Jann's Engaged and Eat Ice Cream, Live Longer

Jann Arden  0:08  
2026 is here, and so far it's fucking terrible Venezuela and mental health issues and lots of viruses going on. That's all the time we have for the Jan Arden podcast today, once again, we're going to feature completely free jingles all through this year. I'm here with Caitlin green. Caitlin and I are being bombarded. Well, not bombarded. We have received one photo, but that is a bombardment. It is from Sarah Burke and her boyfriend. From where are they? Are they in Costa Rica, or something?

Caitlin Green  0:43  
Yeah, they're in Costa Rica, which looks lovely, known for its enormous beaches, which she just sent a photo to me and Jane in our group chat of her beach view. And it felt like a personal attack, because I was here struggling with my internet connection. It's cold, AF, here it's soggy. Toronto is like soggy and cold, which is a January, February feeling I hate. I was in a full on Blizzard for New Year's Eve. So I don't know how I feel about a beach, but I want to be on one.

Jann Arden  1:11  
Well, it is a good time to plan, because I think everybody knows that by March, you're ready for some sunshine. In Alberta, we have an inordinate amount of sunshine during the winter. It is a really sunny province all through the winter. Usually we will get hit for a few days, but then blue skies and we have Chinook arches that kind of reach their long arms over the Rocky Mountains. And it really is beautiful. You can have temperature changes of 20 degrees within four or five hours anyway. All that to say we have a lot to talk about today, so we're not going to talk about the weather we could though. Caitlin, I can't help but ask you, you were kind of prompting me, tempting me, teasing me with shit that you've been dealing with for the last couple of days. So let's start there, and then we're going to be talking about my engagement. We're going to be talking about new year. We're going to talk about Ashley Tisdale, because I want to know about that. I know nothing. And yeah, just we got lots of stuff to go. So here, welcome to the podcast. It's our first one, officially, of 2026 Caitlin green, tell us your worst

Caitlin Green  2:19  
parents in 2026 flu season, I feel your pain. I'm standing arm in arm with you, linked against the onslaught of viruses that are being thrust at us. Because, if you recall, I was sick in November, so was will we got sick again in December, the last recording that Sarah and I did together before the new year. You can hear me and see me. If you're a Patreon subscriber, I just look like I've been run over by a train, and I get so sick and I don't get better. So we go to Pei for Christmas. I get sicker and sicker. I have a headache. That is like, you go to sleep with a crushing headache. You wake up with a headache. I have a chest cough, and finally, I get a virtual care appointment, and then she hears my chest infection and goes over my medical history, and is like, yeah, you have pneumonia. So no Caitlin, I spent most of Christmas holidays alone in my brother in law's guest house, which was, I mean, look, I'm not complaining about spending time alone in a guest house, watching heated rivalry and coughing and intermittently having will come over with tea for me. So that was my Christmas

Jann Arden  3:21  
and you did have pneumonia. I had pneumonia. Yeah, isn't that the second time you had pneumonia? Didn't you have walking pneumonia last year?

Caitlin Green  3:27  
Uh huh, I get pneumonia. Like, I'll get pneumonia. I get upper respiratory stuff. I've had whooping cough. I mean, I have had medieval Charles Dickens novel level infections, like, Jen, you love medieval history. I am living it. I do, yeah, so will gets over it. He's fine. Kyle doesn't get anything. I don't know what he's made of, but stronger stock than me. And so I get on the antibiotics. I feel great within two days, and I'm on a bunch of other stuff they gave me, like codeine for the cough and for my headache. So anyways, I watched heat of rivalry, I rotted in the guest house, and then I flew home, and when we got back, will starts waking up in the middle of the night. And this is like, I guess I should issue some sort of a warning, a content warning. We're about to deal with a Little Baby Bum issue.

Jann Arden  4:17  
Okay, so diarrhea is in, in the works right now it's

Caitlin Green  4:21  
an itchy bum. Itchy bum worms.

Jann Arden  4:24  
Yep, he had worms. Okay, well, that's pretty typical. I mean, I had worms growing up, yeah, 60 some odd years ago,

Caitlin Green  4:32  
I was like, Are you kidding that the reward is, like, we get back and we're finally all standing upright as a family. And will has now woken up screaming of his poor little itchy bum at 3am for two nights in a row, and we've been awake with him from like three until 6am then we all sleep from like six to eight, and then we all just have to get up and start our day. Meanwhile, he's fine, and now he's on like some sort of an anti worm medication. So the bathroom experiences,

Jann Arden  4:57  
where would one get worms like I used? To get worms because I just played in garbage in the back alley in Lake View. It was called the our community was called Lake View, but mom said you and Davey were always in the garbage cans, like you had worms constantly. Oh my gosh,

Caitlin Green  5:12  
that's so funny. That reminds me of an 80s character called the Garbage Pail Kids. I think he got it. I mean, look at from anything at daycare, right? Like, you can get it anytime from anything at daycare. But also, we spent the holidays around an enormous dog, and we're never usually around dogs, and

Jann Arden  5:28  
dogs lick their bums, and then they lick your face, yeah, and little toddlers put

Caitlin Green  5:33  
their hands in their mouth all the time, right? Adults don't do that. So we could touch something, and then, chances are, we're going to watch adults, most adults. So anyways, we starting off the new year with worms and sleep deprivation. Everyone, did

Jann Arden  5:44  
you see me with Adrienne Arsenault? Did you tune in to CBC for a quick second to see us?

Caitlin Green  5:48  
I saw that. And I also had, most importantly, in my family group chats in Prince Edward Island, all of my aunts and uncles sending me screenshots talking to me about your engagement, being like, Oh, thortis, is there? Asking me if I was there. Like, they're very excited. They were very, very, very excited. I know it was so sweet.

Jann Arden  6:05  
Who would have thunk it, but listen, we've been together like we're going on month nine. It's not like we did some kind of shot Gunny I was pregnant, type of engagement, yeah, but she asked me, and I think we should have her on, I do too, sometime in the next few months, and she can tell you how it all unfolded, because I am not going to do the story justice, because when I tell the story, she's like, Oh, but you missed this part, this part, and that's very Aries of me. But it was beautiful, the stuff she said to me, the work that went into it, strings of lights she dragged like literally, chunks of lava from Iceland to be part of everything. There was classical music coming out of a speaker in the trees. She had written the most beautiful words that anyone could ever hear in their lives. And I would have been foolish. I mean, I think she kind of beat me to the punch, because I would have asked her to marry me as well. So I think in the back of her mind she was like, I am not going to be usurped by Jan's Aries head through the wall personality. Yeah, I'm going to be. But honestly, to feel like this in life is so special. And I'm sure there's naysayers out there, a few of them. We haven't come across many. It's been really people cheering us on and been very happy for us. But you know, I think there's people that come along that go, oh, you know, you just wait till this happens or that happens, or you're like, Well, if it does, c'est la vie. I would never miss an opportunity like this. Totally. Being in a relationship is not easy. There's going to be lots of challenges. And what else is human life. It's about challenges. It's about meeting in the middle. It's about learning how to fight effectively and compassionately and with kindness and respect, because I think arguments are healthy for any relationship. I don't expect to be in a beer commercial running down, you know, the shores of Iceland and thinking that everything's hunky dory. I know there's going to be lots of challenges, and I'm going to be an old person I know, like she's 18 years younger than me, and I think thortis is going to face as many challenges as I face on my side of things, but I think we do have a great deal of respect for each other. And I really I'm so excited, I'm so excited. I'm so excited.

Caitlin Green  8:21  
I am so excited for you. And I think the biggest thing that I always look at is I'm like, Are these two people crazy about each other? And you are, and that's the thing, because you do, you have to be a little crazy to be like, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna put myself out there and, like, be so vulnerable. And also, I think for a lot of people, like, they know you as a public figure, but they don't know you, I guess, in terms of your relationship stuff, and I have known you in that way for so long, where you were good, I mean, you were like, I don't need to be in a relationship. So was she exactly like, there was no desperate. I just need to be with someone, and I don't want to be alone. It was quite the opposite of, like, I actually do want to be alone. It is an active choice to be alone, and I quite like it so to find someone and to be so bowled over by them, and to have you and thordis initially bond over how you were, like, oh, I rolling at love together, but then you fall in love with each other, I think it's really great. And I think the reason, and this is when the hippie in me comes out. But I'm like, I think the reason for life is to be not just in romantic love, but to like experience love in all of its forms, to care for a dog or a pet or a parent or a friend like that is the stuff of life. The rest of it is, like, gravy. And I think this is really where it's at. And if you find it, man, cultivate it and lean into it, because it's really, it's what gets it's what gets me through so much in my life, is to be like, Oh yeah, well, I love this person and I have this going on. So yeah,

Jann Arden  9:40  
love is so paramount, and it's, it is about loving your job and loving things that you do and being passionate about fucking pottery or sculpting or being a dog walker or making jewelry, like whatever it is that your passion is. At the base of that, at the base of those, those passions that we take on in life, is love. Yeah. It's like loving to do something, and it keeps us going forward. But I just am so grateful for the support that I've had from people. And of course, announcing it New Year's Eve on national television was so crazy, like every time I turned around, there was another person wishing us well. And of course, Thoris was standing just off stage and and it was really funny at the very end of the broadcast, when they were counting down to the eastern time zone. So of course, we broadcasted from Toronto, you know, 10, 9876, blah, blah, blah. And Thoris had said, you better be kissing me, you know, when that ball drops, or, you know, I'm not going to be happy, because I didn't come all this way to not kiss you on our very first New Year. So I left the broadcast like, I didn't realize how soon I was off the screen. And people were writing in like, where did Jan go? And then Adrian's like, where's she going? And then she realized what I was doing, and I had to kind of go behind all the cameras and and find thortis and and it was really cute, though I had just so many messages about I knew where you were disappearing too. We figured you were going back there, but back there backstage, it was so cold too, like for someone from Iceland, she has an aversion to cold. She literally has a cold allergy. And she has something else, where the blood literally stops going to her toes and fingers and they go white. Oh, it's, she has Ray notes.

Caitlin Green  11:22  
Yeah, yeah, my dad has that.

Jann Arden  11:24  
Oh, god, it's so it is ghostly. It's all to look at these white toes. I'm like, we're gonna have to cut off her foot. Like, I don't know what else we can do here.

Caitlin Green  11:34  
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I like that. You were gonna run around and Thor has posted a really cute video. If you don't already follow her as a listener to the podcast. You should, because she posted you, and you just do a little boot scoot, as if you're not live on camera, just like you're like, oh, I have to go from one corner of my party to the other, and then like, go kiss. It's so it just really is. It's so friggin nice. I just love it. And I did. I spoke to the two of you the day that you announced the news publicly on your Instagram, and she was just so sweet about it. And you guys were just in the car together, and thortis is telling me the story, and it was so couples II where, like, you start telling the story, and she's like, No, I'm gonna get in here, because I have to finish this. And it's just great. It's exactly how people want to start 2026 I mean, just being like, a tertiary quad level person in your life, I'm getting messages. Like, I'm having people write to me to be like, did you see Jan's engage like Meredith Shaw and like everybody's just people love, love like, it's it makes you feel better. And God knows you want to start 2026 off with some celebration of love and romance. Yeah.

Jann Arden  12:36  
No, it's great. There's a lot going on in the world. People are saying to me, are we going into World War Three. I'm like, well, it's unlikely. I don't think the world wants to do that. And I think everyone realizes that, you know, Donnie is absolutely batshit crazy. He's such a danger. And I think the world is learning huge lessons on how a person like this gets into power, and that it can never, ever happen again, that mental health is absolutely an issue, and we want to talk about that a little bit today. You know that people are really struggling, and Christmas and New Year's are exponentially more difficult for people. Often we're dealing with families. There's a lot of breakups around Christmas time, just, you know, a lot of those summer romances, and we've talked about that on the podcast before that people kind of think, Oh, before this gets too serious and I have to introduce to parents and stuff like that, I'm going to end this relationship, because it's not the one. But anyway, I would be remiss in not mentioning a lovely, lovely woman, a trans woman, here from Alberta. Her name is Anna Murphy, and she lost her battle with mental health. I think it was just announced 20 or 25 minutes ago on my Instagram feed. And I have so long supported Anna and her unbelievable work with the trans community, with the LGBTQ plus community, and she has faced an extraordinary amount of vitriol from, you know, far right, crap that goes on, and they have done everything from, you know, going after her appearance, to her politics to her transness, she has just faced so much, so much hatred. And I'm very sorry to hear about you, Anna. And I hope wherever you are, you are in a peaceful place, and we shall see you on the other side. But to any family friends of Anna Murphy, my condolences from us here at the Jan Arden podcast. It really is so sad, and Alberta is going to miss you, and I there's so many of us that are going to step into your work and step into your shoes, Anna, with all the amazing work that you are doing, please go to the Anna Murphy on her Instagram page. I know it would be wonderful for her friends and her family members to read some positive comments from all of us, because it has been so negative the last few months for Anna, few of her posts in the last. Week or so she was in the mountains having a cocktail, looking out at the beautiful nature, and I hope that the last week or so that she spent on the planet was just gathering good memories and treating herself to some goodness and and anyway, we shall move on from that. But once again, huge condolences out to Anna Murphy and her family and friends.

Caitlin Green  15:22  
It is a really, a really hard time of year, and it's a really difficult time to be it's always a difficult time to be a part of a marginalized community, but it is a really difficult time to be a public figure who is trans. It's it's awful, and the bullying that happens just for being who you are and talking about that is it's so overwhelming I see it. I'm just a, you know, I'm just a boring old straight woman over here, and I see it on people's comment sections, and I think it would be a, really, just such a wonderful thing to have everybody in 2026 revisit what energy you're putting out online, like your your energetic footprint on social media. I mean, I just think most people, it's just it should be a lot more positive of an experience for so many people, because it is real. You think, oh, they could just delete the comments. They could just ignore it. But it's not so simple, and it wears on you day after day, if you're on the receiving end of it. So yeah, I'm so sorry to hear about her passing. I wasn't super familiar with her work being in Ontario, yeah,

Jann Arden  16:19  
no, of course you wouldn't, but here she was. She was a force, and they've enacted the notwithstanding clause in the legislature three times in the last four or five months in Alberta to absolutely circumvent the proper voting procedures. That's all Danielle, whatever the fuck her name is, Smith. She's an absolute asshole, and I stand by that. Send me your letters, because I don't

Caitlin Green  16:46  
give a shit. Jane Arden, at 123, fake Street, yeah, she's a creep

Jann Arden  16:50  
and she's a homophobic bigot and she's transphobic. She's all the phobics Alberta, sick of it. They've now recalled. They've got a recall out for her as Premier. They're gathering votes right now, so if you have a chance, anytime, anywhere, to sign that petition to remove her from her position, it's highly doubtful that we'll get there. But anyway, she's just she has just put this taint on Alberta and who we are as people. We are good people here in Alberta, hard working artists. There's such a burgeoning and thriving film industry here, and we were all just sitting back watching people like Anna Murphy, absolutely, I hold the Alberta legislature partly responsible for her mental health issues and what she has endured. Hey, just as an update to this very, very sad Anna Murphy story, Anna Murphy, according to several very reliable sources, is still alive. Anna had scheduled the post of her passing to be released at a certain time. And I think Anna was obviously in a very desperate place in her life, but we are all so relieved and glad to hear that she is indeed alive, although we're not sure of her condition, we will definitely update you when we have more information. But to Anna and her family, we're sending lots of love and please, please, if you are someone struggling with any kind of, you know, negative thoughts and that you just find yourself in an impossible position, please reach out to friends. Please reach out to a healthcare professional,

Speaker 1  18:37  
a work colleague. It's really important that we don't suffer these things in silence. So once again, our heartfelt support, love, encouragement and unbelievable relief that Anna Murphy is still here with us, and we will fill you in on more stuff when we have some updates. You Oh,

Jann Arden  19:05  
moving into this, and it's a good segue is, you know, you sent me this whole idea about a weekly journal that would, you know, include a photo like as you move forward. It's science that writing a journal and having that kind of routine is really helpful to get in touch with your feelings, because a lot of people don't know how they feel. So maybe you can talk about that a little bit and what that means and what it looks like to keep a photo journal or just a paper journal. What's this all about?

Caitlin Green  19:33  
Well, you know, how Spotify does wrap. They do. They're like, they're in, you know, summary of what you've listened to and done every year. So they're calling this a personal wrapped 2026 so you save a folder each week with one memorable photo, and then the idea is that by next Christmas, you're going to have 50 great moments from your year. And you also, they're suggesting to journal once a week about something positive that happened. So you either write it in a book or you have separate sheets of paper that you kind of like save in a jar or in a box. And. Then in December of 2026,

Jann Arden  20:02  
jar things interesting. Caitlin, yeah, like writing it, writing on a slip of paper and stuffing it into a jar. That's, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

Caitlin Green  20:08  
And the idea is that you're supposed to be writing and and savoring these good moments from your year, and that you're going to have 50 great moments come December that you can reflect upon. And it's the idea is supposed to be kind of like turning up the volume on the good and trying to create a more balanced view. Because our brains are hardwired to remember negative feedback about ourselves. They're hardwired to remember bad feelings, bad times, and it's in support of trying to avoid them happening again. So I understand the like, the urge of our brains, but we you really want to give as much time and space in your mind to the good things that happen. Because good things happen all the time. And as you always say, even good things can come from bad things. So there might be some do, yeah, yeah. So there might be something even bad that's happened to you, and then, lo and behold, you're writing something nice in this 2026 wrapped for you that came as a result of this bad occurrence. Maybe you broke up with somebody, but all of a sudden, six months later, you meet someone else. Maybe you lose a job, but maybe you, you know, gain something new, like whatever that looks like for you. So I love this idea, because I'm so bad at documenting things, and I know that I need to get better, and I do really want to journal, because I think you're right creating some distance between you and your feelings by journaling, like, by kind of, like, watching it and documenting it and like, being more aware of it, I think it's really helpful. Yeah, I,

Jann Arden  21:30  
I've journaled for years and years, and I haven't been great at it the last, you know, six months, just meeting was, meeting someone is, you know, anyone that's experienced this. It can, it can just, you stop reading and eating properly, and you kind of just submerge yourself in this amazing feeling. But I'm back at it slowly. But I've, I have found it really interesting that I have written about hard things, and it always helps me to write them down. I don't think that we as human beings really learn from triumph. I don't think we really learn or develop our character. I think it's all about obstacles. I think it's about the things that we face that challenge us, that give us more empathy and make us understand other people. When you've gone through hard things, you're much more apt to understand what somebody's going through, whether they've lost a pet or a mother or broken up with a boyfriend or been fired from their jobs, when it has happened to you, you can step into that and go, Holy shit. I know exactly. So it is the hard things that's and we can do hard things. You know, we can get through cancer. We can, you know, losing jobs. I mean, look at you. You're a perfect example of someone who lost a job and has been with Sam losing your child several years ago. Like and you're one of the most positive, like outgoing realists that I know. Like you're very steeped in, yeah, shit happens. But guess what? I've got a husband and a son and friendships that I love and things that I love doing, and my son would want me to go out there, roll my sleeves up and have a ball,

Caitlin Green  23:10  
yes, and it mean to an extent. I do know that it's how you know people are, like wired. I know that I am to an extent, like wired that way, because I look for it. When something bad happens, I try to look for examples of people who have been through really daunting experiences and say they want to come out the other side. And that's why I try to do it all the time. Because I just always say, it's like I was looking for that light and a dark path when when I've gone through any kind of loss. So I love seeing that example from other people. And I also steal a phrase all the time from Mad Men, from Don Draper, where he says, you know, my life moves in one direction, and it's forward and like that is really how I feel. I don't want to discount, what's

Jann Arden  23:49  
the point? What's the point to go back? What's the point to to look behind you and run to what's behind? You know,

Caitlin Green  23:57  
just rumination for no real reason. And also a thing, you know, when you've, you know, lost someone or, you know, I have a really close friend of mine who is constantly battling what will eventually be a terminal cancer diagnosis. Like, she, you know, she's in, she's stable, but she's, there is no cure to coming for her, at least at this stage yet. And so we both talk a lot about how we're, like, people like, Oh, you're so strong, I don't know how to do it. You're like, Yeah, well, the sun keeps coming up. I am so bummed out right now that I feel like the world should stop spinning. But every day the sun comes up and you've got look, oh, here's more bills to pay while you're in like, the depths of despair. So you do realize that like, that is the truth, that like, everything does keep moving forward. So I try to use that to, like, propel me. And it's not always easy, but I think it is. It's valuable. And I'm 100% doing this 2026, rap thing, like, I'm starting a photo. I want to do a photo every week of will standing in like, the same spot in our place.

Jann Arden  24:52  
Oh, it'd be so fun. Yeah. I like, I like

Caitlin Green  24:55  
those types of things because, I mean, yeah, like, my brain can pull me into like, oh, woe is me. Kind of Eeyore Winnie the Pooh territory. But it's, it's, it is valuable work for me to pull myself out of it and be like, actually, you know what? I really liked these cookies I made today. I really liked the extra long hug will gave me.

Jann Arden  25:11  
I had a good bowel movement today. Hell yeah, wow. It was a really good poo, and I deserved it. You know, there's, there's something about just being a human on the planet, and we take so many things for granted. I read a really great fact about the most precious elements in the known universe, not gold, not diamonds. It is the rarest of rare, rare, rare. It is drum roll, wood. No way, yes, in the in the universal picture of things, the substance of wood, the the what it takes to make it, yeah, I was just gonna say that and and the rareness of it you, because there is no sign of this anywhere but gold, titanium, those kind of elements. They exist everywhere. On every planet they have been found. There's some planets that are have so much gold on them that it would blow your mind, like it would just people, if they could fucking get there to, you know, to somehow serve their greed, they would. I mean, they're talking about drilling for shit on the moon. Oh, for sure off. Let's go crack that in half and see how that affects the tides. There'll be no more planet Earth. But anyways, wood, wood folks. So just give that a thought. When you see, when you drive by a tree, what we perceive as being precious, yeah, I love trees.

Caitlin Green  26:41  
So do I? I didn't. It took me a while, because I'm a city slicker, to become a tree hugger, and honestly, it was the time that I spent in this house that is literally in the middle of nowhere in the depths of the woods in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. And my husband and I fell in love with it, and we found ourselves doing honestly, like a biannual pilgrimage there, where we would go for a week. We know you love it. I just love it, and I think about it all the time. About it all the time. And the guy whose house it was is a real artist. He's a photographer. He builds homes by hand. He also was a fantastic chef. He has one of the most beautiful rose gardens on his property you've ever seen. And he has his brother was gay and his partner died, and he built a whole like, almost like the dedication rose garden for his brother's partner on the property. He irrigates, it's himself, like, he's unbelievable, and he's, he really has built this, like sanctuary. And I was like, we would go there twice a year, and we would watch all the wood piles that he would build up, because every house has like, 10 fireplaces. And I started getting into identifying trees. And then I read the over story, that fabulous book that if

Jann Arden  27:43  
you I've often thought about having that as my book club read one of the best books I've ever read. Just a quick blurb on that it really is about these different families and their relationship with trees in their lives. Yeah, and then there's, there's, there's stories that kind of run concurrent, but then they kind of all come together at the end, you have to Richard. Who is that something? Oh, it's gonna bug me. Richard powers,

Caitlin Green  28:08  
yes, that's right. 2018 It was published. It won the Pulitzer Prize. It's a New York Times bestseller. It is, it's fantastic, and it does underscore, like, how important trees are, and the way that all the trees in a forest are connected, and the way that they support each other, and how long some trees have been on this planet. So when you talk about the value of wood, that is a fun little fact, because we are blessed with so much wilderness here in Canada. It's something that I always the rarity of it, right? It's the rarity of it, yeah, and the rarity of like, our hardwood forests too, right? Very few places in the world have our, you know, four season hardwood forest that we have. It's unbelievably valuable.

Jann Arden  28:48  
Remember my trip to Tofino? Yes, yeah. But we went to this little, tiny island with that guy that took us on this weird boat out there, and we saw 1500 year old trees, and it was authoritas cried. You know, half the time we were there. It's very emotional. They know you're walking around them, and you feel very observed. You can call me as kooky as you want, but my trees know that I'm here. They are. They're like Centurions. They stand guard over the house. I respect these trees so much, and I think I've planted two or 300 trees since I've lived here. And I live in a forest. You do, you can never have enough trees. I've been trying to grow 16 fruit trees at mom's old house site for three years, and I think this is the year that I might get, like, a foot growth out of them. They've just struggled so much, and it breaks my heart. I know they're still wrapped in wire. I'm trying to protect them from the deer and but Say what you will about my exciting life, I don't, for me, there's nothing more exciting than marching around this yard and nature.

Caitlin Green  29:52  
Yeah, you were really happiest when you're, you know, kind of like in that element, like I hadn't had a chance until this year to see your place, or, I should say, last. Here now, yes, to see your place, and it is so special, and there is so much wilderness around you. And like, if you watch us on YouTube, you'll see, like, directly behind Jan right now is literally a forest, and it does make it. It makes a real impact on you. Like, even Toronto, it's a very heavily treed city, and we have a ton of parks. And again, I realize, like, how much we would take that for granted. When you go to other cities, I would look around and think, Oh, the city is beautiful, and I love it, but it doesn't have anywhere near the parks and the canopy that we do.

Jann Arden  30:30  
Toronto's done a good job. Toronto's done a good job of that, and I think it saves you and obviously we know all the facts about cleaning the air and removing, you know, carbon, and you know, all the all the stuff that that trees do miraculously well, but there's a trillion trees missing from kind of millions of years ago, when this planet started making itself. So when you see fields with no trees on it that used to be all trees. You know, deserts used to be all trees. It was a nice, different world. Think of Iceland and and Iceland is so beautiful. Just know that here's a perfect example of a culture of people that have spent decade upon decade upon decade replanting forests. They have these baby forests everywhere. My God, you want to get pull your car over, run into these four foot high trees and hug them and cheer them on. They're really trying. There's a lot of places where they simply will not grow. It's lava and Iceland is ever expanding. I should be part of the Tourism Board of Iceland. I encourage you to get there, get there, get there. You've never seen anything like this place, but the trees that they've been trying to grow are fucking adorbs, and some of them are like, 30 feet high now, and they treasure them, and you can't fuck around with their trees there. I think there's, like, laws and shit. You can't, you can't be doing that well, because

Caitlin Green  31:49  
wasn't the lore of the lack of trees in Iceland that, back in the day, the Vikings just sort of ripped them all down to make ships and to, like, build things.

Jann Arden  31:56  
No, they did because they couldn't build with a rock. It wasn't like they had limestone. It was limited supplies. Obviously it was limited. They could have long houses built out of logs. I'm sure there was very old trees on there at one point. But, yeah, it's a fascinating place. But God, I think Canada has, I want to say, like 1012, 13% of the world's forests period full stop. Do you know what that is, percentage wise for a country like ours? Oh, massive 10% of the old growth forests in the world, yeah. I mean, there's still people strapping themselves to trees on Vancouver, islands, on the on that, all those islands out there that thank God the lumberjack people can't get to. I mean, I will never understand cutting down a 1500 year old tree to make fucking tables. Or, you know, I understand that there's renewable forests, and it can be done. Well, yeah, you can regrow them. And, yes, I live in a wood house. I'm not saying it's all or nothing, and I think some companies do do it really, really well. But there's, it should be absolutely 1,000% against the law to cut down old growth forest. They will never be back. That's my rant for the day. Welcome to 2026 if you

Caitlin Green  33:10  
think about it in the context too of you know fairly recent world events. Let's say, when you look at Canada, and I think Canadians are now more aware of this than ever, at this exact moment in time that, like we have so much of value here between the hardwood and the freshwater and the oil reserves. So you know, you want to, you want to take care of this stuff, and you want to protect it, because other places are, for sure, in the coming decades, going to continue to just sort of like side eye over at Canada and go, Oh, what's that you got there? What's that nice little hardwood forest you got there? So just Yeah.

Jann Arden  33:46  
Well, the younger generations are seemingly positioning themselves to be much more aware of the environment. Because I think these young people do want to sink their toes into the sand. They do want to travel and see the world, and they do want to see things that we've often taken for granted. Certainly, my parents generation did, and we my generation hasn't done great. Yours has done better Caitlin than me. You guys are more I think the internet is evil as it can be has really shed light on so many things that are going sideways. For instance, hate to talk about this fucking guy, but Donnie, when the whole Venezuelan thing, he wants them to release $2 billion worth of crude oil. So we know exactly what this whole thing was about in Venezuela. We know it. We can see it coming a billion miles away. He just really thinks he can do and take and do whatever he wants, and his he and his friends stand to make money. It's all it's about. Thank God the man is 80 years old and he has ankles the size of a goddamn old forest tree growth, a

Caitlin Green  34:49  
redwood, an ancient red Yeah. Well, the thing that I find interesting, I've consumed so much information about the situation in Venezuela in the last week, but really is that. That Venezuela, since Maduro took office in 2013 has only been operating at like less than 50% capacity for their oil production relative to their mass reserves.

Jann Arden  35:10  
But aren't the tankers they were all canceled out. They couldn't move their oil anywhere.

Caitlin Green  35:14  
There were restrictions placed upon them. But all to say that getting this industry back up and running to the extent that it would then be profitable for the US and for US oil interests, it's a $60 billion estimated investment, and it's going to take a long time.

Jann Arden  35:29  
So the $2 billion worth of oil they want just pales in comparison to what the infrastructure requires to get it going. God, that's so dumb.

Caitlin Green  35:37  
And oil companies, like historically, are very risk averse, like and so everyone's looking at this, it's a very tenuous situation down there, right? So anything can happen. Who knows what's going to happen in Venezuela in five years, and who knows what's going to happen in the US? So it is certainly an interesting undertaking. I think that for anyone who's interested in reading more into it, you would be well served to listen to any number of the amazing podcasts that have come out recently, from the headlines to the daily to as her clients, recent episode on the New York Times, they have a lot of great coverage. So like, in my view, as well, I think that they wanted to do this for a while. You know, Trump term one, what they were talking about this already, about sort of displacing him in Venezuela. And I will wrap this up very quickly, but I'll say that it's also a flex. It's a flex of military muscle. It's a flex of power. It's to show all the other regional leaders in Central America that we can do this. We can go into your house in the dead of night and pull you out. So if Trump starts sort of saber rattling, you should take it more seriously, instead of dancing in public, as Maduro was doing. So I do think that that's what they were trying to do, is like, set this precedent of like, we're the military strength. Don't get it twisted. And he likes that kind of stuff. He loves going loves going on and on about the military. So he's so crazy. It is crazy to see, especially if you're inclined towards peace, like Canada kind of is like, we're looking at this and going, what the heck is happening?

Jann Arden  36:53  
But anyway, we're moving on. This is a perfect segue to the Ashley Tisdale, you know, toxic mom group.

Caitlin Green  37:00  
Can we go from the extremely important to the completely unimportant? This is completely

Jann Arden  37:04  
unimportant, but it is a really funny story of how petty people can be. People's idea of toxicity is very far reaching.

Jann Arden  37:22  
So what's going on? Ashley Tisdale has abandoned her toxic mom group. What the fuck I don't know.

Caitlin Green  37:28  
So Ashley Teasdale, for anyone who doesn't remember, was in high school musical, and so she's not this is not a like a list celebrity, so to see her trending for the last week really speaks to like, how much the public has enjoyed sort of picking over the course of the story. So she wrote about her toxic mom group in this really sort of eviscerating essay that was published in the cut. So she said, essentially, the group started avoiding her and would post group photos on Instagram of them hanging out without her. I think that's a relatable feeling for a lot of people, is like the feeling of being left out, like everyone's Hanging Out Without Me. And she said she felt like she was back in 10th grade. She said that everybody in this group was acting like a mean girl, and because her mom group included other celebrities like Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore and Megan Trainor, this starts picking up traction on like TMZ and all these other outlets start carrying it. And her rep, Ashley tears, Dale's rep, had to actually comment on this recently, saying it's not actually about Mandy Moore, Hillary Duff or Meghan Trainor, because she starts getting a lot of really bad press, and so everyone starts sort of like picking apart this story. Oh, she doesn't follow any of these women anymore. People are chiming in saying, This is terrible. They shouldn't be leaving her out, and then sharing their own experiences with feeling like they were being left out of a mom group, that they weren't invited to kids birthday parties. And it's like it, I think it really just goes to show you that, like feeling socially isolated and feeling socially snubbed is truly one of the worst feelings in the world, it makes people feel really, really bad, and it made her obviously feel bad enough that she wrote a whole article in the cut about it, and said that she eventually texted the group of girls in their group chat and said, I'm out. This is mean girl stuff. For me, I don't want to hang out with you anymore. The only thing I found was that, like, you're only hearing her side of the story, so I bet there's two sides to the story. Like, it's easy to for her to point the finger, but like, what? Where's your role in all of this? That's the only thing I thought, who's got time I don't for this kind of stuff, to write an essay in the cut.

Jann Arden  39:25  
Who has time for this? I just, I can't imagine going out of my way to admonish or to go after anybody else. I mean, they just make themselves all look so zany. I don't know much about any of these women, and I don't think any of our listeners. Do you guys know anything about these women? Please let us know.

Caitlin Green  39:42  
And then Hilary Duff's husband, just today, at this time of recording, her husband posted, he sort of made it look like he had also written an article for the cut, and he posted an image of it on his social Jesus Christ, isn't he a hockey player? No, he was. That was her old one.

Jann Arden  39:59  
Oh, that was her old. Sorry, I'm not up to date, folks. I'm not up to date on Hillary Duff's personal life. I'm gonna do better in 2026

Caitlin Green  40:05  
Hillary Duff's husband is a guy by the name of Matthew coma. He's a 38 year old guy like this is a grown man. He posted a photo of himself photoshopped onto Ashley teasdale's body, and in the photo, he's seen sitting on a couch next to a house plant wearing this all black outfit. And it's it's doctored to look like her the cut article. And it says, when you're the most self obsessed tone deaf person on earth, other moms tend to shift focus to their actual toddlers. And so he writes this, obviously, as a very public knock back to Ashley Teasdale for saying, don't talk crap about my wife. People have

Jann Arden  40:39  
got to get off their phones. They've got to get off their phones. You guys have got to start walking in the trees. Please do something. Do something with yourselves. And I have had falling out things with with friends over the years, and it's, it's fiercely private to me, and I would never betray them publicly, like I'm even reticent to talk about issues that I have with one friend, with another friend? Yeah, you know, you have, we all have very wide friendship circles, at least I do. I don't think I've ever posted anything on social media like, oh, this happened, and this friend did this, and blah, blah, blah. I'm fiercely protective of them, no matter what our feelings are. And I'm always quite hopeful that as time goes by, you know, we will sort things out again. You know, for example, I've talked about my relationship with Neil McGonagall, who managed me, you know, over 30 years ago, and we didn't talk for a long, long time, and then we joined up again and had a really wonderful afternoon. I saw him twice. And then, of course, he passed away last year, late last year, and I was so grateful that I had taken the time to mend that fence. But having said that, my older brother, I don't speak to him, he left like a card and a little gift on in front of my gate over the holidays, and I did not respond back. That's really touchy for me, but I've never sat down and written a long missive about, you know, how we did each other wrong, and family dynamics and all that stuff. I just would never do that. It is very private, although I don't mind talking about the basic gist of it here, because I think it's important for people to know that I have outstanding issues that I have not dealt with, and I'm not the bigger person, and I'm not the one reaching out, going, let's mend fences. I literally do not want to have my brother in my life, and I'll just say that, that I've got reasons that I would never go into, but for my own mental wellness, that's what I'm choosing to do. So I always encourage people, you've got to do what's right for you, and it's not about how people perceive you. And trust me, I've had a lot of people say, you know, be the bigger person you should, you know, mend that fence. You're going to regret it, and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, No, it's just not good for me. So you have to trust your own instincts, but I am far from perfect. I've got outstanding issues with people that I don't talk to and don't think it doesn't bother me because it does, yeah, but I'm not on social media documenting my problems, yeah, but that's just me. If that's what you think you need to do, then let the chips fall where they may. And if that's the bed you want to sleep in, go give that a whirl, because it's not going to be fun.

Caitlin Green  43:26  
I've ended friendships sort of, or I've had friendships end, but I'm not one to announce my departure. It's just not my nature. Disengage. You disengage. I just reduce, reduce, reduce. And if it comes back naturally and it builds back up and you have a conversation later, than great.

Jann Arden  43:41  
So I still would caution people, when you're thinking about curating your social media, what do you want it to look like? Because if that's there, yeah, you know, even if you delete your account, trust me, it's findable. Oh, 100% people can dig that stuff up. There's nothing erasing it, yeah. Well, also fame does have teeth, and I think a lot of times this stuff is motivated by, you know, being in the public eye. But having said that, I sit here before you announcing an engagement on New Year's Eve, and people could say that is completely a publicity stunt, and it didn't cross my mind that there would be that much interest in it, and we just thought it would be a really fun thing to do on New Year's, you know, to start the year off that way. So I'm not going to sit here innocently and, you know, gonna go, I would never do something like that, because obviously that brought a lot of attention on me and thortis, so I can't admonish somebody. But it wasn't a negative thing. Yeah, I wasn't going after so I get what people are saying. If you're sitting there rolling your eyes at home at me right now, going, well, she just did the same thing, I'm gonna strongly disagree, because it wasn't. It was about such positivity and such a happy thing that didn't involve diminishing somebody else or cause. Calling them out or or making this spectacle of something. It was just about her and I, we agreed upon it. So there was it was mutually beneficial to us, and it was a lot of fun for our friends and family. So anyway, they need to make and follow some new year's resolutions, and they need to eat some ice cream, and that's how we're going to end this podcast today. Eat ice cream live longer. What's that about? Caitlin? I agree completely, as long as it's not made out of dairy. That's all I'm going to say.

Caitlin Green  45:30  
Look, one of the best ice creams I've ever had in my life is from honeys here in Toronto, and it's vegan ice cream, and it's absolutely delicious. So there you go. You can find great ones. But yeah. So apparently this is a there's a renowned doctor and a health policy expert who has written a book called eat your ice cream, six simple rules for a long and healthy life. And he basically explains that the value of of things that you enjoy and how much they make you happy, like ice cream and the value of being social, because usually you consume ice cream with somebody else. He says, It vastly outweighs any sort of caloric takedown you feel is happening when you consume ice cream. So he said, You know, it's a good it's a good product. It's got protein. It doesn't hit you like the fats do in meat. And he said, plus, you usually eat it with someone else, and being happy and social is the key to longevity. And sort of, the theme of the book is about the benefits of being social, being with other people, and doing things that you enjoy, whether that's ice cream, whether that's a meal, whatever that looks like for you. He's like, let's eat ice cream in 2026 because it's going to

Jann Arden  46:35  
make you happy. I agree. And they're talking a lot about, you know, diets and things like that. Drinking water was one thing that really resonated with me this past year. But I've just read a whole bunch of articles from very credible scientists that say it is an absolute fallacy that drinking eight glasses of water, in fact, it can be quite detrimental to health. And this is I don't mind saying this on the podcast, because I've read about 10 articles about this. It's too much water? Oh my gosh, it's not doing No, it's not it's not good for you. There's people that have died from a certain kind of water intoxication, from overdoing it. Your organs cannot manage it. It's not how we evolution did not require that. There was a lot of times where we didn't have water for days at a time. And it really doesn't have anything to do with that. So do your research. But I'm saying this on the podcast because, like I said, I've read 10 articles in the last of month about, don't drink too much water because it's having the adverse effect that you're you don't drink every time you're thirsty either. Like, really be mindful about it. Do your research on water intake. That's all I'm going to say, because I am changing my water rules for 2026 I'm not going to drink it the way I was. And you know what? I didn't feel great, really. I felt like I drank too much water. I've got too much water in my body. Like, if I drank eight ounce glass of water, I'd be like, slurring around. It's one thing to have a drink of water after a workout, but just be careful with that stuff. But getting back, I did have a point to this, like the whole ice cream thing, you don't have to eat three meals a day either. I mean, this is what they're talking about now. It is about mental health and about mental wellness, and if you've got time for one great meal, there's just so much research now that they're putting out there that isn't at all what we've been fed for the last 10 years.

Caitlin Green  48:22  
So Oh, and I think about like the focus on children's water intake too, for parents, because we don't go we don't leave our house without these giant water bottles for myself and my husband, but also for my son, and they take them to school, and it's great. I want him to be hydrated. Fine. But I then think back on my own experience in school. I didn't have a friggin water bottle with me at school, I went to the water fountain a couple times a day, yeah.

Jann Arden  48:44  
And I was kind of mind boggled about it, that wood was one of the rarest substances on the planet, and that drinking eight glasses of water a day is ridiculous. And I am mindful about shit. I say on the podcast because, you know, but it's, that ain't me. That's, that's science, folks.

Caitlin Green  49:03  
Yeah, we're not doctors, so you don't have to listen to us, but we do. I am chronically online, so I'll, I'll spew off stuff I read. Why not? And so go have your ice cream. That's what we're saying for 2027

Jann Arden  49:14  
have your ice cream anyway. That's our show. This is our first show. 2026 I think we've covered the basis. We've, we've managed to talk about, you know, Trump, war, water, bad dating, social media, all the things that we are renowned for, my girlfriend, my fiance, that's crazy.

Caitlin Green  49:31  
I love that being engaged was like one of the happiest years of my life. I loved it. It's a whole year of celebrating. It was a really, really great year for myself and for my husband, and so I'm very, very excited and happy for you in Florida. I think you have a great year ahead. I'll be

Jann Arden  49:46  
64 years old when we do get married, because I think we're going to do it in August. So here we go another year. Folks, 2026 don't forget about our book bag. We're going to be announcing when we're going to be talking about the Margaret Atwood. A memoir that was quite a swath to get through. I'm about 120 pages left to go, which I will? I keep nodding off every time I listen to it. Margaret Atwood just has a way of reading that is

Caitlin Green  50:12  
putting me to sleep. One of our Patreon members said that the hack for her when she's listening to the book for part of our book club is to put the audio book on 1.3 speed, because she said she needs to speed up Margaret.

Jann Arden  50:24  
Okay, you know what? I'm gonna try it. I have not done that. I can't do two because that's just I can't take it in. So we're gonna announce that. We're gonna do our, obviously, our zoom call to have everybody weigh in on Margaret's book. We're gonna announce the next book. That's the book bag on Patreon. So I think it's $7 a month, and just the Patreon regularly is $5 a month. But we want to thank all our Patreon members once again for a great year. All your comments, all your voice notes that you've sent in. Keep those coming. You can ask us questions. You don't have to respond to one of our podcasts. You can ask us things. You can tell us stories. You can fill us in on your opinions about Venezuela. God knows, I'd love to hear that how much water you're drinking toxic mom groups. Yeah, there's just, there's lots of good news happening in the world too, and I think we're going to really try and focus on that this year. But Caitlin, great to see you. You don't look a day older than you did last year. Thank you. Here's to holidays. Here's to Sarah Burke with her boyfriend crazy in Costa Rica, yeah. I mean, she was another person that was kind of like me. I don't know. I'd love to talk more about how people are approaching dating in 2026 maybe we can do that in Patreon.

Caitlin Green  51:33  
Okay, let's do that. Because I have, I do have, I have an interesting dating like, sort of hack, I guess that's going around right now on social media.

Jann Arden  51:39  
So we're going to do that. We're going to talk about that in Patreon. So until we meet again, don't forget to finish Margaret's book. Don't forget to be good to yourself. Don't forget to eat your ice cream. And we appreciate you more than you know. We'll see you next time. Jane Arden podcast, signing off. Totally Do you.