Erin's Journals

I’ve been getting some odd emails and tweets in the past few weeks and they have to do with my name, but, you see, it’s not my name. Let me take you back a few decades. In the 1960s, I’d never heard the name Erin on anyone but me. My grandfather had heard it on the radio (there’s a coincidence) and suggested it to my parents. Being too tired to fight or come up with anything better, my mom agreed and here I am: Erin Dawn Davis.
 
There were plenty of Lauries and Loris and Lisas and Michelles and Karens and Susans to be sure, but never, it seemed, an Erin. That was, until the credits rolled and I squealed with delight to see Erin Murphy (Betwitched‘s Tabitha) or Erin Moran (Happy Days‘ Joanie) and I started to hope that one day I just might find a placemat with my name on it. I did.
 
I knew there was another Erin Davis in radio, but she was in BC and I was in Ontario, so there wasn’t much room for confusion there. But it wasn’t until a writer/blogger with a big Christian message (and following) posted something that I wouldn’t go near in 100 years, that I realized having a shared name on the internet could go sideways, fast.
 
“Erin Davis makes a compelling argument for why masturbation has absolutely no place in the life of a Godly woman.”
 
Well, clutch my pearls and throw away the batteries! That is NOT me doing the writing. And I had to explain it to at least one person who tweeted me angrily: “Is this you saying masturbating is bad for girls?” and I replied, “Hell no, that’s not me!” and then went to look for whatever article this person was referring to.
 
Apparently, somewhere in the US midwest is a Christian woman who lives with her husband, chickens and goats. She writes about leading people to a Christian life and I’m all about whatever makes her and her readers happy. But that person is not me!
 
I thought that little self-pleasuring brouhaha had passed, but then just yesterday I got this email at work from a Toronto PR company:  

Erin – I’m reaching out to you, as a key Christian influencer in Canada, to invite you to join us for a free, exclusive VIP pre-screening of the soon-to-be-released faith film, I Can Only Imagine.

 
Yes, so can I. I wrote her back and told her that I am an author, and a former Toronto broadcaster who now does a show in Victoria, BC and that I’m definitely not the person she thought. But thanks anyway!
 
In terms of confused identities I could do worse: “Erin Davis, Serial Killer faces 75 Years in Jail.” That’s one headline I could do without. Or heaven forfend, someone named Erin Davis defaults on credit and I have to sign affadavits when I buy a house swearing I’m not that person. That actually happened to my husband Rob: someone sharing his first and last name had been a deadbeat dad and Rob, to the tune of $75 out of his pocket, had to sign and have witnessed a statement that that bum wasn’t him. 
 
But back to me. A quick Google search finds these links: 

Erin Davis | Graduate Studies | University of Lethbridge
Erin Davis. Master of Science. Undergraduate Degree: Bachelor of Arts and Science in Religious Studies and Psychology Honours
 
Erin Davis, Author at – View the Vibe
Erin is a Toronto-based writer, actor and queen of the side hustle. 

 
I wonder if that’s the Erin Davis who wrote a great piece about making Toronto more livable in @torontoist last week? I hear it was really good, because I was getting tagged in all kinds of praise for it – praise that I turned around so that the actual author could get her props.
 
I suppose this will start to worry me a little more in a year when the book tour begins; will people be asking me questions from a fast and inaccurate Wiki search and think I’m someone else? (Read the book, interviewers – like I did when I was in your shoes!) We’ll see. Will there be preconceived notions in markets outside of Toronto of who I am and what the book’s about? What if they expect the Christian writer Erin and then drop the book in shock in the first 100 pages when they read how five-year-old Lauren learned to swear? (It’s a funny story – I promise.) 
 
Oh well…I will approach it in the same way as the Canadian writer of the World War II book that shares its title with a recent political tell-all. If you buy one Fire and Fury (the war version) thinking it’s another (the White House tell-all), or pick up one Erin Davis thinking it’s the other, I’m fine with that. Who knows? You might get something out of this one, too, but just not until February 2019, my book’s official arrival date. I’ll be back with you here tomorrow. (THIS Erin Davis – not Miles Davis’ son. I’ve heard fan notes about him, too.)
 

I hope you had a good weekend and enjoyed your Victoria-like temperatures! I was so glad to see you might be thawing out a little bit. Just what you need to get you through the rest of January and then that shortest of months to follow.
 
I had a couple of online shopping adventures I wanted to share with you and both, I hope, are cautionary tales.
 
I stumbled across some flavoured water that I really like. Although I’m also fond of stevia-sweetened drops that you can add to still, sparkling or soda water, I happened to pick up a few bottles of Talking Rain Sparkling Ice a couple of weeks ago. I love them, but wasn’t crazy about the price, which can run as high as $1.99 for 100 ml. When I found them online through Amazon.ca for $1.49 each – or $17.88 a dozen – I thought that sounded pretty good. And they’re delivered to our house!
 
I ordered three dozen of the only flavours they had in stock (clearly I’m not the only fan of Sparkling Ice) and smugly awaited what I thought was a smart purchase.
 
Thank goodness I checked my email clutter file the next day. There was a receipt from Amazon and I happened to glance at the numbers. Rob came running when he heard me shout an obscenity; I somehow hadn’t gotten the free shipping I expected. So here’s the total:

Sparkling Ice: $53.64 
Shipping and Handling: $68.38
For a grand total of: $122.02 

Wondering how much that breaks down per 100 ml bottle of flavoured freaking water? $3.39! Um, no. Luckily, because my order hadn’t shipped yet, we were able to stop and cancel it. I caught that one just in time and won’t make that mistake again with the one-click purchase thingy.
 
But here’s a story of something that we needed more than a week ago, and still hasn’t arrived. You know how we went to a comedy show in Seattle, right? Well, we ordered our tickets through Ticketmaster on Thursday, January 11th. They were to be mailed to us (at a cost of about $8.50) and we knew we’d be cutting it close, as we were leaving the next Friday, January 19th. Well, as you’d expect, those tickets didn’t arrive in time for our trip, so we called Ticketmaster and they arranged for us to pick them up at the theatre (which should have been an option to begin with). 
 
It’s now been two weeks – 18 days, actually – and even though, when we called on the 19th, we were told those tickets had been mailed, they still have not shown up in our mailbox. And for this we paid an extra $8.50 US? Just a wee bit of a rip off, wouldn’t you say? (And yes, we tried every other means available not to have them mailed to us.) I know, I know, First World Problems, but I mean, people – we live on an island, but it’s not Bora Bora! 
 
I’ll be back here with you tomorrow.
 

The Oscars are now just over a month away and I know we’ve already seen (or even ignored) all kinds of ceremonies, but the Academy Awards are the biggies, the ones they mention when you die.
 
While we thought someone would perish from the embarrassment of last year’s Best Picture snafu, we’re told six steps have been taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The PwC employees who were behind the envelope mix-up won’t be there (they didn’t lose their jobs, by the way) but there are several measures that will be put into place, including a rule for no phones backstage. You may recall that the man who passed off the wrong envelope had just taken and tweeted a picture of Emma Stone. Oops.
 
I’m done with trying to choose winners. Of course, by the time the Oscars roll around, we’ve seen who has taken home statues and it becomes pretty obvious who’ll likely win that big night of March 4th. We have seen two of the contenders so far, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. There were a few things that made this film so exceptional: the film itself, an incredible cast and seeing it with friends in nice comfy theatre recliners.
 
I can’t remember when last we took time with friends to see and then discuss a movie over a relaxed dinner afterwards. But that’s what we did with our friends Nancy and Charles, and it was almost like what I imagine a book club accomplishes: you get a chance to savour and pick apart what you’ve just experienced and you share different perspectives on meanings and revelations. There are lot to unpack in this movie about a woman whose daughter is murdered and rents out three billboards to push the cops to deepen their investigation.
 
Frances McDormand is her normal, wonderful, who-gives-a-damn self, but you’d be wrong to mistake that seeming ease for a lack of effort, talent or great depth. A revelation in this was Sam Rockwell as the ne’er-do-well cop – you’ll love his cranky mother’s character – and there’s unexpected sweetness in the form of Woody Harrelson’s sheriff and Peter Dinklage’s unrequited boyfriend character. There’s just so much to this movie that it really is no wonder people are tripping over themselves to give it accolades. I’m among them.
 
See Three Billboards with friends. I promise you’ll want to talk about it later, too. Have a great weekend and thanks so much for sharing this week with me. We saw another movie while we were in Seattle and we’ll talk about The Post here later next week in case, like us, you want to catch the Oscar contenders, too, and wonder if they’re worth your money. Take care.
 

As you know, Rob and I love to travel. We’ve been uncharacteristically anchored this year by the job I unexpectedly took on doing middays at Ocean 98.5, a position I expect to vacate within a few months as a new kind of technology slides into place. It’s a great move and very exciting and, as much as having a show every day gave my life a much needed sense of normalcy in the past year, I’ll be happy to be a little more untethered when it comes to hopping on a plane. But after last Friday’s experience at the airport, I’ll approach the whole travel thing with a little more trepidation. Here’s why.
 
We arrived at YYJ in plenty of time to check in for our flight on Alaska Airlines. Strangely, even though Rob went online and reserved our seats, even giving the necessary information as so-called Trusted Travelers, we were able to check in that way but not able to print boarding passes. Huh?
 
As we stepped up to the standing kiosks at Alaska Airlines, they were all shut down with laminated paper signs saying they were not in operation. We barely had time to remark on how strange that seemed, when a tall young man wearing a crisp white shirt and a badge or two asked if we were checking in. When we replied in the affirmative, he led us towards the check-in desk and stopped us there, saying he would have to ask us some questions.
 
Wait, what? We agreed (of course). He asked where we were going and why. He looked at Rob’s passport picture and remarked, “I see you’ve shaved your beard. I’m going to have to ask you a few additional questions.” Honestly, the way this was going, I thought I’d have to hand over my phone so he could see if I’d tweeted about Herr Drumpf. (He didn’t.) Instead, we got the usual questions about who had packed our bags, where they’d been since we closed them and if anyone else had had access to them. He also asked Rob and me what we do for a living.
 
When he explained that this was increased TSA security, I asked what would have happened if there had been 20 people in line instead of just us, and he pointed to the other three gents who were standing chatting. Still, that would have meant very slowly moving lineups and therefore some seriously close calls for people trying to catch flights into the US. Apparently this has been going on since the start of the year.
 
But our security experience wasn’t over yet. “Trusted Traveller” and Nexus card or not, Rob was randomly flagged for extra security. That meant when we went through security with everyone else, they took Rob aside to go through a scanner, went through our shared carry-on suitcase and asked him a handful more questions. 
 
We were perplexed at this whole undertaking and relieved to see that our flight to Seattle was delayed by fifteen minutes. I mean, we weren’t cutting it that closely, but if our cab had been even later than it was in picking us up, we’d have been sweating for real. 
 
Finally, we were called to board our plane. And there, just after our boarding passes and passports had been scanned, stood another officer with a few more questions about suitcases. Had anyone been with them while we awaited the flight – things like that. 
 
The entire episode left us shaken. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for security (or the illusion of it that comes from one shoe bomber causing us all to have to go barefoot, while one mass shooting only brings looser gun laws). It just had some deeper undertones to it that I still can’t put my finger on.
 
Maybe – just maybe – I think I had a glimpse, just for a moment, of what it might be like to have skin darker than my own. To be pulled over, searched, questioned or mistrusted for absolutely no reason except that I’m a “foreigner” to the United States. I know it’s dangerous to conflate the sudden and temporary loss of the ease of passage that I’ve known all my life with what millions and millions of people go through every single day, but just that one hour, that one day, I had my eyes opened.
 
Back with you here tomorrow.
 

I’ll start with a brief mention of yesterday’s big news: the tsunami alert that was sent out across coastal BC after that massive earthquake up north of us in Alaska. There were warnings and evacuations, all of which Rob and I slept through, as we have our phones set on airplane mode. I even missed a call from Breakfast Television in Toronto (sorry Kevin and Dina)! But all is well, there was no tsunami and many people here are now questioning their emergency preparedness.
 
Rob and I live about 125 metres above sea level; in fact, Dean Park – our area – is where some people brought their families to wait out the warning. As we say, thankfully, all’s well and the waters rose at most by just three centimetres.
 
*****
 
I can’t lie. There are some things I miss about Toronto and I mean A LOT. Besides, of course, our human connections, our biggest has to be the cultural scene. When I think of the shows that came through that Rob and I had the opportunity to see (and as part of my job, at that!) I so miss all of the Mirvish Productions and other great entertainment offerings. Am I ever going to see Come From Away? Maybe in April when we make our way east again…I’ll have to check and see what’s in town!
 
Like the Joni Mitchell song goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” This past weekend we flew to another city and stayed two nights in a hotel with the primary (and initial) aim of seeing a comic that I’m sure I’d have passed on if he came to Massey Hall on a weekend and we were at the cottage. We were so dedicated to our cocooning time that I know we missed out on a lot and now I’m realizing just how much. This summer, for example, Jeff Lynne’s ELO show is coming to TO. What? In my entire lifetime I never thought I’d see Electric Light Orchestra and there they’ll be. GAH! 
 
Last week, I was having a coffee meeting with a few women from the area whom I’ll be interviewing at a future Peninsula Newcomers’ luncheon. One of them asked me, upon hearing I’d moved here from Toronto, whether I could adjust to the much slower pace. I said it was no problem at all – that some of my favourite memories were made in sleepy cottage country towns. But I do miss the live performances. Yes we have them here – 70s/80s singer-songwriter Valdy performed locally this month, Jann Arden was here in December and Hedley is coming to town in a few weeks – but ELO? That’s a big N-O.
 
And so it was that when we found ourselves with a Saturday afternoon free in our host city, we were thrilled to find that there was a performance of a play by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer August Wilson. The seventh of a ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle of plays (of which the incredible Fences was one), Two Trains Running was nominated for a Pulitzer and won Tony Awards on Broadway. On Friday night, we bit the bullet and bought two front row balcony seats (a spot from which we’ve never seen a play) for a Saturday matinée show that was almost full.
 
The next morning, after seeking out a good cup of coffee (which in Seattle is like searching for a satisfying glass of wine in the Niagara region – easy pickings) we joined the Women’s March and followed the crowd straight to the Seattle Center, picked up our tickets and took our seats.
 
The Seattle production of Two Trains Running, set in a diner in the late 1960s, was everything we’d hoped it would be: touching, entertaining, enlightening and so very well performed. As an added bonus, after the show we gathered in another, smaller theatre to have the chance to ask questions of all of the cast members save one. What a treat that was! (The title refers to the number of chances daily that diner owner Mr. Memphis Lee has to catch a ride back home and reclaim the southern farmland he was chased from decades earlier.)
 
It’s no wonder at the end of the day, as we turned off Saturday Night Live at 10 pm (gotta love the Pacific Time Zone), we felt we’d just had one of our best days ever. But tomorrow – a really strange encounter at security. Is this the new normal?