Erin's Journals

Just a thought… I can’t decide if people who wear pajamas in public have given up or are living life to its fullest. [Author Unknown]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

First of all, thanks if you answered my call to please rate my podcast Drift with Erin Davis. You don’t have to be an Apple device user, and you can do it. The better the ratings for the podcast series, the easier it is for people to find these sleep stories; the more people who listen, the easier it is for the folks at Frequency Podcasts to sell it and then it’ll all be free, eventually. I hope.

This week’s story is Louisa May Alcott’s beautiful A Christmas Dream. I loved doing this one. And if you’re wondering how to listen to a podcast, it’s so easy even I figured it out. Here’s a link to a quick video to help you out.

And have I shown you this?

It’s a pillow speaker. Plug it into your device and listen ’til you fall asleep. It’s flat, fits into your pillowcase and is comfortable enough to sleep on. Great idea if you get an Amazon gift card or something for Christmas and then we can Drift off together! Just Google them and look for the reviews; that’s how we made our choice.

Speaking of Christmas, we had a terrific time in Kelowna, just as I predicted in my rocking chair journal here on Monday. The flights were smooth, short and on time, and more than that I cannot ask. Leslie just loved her Christmas in Heaven lamp and we had a great big teary hug. But here’s the truly amazing part.

When Brooke made this, she found a little red arm chair at Michael’s (named appropriately enough).

And look at this. Here is Leslie’s son Michael in almost an identical chair as a toddler. I mean, how on earth could Brooke have guessed?

How wild is that? By the way, at your request, Brooke is considering making these through the year for you to have next Christmas. If you want to enquire, email me. 

So I have to tell you something that is so Erin and Rob that I may well laugh about this every time the door bell rings.

It’s about 3 pm on Monday. I’m still in my buffalo check red PJs, having edited and written and puttered for most of the day. Have I mentioned I love my jammies?

The doorbell rings. I skitter to the bathroom and even though Rob has a toothbrush in his mouth, I ask him to answer the door, since I can’t let anyone see my in my pajamas at that hour.

He goes, and there stand our 90-something-year-old neighbours, Lou and Alan, holding a beautiful orchid as a gift to us, and a jar of homemade blackberry jelly for Colin, who loves it. (We had dropped off a poinsettia to Alan last week for Christmas.)

By the way, do you pronounce the second “i” in poinsettia? I always feel like I’m on Downton Abbey. “Oh look, Robert, Mary brought us a poinsettia!”

Where was I? Ah yes. I’m in the bathroom wondering how to make myself presentable, so I put a hair towel on and my bathrobe, put water on my face and run out to the door, so they’d think I was in the shower. We had a quick chat as they kept their safe distance, and then said our Happy Christmases (Allan is British, like so many in the Victoria area) and closed the door.

As I congratulated myself on my clever little ruse, Rob says, “That would have been brilliant…if I hadn’t told them you weren’t coming to the door because you were in your PJs.”

I said, “NO YOU DIDN’T!” and he said sheepishly, “Maybe…?”

And then we shared a great big laugh.

People who know us understand that we work on different kinds of hours doing goodness-knows-what in front of a microphone or a camera in this house, but still, I know that there’s a fair bit of judgment, especially among our parents’ generation, that comes with someone who wears her sleep clothes (or, as I call them, my work attire) for an entire day.

I was well and truly busted. And that, my friend, is the story of my life in a nut shell. Five years since that magical last broadcast at Casa Loma, I’m embracing the sleep, the night-owl hours, reading, writing, working in PJs and all of the wonderful, busy, messiness of our lives. It’s as good as it gets.

Have a great weekend and I’ll be back with you on Monday. 

Just a thought… Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are. [Harold S. Kushner]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

I do hope you had a good weekend. I’m going to predict I did because when I brought a journal to you last Thursday I said, “I’ll talk to you Monday after a weekend in Kelowna with my dad and two sisters.”

Kelowna is a flight to the mainland; it’s about an hour from YYJ to YLW, but December being the month it is, and us expecting really high winds and Kelowna getting rain and snow, I thought: what if I don’t get in on Sunday evening in time to shoot and post a new journal?

So I thought I would do a new journal now before we leave. It’s nice and quiet where I’m writing; Rob’s at hockey, and I wanted to take the time to share with you here. (By the way, I am hopefully getting a new camera for Christmas to reduce the blur factor).

But I wanted to show you something special. I gave it to my sister this weekend so I’m not spoiling anything by telling you about it now. It’s something that Brooke made for us (I’m not regifting!) and I loved it so much that I asked her to make one for my younger sister Leslie. You see, she lost her son four years ago in a murder in Kelowna which has yet to be solved, adding just another layer of pain for her.

Brooke made this for Rob and for me. It’s a lantern that she has decorated and when you open it, there’s a picture of Lauren in a tiny chair. It has battery-operated lights in the top decoration and it’s simply lovely, as you can see:

The theme of it is Christmas in Heaven and there’s a poem printed on the outside.

Yes they will. No matter how our traditions change – whether it’s the location, or a new tree or some ornaments on it that don’t come out every year anymore, they are still there. In our hearts, there’s that empty chair, but always always always a place in the Christmas traditions for the ones who are not here.

And so with that I will tell you – again a prediction – that we had a wonderful Christmas celebration. Have a beautiful day, a lovely week and thank you so much for spending time here. It means a lot.

Just a thought… Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better. [Maya Angelou]

As usual, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

So, I got in deep deep trouble among some people on Monday. I’m not here to whine or complain; just to point out how carefully we all tread these days.

I am politically correct, in what I hope is the best possible interpretation of those two words that so many people use as a weapon of disgust. I go out of my way not to offend anyone, to include everyone and to try to stay up on all of the changes in our languages. I read the articles on the most mispronounced words and how language and meaning change.

I’ve even read a piece this week in The Atlantic that suggests that when we acknowledge the Indigenous lands on which we stand, or have our events, or in whatever circumstances we use the statements of gratitude, it’s actually just moral exhibition. Okay, that’s one I’ll read and consider. And maybe look again at my stance. I just don’t know.

That’s what I do – what I think we do – and following Maya Angelou’s gentle directions, try to be better.

But on Monday, I wanted to acknowledge a national day of remembrance for the 14 victims of the horrific massacre that took place in 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique. In being extremely careful about my terminology, I copied the wording from a post on a union website from last year that said, in short, that these women were murdered simply because of their gender.

And that, my friend, was my mistake. I took at face value a post from a credible source. But it wasn’t based on these women’s gender, it was based on their sex. And there is a difference, I was reminded in the firmest and foulest of terms on Monday (actually Sunday night when I posted and later checked before going to sleep).

I was accused by one poster (often retweeted) of adding to the violence of that day. I was told I “obviously didn’t remember,” which was really ridiculous in that I was on the air doing news that next morning on CHFI. I even had to fend off the worst reaction from a male co-worker, reacting to my sadness and shock by saying, “Who cares?” This is something I’ve never told anyone before now, because the story wasn’t about me. So this criticism Sunday night was personal.

No, the tweets were not an attack by a madman with a gun – and I am pretty sure that I can say he was a man – but I was deeply disturbed by the way that my tweet was tagged by several very angry people who had a cause, presumably from a transgender point of view, that I was not aware of. Gender and sex are not interchangeable in our current terminology.

Even the OCAD University website used these words: “The 14 women were killed in a gender-based act of violence.”

I’m aware now. I was to the point of thinking I would never again acknowledge the December 6^th attack, lest I add the worst kind of distraction to a day of remembrance about 14 innocent women whose lives were taken because of their sex. Because they were women.

When I apologized and took down the tweet, then I was questioned in the least gentle of terms as to why I had taken it down. There was no pleasing anyone, except for the initial group of infuriated tweeters who said, “Fair play. She’s apologized.”

Look, this isn’t me. But I remember that Twitter doesn’t take into account the…account. Who I am. What I stand for and how I try to protect and give a voice to those who don’t have my platform and followers, when I can.

I’ll be careful but never careful enough, it seems. In AA there’s a motto that goes “Progress, Not Perfection.” I’m angry that I trusted some site’s presumably careful terminology because I didn’t know better. But I’m angrier because I was taken to the public square and hanged before I got a chance even to say what it was that I meant or knew.

Educate me, by all means. Help me to learn the ways that you can be acknowledged and aided in your cause, but by attacking and name-calling and trying to cancel me and still my voice, you are not helping me, and certainly not helping your case. You turned a day in which 14 women were murdered into your cause. And as much as we all need our eyes opened, there has got to be a better way. If you scream at me, I will not listen. And then how do I learn?

Have a gentle weekend. I’ll be in Kelowna visiting my dad and sisters for an early Christmas.

Just a thought… Sometimes I look up and smile and say, “I know that was you.” [Author Unknown]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

You know me: I’m the kid digging through manure, looking for the pony. I use that analogy a lot because it’s true. It’s me.

In pre-pandemic (and pre-tap payment) times, I would find dimes all the time, which some say are messages from the ones we love. In fact, the other day, as we were about to visit our friend Mira and deliver her meals as well as a few Hanukkah decorations (again, thank you, Brooke, for making that possible), I found a Canadian penny wedged in a mat outside her building’s front door. Now that’s rare! And, of course, I dug it out of the muck and kept it.

Lately, though, I’ve been finding Band-aids. Don’t ask me why people are dropping wrapped, clean Band-aids, but here’s what I choose to believe, because that’s just how I work: Rob’s thing was and is always to keep a Band-aid in his wallet (I joke that it’s where the condom used to be) and whenever there’s a blister, scratch or minor emergency, there he is to make it better. If it’s a sign from above, it’s a good one. We’re healing.

I had another sign from above the other day, but not a good one. Brooke and I were having a great day: we’d strolled and shopped a local Christmas Craft market and then walked along the main street in our nearby Sidney to pick up a few more gifts. Suddenly, out of the blue, I was splashed all down my shoulder, into my phone holster and down on a plastic bag that thankfully protected a few children’s books we’d just bought. It was a deluge of freezing water from the flat rooftop one storey above.

I squealed a bit from the cold and the surprise of it, and then we kept walking, brushing off the new handmade cloth jacket I had just bought an hour earlier at the market, and looking back and up over our shoulders. Then, as we listened, we could hear someone up there, sweeping off the water from the previous month’s heavy rains.

So now, a couple of days later, I’ve been considering a few things I could have done. I could’ve stopped and yelled, “Hey! Could you please watch where that water’s going?” or gone into the business below that roof and told them what had happened. But I did neither. Why? Because: a) I couldn’t believe it, and b) it had to have been an accident, so why make some poor guy feel bad? I mean, no one would do that on purpose, would they? I don’t actually think it’ll be making into a future episode of Just for Laffs.

So what would you have done? You’re welcome to leave a comment on Facebook or Instagram as to how you’d have handled it. Brooke says she would have yelled; Phil said he’d have gone into the building. Me? I’m more like, “Don’t make a scene – they might be listeners.” Yeah, I still have that nutty mindset almost five years to the day since leaving CHFI.

Maybe it serves as a reminder that I shouldn’t always be looking down, but honestly, if I’d been looking up, I’d have just gotten a free sinus cleanse, so perhaps it’s for the best? And considering what can come from above in a town with a LOT of sea gulls, I guess I was lucky. And…there’s that kid in the manure pile again!

Take good care and I’ll be back here with you on Thursday. And stay dry, if you can, will you?

Just a thought… If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. [Maya Angelou]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

There is so much to talk about here today. I mean, there’s the new Covid variant and we are just extremely grateful that we seized the seas and took our trip when we did. Just another example of tomorrow being promised to no one. We wait for our booster shots, continue wearing N95 masks and on we go.

Then there’s the weather. When conditions in your home province are front page on your ship’s Canadian newsletter, that’s an eye-opener. Of course, I kept up with everything via the internet and if you were asking if we’re okay, we are, thank you. Our little family here on the Saanich Peninsula is safe, and this mountain that Rob and I live on has an Indigenous name that translates to “place of refuge” after people escaped a tsunami here many years ago.

So here’s what I want to share with you today, and it’s all about how you frame things. Our trip home (except for being moved out of the seats that we paid to be in from Miami to Toronto on American Airlines, which is an infuriating story you don’t need to hear) well, most of it was just flawless. Until it wasn’t.

First the good: we got to Toronto Friday and had a fantastic visit with these guys in the hotel bar/restaurant.

Of course, this is Mike Cooper and Ian MacArthur from my CHFI days – both of whom are doing great (Ian is loving the sleep) and they shared the welcome news that morning producer Gord has a new job on another radio station. Fantastic news, Gord!

Our lifelong bestie Allan Bell came, too, and between him and Mike (quite literally, actually) Rob laughed more than he has all year. It was the perfect ending to the trip.

Or…it should have been. Now the bad: we flew Toronto to Vancouver and all went well, waited our two hours and got on a small plane from YVR to Victoria International Airport. It was raining hard and getting dark.

Rob and I sat in the two little seats in 1A and 1C, which provided a front row view to what was going on on the flight deck, whose door was open before we left the ground. I heard one of the two flight attendants talking to the duo at the controls and I kept hearing the word “relax…” and then again “relax….” Hmm…I thought. I hope there’s nothing to be tense about.

The announcements and safety demo done, we buckled in and left Vancouver for the 12-minute flight home. As the landing gear came down, we began our descent in the fog and rain and cloud and then – uh-oh – up we went again. Okay….

We had been making light conversation with her, so we asked the flight attendant, who was now seated facing us about three metres away, if this was normal. She was very matter-of-fact and said, “Oh, yeah.” (Thank goodness for level-headed flight attendants. We take more cues from them than we realize, I think.)

Later, after a quick convo on the handset with the flight deck, we found out from her that the pilot couldn’t see the runway, so she went back up and around and approached from another direction.

As a 12-minute flight stretched out to an eventual 40-minute trip, I started thinking about how our wills had almost been finished up recently, our family at home and that conversation on the deck that included the word “relax.”

And here’s what I chose to believe. I decided to tell myself that he was telling the crew that when the day ended, they were going to relax. Maybe have a bath and relax. Or take some time off in December and relax. That has to have been it, right?

As we touched down on the runway (yes, there was applause) and deplaned, I felt like Lloyd Bridges in Airplane! and was thinking: Maybe I picked the wrong decade to quit drinking…. 

But we made it home safe and sound with family awaiting, and I was thankful: to have made it, to have had a welcome such as the one we got, and for the power of testing negative and thinking positive. What else are we going to do, right?

Talk to you here on Monday.