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This is Joy & Claire Episode 119: Like a Roomba
Episode Date: March 24, 2022
Transcription Completed: April 29, 2022
Audio Length: 49:47 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: Welcome back to another episode of us talking to you.
Claire: I just did a little [sings a jingle]. That’s a thing. It’s called something. It’s not a perfect fifth. Perfect is CBS. NBC, tone, name.
Joy: Yeah, I think that’s [singsong voice] NBC.
Claire: It isn’t, but anyway.
Joy: The peacock.
Claire: It is.
Joy: Well, we’re recording this way earlier than we normally record our episodes. Just so you guys know, we normally record on Monday or Tuesday the week of the release of the episode. But we’re recording this one early because Claire is going on spring break.
Claire: Spring break, woo!
Joy: Party!
Claire: Just imagine me flashing you, except when I’m flashing you I’m wearing a base layer.
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: Because that’s where I’m going on spring break. I’m going skiing.
Joy: It just reminds me of MTV spring break days. That was the goal.
Claire: No, I’m thinking of Kitty from Arrested Development.
Joy: Oh, absolutely.
Claire: “There will absolutely be a margarita in my mouth!”
Joy: God, Judy Greer.
Claire: “Yes, there will.” She was such a good character.
Joy: Such a good character. “Saved by these, Michael.” [laughing] And if you don’t know what we’re talking about, I’m not going to explain it. You’re just going to have to watch it.
Claire: You’re just going to have to watch Arrested Development. Arrested Development is the only show that I felt like lived up to the hype after I got into it. I hate shows where people are like, “You’ve just got to get into it.” Arrested Development is the only show where I actually really stuck it out for the first couple of episodes and was like, oh, okay, I get it now.
Joy: God, it’s so good. So good. So spring break, party time. MTV spring break lives in my mind as the place that I wanted to go. But I wasn’t really cool enough. Actually, I wouldn’t say cool enough. Let me think how to say this PC. I wasn’t like…
Claire: I wasn’t like hot girl summer.
Joy: Yes, thank you. I don’t want to use the word slutty because whatever, slutty is fine.
Claire: I was not like hot girl summer.
Joy: I really wasn’t. I wasn’t that. There was a part of me that really wanted to be, and I just wasn’t. I would see all these girls on MTV spring break and all the fun they were all having. Anyway. So you’re going on spring break.
Claire: We’re going to Steamboat with my friend Amanda. I know I’ve talked about her on the podcast before. She’s my other podcast friend other than Heather. Hi, Heather, Hi, Amanda. And Heather is moving to Longmont. So all my podcast friends are living in Longmont now, which is great. Maybe one day we can have podcast meetup in Longmont. Actually, this really cute tiki restaurant just opened in Longmont.
Joy: Tiki?
Claire: Yeah. They built a big pirate ship, so when you go to the bar you walk into this big pirate ship.
Joy: Oh, that sounds fun.
Claire: Right. And it’s pretty good food. Like, they have poke bowls and stuff. It’s like island kind of, obviously. You can get yourself a piña colada in a pirate ship.
Joy: That sounds lovely.
Claire: So anyway. One day. Maybe one day we can all do that for the podcast. Anyway, the point of the story is we’re going to Steamboat with Amanda and her family. She has two kids also, her daughter is around Evie’s age, and her son is just a tiny bit older than Miles. So it actually is so perfect. We can hang out. And her husband used to be a ski patroller – like the parallels between our lives and our family members are very helpful.
Joy: It’s a little uncanny as well.
Claire: And she also likes to bake and eat soup. I’m not actually convinced that she likes to eat soup that much, but I do always feed her soup when she comes over.
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: She’s very gracious about it.
Joy: I do always feed her soup and she eats it, therefore –
Claire: It’s like, what’s that Parks and Rec line where it’s between Leslie and I can’t remember the other character. And the punchline is that she’s trying to explain to Leslie, “I don’t like Harry Potter. I was afraid to tell you when you made me watch all those movies.” And Leslie is like, “What are you talking about? You love Harry Potter. You’ve seen all the movies.”
Joy: It’s like, you made me watch them.
Claire: Right. What are you talking about? You love soup. I feed it to you every time you come over here. “You always feed me soup. I don’t even like it.” What are you talking about? So yeah, we’re going to go skiing and it should be really fun. We haven’t taken a trip like this… we went to Durango last year for a couple of days. Similar type of trip. My biggest insecurity about this trip, my worry is that Evie still sleeps in a crib at home. Which, she’s over 3 years old, the time is ripe for her to get out. But she isn’t climbing out of her crib. Why would I unleash my child at night willingly?
Joy: [laughing] It’s so true. And let me just say, side note, still to this day the funniest thing in the world is someone who posted something on the internet around, the scariest thing is waking up to a child standing next to you staring. The visual of that, you just don’t need – if you can avoid it, let’s keep her leashed.
Claire: Just keep them in there. And a lot of people do transfer their students around ages 2 and 3 because their kids are coming out. For some reason, Evie has just never gone down that path. Knock on wood. We moved Miles out of a crib so early. Like, way, way, way too early. He was barely even two.
Joy: I remember that.
Claire: Because – and if any parents are out there being like, “Claire, here are tips for getting your kid out of the crib.” Here are my tips. Don’t do it unless you have to. If your kid is climbing out, sorry. But what we did with Miles, he was in a Montessori and a Waldorf. Both Montessori and Waldorf use floor beds. They don’t put them in cribs for naps. So I thought, oh he sleeps in a floor bed at school. This shouldn’t be an issue. And when he was maybe right around 2 years old, he still was not potty trained at all – which is common. Two years is early for potty training. I give these annotations because I know it’s hard to know what age it is for kids to do things. Even if you have older kids, we forget. We had always had him in a pack and play because we had always lived in a tiny apartment with him. A pack and play is significantly smaller than a full-size crib. So we moved into our house and we kept him in the pack and play. One day during nap time, he pooped in his diaper and spread the poop all over the pack and play. And the sides of the pack and play are mesh. Just imagine that. I came into his room and immediately was like, well, this pack and play is trash now. Pack and plays are also only like $100. There was nothing on this earth that was going to get me scrubbing the poop out of the mesh of this pack and play. So I was like, it’s fine. He can just move into a floor bed. And then that resulted in close to a year of having to sit in his room with him while he fell asleep. Never again. I have some friends who have kids around Evie’s age that are still in cribs, and they’re like, “When are you transferring Evie to a bed? When did you transfer Miles?” I’m like, Evie will stay in a crib until high school if she’ll let me because of my trauma from baby Miles.
Joy: Because of that experience, yeah.
Claire: Anyway, so I’m worried about our trip because it doesn’t have a crib. She’s going to be in a queen bed, and we bought these –
Joy: Bumpers.
Claire: Yeah, like a hospital bed feeling. That’s my biggest worry is I’m not going to get any sleep because Evie is going to be knocking on the door all night.
Joy: Yeah, it’s going to be fun. You’re going to be having an unleashed toddler.
Claire: And she’s not the kind of kid that can sleep in your bed and just chill. If she’s in my bed, she’s sitting there poking me in the face like, “Hey mom. Hey.” I’m like, “It’s two in the morning!”
Joy: Well, good luck with that. So maybe not so much a relaxing spring break.
Claire: I am excited, yes. I mean, somebody said once, and I don’t know where this quote comes from, traveling with kids is not a vacation. It’s just a trip with kids.
Joy: Yep. A lot of managing. A lot of stuff to pack.
Claire: But I did buy like $300 of the primo snacks.
Joy: Oh, yeah. Because that is key for traveling with children.
Claire: Super key. We’re staying at this super nice Airbnb, which we got upgraded because our original Airbnb had a maintenance issues. So we got upgraded into this townhouse situation. It has a private sauna.
Joy: Oh my gosh.
Claire: I know.
Joy: That’s exciting.
Claire: When you guys listen to this, I will actually be back. We get back on Wednesday night. But I will have just spent, sometime at least, in a private sauna. Lounging.
Joy: I can’t wait to hear if it goes well.
Claire: My mind immediately went to, I should bring my starter because I bet I could really rise some bread in a sauna.
Joy: Oh my God. By the way, I’m just tickled – and I never use that word – about the response of people with the whole bread kneading thing from the last episode.
Claire: It really makes me feel so seen. Where people are like, this is a true Claire moment. It really is a true Claire moment. And it’s a true Joy and Claire moment.
Joy: Yes, exactly.
Claire: You knew what I was doing.
Joy: I was like, for sure she is kneading bread. What is she doing? She is multitasking. But not only that, when people reposted and said, “This is why I listen to this podcast,” I was like, yes, because no one ever in the history of podcasts, you’re never going to get this.
Claire: It’s true.
Joy: So thank you guys for supporting us.
Claire: For seeing our bread moment.
Joy: For seeing our bread moment and for seeing us for who we are. Yeah. You know when I was thinking about spring break, I was thinking about how much I miss scheduled breaks. You know, like back in the school day when you had scheduled breaks. And then in my mind went to let’s just take a moment and shout out to teachers. Just shout out to teachers. I wish you got like a month of spring break.
Claire: And like four times your salary.
Joy: Shout out to teachers, yes. Okay, quick update. I’m never going to say dates on this podcast ever again because they constantly move. So when we record this, the date could always change again. But we are supposed to be getting the puppy on the date this episode releases, on March 24. I hope that is still the case when this is released.
Claire: I can’t remember if we talked about this last week or not. But it’s a fluid process. It’s a lot of moving pieces.
Joy: It’s very Tetris. So with Canine Companions, yeah, there’s a lot of moving parts. There’s a lot of arranging. There’s a lot of flights to get planned for shipping puppies. So there’s a lot going on. I understand why these things happen, and we just have to be really flexible. But we thought it was going to be the 18th. And we’re so excited. Not only that. We don’t know which puppy we’re getting until like the day before. So that just adds to the excitement of, which one are we getting? I am in a bunch of private Facebook groups, probably five or six Facebook groups, that are just dedicated to CCI puppy raisers or people in Colorado who raise puppies or whatever. You name it, there’s a Facebook group for it. And man are we nuts. We go crazy. Does anybody know of which litters are born that are coming to Colorado? Like, you try to find out beforehand. It’s really cute how much sleuthing goes on behind the scenes.
Claire: I was about to say, do you guys have a theory?
Joy: Oh yeah. And then there’s breeder caretakers. So just a quick fun fact. All the breeder caretakers, the people who have the dogs that help raise the little babies –
Claire: Like before they’re weened?
Joy: Before they are weekend, yeah. They are called the breeder caretakers. They are specific people that volunteer for CCI. They all have to be in California. I think within a certain amount of miles from Santa Rosa, the regional office, even. It’s very specific. But they’ll be on Facebook posting all the litters that are born, and you are just oohing and ahhing over these little babies. And then the breeder caretakers will see someone post about, “Oh, I’m getting a puppy next week,” and they’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, it might be from my litter.” So then you’re looking at their litter, and it’s just really cute how crazy we all go. Now I get it. Being in the CCI community. When I was just working with JT, it’s such a different experience just being a graduate. And now that you’re a puppy raiser, I’m like, yeah, I get it. And I also get why Canine Companions – bless their heart, I love them so much. They do such a good job of making sure they kind of keep the puppy raisers at bay because some can get a little too over involved. Now I know why they make such a good boundary between people who graduate with a Canine Companions dog. They don’t put pressure on them to keep in touch with the puppy raiser. Now, one would think, “Why wouldn’t you want to keep in touch with the puppy raiser?” But there truly are just people who can’t maintain communication like that. Or there’s a million different reasons. So CCI does a really good job of making sure that puppy raiser know that when you give this dog back to us, you may not get a lot of communication about it. It’s really interesting how they have to balance all of that. I see a lot of behind the scenes now that I’m in all these private Facebook groups of puppy talk. And how people get so into the lineage of these dogs. Posting pictures of the parents of these puppies. It’s so cool. It’s really cute. So anyway, so that is the update on when we’re going to get this new puppy. You really want to be paying attention to social media today if that’s the case because we are going to be all puppy extravaganza.
Claire: Yay. Oh my gosh, I’ve saved so many reels audios about puppies that I’m just going to make you send me consent videos of puppies and make all these soupy reels.
Joy: Great. Gosh, I can’t wait.
Claire: They’re the best.
Joy: I just can’t wait to snuggle the little baby.
Claire: This little baby belly.
Joy: Oh, I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. And we’re talking to JT. We’re like, alright, we will protect you from the shark teeth biting your face. We’re preparing the cats. Although one of the cats is so mean, she doesn’t care. She loves it. She loves to bully the dogs.
Claire: She’s like, “Yes, bring me another subject into my kingdom.”
Joy: Exactly her personality. That’s one thousand percent her personality. She’s like, “Yes, one more person that I can be mean to.” So the other quick update that is always fluid and chaining, but I think we have a date set for April for the bone marrow donation. I’m not going to give the exact date, and I’m not going to bank on it, but that made me feel better because I was really bummed out when it got pushed again.
Claire: I know last time that it was pushed a lot of people asked us what happened, is the person okay? The reality is you have no idea. All you know is it’s a go or it’s not a go.
Joy: Right. Yeah. And last time – and this is really where you just kind of learn along the way – last time, I did ask my case worker, can you give me any information why? And I told her, I said, I guess it’s not my business, but there’s a part of me that was so defeated again after three, four rescheduling that I just need something. I need some type of reason. And then I got over it because it’s really not my business. I didn’t find out why. I think it’s just mostly how I have to figure out how to navigate it emotionally and how hard it is to put your feelings on the side because it’s not about you. It is about you, but it’s not about you. So that’s kind of the thing that I went through. But if all goes to plan, it will be in April. I’ll be posting more from the standpoint of how easy it is and, knock on wood, should be fairly painless and how important it is to get on the registry for people. You can follow Be the Match on Facebook and Instagram @bethematch. I saw this post yesterday of a little girl whose donor didn’t respond. They found a full match, but the donor didn’t respond. And just how important it is to have maybe multiple options for somebody because it’s very likely that a donor changed their mind or you just never know and how sad these parents were because they were really excited about having a full match donor, and then they haven’t heard from the donor. It just breaks your heart when you hear these stories. Just to kind of be aware of that and how you can get on the registry.
Claire: Okay, so we have some super fun Q&As for the rest of the episode. We asked you guys some random silly questions and you really delivered. But first, let’s take a quick minute and talk about our favorite sponsor Ned. We love Ned. You know about them. You love them. These are the CBD products that we absolutely love and use every single day. I lately have been getting more and more into the balance products, which are really formulated around hormone balance. I find that they help me to feel throughout my cycle and throughout the day even, just to take the edge off of some of those natural swings that happen. I think that the beauty of CBD products is they never make me feel overly medicated. It doesn’t fully dull the things that I am feeling, but it just takes the edge off of things and the more difficult aspects of being a human and really helps you manage through those moments and manage the ups and downs a little bit more because it can help you take the edge off. That’s the product I’ve been loving a lot lately.
Joy: You know, we had – this is a real-life review. We had a listener contact us because the Sleep Blend is new and improved, and they really want you to check that out. We had a listener message us and say, “I’ve had problems sleeping my entire life, and the Ned Sleep Blend is the answer for me. I’m sleeping so well.” I’m like, yes, that’s so exciting. It really does work. Give it a try. They have a money back guarantee. No questions asked. We love them. And if you have not yet checked out the episode with Ret Taylor, please do so. It’s a wonderful, wonderful episode. He is such a good human. And after the episode, you will just feel good because he is just a feel good person to listen to. And it’s Ned’s birthday month, so if you’d like to give their new and improved Sleep Blend a try, Joy and Claire listeners get 21% off with code JOY for the month of March only. It’s the best offer of the year. Now is the time to try it. Visit helloned.com/JOY to get 21% off. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring the show and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues.
Claire: Alright guys, we have some really fun questions, so let’s dive in. Here’s the first one. The strangest item in your fridge?
Joy: Probably a green powder from six years ago that I can’t force myself to throw away.
Claire: This is so on brand for you.
Joy: Because it was so expensive, but I didn’t end up using the whole thing. But I can’t let myself throw it away.
Claire: Mine is probably, I have a lot of really random condiments. At my last job when I was working in the natural products industry, we constantly were sampling these random, random condiments. So I have this chili crisp, but it’s a Mexican version of chili crisp. It’s really sort of smokey flavored. That’s really good. I feel like my pantry is really where my weird stuff is, so not a lot of weird stuff in my fridge. I do have a lot of chicken feet in my freezer though. Okay. What is your favorite toothpaste?
Joy: I feel like you just glossed over chicken feet. I was like, woah.
Claire: It’s for broth. I get frozen chicken feet from the store. They make great broth. They are high in collagen. And it makes you feel like a witch [cackling] stirring this big cauldron.
Joy: Your goal is to live in the –
Claire: Cottage witch. Cottage with.
Joy: Live in a cottage and make soup.
Claire: Like a mossy cottage with a big soup pot all the time and I’m just sort of like [cackling] all the way around all the time.
Joy: I think that’s a great goal for you.
Claire: Thanks.
Joy: Sorry, what was the question?
Claire: What’s your favorite toothpaste.
Joy: Well I sound so old, but my teeth are really sensitive you guys, so I have to use Sensodyne. And I love it because it works.
Claire: I go back and forth between, I do sometimes still use those little tablets. The bite tablets.
Joy: I never tried those. You were the Instagram influenced.
Claire: I know, I was influenced by a late-night ad. I think this was back when I was breastfeeding Evie. Which shout out to all the breastfeeding people out there because there is nothing like a 2am impulse buy when you are breastfeeding. I feel like this is an affliction that we all have to deal with.
Joy: I laughed so hard when you described it – I don’t know if you remember saying this, but it’s still stuck in my memory because it’s so funny – is you’re like, “I feel like these Instagram ads target new moms who just need their life a little bit better.”
Claire: Yeah, exactly. Just a little incremental ad.
Joy: Just a tiny bit better.
Claire: I also have this really expensive – You can’t see it. It’s right out of the frame of my Zoom – this really expensive lumbar pillow that I bought during that time. Super cute. Anyway. So I do like the Bite, which are these dry tablets. They look sort of like a breath mint, and then you chew them up. And as your saliva mixes with it become toothpastey. Or you get your toothbrush wet. The one thing I never got used to though. I think just after a lifetime of using commercial toothpaste, I really want that sharp, minty feeling, and you don’t really get that from those toothpaste tablets. I typically just use Crest or Colgate, very standard. Whatever is on sale at Target.
Joy: Now, do you have good teeth genes? I talked to my dentist about this recently because I had to go in for a checkup. Historically my family doesn’t have good luck with teeth, meaning we get cavities easily, my dad has had to have a lot of dental work done. I have to be really on top of it. I was using those little pickers, those hand-held disposable pickers. Which probably aren’t the best for the environment. But I was like, oh, it’s convenient for me. Because I wasn’t sitting there flossing every day. She was like, “Actually, don’t use those because you can’t get under the tooth. Flossing, you can really get into the gums and under the tooth.” So, I’m really sad about that. I really have to pay attention to my teeth hygiene or else I get cavities like crazy.
Claire: I think I am average amount of cavity pre-disposition. So my dad played hockey when he was a kid and in college. He had a lot of teeth knocked out, so he had a lot of bridges and crowns and stuff put in. My dad is in his mid-late-70’s at this point. I just watched him my whole life go through these months and months long with tens of thousands of dollars of dental work. Even though his comes from a place of dental injuries, it does motivate me to not ever want to do that. That was a lot of information about teeth.
Joy: It’s important.
Claire: A lot of people asked for more marriage hacks. I don’t really have any marriage hacks right now. I don’t have a go-to right now.
Joy: I don’t have a go-to. I feel like Scott has been doing one on me, so I guess I can flip the tables. He does this thing where if I’m in the middle of something or I’m busy, he will come into the house – let’s say he’s doing yard work outside and he wants my opinion on something he is doing. He will come into the house. He’s kind of like the Kool-Aid man where he will just barge in and he’ll be like, “I need you. Come look at this.” There is nothing more frustrating to me than when I’m in the middle of something and somebody tries to yank you away and be like, “Hey, I need you for a second.” I want to be like, “I am in the middle of something. Can you give me five minutes?” So he does that all the time. It’s a pet peeve of mine. The irony is if I were to do that with him, he would be really flustered and annoyed. But when he does it to me, he’s like, “It’s just like 30 seconds.” He will literally come in and he goes, “Okay, can you help me out for just like 30 seconds?” He does it in this way of very gently trying to present it, not like, “Hey, I need you. Come over here.” He’s like, “I just need like 30 seconds of your time.” I look at him in a huff. And he stops and he goes, “How was my presentation?” I’m like, okay, fine. So then he turns it into a joke meaning he knows that I hate when he yanks me. And I will say that. I’ll say, “Don’t yank me around. I don’t like being yanked.” He now knows not to yank me around and say, “I just need 30 seconds of your time.”
Claire: And try to soften the blow by being like, “How did I do?”
Joy: Yes. Or some of the times he’ll be like… because it’s just very aggressive if I’m in the middle of something, it drives me crazy. I’m like, ugh. It’s really probably not a great characteristic on my part, but whatever.
Claire: You know, you like what you like. I don’t really have a go-to right now, and I can’t think of anything Brandon is really hacking me with either. I will say for transparency to make anybody else out there maybe feel a little bit less worried. The reason we talk about marriage hacks and the reason we sometimes sort of gripe about our husbands is to try and normalize the day-to-day griping that happens in marriages.
Joy: So normal.
Claire: Yeah, it’s so normal, and it’s not talked about a lot. I think you can really, particularly with your marriage, get in this place of, I’m the only one who nitpicks. That must mean that my marriage is doomed. It’s always really helpful for me. We always talk about this group text we have with Joy and Jess. I’ll text them and be like, “Does your husband do X, Y, and Z?” And they’re always like, “Oh yeah, all the time.” Okay, it’s not just my uniquely failing marriage. This is a human thing. In the spirit of that, I will say Brandon and I have been in couple’s therapy now for maybe four months. I feel like actually at first it really made things worse. Because it makes you sit down and really dig up all the stuff that you typically just sort of bury or gloss over. I’m hoping that we’re going to come out of a period where I feel like it’s making things worse pretty soon. I think there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Joy: Right. It has to get back before it gets better.
Claire: Right. You really have to sit there and be like, wow, this is a pattern, and this has been going on for a long time, and that sucks. Or oh wow, I tend to just push past those moments. But if I really sit in them, they’re painful.
Joy: Yeah, relationships are hard. I was talking to someone recently who was like, “I’m not in a relationship, and I really want to be in one.” I get that feeling. I’ve been in that feeling. I just always say, relationships are so much work. They are not a cake walk. Sometimes being single is real appealing to think about. But at the end of the day, working through tough stuff really does bring you closer. It is hard work, and it is constantly fed on social media, like perfect relationships and blah blah blah, look at how happy we are. And I never feed into that crap. Nope, it’s not real. It is not real. Or especially celebrities. Oh my gosh, the way they glamorize –
Claire: Like, “I fall more in love with you every day.”
Joy: Oh my gosh.
Claire: I don’t fall more in love with anyone every day.
Joy: There’s no way that happens.
Claire: Maybe my dog.
Joy: And especially right now. I was watching the Ellen interview with Kim Kardashian recently when she was talking about Pete Davidson… just, whatever. He’s got like four tattoos of her, and she’s like, “It’s really cute.” And I just want to be like, no, you’re just in the honeymoon phase. Of course it’s really cute. And she just had that new relationship glow. Which is great, but it doesn’t last forever.
Claire: It’s like Tom Hanks jumping on Oprah’s couch.
Joy: Tom Cruise, you mean?
Claire: Tom Cruise. Tom Hanks? I’m sorry Tom Hanks. I apologize for every confusing you.
Joy: Please do not ever speak ill of him again. But yeah, it’s exactly like that. That is meant to be like that for six months to maybe eight months, but then it dies off. It’s meant to die off because then you have to develop different intimacies. But everyone always looks at that piece of like, oh my gosh, if we get out of that, I’m doomed, our relationship is doomed. I’ve never done cocaine or anything, but the first time you do a stimulant or some type of drug that makes you feel super good, you’re never going to get to that point again. You’re just never going to reach that level. I don’t know how I just compared that to cocaine, but whatever. Next question.
Claire: Do you think about the order that you eat things in a meal? Like, do you take one bite of this, one bite of that? Or do you just go for it?
Joy: Absolutely not, absolutely not. I love to mix food.
Claire: Yeah, you are a chaotic eater.
Joy: Chaotic?
Claire: Yeah, there is no rhyme or reason. Because I do a little bit. I don’t plan out, but the closer I get to the end of a meal, the more strategic I’m getting because I don’t want to finish all of one thing and still have a bunch of something left. I kind of want to finish all of my items at the same time.
Joy: Yeah, I guess if flavors are supposed to be going together, I definitely want some sauce left for that chicken. But I don’t go in with a plan. I just want the food in my body.
Claire: I just want to eat it. Let’s see here. If you had to bake a bread sculpture on Great British Bake Off, what would you make? I love this question.
Joy: I feel like we answered this on the show.
Claire: On On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake!
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: I think we have talked about our signature cakes and pies. I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about bread.
Joy: A bread sculptures? All I can think about is that amazing, was it a lion that he made?
Claire: Yeah, it was a lion.
Joy: It was so amazing.
Claire: It was so good. There’s so many options.
Joy: I’m thinking more realistic. Because in terms of my skill level and realistic, we’re not going down a good place.
Claire: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. And I’ll parlay this into another question about my bear tattoo with a croissant. So you guys know I have this tattoo of a bear holding a croissant. I’ll post another picture about it in our Instagram stories the day this is released because we always think people miss it whenever I post it. It’s just a big bear holding a big croissant. It’s maybe six or seven inches, and it’s right on top of my thigh. But now that that little tattoo is there by himself, I feel like he needs more little friends holding food, so I’m going to get an otter, like a sea otter, that’s holding a bowl of soup. You know how otters hold things on their tummies. So I’m going to get an otter holding a bowl of soup.
Joy: So cute. That’s so cute.
Claire: But I think that would be my bread sculpture. It would be an otter holding a little mini bread boule.
Joy: Okay. That just gives me an idea of putting a sculpture of bread, like a big pool or something, to put soup in. Because I do love a bread bowl.
Claire: Who doesn’t love a bread bowl?
Joy: Oh man, it’s so good.
Claire: Wouldn’t this be so cute? You could do a bread swimming pool with a little diving board and then put little bread floats.
Joy: That’s so great.
Claire: I think I would win the signature challenge with that one.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Okay, if you could live in another country, which and why? We also got asked if you could live anywhere in the United States, where would you live and why? Domestic and abroad.
Joy: Well, I love France from when I lived there. I do love France. But I also love warmth, and I love Costa Rica. I feel like that would be such a good vibe because it’s warm and it’s chill and the people are so nice. So I’m going to go with what I know, places that I’ve been. I would choose the warmth first, so Costa Rica. And then anywhere to live, are you kidding me? Venice, Los Angeles, Malibu, any of the Pacific Coast Highway.
Claire: Hollywood adjacent.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: My half-brother’s mom – so a woman that my dad was married to before he was married to my mom. She’s been in my life my whole life because she is the mom of my half-brothers. She is moving to Costa Rica with her husband. They’ve been down there for a month over the winter, and they just decided to buy a house.
Joy: That’s so great. I have a couple friends who moved there for a stint in their lives. So beautiful.
Claire: It seems like such a chill place.
Joy: So chill. Remember that? They were always like “pura vida.”
Claire: Yeah, no worries. Like, just, here, have a coconut. I just want to live somewhere where you’re walking down the road and you’re like, huh, a sloth?
Joy: You know what I loved the most? I don’t know if you remember this. But when we were driving around, everyone honks at each other. Do you remember this? And I was like, why are they honking? They’re just saying hi. So honking in Costa Rica isn’t, “Get out of the way.” Honking in Costa Rica is like, “Hey, what’s up, what’s up?” So everyone honks, and it’s so great, and I love it. We need to be more like Costa Rica.
Claire: I think if I could live anywhere abroad, current global issues notwithstanding, I have always been really curious about living in Germany. It seems like a cool place to live. I would definitely move to Iceland. And also, I would definitely move to Ireland or Scotland, although all of those places that I mentioned – my fatal flaw is I don’t know if I could actually survive somewhere with less than 350 days of pure sunlight, which is pretty much nowhere in the world other than Colorado.
Joy: Yeah. Yeah. I feel very lucky.
Claire: I know. It’s the best. I don’t know. I will definitely say, as I’ve gotten older, I feel more drawn to the days that aren’t sunny, verses than just enduring them. So I think I’d be okay. And then anywhere in the United States, Encinitas is my number one goal to live in. I love Encinitas. It’s so cute. I love it. Or I could see myself in the Pacific Northwest. Although there’s so many wildfires up there these days.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Weirdest food combo that you love?
Joy: I don’t know if I have one. Is peanut and bananas weird?
Claire: No, not really.
Joy: I love peanut butter and bananas.
Claire: I do too. Let’s see, I have a lot. But I don’t see them as being weird, so I’m not really sure.
Joy: I used to love as a kid – this is the only one I can think of. I did not like jelly as a kid. I love jelly now, but for some reason as a kid, I was like, no peanut butter and jelly. So my mom would make me peanut butter and butter sandwiches, and that was delicious.
Claire: Wow, that does sound pretty good.
Joy: It’s so creamy.
Claire: So creamy.
Joy: So soothing.
Claire: And probably the Jiff peanut butter too.
Joy: Totally. So everything was just cream together, just peanut butter and butter.
Claire: Maybe I should start doing that for Miles. It sounds like a calorie bomb.
Joy: So great. Yes, yes.
Claire: Weirdest food combo that I love. I’m just thinking of all the tinned fish that I love. I feel like I’ve talked about things on the podcast and you’ve been like, “What?” And now I can’t think of any. I love adding sauerkraut to things. I love adding mustard to things. Oh, oh. This to me is so good, but everyone freaks out when I say it. Honey on avocado toast.
Joy: That’s a little weird.
Claire: It’s so good, you have to try it.
Joy: So honey on avocado toast?
Claire: So avocado toast, honey, and then flaky sea salt. It’s so good. And in reality, avocado doesn’t have that strong of a flavor.
Joy: Yeah, that’s true.
Claire: So when you add the honey on top, it just sort of gives the creaminess –
Joy: It’s kind of how they make a lot of puddings with avocado and cocoa powder.
Claire: Avocado takes sweetness really well. Highly recommend. If you are an avocado toast person, drizzle some honey on there, a little bit of sea salt. Chef’s kiss. Um, what do you consider to be the most perfect weather?
Joy: I think of Hawaii where you’re in that beautiful breeze and the weather is probably 85 degrees. So it’s hot but not too hot, and you have ocean breeze to cool you off just a little bit. Perfection.
Claire: That’s a good one. We don’t get a lot of rain here in Colorado, but my favorite is when it rains overnight, the next morning when the sun is out, the air is cold, and stuff is damp, but the air is really still and the sun is shining. You can just smell everything. That’s my favorite.
Joy: Yeah, I love it. And it’s kind of still. That’s beautiful.
Claire: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
Joy: Fly or be invisible. I feel like we’ve answered this one before. Yeah.
Claire: I would either want to speak every language or have the power to heal. Although I feel like that would be kind of intense.
Joy: Kind of intense, the power to heal.
Claire: Biggest pet peeve. So many. One pet peeve that makes me crazy that I’m dealing with a lot right now. We’re refinancing our house, and my lender ends all his emails with ellipses. So he’s like, “Let me know what you think…” It’s like, “I’ve attached these documents…” Just say it! It makes me crazy.
Joy: That reminds me of a pet peeve that used to happen at my old job where I had this person that would always message me. For example, “Are you here?!” Would do question mark, punctuation mark together. I’ve done that before. Like in text, yesterday I did it. I asked Jess, “How was Hamilton? Excited?” So I wanted to express “?!” Like I was excited in the text question. But it felt aggressive. “Are you here?!”
Claire: Yeah. As opposed to like, “How was Hamilton?”
Joy: Yeah. Question mark, exclamation mark. Any time you’re combining or doing multiple punctuation, such as two or three question marks, two or three exclamation points. Unless you’re doing it with people who know your humor and voice, stop it. Stop it. Can’t.
Claire: I agree.
Joy: Stop it.
Claire: I wish there was something between a period and an exclamation point, though. That was like, I want you to know this is more than the casual end of a statement, but also, I am [higher pitched, excited voice] not quite ready to elevate it to this level.
Joy: And they do that all the time with women in communication with emails where we have a hard time with the period versus the exclamation point. We’re trying to make sure we sound really happy.
Claire: I want you to know that I’m upbeat.
Joy: I think we got to let go of that.
Claire: I just go for the smiley face. If you could have lunch with any fictional character, who would it be? And where would you go?
Joy: Fictional character?
Claire: I mean, I think that could be a character on a TV show played by a real person.
Joy: Okay, alright. I’m immediately in the cast of Sex and the City. I am their best friend, and I am at one of the coffee shops that they all go to to eat. One thousand percent.
Claire: I love how you just immediately went into the role play. “I am their best friend.” I mean, my first instinct is someone from the Harry Potter universe. I feel like that’s got to be Liz Lemon and we go somewhere with some ham. [singing] Somebody get me some ham.
Joy: Liz Lemon is probably one of the best fictional characters ever.
Claire: Absolutely. If your hair could be any color, what would it be?
Joy: As I have pink hair right now.
Claire: Your hair is pink, yeah. Okay, I’m going to use this time to talk about my idea about wigs. So I have dark, auburn, almost brown at this point in my life hair. When I was a kid, it was little orphan Annie red, and it’s just gotten darker throughout my life, which is common. But I’ve always wanted to try out like platinum blonde hair. I know, however, that it will take me months and months and months and, realistically, thousands of dollars to get my hair to that point. And then, what do you do? Then you have to spend months and months and months and thousands of dollars going back the other direction.
Joy: It’s so much maintenance.
Claire: I don’t love my hair super short. That’s not a great option for me. So I feel like what I might do is buy myself a nice high quality super blonde wig and wear it whenever I want to be blonde. There are a lot of people who use wigs as an accessory, and I am trying to challenge my assumption that that’s not an option for me. I’m just trying to think of what I mean by this. I’ve had this thought recently of, why haven’t I felt like this is accessible to me as an option, that If I were to put on a wig and wear it to work that it would be weird. It’s not something that we see a lot. And I know that this is completely different for people other that white women. I think that wigs for Black women are used really as an accessory and used in a different way. But for white women, we think you have to have hair loss in order to have a wig. I have started to go, I don’t want to appropriate –
Joy: But also, you’re also thinking too – there is a lot of thought around if you’re wearing a wig, there is either hair loss or there is something health-wise going on with you. There’s other outside factors and opinions that come along with that. And because it’s just for a reason of you wanting to try out a different hair color, you’re trying to make sure that you’re not doing it for –
Claire: That I’m not trivializing something that is really profound for other people.
Joy: Trivializing is a good word, yeah.
Claire: But at the same time, I’m like – and if I want to go out, and also there’s a lot of cheap wigs out there. Even if I wanted to spend a thousand dollars on a high-quality wig, that would still probably be half as much as I would spend actually getting my hair to be blonde and actually maintaining that and bringing it back the other direction. So this is just something that I’m noodling on. If you are someone out there who accessorizes with a wildly different hair colored wig, I would love to hear from you. Because I feel like I can pull it off. Of all the people, I also feel like though, of all the people in my life, if I were to show up at work with blonde hair and everyone would be like, “Did you dye your hair?” And I was like, “No, it’s a wig,” I could say that more than a lot of people.
Joy: Go downtown to that Denver wig store. Try some on. You know what I mean? Maybe see how it feels too. But yeah, I’d love to hear from people, too, that have done that.
Claire: So the answer to me is surfer, platinum blonde.
Joy: Right. Because you don’t want to dye and it’s a lot of work.
Claire: It’s a lot of work to dye your hair that color. And I don’t know that I could get there. My hair doesn’t lift to blonde that easily. It lifts to yellow.
Joy: Oh then, yeah.
Claire: Right. Okay, favorite coffee order?
Joy: Simple. I do love a latte. I don’t really like anything fancier than that.
Claire: I like a latte, and I also like cortados.
Joy: You do love a cortado.
Claire: Okay, we’ll do a few more.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: What kind of topping did Claire put on her pumpkin pie? Whipped cream. Homemade whipped cream. Heavy whipping cream that I whipped myself. So good. That’s one of my main motivators in eating pumpkin pie is to eat just so much whipped cream. What would JT and River’s perfect days look like?
Joy: JT’s perfect day? Oh my gosh. We’ve had some really good days with him where we get up, we go for a walk. He likes to sniff things. It’s a sunny day, so he likes to roll in the grass.
Claire: He’s such a putzer. He’s just a putz.
Joy: He loves to roll in the grass when it’s sunny, so Scott and I will always joke, “Oh my gosh, JT, it’s prime rolling in the grass weather.” He loves to roll in the grass. I would say he also loves to play with friends, maybe have a doggy date with the neighbors or a neighborhood dog. Doggy date and give him a good bully stick because he loves bully sticks. Oh, and snuggling. And laying on the bed. So we don’t sleep with him in the bed, just because he is so big and we’d have no room to sleep. But in the mornings when we are just sitting in the bed reading or whatever, he gets to lay on the bed with us, so we get some bedtime. And he loves to cuddle at night, so then we would sit on the floor and cuddle with him at night.
Claire: Aw, JT.
Joy: He’s sitting right next to me right now snoring. I was laughing earlier because he was making his bed, and I love when he digs in his bed. Does River do that?
Claire: Not really. River is too much of a monster. River’s perfect day would be just unlimited amounts of destruction. She would love to take your house and just chew it into pieces. She is actually getting a lot better about it. She doesn’t seek out destruction quite as much anymore.
Joy: Didn’t she chew on your couch?
Claire: She ate the couch? She ripped the couch. She ate a cushion off the couch.
Joy: [laughing] I know it’s not funny.
Claire: We had to get a new couch. We had this couch where the cushions were sewed into the couch, like it was all one piece, because it was like a futon kind of thing where you could lower the back. It didn’t look like a futon. It looked like a couch, but it was all one piece. And she ripped one of the cushions. Thankfully it was a cheap ass couch anyway. I didn’t hate it. It was fine. But it was a cheap couch anyway. All that to say, she loves to destroy. A long walk. She loves playing with other dogs. She’s only one. She would get in it with some other dogs big time, and she would just play all day long. Like, when we send her to doggy day care, she just goes berserk the whole day.
Joy: You get to watch on cameras? I love that.
Claire: You know what, I don’t know if my doggy day care has a camera. I haven’t ever looked into it, which is shocking, I know.
Joy: I would like people to tell me what you’ve seen on your doggy day care cameras. It’s just the cutest thing, how much fun your dogs are having.
Claire: This gal Betsy that I work with, she has this hysterical brown dog. It’s about the size of a lab. It’s really scruffy, like it’s one of those dogs that looks like it has a beard.
Joy: I love that.
Claire: His name is Waylen, and he’s so dorky. He’s allergic to grass. He’s one of those types of dogs.
Joy: Oh, buddy.
Claire: Aw, Waylen. And she’s always looking at him at doggy day care. She’s like, “All the dogs are playing, and Waylen is in the corner.” Every time she’s like, “Come look at my dog be antisocial.”
Joy: I want to ask one more question from JK because he asked this last time and we forgot to answer it. Or maybe it was an Instagram question. But for The Amazing Race, us two versus the husbands, who wins and why?
Claire: Oh, no question, we obviously win.
Joy: I mean, JK, really?
Claire: Here’s the thing. Joy and I have this dynamic. We are very opposite in a lot of ways, but we really complement each other.
Joy: We are a well-oiled machine.
Claire: We are a well-oiled machine. Brandon and Scott, if I let them hear this, they will disagree with us, but they are opposite in ways that do not complement each other.
Joy: Right. Right. Right. They would just repel oil and water.
Claire: Scott would immediately get so annoyed with Brandon, and then Brandon would immediately think he was in trouble and start to feel bad. And then Scott would feel bad that Brandon felt bad.
Joy: Brandon would internalize it and shut down, and nothing would get done.
Claire: And nothing would get done. But then Brandon would want to play it cool and act like nothing is wrong, and then Scott would be confused.
Joy: Scott would want to start planning and fixing things, and it would just not go well.
Claire: No, not at all. The thing about both Scott and Brandon is they are both the types of people – I’m trying to choose my word every carefully right now. They are both the types of people who need a little bit of direction, lest they focus on the wrong part of the problem.
Joy: Right. Right.
Claire: So they are really good at solving problems and very helpful and motivated, but they both have a hard time prioritizing.
Joy: You know, like a Roomba?
Claire: It just bumps against the wall and turns like three degrees and bumps.
Joy: It’s so helpful, but it just starts going in one direction and then it hits a wall.
Claire: That’s a good analogy. We mean this in love.
Joy: So much love. They know this by now. I hope they do. For example, when we were doing our photo shoot last weekend, I was picking out a bunch of clothes. Claire and I do these little mini photo shoots you’ve seen us doing with all the reels. And Scott walked into the closet as I was putting a bunch of clothes together. We’ve been doing this often, so it’s not like I need to furiously grab very intentional outfits. I don’t have a lot of pressure on myself to pick the right thing, so I’m grabbing a bunch of things. I know it’s going to work, and I know we’re going to do this again. If we were doing a once-a-year photoshoot, I would have to be very intentional about these outfits. And Scott walks in and he’s like, “Is this a spring shoot? Do you need spring colors?” No. No, no, no. I just looked at him and said, “Do not get involved.” Because he wanted to help and he wanted to pick out outfits for me. And then he goes, “Okay, well if you’d like some direction or feedback, just let me know.” And I could tell his feelings were hurt. But I was in a hurry. If I was to stop and engage him and be a part of the process, it would be another 45 minutes. I’ve got to go in 5 minutes. I’m done, we’re good, I’ve picked it. He was like, “Okay.” I could tell he was a little sad about that. It’s funny.
Claire: Or like Brandon is the type of person who will – I mean, I see these TikToks or reels all the time about this. And this would be me and Brandon where I’m like, “Hey, we have guests coming over in an hour. Can you help me clean?” And Brandon goes out back to reorganize the shed.
Joy: Oh my gosh, that’s exactly what he does. [laughing]
Claire: I meant like, maybe unload the dishwasher. So that’s what I mean by you give them –
Joy: Roomba.
Claire: Yeah, uh huh. You’re not not doing what I asked you.
Joy: You just need to point the Roomba towards the kitchen. That’s really what I need.
Claire: So this is why Joy and I would win The Amazing Race.
Joy: There you go, JK. It was a long, windy answer.
Claire: Okay, we have way more questions. We barely got through half of them. And a lot of folks keep asking the same questions that we never get to.
Joy: We will ask. We will get to them.
Claire: In a future episode. Thank you, guys, so much for joining us. Don’t forget to support Ned, helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY. Get 21% off your order for the month of March in celebration of Ned’s birthday. Thank you for supporting the brands that support our podcast. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can go to our website at joyandclaire.com. You can email us, thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Thank you for being here, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Joy: Bye, guys.
Claire: Bye.
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