Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Who stays vigilant will win. [Sicilian Proverb]

Before we get going today, a picture of Rob and me, with Colin (as as Constable Colin) and Jane (as Emma from The Wiggles, back when she was obsessed) from this night in 2021.

Tonight promises to be chilly fun under a bright waning moon as we criss-cross Brooke and Phil’s populous neighbourhood with our dogs, their sweet Sammy and our Dottie, along for the push in our bike trailer. I promise to post pics on FB (www.facebook.com/erindavispage), Instagram and Threads (@erindawndavis) and on X (@erindavis) tomorrow morning, if you’re interested.

Sharing holidays like Halloween with family is the absolute best and more than we could have dreamed of even four years ago. But next year we’re taking it to a new level: renting a place in California with our kids-in-law and grandkids for just over a week. Today, I want to share with you a story attached to those plans that I hope is a cautionary tale, because I was sucked in, and hard.

When we heard the trip was a go and we’d secured our rental, we jumped online to get airline tickets. WestJet has the best options for us in this case – although a stopover in Calgary in January is a bit worrisome – so I booked six economy tickets down and five tickets back (I’m staying a few extra weeks). That was Monday night.

Then Tuesday, Rob jolts me harder than my half-caf with the news that the airline is having a sale to the Golden State. Uh-oh.

I was really angry. Our truly helpful agent, who changed Brooke’s last name when I inadvertently gave her Phil’s (yes, they’re wed but, like me, she hasn’t changed her surname) Monday night, obviously didn’t know about the seat sale or I’m sure she would have given us a hint; she was that wonderful! (Thanks, Angela).

Anyway, once I’d fully awakened, I went on X/Twitter and posted this:

I wasn’t whining just to whine. I hoped to get help and I did: people wrote, cut and pasted, and showed me that, according to the airline’s website, you have 24 hours in which to cancel a booking with impunity.

As our day would have it, when I read these posts, we were out at doctor’s check-ups and I couldn’t really tie myself up on the phone with WestJet whilst awaiting my routine chat with a guy who’s harder to get time with than the real Santa.

But as I scrolled, I spotted other posts from WestJet (or so I thought) offering to help: they told me to follow and DM them so I could get my situation fixed. I did just that, despite seeing that the X address was @westjet_7 or something like that (I got three separate messages, all with the same suggestion, all with different X handles). That should have been a big red flag.

I saw the messages and exclaimed to Rob, “Oh look! WestJet is going to make it right!” I did respond to one of them, following them and giving my reservation code. Thankfully that’s ALL I did. Because the next time I checked my X messages, I saw that plenty of helpful followers were alerting me that this was a scam. Even @WestJet itself posted “watch out for scams” and that was the most aid I got from them. Once again, I, the kid looking for a pony in a pile of manure, thought she spotted a unicorn.

Long story short(ish), we tore home and, with two hours to spare, managed with the help of Natalie in snowy Calgary (yes, I chat with everyone) to cancel our reservations and then rebook the same seats, saving $200 in the process. Not the whole 20% off that was promoted by any means, but anything helps, right?

The lesson I learned is this: check and then re-check before you respond to anything. I mean, I preach this all the time, but in my panic over the changed prices, my elevated blood pressure (thankfully not reflected in the doctor’s cuff) and desire to save money on a trip, I leapt before I looked.

Same thing happened to a local on-air personality who was asking on X about her strange (also WestJet) refund refusal. On piled the fake WestJet X accounts offering to help. So, yes, it’s a thing. The scambots are on alert looking for an airline name, and jump in to offer their “assistance.”

I’m sharing this to remind you that it can happen to anyone, anywhere. And I’m just fortunate that I was able to escape without any consequences. I would NOT have given our VISA numbers or anything, at least, I don’t think so, but I know better than to have been caught as I was last week; I’m guessing you do, too. Life should be more treats and fewer tricks, yes?

It put a good scare into me, and I’m lucky. Have a Happy Halloween and when I post on the socials tomorrow, please feel free to add your own.

And do enjoy a quiet night in bed and tonight I bring you a brand new version of Aladdin on Drift with Erin Davis sleep stories. Find the podcast at Goodpods or wherever you download your favourite episodes or click here and join our growing sleep community, won’t you? Talk to you Thursday with Lisa Brandt for Episode 45 of Gracefully & Frankly, where we rank #1 in Retirement podcasts. Little do they know how busy we both are! And I hope you listened to our special Matthew Perry Episode. It came straight from the heart.

Just a thought… If the death of an actor who you never met feels personal and sad, there’s nothing weird or silly about that. It’s a testament to their work. It means they succeeded at their jobs and connected with their audience. And that’s actually a lovely thing. [@theeverywhereist on Threads]

Today, I have for you a special journal, because it’s something longer; something I hope – we hope – you’ll listen to.

I have a fresh one that was ready to go but I’ll post it here for you tomorrow instead. But today, it’s two radio gals going back to their roots.

If Lisa Brandt and I were on the air today at our respective stations, we’d be talking about the immense loss we suffered on the weekend with the sudden passing of Matthew Perry at age 54.

No matter what you’ve read or seen, you haven’t heard our take and my anger (which I’ll explain) and, of course, the huge sadness that overtook us both all day yesterday and into today.

I’ll just ask you to click here and listen to our conversation (free, of course). You’re welcome to comment on our Gracefully & Frankly Facebook page, or drop me a line wherever we’re connected.

Thanks for understanding. We had a lot to get off our chests (did I mention the anger – and my immense grief for his family?) and our hearts. I hope you’ll share it with us today, and immerse yourself, not in sadness, but in perspectives that perhaps you hadn’t considered.

I’ll be back here tomorrow. E.

Today’s is a Video Journal and I’ll transcribe it here, but please do watch for a whole lot of fun pictures and even a little puppy video at the end. 

You can watch it on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube. Thanks!

I just thought that since I was dressed in something other than pjs or plaid – I got dressed up for a video and audio interview with Jann Arden to which I’ll link at the end (you’re going to want to listen; we talk about EVERYTHING) – and I was all made up, why not shoot a video journal?

There’s been a little change in our family and I wanted to tell you about it, without going into too many details. But let me just say I know a whole lot more about how puppies are made than I ever have in my 61 years! And it’s not how you think – oh, no! It’s not the “dirty dancing” in the street, it’s a 20-minute ordeal in which he does it THREE TIMES, each visit!

Dottie went away for her “dirty weekend” last week and I’ll take you back a bit. Our little Havanese (who’s 1-1/2 years old) is part of a breeding program – I think, a Swedish model – which is what she looked like, and oh, so did he.

He’s a #1 Havanese in Canada and his name is Radar and he’s gorgeous.

Dottie went into season, or heat, about two weeks ago. So we called Bev, our breeder at mistytrails.ca, and had her blood tested and she was ready! So up we went to Cobble Hill, about a 45-minute drive from our place. As we drove, we explained to her the facts of life, and sang “Girl, you’ll be a woman soon…” (thanks Neil Diamond). So the metaphorical candles were lit, the lingerie laid out and, well, we left her there with Bev and Radar’s mom Trudi for three days.

There was no encouragement needed; she was all in (and so was he, if you catch my drift). Friday we went back and picked her up and she was so thrilled to see us that she was jumping up and down so hard we were worried about her undoing all of that passionate play of the previous days!

So, did it take? Well, Bev is 95% sure the visit was effective. In about two months (just around Christmas time) Dottie will be expected to have puppies. Here’s the strange part: we won’t know if she’s pregnant for another month or so – or halfway through her gestation period, if you can believe it – as her body hardly changes. There are ultrasounds and blood tests available, but that’ll be up to us.

She might have five or six puppies and we’ll get a little bit of money from each one, and it means we’ll be without Dottie for about eight weeks in the new year, which is fine because that means no dog walks for much of our rainy season. She’ll be a wonderful and caring mom because she’s just so chill, this light and love of our lives. So now, we hopefully go through pregnant Dottie-hood.

You may be wondering if we’ll take one of Dottie’s puppies and I think we get first pick, but as much as I’ll whine like Dot did leaving her boyfriend, I’m sure, we’re pretty adamant that we are not going to mess with the domestic perfection of our situation with one dog at home.

Speaking of home, my bestie Lisa Brandt is back from her three weeks in Italy and we’re sitting down this week to do our first fully-new podcast in a month. I cannot wait for her to share her stories as we launch into Gracefully and Frankly episode 43. Jann was so generous to talk about G&F and also about Drift with Erin Davis, my sleep stories podcast that is reaching a worldwide community now with close to a quarter MILLION downloads! Both podcasts are free, thanks to Kim & Kathy at enVypillow.com. Click the links, subscribe and you’ll never miss an episode of either.

Thanks for coming by and it’s good to have done a video journal again – hope you watched it. And to listen to quite an amazing chat with Jann Arden, here’s the link.

Just a thought…

It all seems so…immaterial, so unimportant. When I sit here with my fingers poised over the keyboard, I want to share thoughts on our lives, our days, our highs and lows and yet, in the shadow of the tremendous suffering happening in Israel and neighbouring Gaza, as well as in Ukraine, of course, and too many other countries to list here, I wonder: how? How does any of this matter when so much pain and terror have gripped our fellow humans?

There’s no more that I can say in the support of innocents and victims of senseless violence and predictable retribution; people with more experience, perspective and wisdom than I have already taken space in every possible corner of the written and visual world. And so I stay quiet and wonder what else I can possibly add.

The only perspective I have for you, my friend, is that out-of-step feeling so many of us have when our lives go on. When we observe with awe a sight like this one out of our window…

…or the simple peaceful play of bright leaves dancing in the wind or gently clinging to trees. The glorious contrast of yellows and oranges against dark wet tree bark. The sparkling sights over our nearby Gulf Islands as the sun rises on a turbulent world.

It all feels so damned normal. And that is the jarring, incongruous fact of life when suffering abounds: anyone who has lost a loved one or endured a tremendous personal trauma is jolted, almost insulted, to observe life around them going on as if nothing happened. The seasons still change, the sun still rises and if we didn’t know what was happening in other parts of the world or in our own lives, we would never see that things have been altered forever.

I recall the evening of that day after Lauren died in 2015, remarking to Rob as we saw a glorious sky and the leaves and blossoms making their May arrivals in Ottawa. I said to him, “How can the world be so beautiful and so awful?” and he said, “This is how it’s always been.” And he was, and is, right.

In motherhood, like the old saying goes, your heart walks around the world outside of you. And it’s not unlike being a caring citizen of the world, worrying for the peril and suffering of those you have never met, but whose stories you’ve read, whose faces you’ve seen, whose pain, loss and terror you can barely comprehend, even on the most basic level.

So many posts call for prayer and I think, Aw, come on…if prayers worked, no one would suffer. But then I reconsider, keeping in mind how it changes me. Prayer brings peace to the one who is quietly sending thoughts instead of opinions, grounding them in their intentions and giving them consolation in the hope that their efforts may have some effect. There is so little we can do but to show and share love, compassion and to embrace our common humanity, rather than focussing on our differences. Why, oh why, in the 21^st century is it still over religion? Why so much suffering in the name of a god?

And so, with or without us, and as it always has and will, the world goes on. May peace be with you. And may we continue to be grateful for it in a world where it is but a prayer.

Just a thought… The most important things in life are the connections you make with others. [Tom Ford]

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and that you were able to gather with those you love (and some you can tolerate for the holidays)! We were fortunate, as always, to be surrounded for our Thanksgiving dinner by those we love.

This year, the holiday didn’t coincide with our grandson’s birthday; it comes tomorrow and wraps up the Birthdaypalooza that begins with mine in September, is followed by little Jane’s (4^th this year) and then ends tomorrow with Colin’s. It’s like the 15 Days of Cakemas with a little pumpkin pie thrown into the mix. Is that a Hallmark Movie yet, Brooke?

Speaking of our daughter-in-law, as I hope you you saw on Facebook last Monday with October’s start, Brooke is reminding you that she’s taking last orders for her Christmas in Heaven lanterns. I put together a short video where Brooke describes in her own words how making these lanterns touches her own heart. You can view it at the end of today’s blog.

The next ten weeks or so include myriad celebrations (including the solemn observation that comes on Remembrance Day, of course) during which we are reminded that not everyone is fortunate to be with family or loved ones. It’s something that’s amplified when the table setting is for one, and I get that. And it’s why I wanted to share something I spotted the other day at a coffee shop in the sweet little nearby town of Sidney, BC.

As I stood near the counter, waiting for my friend to pick up her bagel, I noticed a little card. Behind it was a stack of pamphlets.

They’re pretty self-explanatory: you put the little card on your café table and hope that perhaps someone will stop by, take a seat and ask how you’re doing today.

I’d like to think that if I found myself with a coffee in my hand and some time to sit, I’d do just that; probably not putting out the card, but pulling up a seat. I’m not sure I’ve ever just gone into a shop and sat by myself unless I was waiting for someone else; I saw a meme from Thinking Minds that said, “Eating alone in a crowded restaurant is the highest level of self confidence a person can have.” Is it true for you? It certainly is for me. I think Lisa and I will discuss it on our podcast Gracefully & Frankly in weeks to come.

In the meantime, that little card was a lovely reminder to me of how making a connection can be so important. And who knows what gifts – friendship perhaps – might come our way just from saying “yes?”

Enjoy the rest of this shortened week and thank you for coming by. Tonight, a certain little Ugly Duckling (said to be an autobiographical story of sorts from Hans Christian Andersen) returns to Drift. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it on a different level now that you know that; or maybe – and this would be the best of all – you’ll just fall asleep. That’s the plan!

Be well and as promised, here’s that Christmas in Heaven lantern reminder for you.