Erin's Journals

Today, a legend in Toronto radio is hosting his final morning show. I never had a chance to work with Roger Ashby, but I have vast respect for what he’s achieved in this beloved medium of ours, and empathy for the sea of feelings he’s experiencing today. I wish him well, always, and many years of joy with his wife Moira. I’ll be sending big hugs. And to Marilyn, too. I know what it’s like to lose a longtime partner. Smooth sailing, all. 
 
Thanks for your enthusiastic feedback about yesterday’s Gift of the MAGA journal. To be clear, I didn’t come up with the nickname Cheeto Mussolini (although I wish I had). It’s just one of many I come across on Twitter now and then. Credit where credit’s due – if only I knew to whom!
 
Okay – let’s shake that off. Deep breath. A really niiiiiice cleansing breath. ‘Cause this is lovely. Here we go.
 
If you have December 12, one week today, circled on your calendar, you’ve probably bought your ticket or tickets on the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Home Lottery. It’s sold out, so I’m not here to nudge you to buy tickets on behalf of this amazing facility that has helped so many of our loved ones. Even though I’d listen to our own radio ads and buy tickets, I remember Mike Cooper winning at least one thing on the draws every year. Me – nothing! But that’s okay; the tale of this win beats them all. 
 
Last week, I got a message on social media from Carol C. She wrote about her girlfriend, whose husband Malcolm died from cancer on July 10. He chose to leave this world via MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying), remaining at home through his illness and in the loving care of his wife Daphne and their family. They were all grateful for MAID and at peace with the process, and wanted me to share that with you.
 
Malcolm, an avid arborist who loved to travel (they had to cancel a trip to Switzerland planned for just the month prior to his passing from lung cancer) was never one to buy lottery tickets. But for some reason, Daphne was moved to buy a Princess Margaret ticket because of her late husband. I’m guessing she was hoping to help out other families who had been through the same hellish ordeal that her family had just emerged from. Or maybe she thought she deserved a little good luck? Perhaps both; who knows?
 
Daphne got more than a little good luck. As Carol shared with me, when the Early Bird Draw was made last Thursday, this happened.
 

 
Daphne won the $1.5M Muskoka 3,000 square foot lakefront cottage plus $75,000 in cash and two Muskoka paddle boards. 
 
Fantastic, right? Well, from the outside, perhaps.
 
It is probably the luckiest thing that could have happened to this family, but I know for a fact that what they really want is to have Malcolm with them. Really good luck would have meant his cancer was stopped and he went on to enjoy many more years with his family. Imagine, if you can, winning a dream home like this on the water in your retirement years and the person who has traveled all of those years with you isn’t there to share the sunsets, hear laughter as children play in the water, or take in the quiet beauty of an Ontario summer and fall. 
 
There are many ways at which someone could look at this windfall. I hope that Daphne and her family – whether they decide to sell (as so many do) or to enjoy the furnished home that providence has given them – know that there is still so much joy to be had in this life, even after we lose the people closest to us. I’m sure they’re considering what Malcolm would want; I wonder if they hear his British-accented voice saying, “Bloody Hell – why do you think I made this possible, if not to bring you some happiness?”
 
Life is short – so often too short – but it does have ways of surprising us! It’s up to us to stay open to the possibilities and find the sweetness in even the most heartwrenching times. I wish Daphne and her family every bit of happiness that they can mine from this incredible turn of events. Goodness knows they deserve it. Here’s a shot her friend Carol sent.
 

 
Have a lovely Wednesday and I’ll be back with you here tomorrow to respond to questions about a holiday season song (’cause it ain’t about Christmas!) that has some radio listeners feeling, well, cold – outside and in.
 

I haven’t mentioned it here yet, but a very Happy Hanukkah to you and yours. Now, to switch lanes: you’ve heard of the Gift of the Magi, right? They’re the Three Wise Men and, of course, are a huge part of the story of the birth of Jesus. Well, meet my own Gift of the MAGA: three stories of not-so-wise-men that we’ve encountered in just the past week down here in California. Here we go.
 

 
MAGA #1: The other night as we took our guests to the Cheesecake Factory in Cathedral City (named for the nearby canyon – Cathedral, not Cheesecake) we parked our car near a beaten up old Subaru that had a bumper sticker on it that read: If you still support Hillary, Back UP. I don’t trust your judgment.
 
I don’t know if whoever drives it still feels that way at this point in Trump’s presidency, or if taking the sticker off would pull off the bumper, but it still made me shake my head. Like her or not, Hillary was warning us about him being a Putin puppet until the last vote was cast. And every day she’s being proven more and more correct.
 
MAGA #2: During their all-too-brief visit here, we took our friends Ian and Anita to a local weekend favourite, the market at College of the Desert. Lined with vendors offering clothes, hats, fishing excursions in Northern BC and lots of food, we were drawn into a store that had the loveliest plush-lined light pink spa robes. I was looking seriously at buying one until I saw that near their embroidery machine were two hats. Both of them black, they had the call signs of every legitimate TV news outlet like MSNBC, NBC, CBS, CNN and more sewn on…surrounding, in big letters, two words: FAKE NEWS. Guess which broadcaster wasn’t there? You got it: FOX. 
 
Now, there’s a chance that the man who kindly greeted me as I entered the white tented store was only selling the hats to make the $20 that other hat vendors at the fair were making. But – probably unreasonably – I decided that I didn’t want to give him my money for that soft robe that had beckoned me to begin with. 
 
Why unreasonably? Because if he had a hat that said “My Daughter is the Best Kisser,” “No Fat Chicks,” “Beer Makes Even You Look Good” or something equally tasteless, I’d ignore it and keep shopping. But because what those hats of his say is so egregiously similar to what comes out of Cheeto Mussolini’s mouth (unfortunately I didn’t come up with that nickname, but I wish…), I couldn’t even consider supporting the guy who would sell those hats. 
 
MAGA #3: Driving to a restaurant along a busy six-lane road in the dusk, I could see into one of the many high-end car dealerships. (Need a Lamborghini or a Bentley? Palm Springs is the place to be. Oh my….) There, in the brightly-lit but empty showroom, I could see a TV on and the face of Tucker Carlson. If I was a potential car buyer, I’d tell whomever was on the front desk that I didn’t trust anyone who believed FOX News, turn on my heel and leave. But I guess when your demographic is “old guy with too much money,” you fish where the fish are. Come to think of it, why not have an aquarium channel on? This fish would be looking for another place to feed.
 
Clearly, this winter I have to learn a lesson in “live and let live.” Perhaps that’s what I’ll take away from this time in a foreign country that is having heightened civil woes. And I’ll continue to hope that every decent person of Canada, where hate crimes have risen noticeably since Trump helped make America openly racist again, fights this trend on every front. In my home country, I will stand up and I will be heard. 
 
On Twitter last Friday, I retweeted a comment commending PM Justin Trudeau for calling the US President by his first name at the G20, just as Trump does to Trudeau and anyone else he feels he can belittle, whenever he pleases. When someone tried to tell me that Trump deserves respect and Trudeau should have shown it, I straight out said no.
 
Well, bright and early Saturday morning, at least two Proud Boy wannabes were calling me out and responding with personal insults and swearing about JT. I guess a simple retweet not hating our Liberal prime minister is all it takes for the vitriol to come out in a bilious torrent. But it was fun to block them. Is there a way to apply that ability to everyday life?
 
Something to ponder as we head into another day. May it be a peaceful one all around.
 

Suddenly our winter home seems very still. And a little sad. After two straight weeks of company, it’s down to just us three: Molly, Rob and me. The laundry’s been caught up, the house put back as we found it when we arrived almost three weeks ago and things are as I expect they’ll be until our next guest arrives on Christmas Eve. (No, it’s not Santa – we don’t expect we’ll have much of a holiday except for a nice turkey dinner.)
 
I think, though, that when guests come, it’ll be a must that they bring a supply – for us and for them – of Cold FX. We can’t get it here and we find that, thanks to the long plane rides to Palm Springs (usually connecting in Calgary) and/or the dusty pollen-filled air, almost everyone has some kind of cold or allergy symptoms when they settle in.
 
Rob and I have managed to stay healthy for the most part, although when I arrived I stocked up on cold and allergy medications just to reduce the “swimmy” feeling in my head. We’re going through a lot of tissues here, for sure. But that’s just a tiny part of the past few weeks, and hopefully our guests’ memories will not include all of the sniffling, sneezing and coughing that’s been going on. Poor Anita! 
 
And so to reflect on more pleasant things….
 
One of the best parts of hosting guests is learning the lay of the land and finding out the places they – and you – need to see. With Lisa and Derek (Lisa’s my broadcasting sister who’s just left her job on a London AM news station with a fantastic recent morning ratings book to celebrate as she leaves) we saw Joshua Tree National Park. It was so moving that we took Ian and Anita there, too, one week later.
 

 

 
What’s a Joshua tree? Not actually a tree at all, this spiky and hardy member of the Yucca family, it grows in no place on earth other than this Mojave desert location. The vistas are stunning – bubbly rocks dot the landscape…
 

 
…and the views of Salton Sea as well as the San Andreas fault are magnificent, albeit hazy from the park’s designated viewing areas. That haze comes from the area lying in a dip that collects all of the bad air from around us, including Los Angeles, which is just a couple of hours away.
 

 
The Joshua tree itself is said to have been so named by Mormons who thought it looked liked the Biblical character Joshua with its arms reaching up towards the heavens.
 

 
Even fans of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and his fictional Truffula trees feel right at home amidst these unusual growths…but for many, if you say “Joshua Tree,” they think of U2 and the title of one of the Irish band’s albums. As one park official puts it, U2 did more to promote the park than anyone, ever. But the tree on the album cover was shot some 200 miles north of the park and died 15 years ago. You could say that fans of the band looking to replicate the LP back cover still haven’t, um, found what they’re looking for.
 

 
Already our annual park pass has paid for itself and I know we’ll be making the hourlong trek to the park again to share the experience with other guests before our return to BC in February. And with you, of course!
 
Talk to you here tomorrow.
 

Oh my – the last day of November. I think if you follow this journal (and thank you for that) you know what a whirlwind and an emotional rollercoaster this month has been. From saying goodbye to one of our very dearest friends, to travelling to Nova Scotia, then hosting two couples who are very close to our hearts in Palm Springs.
 
Yesterday I was flying so high that I can barely come down long enough to write the journal I was planning on, but I promise you, it can wait until next Friday. (So much for best-laid plans, and all of that). Please indulge me, if you will, until I come down from this cloud, somewhere up amidst the rainbows that surrounded us in a rare desert rain yesterday.
 

 
It started on Wednesday night when I got word that an extra show had been added to the Oakville Centre. I had a choice of doing a second, later show on Monday, February 25 but, concerned about the alarm clock the next morning for Toronto TV, I took their other offer of an “In Conversation With” for Sunday, February 24. I posted it to my journal here yesterday and then, once I hoped readers who come on at 8 am had seen the ticket sale opportunity (my algorithms show that to be the peak time for visitors), I posted on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 
 
Then the messages started to come that the second event was also sold out. I didn’t believe and called the box office. A very nice young woman there told me that they were all gone; I asked her to suggest to any disappointed callers that they could keep coming to this website for updates on future venues/dates and so on. And I hope that’s what they did yesterday before the notice went up that tickets were sold out.
 
There are a few other venues being added. If it was up to me, I’d visit every area in and around the GTA; I’m being asked if I’ll come to Peterborough or the Niagara Region. At this point, I’m not at all sure of that, and don’t forget this all involves driving in February to get me from Point A to Point B. 
 
I’m not ruling out returning once the book launch in just three months has concluded. I’m new to the publishing business, but other authors (and Anita MacArthur who worked for a publishing house and knows her way around a launch) tell me that there’s a fast burst at the time the book drops and then I’m on my own. I get that. No one expects HarperCollins to keep flying me around to go to readings, meet-and-greets and signings. But I’m going to continue to do this on my own as long as I can. 
 
If it means buying a small theatre for an evening (which author/broadcaster/podcaster Terry O’Reilly has done) and selling tickets and books, then maybe I’ll do that. Perhaps someone will do it for me. Maybe I’ll be speaking on cruises (a dream of mine) or be part of a TED talk or a gathering on healing or authors or writing or…who knows? All I do know is that this is going to be a long and winding road and I can only hope that somehow it’s going to lead to your door, if that’s what you want.
 
Wherever I am, I’ll post it here first. Because of our years together, I feel that journal readers deserve a head start, if that’s possible, and when I have news, I’ll be sure to share it. 
 
Have a gentle weekend as we get set together for December. I’m going to end on a note of gratitude once more for all of the time we’ve spent together and hope that you know how sincerely humbled Rob and I both are by all of this. What a year 2019 promises to be!
 

***The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts added another “In Conversation With…” me. Unfortunately, that second show is sold out as well. If you were hoping to come, but were unable to get tickets, please check back here every day and I’ll keep you updated about any future events HarperCollins is scheduling.***
 
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Good day, my friend. I awoke to a little bit of a rainbow in my coffee cup yesterday morning, so I knew it was going to be a special one. And it was. 
 

 
How could it not be? We have friends here with us – our senior producer and longtime pal Ian MacArthur and his wife, the equally special Anita Reynolds MacArthur – and we had planned something quite unusual to do that day.
 

 
When I visited my sister and her husband, who used to spend winters here in the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area, we had hoped to get our spirits sparked with a visit to a place called the Integratron. Unfortunately for us, it was booked solid; this time, I took no chances and booked our visit months in advance. What, you ask, is an Integratron? Well, here’s what the web tells us. 

The Integratron is a 38 ft tall cupola structure with a diameter of 55 ft designed by Ufologist and Contactee George Van Tassel. Van Tassel claimed the Integratron was capable of rejuvenation, anti-gravity and time travel.

And here’s how it looked, set out in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, tiny Landers, California, 75 minutes from our place in Palm Springs.
 

 
In this place, we were booked to attend a sound bath. What is that, exactly? It’s a collection of special crystal bowls made from quartz, precious metals, and other sonically splendid materials that are played by hand or with soft sticks. They make magical sounds that vibrate through our bodies and souls.
 
Rob has had experiences when meditating where he sees a variety of colours; Anita has connections to the other side that amaze me. She and I shared a psychic reading down here this week with a woman we’ve both talked with before and both Debbie Cooper and our Lauren were coming through loud and clear. So, let’s just say we were open to experiences going in. Ian went along too, to see what this massive structure and a 60 minute healing sound bath were all about. 
 
Before we even entered, we were inundated with nudges (or Godwinks) from Lauren. I went to play a song on my iPhone and instead, the Beatles channel on Sirius came on with one significant line from the song “She’s Leaving Home”: “…cried to her husband, ‘Daddy, our baby’s gone….'” We turned it off after those few words and said, “Okay, Lauren, we know you’re here.” And how about a sign, literally, with lyrics from “We Can Work It Out?”
 

 
When we entered the registration area and gift shop, John Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels” came on. Later, I re-entered to another song on the satellite station the man had playing: The Beatles’ “I Will.” And still later, we heard Lennon’s “Imagine.” And no, it wasn’t a Beatles channel, it was the Leonard Cohen channel. Okay…. If you know ours and Lauren’s story, you know how significant the Fab Four are in our family.
 
At 12:15 on a lovely blue sky Wednesday, it was time to take our places in the Integratron itself. The building was constructed by an aeronautical engineer who worked for Lockheed Douglas Aircraft and as a test pilot for Howard Hughes. George Van Tassel, who died in 1978, had strong beliefs in UFOs, but what we came for was the sonic purity of this yurt-like structure in the middle of the desert, set among myriad powerful energy vortexes. 
 
You can see pictures inside the Integratron at the link below; I didn’t feel comfortable shooting inside this place that’s listed as a must-see by travellers on Tripadvisor. There were 30 of us in the second storey room, all laid out on cushioned mats and covered in blankets, and were led through a short history of the space and then a sound bath, whose haunting chords and reverberations had some amazing effects on at least two in our party.
 
Anita and Rob both saw brilliant colours, Anita saw Debbie laughing and Rob saw a show of blackbirds as in a flipped-page book animation. We all came out feeling we’d felt something special and that made the journey, the $40USD per person and the entire outing an exceptionally memorable spiritual experience. Here’s a link if you’re interested and are planning a trip to the Palm Springs area.
 
After our visit, we drove the extra half hour to Joshua Tree National Park, which is worth a whole other journal. But here’s a special picture.
 

 
Thank you for coming along on our unusual spiritual journey – just a perfect extension of the wonderful moments we’ve already shared, the four of us. 
 
Tomorrow, continuing my “Friday Favourites” theme, a product that offers comfort in ways I couldn’t have imagined. And it’s so good, I have to share – in case you have an opening on your gift list this season.