Erin's Journals

Just a thought… A true friend sees the first tear, catches the second and stops the third. [Angelique Arnauld]

Read to the end for a 10% discount at enVypillow.com – our Drift with Erin Davis sleep stories partner.

An early alarm goes off today and I’m back to Guadalajara’s international airport this morning, where the hour-plus long wait to get out after having arrived a week ago Saturday will haunt me for a long time.

If you haven’t entered Mexico, you may not know about their unusual way of letting you in: you gather your luggage (I had none), then get in a Disney World-long snaking line to hand off your customs card and then press a button. If the light is green, off you go; if it’s red, you get to have your luggage screened, opened, etc..

I got to my sister’s about two hours after I was expected; she was still hospitalized with that fractured hip (and immediate replacement), but a friend of hers met me and my cab to take me into the house – the one that had just been cleaned by her friends (with fresh sheets on beds, etc.) before my arrival.

As I helped Cindy get up and mobile, fed her pills at the right times (not that she and her spreadsheet needed any aid), prepared meals, and helped in the night on her trips to the loo, I was struck by a feeling that will stay with me a long time.

It is this: wherever you are, make a circle of friends and keep them close. I am a hermit by nature; many of my friends are here. Online. You and I may not have met, but you are my friend. When I was stranded in Edmonton for over seven hours back on Nov. 5th, you kept me company on social media. When I was left without luggage for a big event the next day, thanks to the same ill-fated travel experience, you (specifically my “Teri Godmother”) came to my rescue. Further back, when we were struck by the biggest blow a parent can endure, you propped up Rob and me with your kindness and your huge gestures. You have always been my circle.

But Cindy has people she sings with, plays cards with, lunches with daily, goes to theatre and dinner parties with (and sorry for all of the bad grammar there – I’m too wiped out to care right now). These women all came by with cookies, pies, meds, flowers, know-how (an RN changed bandages some days so I didn’t have to), laughter and company. I know she’s in good hands and they’ll be with her now that I’m on my way home today, and with Cindy’s fortitude (Davis Steel may sound like a law firm, but I swear to God it’s in our DNA) she’ll be on stage at that concert two weeks from now, just as she plans. Never bet against Cindy.

I have a few friends on Vancouver Island – maybe three I could hope would be there if I was alone (don’t you dare, Rob) besides Phil and Brooke, of course. But I have to try harder. I have to step outside of my hermit-like existence and crochet a comforter of friends who will be there if I need them, as I would be for them in return.

I’m sure there are many people like me, whose lives are so completely interwoven with that of their partner that they’d be lost if anything altered to remove them.

Cindy’s friends are her sisters. Am I still glad I went down? Definitely. She says she’d have been put in a care home to recover if not for my trip and whatever help I might have been to her. But will those women be there for her in the weeks to come? Again, yes. After the year she’s had, they’ve proven themselves again and again.

I’m grateful, as I know she is, and I can only hope she’ll share this journal with them. Friends in good times are wonderful and easy, but a friend in hard times is a gift whose worth can never, ever be measured. 

I HOPE to have a video journal for you next week, but I leave Friday for four days in Kelowna to help Dad move. So, it may be brief.

Meantime, there is another Christmas story on Drift with Erin Davis, free for you tomorrow (and always) thanks to enVypillow.com with a very sweet and enticing offer from them: go to their website and input the code Drift upon checkout and you’ll automatically get 10% off whatever you purchase there. I just wish they sold pillow speakers too; they’re the perfect Christmas and holiday gift to allow you to Drift off to my podcasts.

This week’s story is Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe and, appropriately, given what I’m talking about with you here today, it’s about appreciating what life brings us, even in the hardest of times.

I’ll always be grateful for this connection.

Just a thought… Don’t Stop. Be Leaving. [takeoff on a Journey song, and the perfect door mat for me this week…]

This journal was actually written Friday night when I had a second, so I’ll fill in more details as I experience them!

Well, I can’t quite believe it either, but as you read this, I’m out of the country. Why? Did Rob and I have a fight? Can’t I stand it in beautiful BC? Did I only come home to mess things up, see the kids and grandkids and leave again? If I was on the radio I’d say, “We’ll give you the answer…right after this!”

Um…brief break…SierraSil ad and on we go….LOL

The answers to all of those questions are: NO. In fact, I got home last Wednesday and the house was spotless; Rob had also put up the Christmas tree (lights, bows were on it from last season, but the ornaments will go on when I get a moment), the garage was tidied, there was firewood cut, two new chairs had been assembled (plus he helped upholster some for family), the sheets had been changed, there were roses on the table and steaks ready for dinner and…I can’t even complete the list of all of the things he accomplished. I mean, all of those accomplishments alone would be enough for me to leave town again very soon, but the reason is much more unfortunate.

On Thursday night I got a message from my sister in Ajijic, Mexico (an enclave of mostly American and Canadian citizens in which she’s lived for four years now) that she was in the hospital.

Cindy slipped on a wet sidewalk and went down hard, fracturing her hip and requiring replacement surgery on Friday. It went well, she says, but it’s going to cost her some $10,000 since her lupus precludes her from getting health insurance. Since she’s been alone all this year (yes, that sister with the husband of 40 years who left, and so on) I couldn’t imagine her recuperating alone.

Saturday at 7:30 am I was at Victoria International Airport. AGAIN. But no “wheel of luggage fortune” for me: this time, it was just me and my carry-on. Cindy and I share the same size and I plan to raid her dressers and closet while I’m there.

I flew to Vancouver to catch a 1:30 pm flight to Dallas/Fort Worth, with a 90- minute turnaround to get myself on a flight to Guadalajara, Mexico. From there, a cab took me to Ajijic where friends met and took me to Cindy’s house, where preparations had been made for her homecoming and recovery. She’s fit and young-ish, and she tells me she has a concert booked in three weeks (she sings, plays piano/organ and harp) and if I know Cindy, she’ll try not to let anyone down. We shall see if New Hip Cindy (not New, Hip Cindy LOL) will make it to the performance. I would never bet against her, especially with the year she’s powered through.

There are a lot of things for which to be grateful right now: most of all, that I have the resources and time to be able to fly out at nearly a moment’s notice, to help a family member. Rob and I are already booked for early December to fly to Kelowna to help get Dad’s new place ready for his arrival. He’s STILL in hospital there, so we need to get him some rehab quickly before he completely forgets how his legs work.

The whole coven of sisters – even from afar – is working to make it happen and we’re all happy with the new place he’s going. Best of all, so is he! Something else for which to be grateful: the temp these days where I’m heading are in the upper 20s Celcius. So that’s a definite plus.

That is quite a bit of news for you for now – sorry I didn’t have time to shoot a video journal, but I know you’ll understand.

In the meantime, thank you for being here. Another new Christmas-flavoured story drops tomorrow on Drift with Erin Davis and yes, I’ll post pics at FB and on Instagram if you care to see what it’s like in Ajijic (pronounced ah-hee-HEEK). It’s my first trip here.

Hasta La Vista, Baby….E.

Just a thought… Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then listen for the answer. [Ed Cunningham]

Welcome to a new week and almost the second half of November! You may have noticed there’s no video version of the journal today. I’ll tell you why: first, you saw enough of me last week!

Between the hotel room video I shot at 3:20 am on Sunday that ended up on CBC news(!) about the WestJet computer disaster that left me without a suitcase and my clothes/makeup for the Monday event I was hosting for the entire day…to the CTV appearance Thursday on The Social, I think you’ve seen quite enough of this face. (And that’s not even counting the ribbon cutting and official opening last Wednesday night for Markham Stouffville Hospital’s spectacular Breast Health Centre for my friend Allan Bell. I’ve been helping raise money for this for years and it was an emotional, joyful night.)

Those appearances ended up being quite a case of both ends of the spectrum, too: from almost no makeup at all on that Sunday morning clip (after being up for 24 hours) to having what many said was just too much makeup on The Social, as I say, you’ve seen enough of me. (I didn’t do my makeup but can understand people’s comments. Ah well. Unfortunately, I can’t have the amazing Christine Calder, who did Wednesday’s faces, for everything!)

If you didn’t get to see the 20 minutes or so during which I was guest host of the popular daytime TV show, the link is here. We had a lot of laughs and I apologize publicly here to my sister Heather (as I have personally) for making an easy joke at her expense. I love her, and my apology has, I swear, nothing to do with the fact that I will be seeing her and another sister in a few weeks when we go to Kelowna to move Dad’s things into another residence.

As I write this, I am in my current happy place which is – who knew? – Port Stanley, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Erie. Lisa Brandt came to the GTA to take me from the event in Markham to CTV the next day downtown, and then to her place, about a two-and-a-half hour drive away. I was almost catatonic with exhaustion and relief during the trip.

But I’m fully recuperated now. I’ll stay here in the lap of comforting friendship with her and husband Derek until early Wednesday when I spin the wheel of airplane fortune again and fly home. This time, hopefully no hiccups. You know where to follow me (Facebook.com/erindavispage or @erindavis on Twitter; @erindawndavis on Instagram) if there are any more adventures to report on the way.

We’ve relaxed, we’ve shopped, we’ve dined and we’ve laughed, as well as prepared the first few episodes of our new podcast, Gracefully and Frankly. I promise to keep you posted, not only on when it’ll drop, but how to listen to a podcast; many folks think that my video journal (or “vlog”) is a podcast. It’s not. My sleep stories, Drift with Erin Davis, are. There’s a world of difference and perhaps you still haven’t listened to a podcast. It’s as simple as clicking here. I promise once you do, it’s life-changing. No more commercials or annoyances; you listen when you want to what you want.

Oh, and I hope you heard Mike Cooper’s good-bye on Saturday during his Coop’s Classics radio show. Truly the end of an era, he didn’t want to make a big deal of it, as he had already had a farewell party when he left our partnership back in 2016. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Mike this visit because he was flying out while I was flying in, but as the old song goes, “We’ll meet again…don’t know where, don’t know when….” And we will.

It’ll be nice to be home Wednesday evening, but right now I’m happier than I’ve been in months just being with my soul sister Lisa again. She’s someone with whom I can talk freely. She knew and loved Lauren, she knows and doesn’t judge me, and always gives me the right amount of support, honest judgment and well-timed kicks in the backside.

Who could ask for more?

I’ll say good-bye here for now and promise you a new video journal next Monday; ’til then, have a gentle week and enjoy a new seasonally sweet Drift story tomorrow.

Just a thought… The best ideas spark your brain but touch your heart. [an Erin original, so do with it what you will]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Well, here we are in Standard Time – which, of course, we re-entered on the weekend with clocks going back, but I flew into the Eastern Time zone Saturday; I’m here in Toronto for an emcee event all day today for the Canada Awards for Excellence, and then for the Breast Health Centre at Markham Stouffville Hospital on Wednesday evening with my buddy Allan Bell and his incredible team there.

But it’s more than only a work trip: my friend Lisa Brandt is on her way here on Wednesday from Port Stanley, then staying with me that night and on Thursday – put this in your phone or your calendar or write it on the wall – yours truly will be sitting in the guest chair for a few segments on CTV’s The Social. That’s this Thursday (check your local listings – it’s on at 1 pm in most time zones) and I’m very excited and, yes, nervous.

It came about because I interviewed Lainey Lui of E Talk and The Social (for a podcast I do for the Canadian Real Estate Association) and we hit it off so well she suggested I might sit in. So thank you, Lainey. I don’t know what we’ll talk about, but it’ll be fun.

This Friday, as you well know, is Remembrance Day. After that, of course, it’ll be no holds barred for the Christmas crush and you can be sure that as stations dust off the Bing and Bowie for another six or seven weeks (thoughts and prayers to the hosts; I’ve been there), the ads will be hitting hard and fast trying to part consumers and their money.

So it was with delight and no cynicism whatsoever that I saw what arrived about a month ago at Brooke and Phil’s house: a real, honest-to-goodness catalogue – not for a brick and mortar store like The Bay, but for an online shopping site. THE online shopping site, Amazon.

Now, I will preface this by saying, please, please, if you can, shop locally, support the store owners whose lives are wrapped up in this season’s sales, and keep your town or city going by putting your money where your postal code is.

What captivated me about this Amazon holiday kids’ gift book is that it was such a call back to older times, when we would go through catalogues, circle or cut out, and make sure our parents knew what we were having sugar plum dreams about. Maybe if we were really lucky, we’d get ONE of those things we really wanted. Sometimes, not. But this catalogue is something else. It has fun stuff like stickers…

…and word searches…

…to make it a great idea for parents or grandparents to pass along to the littles in their lives. And, of course, while they’re there, kids can flip the pages and see the stuff that Amazon is selling.

And what do they do when they spot what they want?

Put it on the list, of course…or get a grown-up to do it.

It’s a brilliant marketing idea. And again, so unexpected from an online shopping behemoth to come up with something as simple and old school as a catalogue.

Again, please shop locally. But why not use this little catalogue as a way to find what the kids in your life want, and then search them out at the store on your town’s main street? There’s always that option. We don’t have to keep supporting the billionaires’ companies whose own employees need food donations (as is the case at Walmart) or have to pee in bottles because their shift doesn’t allow them bathroom breaks (looking at you, Jeff Bezos). I’d rather keep our little town of Sidney’s toy store going if I can, using the kids’ wish list to know what I’m looking for.

To each his or her own. Money is tight and they say in 2023 it’s getting tighter. But I just had to share with you something that tugged at my heartstrings and made me want to say, “Well done!” What you do, that’s up to you!

Enjoy your week – a long weekend for some with this Friday’s Remembrance Day. I’ll be flying home next week, but will try to get a journal to you here early in the week, with pictures. There’s a new Drift with Erin sleep story awaiting you tomorrow. We’ll be bringing in our Christmas and holiday stories soon, so keep checking in for those, too.

Just a thought… Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see. [Arthur Schopenhauer]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Happy Halloween! We’ll likely be digging out the banana costumes tonight, hoping the atmospheric river we’ve been in since Saturday night is all the way out, and helping our sweet grandkids make their haul.

So, last Friday, if you happen to be on Facebook (and honestly, between Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, and now Elon Musk bringing the swamp back in full fetid force to Twitter, I don’t blame you if you’re not) I was open with you about the ton of stress going on in our lives. No, Mira is fine…but another dear friend is in hospital, my Dad has been in now for well over a week and is getting a lot better, while we try to figure out his next steps when they discharge him, and on and on.

And, yes, I know plenty of people have it bad; as the comments on Facebook put it so clearly to me, many people know about dementia and the challenges in our family – and in health care in general – firsthand. So that’s why, when I found just the perfect Halloween-themed gift for our friend Charles, I had to buy it.

We were in the grocery store picking up a few little sustaining meals for our friend Nancy, who is Charles’ wonderful wife and, right now, caregiver. While we were there, I saw at the end of the wine section of the store (which, as you know, I do not pass through) a display of these:

What is it? I hope you see from the tiny writing on the label that Type B stands for blueberry. It’s blueberry wine. I packed it in with flowers and a little care package for Nancy, which is exactly what she would do for us, only there would be warm fresh bread and she’d have made the mac ‘n’ cheese and chicken Alfredo herself. I told her we didn’t need two people in hospital, so it’s better I let the store chefs make them.

That little pint of “blood” (which might well have had the same alcohol content as mine a few years ago) brought Nancy a real belly laugh, and made Charles smile. The wife of a fellow patient had a good laugh too. I told Nancy to give it to their favourite nurse; these days they need all the support they can get. And yes, probably wine.

Then there was the gift that I got a few weeks ago for my birthday that I’ve been waiting to share with you.

Anyone who knows me (or read my book, for that matter) also knows that I have a thing for Dateline, NBC’s true crime broadcast, and podcast, too, I might add. And I’ve always had a very soft spot for Keith Morrison. Even as a geeky news-loving teen, I would watch him on the weekends on CTV when Lloyd Robertson was off. Yeah, Keith was hot then and still is.

So, a talented writer friend of mine named Cece had a woman she knows use her gifts – just for me and my small, enduring crush. Look at this:

It’s in pencil. An actual hand-drawn rendering of Keith. And it sits in front of my TV so he watches me while I watch him. (I’m not weird, you’re weird.) Cheryl Tenn does incredible artwork and you can find her on Instagram at studio10_art. I’ve thanked her and Cece profusely for this thoughtful and wonderful gift.

Side note: Keith comes up in the story of his stepson Matthew Perry in an interview Matthew did with Diane Sawyer last Friday. If you want to understand anything about the power of addiction and why we are never, ever done with it, find that interview.

Take good care and I have a very interesting – but not too interesting – new story for you on Drift tomorrow by the author of The Wizard of Oz. It’s called The Girl Who Owned a Bear and I hope you love it. Just ask Google or Alexa to “Play Drift with Erin Davis” or click here and subscribe (for free of course, thanks to our friends at enVy Pillow), and enjoy more than 60 stories and sleep-related interviews. Have a lovely week and Happy Hallowe’en!

I’ll leave you with a few more pieces of Cheryl’s artwork. They are music to the eyes. Thank you again, Cheryl and Cece.