growing into a human being Because let's face it these people are our teacher that these teachers are our parents For half of the day for a great part of the year and we get a lot we glean a lot of our information from them does the

Does the system need to adapt to what we should be teaching children?

like more about mental health, more thoughts go. I agree. I think, I think that there are some changes at least in Ontario to a lot of our curriculums that are including more discussions around emotions. I mean, especially with the discussions that happened and started years ago about bullying, certainly the anti-bullying campaign, like kind of what it meant to be an empathetic good person seemed like it was being just- I mean, in actual class discussions,

where you go into a class, like have you not ever said to one of your girlfriends or your husband, I wish they would have taught that to us as well? I wish they would have taught money personally. Okay, expand on that. Expand on that. I think that a lot of times they didn't put anything into context in terms of is this a viable thing for you financially? So investing. If you're going to make this much money per year, here's how much money you have to set aside for retirement, assuming that you want to

Are you talking high school, junior high? Obviously that's not something for elementary kids. Not little kids, but for high school. But going into high school, you would have liked to have seen that.

Yeah, high school and junior high personal finance would have been great. And I also think they could have talked to us about the average, or generally speaking, the average salary for a lot of these careers. I mean, I feel like some careers were sold as being this amazing highway to riches, or at least success, and other things were dismissed, but it's a perfectly viable way to make a living.

So I think that in the context of like supporting yourself financially, I do think that that would have been a useful conversation. And I think talking about wage discrepancy between men and women, I think all that stuff would have been useful because all of a sudden you just get this crash course when you're broke. You're listening to the GenArt Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin and Adam. We are talking about things we wish we would have learned in school.

Caitlin was just talking about money, like earning potential in certain areas

jobs in certain careers that, you know, they didn't tell us about. So finish your thoughts there, Caitlin, and then we'll go over to Adam. Yeah, I just think that it would have been useful to know, you know, roughly what the rules are for saving for your first house. You know, if you go to high school in Toronto, it stands to reason maybe you would go to school here, you might work here, live here, whatever. So here's how much money you're going to need to

put down a down payment on a condo in Toronto. Here's the average price of rent. Let's talk about budgeting based on how much money you're going to make. So do you think literally a class devoted to life skills as far as money management, you know, we all, what's the first thing we want to do when we graduate? We want to get our own apartment and we want to jump into the job force, or we at least want to get our own place and go to university or go to college. Yeah.

So, and, and people don't realize when you get started in life, how much money you're going to need if you ever want to own something. And they also don't realize that there's benefits to renting forever as well. If you have a reasonably priced rent. Do you think this would have helped you if someone would have? Yeah, for sure. Because I would have saved, I would have saved differently. I would have saved so differently in my life. You're the greatest nerd I've ever met in my life. Adam,

jump into the same question, like things you wish you would have been taught in school. So I have to echo exactly what you said, Caitlin, because I am horrible with money, finances, investing. I have no idea how that works. I have no idea how to do my taxes. I mean,

I know how to call a guy, but I don't know how to do it. I don't understand it. I don't get it. I probably put myself at a disadvantage because I don't understand things that I could have done better. Would you would have been open to learning that in high school? Oh, yeah. Had you been fun...

But if you had have gone into your classroom, hello, Adam, let's sit down. We have one hour of how to deal with the taxes that you'll be paying as an adult for the rest of your life. I mean, that's super boring.

but it would have been helpful. I think I would have liked that. So is the Pythagorean theorem. Like so is photosynthesis. You learn stuff because you have to. And I've never used those pieces of information again in my life. Never. And so I think do away with all the boring force stuff. Anyways, at least give me some borscht, borscht, borscht, boring stuff you can use. Give me some borscht. Give me borscht or give me nothing. What about cooking? Like basic cooking skills? Well, we used to have home ec.

You know, we used to have home economics. I don't know about you guys in Ontario, but in Alberta, you know, we were in there. Part of home ec was sewing the apron that you were going to wear as, you know, next week when you were preparing pancakes or learning how to flip an egg. Like we learned really basic things and I loved home ec. We were jackasses. I mean, I remember Kathy B, I won't say her whole drinking the vanilla extract.

Oh, yeah. Like it was back in the day when there was a little bit of alcohol on vanilla extract. I don't know what they make it out of now. But so, yes, they did teach practical things. But those things got cut. And guess what was left on the table? The Pythagorean theory or a type of math that...

I'm going to put myself out there, gang, and say that 95% of us do not use anything in math. And going to what you were saying about taxes, what if some of those mathematic courses are part of what you get taught is taxes? Is learning practical uses of money, Caitlin, going back to what you said about jobs and who makes what and what you can expect and

Like something more practical. I think school, I think education is impractical. I think, I think that a lot of times too, we're missing out on, you know, investing, investing in the stock market, invest, like how to build a diverse portfolio, like investing in real estate versus the stock market, you know, depending on where you live, what has, what has greater return for you? What's going to help you save for retirement? Like this is useful stuff. And it also helps our economy in Canada because it's,

If you have people who are economically doing better, they're going to pour money back into the economy. You're not going to have a bunch of people who are poor going into older age. Like it's just, it's so smart. I don't understand it. Do you think a 15, 16 year old is ready for that guys?

I think they're as ready as they are to hear about this as they are about biology. Like it just makes so much more sense. The things that I learned that I'll never use again in my life compared to this, that I've had to learn on the go. Aren't you going to dissect any frogs anytime soon? We did that. Or the rats, the poor rats. And sometimes you got a pregnant one. Let's not, oh, for God's sakes. But let me ask you this though. And I'm thinking more in terms of,

I think when my friend was saying this to me, I wish I would have learned this in school. Like at that impressionable age, like 14 to 18, relationships. You know, we all enter into these crazy relationships in high school where it's the first time for everything. Your body's changing. Your hormones are raging. Like all this stuff. And, you know, really the government doesn't even allow teachers to

Give kids the skills they need to enter into those relationships. Sex ed has gone out the window. I know in Alberta it's dysfunctional if there's any other word to use for it. It's just... It's like...

The basics, if you're lucky with sexuality. Yeah. So, but I'm just talking about, you know, relationships of useful bits of information. How do you deal with being sad? No one talks about that in school. I bet you half the students sitting in a class are either scared, sad, confused, worried, you know, any litany of things. And they're ill-prepared because nobody speaks about being a human being.

Yeah, and they don't really talk to you about emotional stages in life. And that while you're probably experiencing a very intense emotional stage in high school, you are going to get over that and that it's going to come to an end just based on the passage of time. And, you know, what to look out for in terms of your mental health, like this type of feeling, you know, if you can manage it,

This is within the realm of manageable. But then this type of feeling, that's when you might want to talk to somebody about that and reach out and get help and not feel shame from it. And those types of conversations would be really positive, I think. I just don't know why it's not part of how they're thinking about going forward in education. You know, what a great opportunity when you've got 25, 35 kids sitting in front of you that are kind of looking at you as a teacher that are together. They're not being singled out.

And you're just putting it out there as a teacher, as part of the actual class, as part of the actual academic fundamental things that they're teaching in school. Anyway, it's really frustrating because I'm sure I'll say this a million times before I die is that I wish they would have told me that in school. I wish they would have taught me that in school. I wish they would have introduced that in school. Lots to think about as teachers.

a country's kids head back for an education. And I'm wondering if half of what they're being taught is even all that useful at this point in life, because we are seeing a part of life that nobody has been equipped for. And I think we need to start changing how we talk to kids, how we teach kids and the tools that we give them in school going forward. You're listening to the Jen Arn Podcast.

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You should hear us on the breaks because we're ranting. We are raging against the machine, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, it's frustrating because I don't think the three of us are very much in agreeance with the impractical things that we learned in high school. Now, I graduated long before you guys did, but I think kids are still...

learning the same crap that they have been taught over and over again. They're ill prepared when they go to school. Maybe private schools are differently. I mean, you guys could maybe shed some light on that, but I went to a regular little country school with 42 kids that graduated in my class. And it is a miracle that I can read and write. It is a miracle that I can read and write. So I,

in talking with things that don't seem to change. Religion needs to adapt to the times and education needs to adapt to the times because we can't keep teaching people things that are not going to be useful to them going forward. And hearing the two of you guys rant, what's that? I don't even do taxes. I never did that again. What about biology? I know more about cellular division than I do about my own fricking savings account. That's a good impression of me. Thank you. Thank you.

I was doing Anne-Marie. So things we do the same. Here's a little fun thing for you guys. Top 10 things we do exactly the same every day. Can you imagine what they might be?

So this is 80% of the people polled. So you're asking a group of people, what do you guys do the same every day? Adam, I'm going to start with you. Just name a couple and I'll tell you if you're on the list of what the other 80% of the people said. Things you do exactly the same every day. Like I eat at the same time pretty much every day. Is that where you're going with this or are you looking for something else? Yes. Yes, because number eight is eat the same breakfast. Would you say you eat the same thing every day?

Caitlin, jump in. Same exact thing for breakfast. I'm on a breakfast loop. Same thing for breakfast every single day, and I love it. I'm never changing. Now that I've been working from home, I pretty much have the same breakfast every day. Okay, tell me what it is. You guys are killing me. You have what, Adam? Toasted rye bread with melted cheddar cheese and two fried eggs on top. It's my go-to breakfast. Pretty much every day. Or a smoothie. Or a smoothie. It's either that or a smoothie.

Yeah. So I have a Greek yogurt, like plain unflavored Greek yogurt with granola and fruit every day for breakfast. Like always an orange, always some kind of citrus fruit. I even have the same brand of granola. I won't even stray from my brand. What's the brand? Because they might sponsor us. Oh, they're so teeny tiny, but they're local. And it's called Bayfield Provisions. It's the best granola I've ever had in my life. Bayfield Provisions sponsoring Jan Arden podcast.

My husband and I both eat this every single day. We go through an inordinate amount of granola, Greek yogurt and fruit in our house. I couldn't be happier. It's exactly what I want to eat when I get up in the morning. I love it and I won't ever change. So yeah, I'm stuck on a loop. I have different stuff all the time. Don't judge me. But yesterday I had Greek salad and hummus. Great. That's delicious. Since, since our last five months have changed into the apocalyptic times, um,

Um, my eating, I do eat at the same time, but I'm eating weird things. So yeah, I had Greek salad and hummus yesterday. Okay. Name something else, Caitlin. What's something else you do the same every day? I'll tell you if you're on the list.

I tend to wear the same clothing. I don't know if that's because I'm in quarantine kind of mode where I'm working from home in my living room, but I wear a sweatsuit every single day now, like every day. Yes, you are number five. Wear the same outfits over and over again. Don't you feel like you're kind of playing the feud right now? Yeah, totally. If I could have you guys, if I could have you buzz in, I would. Survey says? Yeah. Yeah.

So, yes. Do you want me to read the list or are you prepared to try your hand at a few more of these things? Adam, what do you got? I go to bed at the same time every night, which is super late. You are number three, Adam. You are climbing up the list. Number three is have the same bedtime routine. Oh. Yes. Oh, yeah. Totally. I love my bedtime routine. I definitely have a routine. Like, it's the same all the time. I am...

I'm just trying to think if you guys can guess number one or number two. Things you do the same every day. What do you think is on top of that? I know. I'm trying to imagine what most people would say. And I'm at a loss because previously I was going to say take the exact same route to work. But are people even driving to work the same anymore? I don't know. Well, do you not walk from the bathroom into your bed to go to work every day, Caitlin? That's my commute. Okay. I'm going to save you guys guessing.

So we'll start at number 10. Eat dinner at a specific time. I usually eat within 90 minutes of that time.

So from between 4.30 to 6, I eat dinner. Number nine, buy the same foods at the grocery store. Anybody else do that? Yeah, totally. 100%. 100%. Yeah, guaranteed. I'm very brand loyal. So whatever it is, it's like it has to be that brand. And if it's not that brand, it's like, oh my gosh, that's not going to be good. Not me at all. Do not give a flying rats crapper what brand I buy.

I just don't. But I do try and tend to go towards cruelty-free. I do tend to go towards organic. I know people would laugh at that, but I think there is something to organic. I believe that. Number eight is eat the same breakfast, which, you know, Caitlin is, God forbid, I guess I can't serve you a Greek salad and hummus at my place, Caitlin. Sorry, no. Number seven, this is up Adam's alley.

Always use the same brand of toilet paper. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, does that freaking matter? Yes. Like, tell that to people four months ago when they would have wiped their butts with a Chatelaine magazine. And I love Chatelaine. Chatelaine, you can sponsor us. Yeah, I'm surprised. And that's number seven, always using the same brand of toilet paper. Number six, shop at the same stores.

Yes, I'm very loyal to my grocery store. If I shop somewhere else, I'm out of sorts. I don't know where anything is. I don't like if they have a different brand. Seriously, I'm very brand loyal. If it's not the same, I don't know, milk brand that I'm used to buying, I'm like, I don't like this package. It doesn't taste the same. I have no loyalty to any store. I shop at every grocery store that looks safe. Okay.

Number five, wear the same outfits over and over, which we're all doing. I have three t-shirts that I have worn for five months. I wish I was kidding. They're always clean, always clean. But I could open my dryer door right now and show you a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that will be my outfit for tomorrow. Number four, style your hair the same way every day.

Caitlin, I've seen you in the pony for a while, but I've also seen you with hair down a couple of times. I always have a cap on when you guys see me. I've talked about this. I generally speaking get the same haircut and same color. So I don't think I mix it up when I go to the salon day to day. I'll mix it up a little bit. But I mean, I've had dark brown hair and a similar haircut for years. So I think if we throw that in, yeah, I would fit that description.

Have the same bedtime routine, number three, which we have addressed. Number two, sit in the exact same spot on the sofa.

Yes, I have my spot and you can't, it's not that you can't sit in it, but if, if it's like, if I'm there, it's like, I'm out of sorts. If I'm not in, in that same spot, I'm also out of sorts. Whenever I go to my in-laws house for dinner and I always have like my seat at the dining room table. And once I had to sit on the other side of the table and I'm like, I don't know where anything is. I couldn't figure it out. So I'm very, where's my fork? I, where's my fork?

Everything's backwards. Hey, don't be sitting in my spot on the sofa. That's all I'm going to tell you right now. I'm with you. And number one.

which I think everyone in the world will agree with. It doesn't matter where I am in the world. Sleep on the same side of the bed. 100%. Yeah, you have to sleep on the same side of the bed. There's no way I can move. I even find the same side of the bed at a hotel. What if I ever get in a relationship? That's what I'm saying. Like with my husband, if we're staying at a hotel or staying at an Airbnb, wherever, we maintain our same sides of the bed no matter where we are. What if your husband, here's quandary of the week, kind of,

What if the person that you meet that you really love also sleeps on the right-hand side of the bed like you? Do you give that up to be in the relationship? I wouldn't. I'd be like, I'm sorry, you're not touching me naked. This is my side of the bed. And you've got to relearn these skills. I feel like we settled on our sides of the bed because of each other. You know what I mean? Okay. But I wouldn't give it up now. I wouldn't give it up. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast.

Oh, those notes even hurt me. Weird stories. Like I said, on the breaks, we often get talking about things. Adam, just tell me what you told us about when your wife had your first kid.

Right, because I would have mentioned it before, but we were running out of time in the segment. So this is probably an unprecedented move based on your number one thing of the top 10 things that we do the same. After seven years, so we had our first daughter at seven years into marriage. And after seven years sleeping on the same side of the bed, we switched. How was that?

Okay, I can tell you why. Because the bassinet that was beside us was on the other side and it would have been closer to her. So the way that our room... But you never went back. No, we didn't go back. So now I'm a right side of the bed guy. Well, then you and I could never be in a relationship because I'm on the right hand side of the bed. So any hopes that you have are dashed.

And, sorry, and to add even more, if I'm by myself in a bed, I could be in a king-size bed. Same, Jan, for you and Caitlin. Yes. I could be in a king-size bed. I do not sleep in the middle. I sleep on the right.

Like by myself, if I'm by myself, is it the same for you? I'm in a California King. Rihanna. I am, I am on the tiniest frigging corner on the right hand side. So not only is it the right hand side of the bed, but I'm up in the top right hand corner. I'm in the fetal position. I don't know what my problem is, but that's the way I sleep. I turn my mattress once a week.

because I keep sort of compressing down that spot on the mattress. This kind of conversation is very depressing to me. Anyway, yeah, it's weird. It's weird the things that we do the same. And I think all these things have been exacerbated, yes, from the last five months of COVID. Do we agree on that at least? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Beds have kind of become sofas too. Like I'm like recording this from bed now. I'm like, is this my office? Is this my bed? I don't even know. Yeah. Well, speaking of things that, you know, we're doing for the first time in really our lives is that we are getting to know our neighbors in ways that we never have before. I was saying, I think in the last couple of weeks of the show that people that have lived in condos for 15 years and never known their neighbors, um,

have got to know their neighbors. So in that same respect, like say you're in the hood, someone's waking you up on a seemingly very regular basis with a lawnmower, a leaf blower, kids playing basketball on the court at 6, 10 in the morning, yelling and screaming. Like there's things going on now that are waking us up.

So I can relate to this because I have two juvenile great horned owls that are about five, six months old. They make terrible sounds. They don't go, none of that. They go, and that's what they sound like initially. And I am not exaggerating. And they're calling for their mom who has stopped feeding them because listen, I taught you how to do this, get frigging out there. And so anyways, I'm dealing with being woken up really early.

What I mean, and now our neighbors aren't even going to work, right? They're there in their homes for the most part. So any experiences with that, like just having your days rocked with people doing weird stuff beside you?

My neighbors now are saints. And so we're actually super lucky because I don't hear them very often. There is one guy across the hall, I will say. And he is, I think he must be some kind of a fitness instructor. So sometimes I can hear him doing like a Zoom fitness class with some clients and he is just yelling. And he's also throwing his weights down on the ground in his place when he's done with them.

And I can hear across the hall in my unit. So I can only imagine living beneath him. And they actually sent out, I'm pretty sure it was directed at him, but the building sent out a big notification about working out from home and how noisy it can be for all of your neighbors. So to try to like work out considerably, if that's such a thing, but previously in my old apartment and I,

I work morning, so I'm up at 5.30. So I sleep during the day. I have a nap time like a little baby. And two guys moved in into the unit downstairs. And it's a commercial unit. It's not a residential unit. And it was previously occupied by two lovely women who ran a shoe store. And they would just be down there doing their paperwork and talking to each other. And then all of a sudden, a guitar repair store moved in underneath.

my apartment underneath my bedroom. And it was, it was hell on wheels. It was terrible. And when they, when I first found out what they were doing, I actually complained to our landlord and I said, I can't, I can't do this. Like this is impossible for me. And, um, he said, okay, you know what? I'm going to, I'm actually going to talk to them. And I think I'm going to lease it to somebody else. And they begged me and said, we'll work it out. We'll be quick.

quiet when you're sleeping, we don't make that much noise, blah, blah, blah. Well, they couldn't maintain that. I should have acquiesced. I shouldn't have acquiesced. I should have let them actually just get caught by the landlord. But I said, oh, okay. I tried to be nice. And it was hell for two years. So it was just really bad guitar? Tuning a guitar, testing it to see how it sounds.

Well, this is a story that's sort of connected to guitars. You know, basically, what do you do when your neighbor who is a gardener, whatever, starts like 10 leaf blowers at 7 a.m.? So the Toto guitar player, guitarist for Toto, that great band. Okay, that's a really bad recognition of that song. Anyway, the Toto guitar player.

was so fed up with it over a long period of time of these leaf blowers, the lawnmowers, that he thought, well, I'm going to do my job on my lawn for you at 5.52 in the morning. So he got out his amp and his guitar and he did kind of, well, this is what he did for his neighbors. Here's a little clip. ♪

Good morning! So I don't know what you heard at the very end there, but him yelling, good morning, which is very owl-like if you ask me. Good morning!

But what do you think of that? That's really fun. And nevermind that, it's like a free Toto live concert. I think it's funny that the guy from like one of the chillest songs of all time rains down in Africa, took his guitar out.

And he said that they were doing this all the time at 7 a.m. with the leaf blower. I like it. I wish that I could have called him over to my place. My solution, because I already had the guitar players downstairs, was I put all of my speakers and my subwoofer on the floor of my place because I was above them. And I just played really inappropriate rap all day just with the most explicit lyrics I could find. You did do that, Caitlin? I did. So what do we do like now?

The worst thing in life is to have to be combative and to have contention with somebody that you live beside or live below or live above. I mean,

Where do you, maybe this is our quandary of the week. And please folks do write us at the Jan Arden podcast, Twitter handle, and let us know if you have a quandary or a problem that you want us to solve. We were going to start doing it this week, but I think I kind of dropped the ball at putting that out there. So next week, if you have something, and this is a quandary. So maybe this is our quandary this week is what do you do with a neighbor that is in

you know, completely unavailable or doesn't want to work stuff out with you. Like I would find that really, I don't have any neighbors. Like my owls are the worst neighbor that I've had in 15 years living on my property.

I tried the nice route. I like, we tried nice and I made them banana bread. You know what? I made them banana bread one day and I brought it down and cause things were going well and I was trying to be nice. And, uh, so the next day or two, I saw the same guy and there were two of them. One was super sweet and one always wore an apron and I despised him.

And the apron guy got the banana bread because the nice guy was on vacation. And so the next day I saw him and he goes, oh, let me know if you're ever making any more of that banana bread because I wound up giving it away to a buddy of mine and he said it was really good. Oh, for the love of God. I honestly just wanted this guy to fall into a volcano. I hated him so much. And so that's why I resorted to gangster rap. And I thought, you know, I'm not going to sit up here and yell. I'm just going to let someone else do that for me.

You guys have probably seen that show, Love Thy Neighbor. Once in a while, guilty pleasure, I will stay there for 15 minutes and

and literally watch the court proceedings or the horrible, horrific unfoldings of neighbors fighting over, let's say, six inches of property that offenses six inches the wrong way, or a tree growing over the yard, or a basketball, things like this, exactly things like this, a leaf blower going too early in the morning. But it's obviously exacerbated over time, but this show, Love Thy Neighbor,

The horrific things they do to each other to go out of their way to be mean and neither of them are willing to move or do anything to solve the problem. So I think if anything that we've learned these last four or five months is we have to solve problems. We have to work it out with our neighbors or it just, or life becomes unlimpable.

Yeah. I mean, I eventually moved. My solution was that I moved. I mean, if it was, if you took apron guy out of the equation, we would have been fine because me and the nice guy, we were fine. We were very copacetic. Like we understood each other. We could talk. The other guy was a jerk. And so I think when you're dealing with a jerk neighbor, sometimes you just resort to playing really loud rap music. Do you think you're a reasonable person?

Yeah, totally. I went down with banana bread for crying out loud. I was very willing to meet halfway, even though I felt like I didn't have to in my lifestyle was unfairly altered. I was the existing tenant and they moved in below and decided they were going to rev up guitars. They left the front door open to the street. Crazy people started wandering in because they were treating it like it was a retail front, but it was like a second store.

story residents, like they were nightmares. They were nightmares. They shouldn't have moved in in the first place, but such is life. So our response was that we moved away and we moved to like a nice family oriented portion of the city, no more living on queen West and that solved it. Well, I think there's, I think there's hundreds of thousands of people all over the planet that are suddenly realizing that

that they want a more rural experience. Realtors are now saying that they are overwhelmed, they're inundated with viewings, with requests for places that have, you know, one or two acres that are outside of the city, that people are actually saying, no, I'll commute because everyone's working from home now too and they don't know for how long. Country living. And I have to say, it's pretty sweet.

It's pretty sweet country living. I need to have a chat with my owls, but you know, maybe we can deal with that. Listen, I don't know where the time went, but that's our show. I've been talking with Adam Karsh. I don't know what our topic was today. Maybe we didn't even have one, but that doesn't matter because we love you. We love our listeners.

Write to us. Let us know how you're doing. Tell your friends about us. And for God's sakes, could No Name Brand please sponsor us? No Name Brand. I'm putting that out there to the no name people. You are so, so special to us. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.