Erin's Journals

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.

Just a thought… There is no need to explain good intentions. The ones that love you understand and the ones that hate you have no relevancy. [Kushandwizdom.com]

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

It’s quite a story today so I’ll leap in. Get a coffee and get ready. I told you on September 1^st that our dear friend Mira turned 97. My birthday promise was to take her to an opera. And not just any production: one of the biggies.

I knew she loved them, but Mira hasn’t been to one since moving here from Europe and the Middle East some 40 years ago.

Bizet’s Carmen is, of course, a most famous opera: a fiery young woman wraps men around her finger and then, because it’s opera, dies. We were SO excited.

Our original matinee performance was postponed because of a cast member’s illness, so we went on Thursday evening instead. As Rob drove us, Mira talked excitedly all the way downtown about the story, her favourite operas, what to expect and to listen for.

We made our way to rather cramped seats in the century-old Royal Victoria Theatre,

Mira and I felt crowded on both sides, but we settled in, masks on, and enjoyed the first act. Then, just as the second began, Mira lowered her mask and said quietly, breathlessly, “I feel sick. I need to leave.” She tried to insist that I stay – as if I’d let my little friend make her way, cane in hand, up the darkened aisle to get to the lobby!

With whispered apologies, I cleared a path past the people in our row, got to the lobby and got her seated in some soft armchairs hustled to us by the amazing staff. Then Mira’s hands began to shake violently and she could not catch her breath. In between holding her hands and trying to calm her, to steady the cup of water she sipped from, I Googled the symptoms. Answer: anxiety or panic attack. I suggested this to Mira and she responded in short, gasps, “No. Not panic.” Well, whatever it was, it was not good. I called Rob and told him to come quickly; we were taking her to the hospital.

He arrived in ten minutes, and we began our interminable ride, not to the nearest hospital, but the one closest to Mira’s home, at her insistence. Then – oh, no – we had to get off the highway; just ahead of us, at least 10 police vehicles, lights flashing, entered and took up all three lanes. I texted Brooke and asked her to try to learn what was going on and, although she could find no explanation, we knew it wasn’t good and got off at the nearest exit. That meant taking a dark, winding and foggy road. When Mira asked, “How much longer?” we started to think we chose the wrong hospital.

Finally we pulled up to the ER. A helpful commissionaire grabbed a wheelchair and I burst into the entrance in full breathless TV drama mode. “I’ve got a 97-year-old woman having difficulty breathing, experiencing uncontrolled shaking!”

Except that, after being on fast-forward, everything suddenly slowed to a crawl. “Health card number?” “Patient’s name?” “Contact person?” and on and on. From then on, the phrase “hurry up and wait” kept ringing in my ears.

Mira was helped up onto a gurney and covered with three warm flannel blankets. I pulled a chair up next to her. We were two of about 25 people in the ER; more than a few were young athletes who seemed to have sports injuries.

At 9:30 the waiting really began. In the next three-plus hours, we were seen by a nurse twice. At one point, I asked a nurse if Mira could please get some oxygen or anything to help her breathe. I was told I’d have to wait until a doctor saw her. I was also asked by another woman writhing on a gurney if I could please ask a nurse to see her because she was in a bad way. I did; no one came by. For all I know, my message to the same person I asked about oxygen was never relayed.

In the meantime, Rob had been taken home by our son-in-law, who lives nearby, in order to get another car so he could leave me one in which to get myself home. Rob returned with a drink and snack for me, a charger for my phone and a change of shoes. Yes, my poor slippers gave out while I was running around and I felt like Cinderella after midnight.

Finally (or so I thought), at 12:40 am we were brought into a small private room in the ER. There, Mira and I got her into a hospital gown and I wrapped her up warmly again. And as she refused to sleep, we talked.

We chatted about what she thinks the afterlife will be. We talked about religion in general. I asked how her Jewish husband wasn’t discovered in the German work camp in which they both met, when Mira was a teen. We talked about those years. We chuckled over her dear late husband’s sense of humour…how her told her the longest period in a woman’s life is the ten years between the ages of 39 and 40.

We laughed. She rested. She tried to catch her breath. And we waited. She made me try on her jacket (sure that I was cold, lol) and gave me her pearls to wear for safekeeping.

Blood was taken; an ECG done. Everyone could not have been kinder.

Then, at 3:10 am I inadvertently seemed to figure out how to get the doctor to come: I went out to add more time to my parking. When I returned, after running from one locked door to another, I was buzzed in and found that the doctor was now with Mira. He said they could find nothing amiss in her tests. No after effects of the bronchitis she’d suffered earlier this year; nothing on which they could pin these scary symptoms.

By now, Mira just wanted to go home. I helped her dress and then ran out to get the car.

Luckily, the fog had lifted and we were the only people on the highway at 3:50 am. I told her it was like this when I drove to work all those years.

When we got Mira to her apartment, she wouldn’t let me tuck her in, never mind stay overnight; a fiercely independent and, shall we say, sweetly stubborn woman, she had a short but restful night. We were both in nap mode all day Friday.

For now, that’s our story.

How Carmen had an early and awful ending for us both. She kept saying how sorry she was; all the while I’m thinking, Jeez, Davis, you’ve almost killed this woman. What were you thinking?

When we talked about it the next day, she said her sons were not at all upset with me for taking her to the opera. She felt totally up for it and had looked forward to it for weeks! But it does seem that it was just so much for her. And no wonder. So many people close by, after years of near isolation.

It was an unforgettable girls’ night out, for all the wrong reasons. I won’t forgive myself as gracefully as she has forgiven me, but Mira’s words thanking me for caring for her during those terrifying hours will stay with me too. I mean, since I caused it all, you’re welcome?

You take it easy and I’ll be back with you here Monday. And don’t forget to ask Google or Alexa to play Drift with Erin Davis sleep stories and I promise you sweet dreams with a short new folk tale on the way for you tomorrow from India.