Erin's Journals

I’m having a little bit of a moral dilemma, but it’s one I’m going to have to deal with at another time. You see, for now, we have travel plans booked and paid for, and once again, they take us to the US.
 
It’s not that we don’t love Canada: we have travels planned to Winnipeg, Regina, Halifax, Ottawa and Toronto later this year! But it’s a matter of doing something we’ve wanted to do since forever: driving trips through the western US. Following highways along the ocean. Exploring new places and meeting new people, as we did last month during our slow route to Kelowna that took us through parts of Washington state.
 
I can’t help feeling a little hypocritical. I’m so furious at what is happening with the United States right now on their southern border and, of course, in the orange – I mean White House – and my disdain has no borders. Yet, I enjoy visiting parts of the country that have my heart, particularly in the US Southwest. Even if it is around 100F these days. It really IS a dry heat! And who can resist a 25-30% hike on our dollar right now? Ugh.
 
Why not Banff or Jasper? We were hoping to meet friends there this summer, but their plans have been cancelled. Perhaps head “up island,” as we say here, to Tofino? What – and be surrounded by tourists? Naw, I’d rather wait for September to do that. So we point south.
 
What’s echoing in my head are the words of Mark Bulgutch, who wrote in the Toronto Star a few weeks ago after the Trump G7 debacle, when he basically called our PM names and enacted a whole bunch of trade tariffs that take food from the tables of Canadians – especially farmers. To hell with that, says Bulgutch, who basically repeated the stance he held after the Mango Mussolini’s election: stop visiting the US. Fat lot of good that did; Canadian visits to the States rose by 6% (while other nations’ citizens stayed away in droves). 
 
Star readers are a different breed, though: at last check, some 73% said they won’t go until #45 is out of the White House. I checked the box that said I’m indifferent to whoever is in there (although I breathe a sigh of relief when I enter the US after passing through customs and don’t see a portrait of HIM smiling at me).
 
There may come a time when we no longer cross the border, too, but until that day, I’ll gladly play amateur ambassador and show Americans who we really are. (Apparently after Trump’s Charlevoix outburst, US approval of us hit 66%, down from somewhere near 90% just back in February. Is he really that mad that we’re taking his name off our buildings…?) 
 
But as we approach the Canada Day Weekend, I thought I would – with credit, of course – share with you some of Mr. Bulgutch’s words of wisdom. 

It’s summer in Canada. There’s no better time to stay at home. It is no sacrifice to see your own country. From Cape Spear, Nfld., to Vancouver Island, and from Point Pelee to the top of Nunavut, there is something for everyone. There’s breathtaking natural beauty, vibrant city life, charming villages and towns, hunting and fishing, shopping and dining, museums and art galleries, historic sites and monuments, challenging hiking trails and quiet parks.
 
In Canada, your Canadian dollar is worth 100 cents. You don’t need a passport. The person at the amusement park probably isn’t packing a gun. 
 
Tourism is very important to the U.S. It’s a $1.5 trillion industry. It employs 5 million people directly and another 5 million indirectly. Our federal government is doing its part to tell the White House that its tariffs are unacceptable by applying tariffs on American goods like orange juice, mattresses, and bourbon. But only ordinary Canadians can apply some pain to the tourism industry. 
 
Go east. Go west. Go north. Enjoy yourself. Just don’t go south. Empty hotel rooms and campsites send a message.

Happy Canada Day! I’ll be back with a fresh batch of journals on July 9th.
 

No, I haven’t become a spokesperson for a car dealership again! Rob and I have a new resident in the garage, although saying goodbye to the car she replaced was not easy! You may recall last year at almost exactly this time, we found a MINI convertible online and bought it the same day. Gently used despite her age (2005) and mileage (now just over 100k), we loved this little periwinkle blue convertible and seized every day there was to put the top down and let the wind wreck our hair.
 
Last month on our trip to the BC interior, we found ourselves cheating on Little Blue just a bit. My sister Cindy was selling her red Cooper S (with an extra gear and supercharged engine, it has just a bit more oomph), which is one year younger than our MINI and has about 30,000 fewer kilometres on the odometer. We decided to take our chances on letting our lovely little blue MINI go and bought Cindy’s. 
 

 
As luck would have it, we have relatives who were looking for a car just like Little Blue. We sold it to them – knowing full well that she just got a sparkling bill of health – and we know they’ll be as happy with her as we were. (I can’t imagine passing off a vehicle to family if you knew there was something wrong, can you?) I’ve even suggested a name: Winnie. They had a dog named Winston (a lovely Corgi) and who can resist Winnie the Mini? Honestly!
 
So there we go: there’s a new MINI in our garage (new to us) and it’s adorable. In fact, just the other day, as we made our way down the Pat Bay Highway and into Victoria, a man honked his horn next to us. I looked up from my phone (I was passenger, obviously) and an older gent driving a Jaguar gave us the big “thumbs up” and a smile.
 
It’s funny how many people smile at you when you’re driving a cute little convertible. It’s just a happy car! And now that we have the same colour MINI that we had when Lauren was a kid (although it was a hard top with a Union Jack on the roof) it’s just a little bit happier. As for a name…maybe Chili? ‘Cause some days with the top down and 17C, as it was earlier in June-uary (as they call a cool month here), it was chilly indeed!
 
Tomorrow – here comes summer vacation! Where our travels take us, and why that’s giving me a bit of trouble, morality-wise.
 

Well, with so many people talking about and anticipating vacations over the next few months, this couldn’t be more timely. Today’s journal will let you do a little dreaming. Our good friend and travel guru Gerry Koolhof at New Wave Travel contacted us a couple of weeks ago to tell us about a gathering tomorrow night in Yorkville that I think you might want to know about, even if you are still just dreaming at this point.
 
As you may have read or heard, my pal Mike Cooper and I and our travel companions are hosting a European river cruise next April. It’s with Ama Waterways and it’s the Tulip Time cruise which explores the spring beauty of the Netherlands and Belgium.
 
If you’re familiar with cruising, but have never taken a river cruise, you’re in for a treat. It’s a very intimate experience with a group of like-minded people, and you just might make friendships that’ll last a lifetime!
 
Unlike many ocean cruises, on this Ama river cruise, excursions are included. There’s free Wi-Fi on board, as well as a computer for internet access. Wine, beer and soft drinks are complimentary with lunch and dinner and the Sip & Sail cocktail hour. 
 
It’s a seven-day adventure departing Amsterdam on April 5, 2019 and navigating Dutch and Belgian waterways. You’ll have a chance to experience colourful canals, whimsical windmills and medieval art and architecture.
 
Staterooms are filling up fast, but you can learn more at a special reception being held tomorrow, Wednesday, at the Hazelton Hotel in Yorkville from 6 to 8 pm. Our friend Gerry Koolhof and other cruise specialists will be there to answer all of your questions about this spectacular adventure.
 
But you need to let Gerry know that you’ll be coming (so he can plan enough chairs, wine and snacks!). You can reach him at gerry@newwavetravel.net.
 
See you in the spring – and come back here tomorrow for some more immediate travel news. Wish we could be in TO for the gathering tomorrow night, but we’ll be there in spirit and we’ll see you next April! Soon just nine months away….
 

A few times a year I’ll share with you scams that are going around. Either they’re proliferating and making the news or – as in the case of the PayPal rip-off that was aimed at my sister (and later my aunt who’s selling a car online) – they’ve hit close to home. Forewarned is forearmed and all of that, right? Well, who would have thought that Rob and I would fall for one too? But here’s our story.
 
About a month ago, I got an email through this website. It’s easy to find me: the link is right there at the top of this page. Here’s what this email from a Bill Shreefer said:

Email Address: bill1265@sbcglobal.net 
Phone Number: (773) 866-5300 
Comment / Message: 
Hi, Erin. I hope all is well with you. I produce audio plays out of the midwest, and I am currently looking for a voice that can fill the role of an older lady (late 60s/early 70s). This is for an audio play for drama students. If interested, will you please do a read of the audition piece below? In this role, you are the mother of a middle aged set of twins. One of the twins went bald due to a nurse’s mistake at the doctor’s office, and you are very upset. Please sound a little frazzled and shaky as you do the read, like you are upset. 

Hmmm. Drama students. We knew it wouldn’t pay much, but we decided just to dive in. I gave him a couple of variations on the script, which was a couple of hundred words in length. Then Rob took his usual care with the audition: he took out the breaths, cleaned up any re-takes, put it in a file and sent it to “Bill.” 
 
We waited for a response. Nothing. We waited some more. 
 
I emailed to ensure he’d received it. No response. 
 
That’s when I got suspicious and wrote to my friend (and experienced voice artist, who’s also married to one as well), Lisa Brandt, and said I thought we were scammed. Here’s her response:

I just did what I do when I get something like that and looked up the web address in his email – sbcglobal.net. It doesn’t exist I’m afraid. Also, if he had his own company he wouldn’t need to have a hotmail-looking address like Bill1265. That would make me suspicious.

I asked Derek what he thought because he has seen it all. He suggests asking for a reference (how did you find me?) and where you can hear their work – stuff that will make a scammer run. He thinks this guy was a scammer. Sorry. But it happens a lot or they wouldn’t keep doing it. You’re not alone!

Well, that pretty much sealed it. I wrote again with no response and then called, only to learn that there’s no one at that number and no such business. So it was fake from beginning to end.
 
Luckily for us, we didn’t lose anything but the time and effort we put into doing this stupid script for him, but my question is this: what’s the end game here? Did they get me to voice something they’re going to use without paying me? Because that’s pretty low.
 
The voicework industry is not a lucrative one (for the most part) and there are people who bid and will actually take the time and make the extensive effort to voice audiobooks for $150. It’s pretty desperate out there. So why would someone just steal the time and talent of someone else, when it can be bought so cheaply?
 
Like most victims of scams, I am guilty of not doing my homework. I should have followed up, but didn’t want to scare off a prospective employer with “too many questions.” (Don’t want to be seen as high maintenance, do we?) I should have checked the website or even Googled his name. (Maybe having “reefer” in it could have been a hint?) Anyway, live and learn. And who knows – maybe he didn’t like what I sent anyway! For once, I hope that’s the case.
 
Back with you here tomorrow. 
 

Here we are, nearing the end of another school year. I remember so clearly how deliriously wonderful these last days felt, especially in elementary school when parties were held, projects were taken home and the whole delicious summer stretched out ahead.
 
High school didn’t have quite the same abandon: there was the panic over which exams would have to be written and whether I’d be exempt from any (as some of us with higher grades could be, in a three-semester system at our high school). It’s a time fraught with emotion as you prepare to say your good-byes – sometimes for the summer, sometimes for life. (Well, of course, that was before Facebook, when people could stay connected forever. But you know what I mean.)
 
It’s amazing how some of those teachers who guided our way through the months and years of education have stayed with us. I remember a few who stood out: Sister Joanne Culligan who taught me in grade five and found a way to use Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock” as a metaphor for religion. (I also later realized that when I thought she was praying with her head down on her desk, she was napping. Those must have been some early mornings at the convent!) 
 
I remember the Grade 11 drama teacher who laughed so hard at a pantomime I was doing (to a sped up ragtime tune) that she couldn’t catch her breath. My first A-ha moment of the joy of making someone (who wasn’t family) laugh.
 
I’ll always be grateful to Bryan Olney, the Loyalist College radio professor who was speaking at a careers day when I was in Grade 13. The two speakers I wanted to hear were fully booked (I got there a bit late) and so I went to hear Mr. Olney. It was like I was struck by lightning and five months later I was in the course; seven months later I was on the radio in Belleville.
 
Just two weeks ago, after they connected online (about which I wrote here), Rob and I played hosts to his high school media teacher, Sterling Campbell. A fellow former Ontarian who’s moved to BC for the climate, he joined us for dinner and Rob got a chance to tell this man, now into his 70s, just how he had influenced his life.
 
Sterling said it was disconcerting to learn that some of his students were now themselves retiring! But there can be no doubt that it meant a lot to him to learn how much his year teaching Rob, and the course that he helped create for Sudbury Secondary School, meant to us. I mean, had Rob not taken that course, he wouldn’t have gotten into radio and we wouldn’t have met! I guess I should have thanked Mr. Campbell, too.
 
Have a lovely weekend – Happy Pride in Toronto! – and I’ll be back here with you next week. I have a story to share about getting scammed. Here I was warning you about a con a few weeks back, and I got taken by one myself.