Funny Zoom blunders, Claire’s call for home decor design advice, Claire’s karate journey, and fun listener Q&A!
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Podcast
142: Dietitian Recommendations with Laura Ligos, RD
This week Laura Ligos is back to talk about diet trends that need to die, how to eat well when you’re busy, and how to identify what you *really* like to eat without feeling the diet culture voice.
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141: Surfboards and Laminated Lists
The great surfboard update, Miles starts first grade, puppy raising tips and listener Q&A!
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This is Joy & Claire Episode 141: Surfboards and Laminated Lists
Episode Date: August 25, 2022
Transcription Completed: December 3, 2022
Audio Length: 49:52 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: And we are Joy and Claire. In case you’re new here, maybe you don’t know our voices. I am Joy, and that is Claire.
Claire: Yes.
Joy: It always freaks me out when people mix us up.
Claire: I know. It is jarring though when you are like so you someone’s voice – that happens with NPR hosts all the time. And then you see them in real life and you’re like, huh, that’s not what I was expecting. And then sometimes you see them in real life, and they’re exactly like who you were expecting. Like Ira Glass, for example, who you’re like, yeah,
Joy: That tracks.
Claire: Yeah, that’s correct.
Joy: But I did that with the Ronna and Beverly show. This was a podcast, I listened to way back, probably 10-12 years ago when podcasts were really new. They had a show and there were these like two amazingly hilarious Jewish mothers, comedians, and they’re so funny. They’re so funny. If you ever have a chance, go back and listen to them, they’re worth it. But they have two very distinct voices. One is like very high in chipper and one’s like, really low and gravelly. Had them mixed up the whole time. So when I saw them on a video, it completely threw me off. I was like, no, this is so weird. Anyway, I am Joy. That is Claire. Thank you for hanging with us for another week of the podcast. This is the week of August 25th. And as of the release of this episode, you will be mere moments from your trip. Have you decided? The question of the week.
Claire: I know. I am going to rent a board.
Joy: All right.
Claire: It’s like $100 to rent one. They won’t tell you online exactly how much it’s going to cost to check your oversized bag, it says it could be up to $400. And because the surf bag is within inches of the limit. Although it’s not that heavy, the size is so big. Like I think it can go up to I want to say it’s 110 inches, which is like nine feet and change and my board bag is eight and a half feet.
Joy: It’s risky. It’s risky.
Claire: Yeah. Just everything, all the considerations. It’s 100 euro, which is, you know, since the Euros down, it’s 100 bucks to rent the board for the whole freaking week and have somebody else deal with transporting it. So now all I have to worry about is I don’t think I’m going to check a bag. Although my wetsuit is really thick.
Joy: I was going to say, isn’t that thick and heavy?
C It’s thick and heavy, and it would take up a half a carry on.
Joy: What’s the weather going to be like, while you’re there?
Claire: Yeah, great question. Do you do this? And I hope that other people who are listening to this where when you know that you have a trip coming up, you add that city to your weather app?
Joy: Oh, yeah.
Claire: So I had it added to my weather app for a couple of weeks. And it’s like mid 60s to low 70s and a mix of sun and rain.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: So it’s going to be cool and probably a little bit wet. It’s funny because in Colorado, which is the only place I’ve really ever lived other than Utah, which is even more dry than this, we don’t get rain. There’s no such thing as casual rain in Colorado. Maybe at most two days a year do we get what most people would consider just like a rainstorm. Not even a storm, just some rain. We do get storms – we get thunderstorms, but they’re very short lived. And you know, they’ll go they’ll blow through and maybe it’ll rain for 10,15,20 minutes, and then it’ll be done. That’s all you get for the day. But rarely do we get just like a rainy day. We just had one this week. And it was on Tuesday, and it like kind of rained on off all day. I’m not exaggerating when I say we maybe have one or two of those days a year.
Joy: A year. Yeah.
Claire: Where it’s cloudy all day. Or a mix of cloudy all day and raining, not raining, raining, not raining. Very uncommon. And so when it was doing that, I was like, oh, I’m going to get to Ireland and get to tell everyone like we just had our one rainy day a year where I live.
Joy: You’re like, I’m acclimated.
Claire: Exactly.
Joy: I’m ready for it.
Claire: And like nobody in Colorado owns a rain jacket. Or if you do you, only wear it once a year.
Joy: Totally. I remember when we would have afternoon rainstorms in Colorado, whatever like a handful of years ago when like we actually had afternoon rainstorms and now it doesn’t do it anymore, but we’d go to Red Rocks for concerts, and it was always so like touch and go with rain. So that’s the only time I’d really use like my raincoat.
Claire: Yeah, like no one owns umbrellas. There’s just no need. If it’s raining and you have to go somewhere you just wait in your car until the rain stops. I always talk about how I wish I lived in a cooler climate, but the reality is that I can’t move anywhere else because I can’t handle anything less than like 330 days a year of sun.
Joy: So someone did write you on –
Claire: Yes. Someone from Ireland –
Joy: Not Ireland, but LA. She’s like, I am an avid surfer. She’s an LA surfer.
Claire: Oh, I was thinking about the person that emailed us from Ireland.
Joy: No, we just got this email from someone that said, she travels a lot and has never checked her own board. There’s so many things that can go wrong. They could break it in transit, gets lost, whatever, whatever. So they just say rent it and call it a day. So there you go.
Claire: I agree. And that’s the recommendation I would give anyone about skis, and skis are way easier to travel with because there’s so much lighter and smaller. I’ve never flown with my skis. So I get it. And I completely agree. It was really more just like the sunk effort that I’d already put into it. And also the fact that I previously was told that renting a board – even the woman who I first talked to who had told me to reach out to this rental place, I had emailed them, and they never emailed me back. And it’s the same rental place we’re getting them from, but they’re like arranging it locally.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Anyway, whatever. A lot of people also messaged us and were like, you need to tell the surf company what happened. And like, yeah, I will continue to express my frustration with how that went down. But at the same time, they didn’t force me to buy a surfboard, I am renting one. I will be leaving on Saturday. I am very excited. And I am nervous, because I think I’m always nervous about trips like this. But I am especially nervous because – my Mexico trip I was nervous but it’s explicitly said this is a trip for all levels. You can be a brand-new beginner and come out. This trip is specifically like, we do not want brand new beginners. You have to be able to catch your own waves.
Joy: You actually email them you’re like, hey, is my skill level good enough for this trip?
Claire: Right. And they’re like, yeah, of course. And I’m like, are you sure? And so I really am feeling worried that I’m going to get there and they’re going to be like, oh, yeah, actually, maybe you should sit this one out. But if I get there and I can’t surf – and it probably would just be more like, if I’m uncomfortable. If there’s a swell or something, if I’m uncomfortable, I’m still going to be at the beach in Ireland.
Joy: Yeah, it’s going to be a win win, no matter what,
Claire: It’s going to be a win win. And it’s similar to my Mexico trip too where there’s like a lot of other activities. I don’t get what it is with surf retreats and sound baths. Like everyone I see, it’s like we’re going to do a sound bath.
Joy: It just goes hand in hand.
Claire: I mean, everyone here knows I am very onboard for any activity that basically just requires me to lay on the floor. So in that sense, very excited.
Joy: I’ll just prepare for a nap. I’m good.
Claire: There’s also a seaweed bath. Two types of baths. Sound bath and a seaweed bath where there’s basically there’s like a seaweed spa that you go to and they just wrap you up and seaweed. So that sounds nice. Looking forward to not being the palest person there or at least being like on par with the paleness.
Joy: Really, let’s be honest, this is like a dream trip for you.
Claire: It really is.
Joy: In all aspects.
Claire: It is. And that’s like why also I am pushing myself to take it even though I know that my skill level is like right at the bottom of where it should be. Because I’m like, when am I going to have a chance to do something like this again? I’m excited. I’m excited to tell you guys about it. And we have had some questions about we had sort of said we might do a surf trip for Joy and Claire. We’re still in the process of kind of feeling that out and seeing what might be able to happen. I think the biggest restriction that we would run into would be the trip size. When I went on that trip, it was only seven people. And so I think we’re going to need to figure out if that’s something that we, you know, between Joy and I, do we really only really want to do a trip we’re only like five or six additional people can come? And on one hand that does make it really manageable and really like – I mean intimate is not really the right word. But you get to spend a lot of time with each other. Like when we did our Costa Rica trip, I want to say it was 12 people and we did Iceland, I want to say it was like 14 or 15. I can’t quite imagine a trip based on an activity like surfing with that many people, but I could be wrong. So we’ll see. So TBD. We’re still we’re talking to the potential trip organizer still and seeing what our options would be. If it does happen. I imagine that we will be looking at like sometime April, May or June of 2023.
Joy: And on that same note, are we just going to make that like our 10-year anniversary party? Because what if people can’t go on like a trip trip?
Claire: I think we’re going to have to do both. We’ll have to do like something local also, at the Alamo again.
Joy: That was so fun. I would do that again in a heartbeat. That was so great.
Claire: I was at work and some colleagues they were talking about just going to the movies and how like, oh, it’s been so long since I’ve been in the movies. And the Alamo came up and was like, oh, I did this party once where we rented out the Alamo and I was like 39 weeks pregnant.
Joy: Such a good memory. I just remember the venue was perfect like the staff was perfect. Everybody got to have some food and watch Mean Girls. The Ned guys stopped by. That was the first time we met them. I was really shocked by how handsome they were. Not that I didn’t think they were. But in person, I was like, whoa, this is too much to handle for our party. I need a moment. No, they’re, they’re great. And so maybe Ned will also show up for our 10-year anniversary party. Because that was what our 300th episode My goodness.
Claire: Yeah.
Joy: Yeah. So we’re going to have to keep planning for that. And then maybe a surf trip with everybody too. We got to get back on that. I really miss our podcast trips. Truly some of the best memories ever.
Claire: Truly, I know. I actually got a text from Megan and Joelle last week. They went on a road trip and they were listening to the Iceland episode of the Camp TimeOut episode. Actually now that I’m saying that, I don’t think I ever texted her back.
Joy: [laughing] I hate when I do that, when I forget to text people. Do you ever do that? Or you write a text and you never send it? You’re like, oh, sorry.
Claire: Yeah, I do this with emails unfortunately too. A lot, where someone will write me an email like, hey, I have this question. And I’ll think to myself, oh, I need to ask someone else. Like, Oh, that reminds me, I have been needing to follow up on a similar question with someone else. And so then I’ll go follow up on that question from the other person and forget about the initial email. And then they’ll email me back like a week later and be like, hey, I’m just checking in on this. I’m like, crap, oh, well.
Joy: Just don’t write an email and say, “I’m just putting this at the top of your inbox,” because that’s a big pet peeve of mine.
Claire: Oh, I do that.
Joy: Okay. At work maybe. But we always get them for the podcast from sponsor people that want us to promote their stuff. They’re like, just throwing this at the top. I’m like, if you’re a spammy sponsor person, I don’t want you at the top of my email inbox.
Claire: I know. I get that a lot at work because I guess, maybe, I must be easy to find on LinkedIn or something. People always are emailing me. I get probably like 10 cold emails a day from salespeople. Like, first of all, why are you cold emailing me? Does that work? To be fair, I don’t have a work phone. They are always like replying, replying, replying. Like listen, if I didn’t get if I didn’t respond to your first four emails, what makes you think I’m going to respond now to this? Like, “Hey, how’s your engagement TikTok?” I’m like, guys, we don’t even have a TikTok account. Why are you emailing me? Did you even look at title look us up on TikTok first? It’s similar to when we get sponsors, and they’re like, “Hey, Joy” or they just write, “Hey guys.” Or “Hey, girls gone wild.” That’s my favorite. People constantly will be emailing us like, “Hey, girl gone wild.” If you think you’re emailing Girls Gone Wild, I am sorely disappointed to tell you that our email address is not girlsgonewild@gmail.com. Anyway, okay. So a couple weeks ago – so just to give you a little insight into our world, we are trying to pre-record a couple of episodes because I’m going to be gone. And then the following week is Labor Day. And I’m not getting back to like kind of halfway through the week. And so we’re pre-recording a couple episodes. We’re going to also have an episode come out with Laura Ligos, our favorite dietitian. So this episode, we are going to go back and answer a bunch of the questions that you guys asked on Instagram last week, just so that we don’t get too sick of talking to each other. And you don’t get too sick of us just like rambling about our lives. But first of all, I want to tell you guys that Miles’ first day of first grade was this week.
Joy: That’s so exciting.
Claire: And he is so funny already. He’s six and a half years old, and he wants nothing to do with me. We go to drop him off, Brandon and I both. Brandon got the morning off specifically so we could take him. And we got there and like, all the other kids are like taking pictures with their families. Some kids are crying. My child is running laps around the playground.
Joy: Just like at home.
Claire: Whose kid is this? And every once in a while, he’d kind of check in and be like, “Hey, is it time yet?” I’d be like, “No.” And he’d be like, “Okay,” and just go off and run another lap.
Joy: Oh my god. That’s amazing. I was really excited to start school to start first grade because I wanted homework. I felt like such – I know. I remember the first day of first grade coming home. We’re like playing with the kids in the front yard. My neighbor was like, “How was your first day?” And I was like, “I’ve got to go, I have to go do my homework.” And I felt like such an adult. I just remember saying that to her. I was like, “I have to go inside, and I have to do my homework.” Like, it was like the epitome of adult.
Claire: That clearly is like a core memory because you were six.
Joy: Totally. And no one could tell me that that happened because I was the only one there.
Claire: Maybe you just dreamed it. That’s so funny. Miles is definitely a fan of homework, which checks out. I think fewer and fewer teachers are giving a lot of homework these days, especially in elementary school. Like really is there a reason? Looking back on my adolescence, I don’t feel like I ever gained anything from homework. The only homework that I feel like you can really justify is having kids read something at home so you can come to school and talk about it the next day. A because everybody reads at very different paces. And it’s hard. I mean, it takes a long time to read. So expecting everyone to sit there for 30 minutes and then read and then talk about it would be hard to do if you only have like 40 minutes of class. But when I think about like math homework, or even research projects, I just don’t really feel like I ever got a whole lot out of doing it at home. But you know, who knows? Maybe I’m missing the point. I mean, I will say, it’s not like homework prepared me for my professional life because I do everything in my power to not work at home, or like outside of work hours. So you can be like, school is preparing you for the real world. Like, yeah, guess what? If you graduate from school and have it normalized that you have to go home and still do three more hours work? Like maybe that’s why we’re in the predicament that we are today, with people experiencing wild burnout.
Joy: Oh, that’s so funny. That’s so funny.
Claire: Yeah, But happy first day of first grade, Miles. And then he came home on the second day and he was like, “Mom, I don’t want to go to school. It’s so boring.” Like dude, it’s day two.
Joy: You got to lock it up, man. You got to lock it up.
Claire: A little bit of a better attitude here because I am not having this conversation with you for the next eight months.
Joy: Yeah, yeah, you’re like, let’s get going. Well, okay. Well, congratulations.
Claire: And then Evie starts preschool. I think already give us update. Evie starts preschool the week after Labor Day, and Maxine is going to go work for a new family, which is really sad. And also, it’s the right thing at the right time. But I really don’t know what we’re going to do without her. Keep us in your thoughts as we navigate our lives without as much childcare support as we’ve had. Okay, so we’re going to get to some questions. But first, let’s take a quick break, rave and sing the praises of our sponsor, Ned. Ned, the makers of our favorite CBD products, I love their Daily Blend. I use the 750-milligram concentration Daily Blend. And I also love their Mello Magnesium drink mix. I love the Meyer lemon. It’s really such a part of my nightly routine these days that I’m taking it with me in Ireland. That’s as much as I rely on it. I travel with it. Now that I’m thinking about it, I got to make sure that things are under three ounces.
Joy: Yeah, be careful. But I’m very excited to announce that they have a new product out. As of the release of this episode. It’s called the Brain Blend, and I got to try it out. And it’s like, one of those things again, you don’t know how you’re going to feel after you take something new. Like the second I took it that day, I already felt like, Oh, I feel like I’m really just locked into what I’m supposed to be doing. Like my focus felt really good. I’m not saying it’s going to work for everybody. But it was a little bit of a coincidence. And then day two, I was like, this is actually working. So the new Brain Blend is another one that I am a huge fan of. I feel like they can’t do anything wrong. I feel like every product of theirs is just top notch because they are.
Claire: Also I just saw that they were named on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies list. They are number 364. So that’s exciting for them. I think it also goes to show that there’s a lot of confidence in their products. And you know, you can look back and be like I remember Ned back in the day. I knew them when. Try out Ned. Try out the new Brain Blend. You can get 15% off your order with discount code JOY or go to helloned.com/JOY. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY. And also don’t forget that they have a 30-day money back guarantee on your first order. So if you’ve been waiting for the right product to try, try out the brain blend and let us know what you think. And if you didn’t love it, then you can return it for free and get your money back.
Joy: I’m pretty sure you’re going to love it.
Claire: Thank you guys for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Joy. You got some questions for us?
Joy: I do have some questions. Well, we had someone asked about the progress of the Joy and Claire surf trip, but we already addressed that. So that one’s done. Tips on reaching more people with a podcast? Yes.
Claire: Oh, this reminds me. Somebody sent us a DM and said their daughter wants to start a podcast and they want to know what to get started. I think I need to just make an Instagram highlight about this finally, because we’ve been getting this question for years. And I need to look into how things have changed. The number one thing that we try to promote to people or encourage people with is that starting a podcast is actually so easy. There’s very little that you actually need to have. Really all you need is a computer that can connect to the internet. That’s really it. Headphones are great. Not necessary. A microphone is great, but not necessary. You can use your Apple air…
Joy: Yeah, Apple, the plugin one. Anything that is like wireless is not great for podcasting, because you’re always going to have the shorting out thing. But the Apple earbuds that plug in are really great. If you’re a guest on a podcast, those are great. Please do not use the wireless ones.
Claire: And it’s so easy to get your feed published. So I’ll put up some Instagram stories about that for anybody who’s ever thought to themselves, man, I’d really like to try a podcast but there’s just so much work that needs to go into it. It’s just really not true. You know, based on the fact you can just demonstrate it by how Joy and I have been able to do this every week for the last almost, you know, 9.5 years.
Joy: Yeah, we don’t have a professional studio. We just have little home studio.
Claire: It’s just us. We don’t have a team.
Joy: We do not have an assistant. Tips on reaching more people, I would say that if you can, try to get on other people’s podcasts or get people on your podcast. The more that you kind of do that give and take, what you put out comes back to you. I think the people that you invite onto your podcast, as long as you have a genuine interest in what they’re doing. I think that really shows. So I would say that’s number one. And then there are some things that you can read about. Claire, you can probably talk about this more than I could but just like keywords that you put in your title. You can actually Google some things about like, what do I need to put in my podcast title that’s going to draw more people. So there’s little tricks that you can do like that. But I also think that it takes time and patience if you’re if you’re newer to just build up your audience. Staying consistent is really important. Podcasts are a dime a dozen and a lot of them fizzle out really quickly. So if you are going to do a weekly show, and you start doing it every three weeks, people are going to be like, “Yeah, well, this isn’t going to show up on my feed.” So people need to know what to expect. They need to know what they’re coming in for. If you’re just going to do a series or if you’re going to do a weekly podcast, just be very clear about what you’re going to be doing. Those will be my top tips. There’s a ton more but for the sake of time,
Claire: Definitely the number one thing to do is to go on other people’s podcasts who have a similar audience to you. And then also invite them onto your podcast and have that cross pollination. Sometimes you can even ask if you can repost the episode that you record with them on your feed and vice versa. And then you get two episodes in one bang, I would say in terms of specifically speaking to your title and your cover art, make sure that it really is something where you can look at it right away and first of all, read it. And second of all, that it’s not too niche that you can read it and kind of know what you’re getting without having to dig too much further. Like imagine that if you’re scrolling through an entire category on iTunes, what’s a title that would jump out to you. It can feel boring to name your podcast, something like “How to Trail Run for Beginners,” or “Women with Tattoos Talking About Coffee.” But if you get like too punny, then people aren’t going to understand it. You know, don’t be afraid to just name it like “Two Friends Talking About Birds.” Like it doesn’t need to be too crazy, or too cutesy. And I think the other big thing that you can do is from purely an organic search standpoint of people, you know, Googling like “women’s podcasts about birds,” is transcribe your episodes and put the transcriptions on your website. And what that does is it creates a ton of text for Google to search through on your site. So that if people are searching for certain terms, and those terms are coming up regularly in your episodes, then that makes it that much easier for Google to find your site. So that’s just like a little SEO tip.
Joy: Speaking of birds, someone messaged us and was like, “The birds aren’t real conspiracy. The guy was in on it.” And I forgot to mention that. I do know that.
Claire: I listened to that too.
Joy: Yeah, I listened to some – maybe it was The Daily or maybe it was the Rabbit Hole podcast, or whatever.
Claire: I think it was the Armchair Expert, wasn’t it?
Joy: Yes, that’s right. The Armchair Expert. There was an episode. He’s been on a few but he basically created it just to kind of make fun of all the conspiracy theories out there. So all right, next question is have either of you tried pickleball? If you haven’t heard, pickleball is the new CrossFit. Okay, so I, I had a couple of clients, oh gosh, 10 years ago that were really into pickleball. They were like senior years, and they loved pickleball, so I’ve known about it for a really long time, but apparently, it’s becoming like the coolest thing for young people to do.
Claire: It is.
Joy: And it’s really funny to see.
Claire: Like, Lululemon has a pickleball campaign.
Joy: It’s so funny that that’s becoming a thing. I mean, good for them. Great, but I mean –
Claire: It’s super fun.
Joy: I have never tried it.
Claire: I’m not like a ball sports person. I’m not a team sports person.
Joy: I don’t like balls flying at my nose.
Claire: I need to avoid situations where balls fly at my nose. But it is so hot right now. And it’s so funny because I actually just today, like in this like DM group, I guess, with a bunch of women from Longmont –
Joy: Your WhatsApp? Oh, a different one. Okay.
Claire: Yeah, a different one with a bunch of women in Longmont. And it’s a couple entrepreneurs in the area that I know added me to this group. And somebody just today was like, “Does anybody want to learn to play pickleball? I really want to learn but I need some friends to try it with.” And then a couple of people in my office, one in particular, is so obsessed with it. And any time we have any sort of team outing, she’s like, “Well, we play pickleball.” So I haven’t tried it. I am not a big ball sports person. I’ve heard it’s super, super fun. I know Brene Brown is really into it.
Joy: Oh yeah, she does that and swimming. I mean, I only know that because I listen to her podcast religiously. But yeah, I’d be open to trying it. I used to just go to do like a racquetball… what is it called back in the Rec Center when I was in college? I would just go to like the racquetball courts and just hit a ball back and forth. But that was more because I was like really obsessed with exercise and I needed more things to do. So I would just like literally go hit a racquetball. But that was just because I was like, oh, I’m already done with running for an hour and a half and then weightlifting for another hour and a half, what else can I do? So that was not a great time in my life.
Claire: It might have primed you to be great at pickleball.
Joy: I’m sure that’s the reason. Puppy raising. New puppy on its way. Crate train. Pee breaks at night. So excited. Oh, congratulations for if you’re getting a puppy that’s really fun, and also exhausting. Really quick. I’m happy to answer questions. If you email me to me too. Maybe I should do a highlight on this as well. Like the must haves for puppy raising. But really quick, maybe top five. Definitely crate train. Definitely, definitely, definitely crate train. I am a huge fan of the snuggle puppy, which is a little soft, stuffed animal toy. You can do any stuffed animals, but just make sure the dogs are not chewing it. Because that can really cause a very big vet bill. But usually puppies, their mouth is so small and their teeth aren’t really like – I mean, they’re razors but they can’t really shred up a toy yet. But they love stuffed animals because it feels like their pack. It feels like there’s another dog in the crate with them.
Claire: And the snuggle puppy has a little heartbeat.
Joy: Yeah, it has a heartbeat. It has a battery-operated little heartbeat thing that you can turn on. But again, I always caution. Just make sure the dog isn’t eating it. You don’t want them to eat the battery.
Claire: River ate it.
Joy: Yeah. So those are the things that I –
Claire: We’re not surprised.
Joy: Yeah. That we keep an eye on because so far the puppies I’ve raised have not tried that. But CCI is always like lecturing us, as they should be very careful if you use that. Like, you better be on it. Like very, very cautious. The other quick tip about crate training is if the puppy is really crying at night the first few nights, put the crate right next to your bed because they just need to know that they’re not alone. And it really helps them feel like, when they’re away from their pack for the first few nights, that’s just really upsetting to them. They’re little babies, and they just really miss their friends and their brothers and sisters. So you just put the crate right next to your bed and that really helps. And then I also play the puppy calm station when they’re babies just to kind of get them used to getting settled in their crate if they have issues with their crate. Taking them to pee every couple hours. Puppies have very small bladders. So in the middle of the night, we would just wake up when we kind of heard them rustling. And you have to physically pick them up to go outside. Because if you just open the crate, they’re going to pee everywhere. Carrying them to go outside, putting them in the grass or the yard or whatever and letting them pee gets them used to going like knowing where they’re supposed to go to the bathroom. But yeah, toilet training is just patience because you have to get them use do you. I always err on the side of like taking them out as much as possible. Because you just want to catch them going to the bathroom. You want to kind of predict when they’re going to go to the bathroom and take them out before they go in your house. But accidents do happen. I mean, Joe, pooped and peed in our house a few times because he was like, “Yeah, this is where I go.”
Claire: Yeah, when we first got River, the first like four or five nights, we set a timer to go off every three hours to let her out. And I had like a little bit of a painful flashback about doing that to breastfeed. Because it’s pretty much the exact same thing. You’re supposed to do it for the first like couple days after you have a baby where it’s like, you know, set a timer and make sure you’re offering to feed them every couple hours. But it did really set us up for success in the long run, because it also helped us get used to knowing how long is too long. Or if you can get out in front of it, then you get a better sense sooner of like, how much can you really push it.
Joy: Right. And crate training really does help with potty training. It teaches them how to go outside more quicker. The other thing I’ll say about crate training is that for puppies, if you’re if you have a large crate, something that’s like way bigger, they should just be able to kind of turn around and lay down. It shouldn’t be very, very large when they’re little babies. That will prevent them from going to the bathroom in the crate because they don’t really like to pee and poop where they sleep. So naturally they’re going to whine and cry to be let out if you have a smaller crate. So what we have is we have this adjustable crate where we can put like a barrier to where when they’re little babies, it just kind of makes the crate super small. And then we take the barrier out and it’s a bigger, larger crate when they’re older. So those are that’s nice to have. It’s like an adjustable crate where you can adjust it as they grow and then they’re less likely to go poop or pee in the crate because of that, because it’s too small for them. And then they’ll whine and cry and let you know when they need to be let out. out. We do love this toy called the bacon keys. If you just Google “bacon keys,” that’s really good for puppies because it’s soft enough on their teeth. You really want to be careful with toys on little babies because you don’t want their teeth breaking. If you give them something too hard, it can break their baby teeth. And you might think, Oh, well, it’s their baby teeth. No, it can cause like major damage to their adult teeth too if they break their baby teeth. So everything has to be pretty soft. Don’t give them anything really hard. Just be careful on anything that they could ingest. Take everything off the floor. They will eat everything. And I mean everything. So the other thing that we do when we’re training puppies is we give them really, really soft training treats, so you never give them kibble. Most of the time we train the dogs with just some kibble out of their breakfast or dinner, but puppies can choke very easily. So you want to use very soft treats and maybe soak their kibble in water. Okay, those are like the top tips, but always happy to answer more if you want to email us. Next one, you’re going to laugh. Who is on your current laminated list? Five people. This is my friend Gary. I knew he was going to ask this. This is a total Gary question. Hi Gary.
Claire: What’s a laminated list?
Joy: Like people that you could hook up with, like free passes.
Claire: Oh, that’s not what I thought that meant. Like, who’s like your hall pass?
Joy: Yeah, like Ross and Rachel. Wasn’t it on Friends when they had like their laminated lists?
Claire: I am not a Friends person.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: I mean, I like watched it, but I don’t know it that well.
Joy: So they had laminated lists.
Claire: That’s a lot.
Joy: That is a lot. Right now. I have four or maybe three. Just like off the top of my head. But it’s really hard to think of… Like my first one, because we talked about Paul Rudd last week, I was like Paul Rudd for sure would be up there.
Claire: We were just talking about Chris Pine a couple weeks ago, and he’s definitely on my list.
Joy: Yeah, I think possibly Jon Hamm. I’m a huge Jon Hamm fan.
Claire: I mostly love him in that season of 30 Rock.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: He’s like so hot and dumb.
Joy: Rob Lowe. I just want to go with like the hot dumb characters.
Claire: Hot dumb guys.
Joy: Yeah. When he’s Chris Traeger. Oh my God.
Claire: My friend Heather always calls River a hot dummy.
Joy: Yeah, hot dummy.
Claire: She is a hot dummy. Let’s see who else…
Joy: Ethan Hawke would be one of mine. I’m Googling actors, which is so funny because I’m like, why am I not looking –
Claire: You’re just Googling actors?
Joy: Yeah, I’m Googling actors around 40 because I don’t want it to get like weird.
Claire: I mean, Ryan Gosling is definitely on my list. Yeah, he’s been on there for a long time.
Joy: Yeah. Did you have like crushes when you’re a kid for movie stars?
Claire: Oh, yeah. And you know, that actually brings up a great point. Leonardo di Caprio. Definitely.
Joy: Leo.
Claire: Leo. Leo and Justin Timberlake were my first celebrity crushes. To this day, if JT walked up behind me right now. I’d be like, “This call is over.”
Joy: The podcast is over forever and ever.
Claire: We’re sorry guys.
Joy: I think one of my first crushes movie star crushes was Elliot from ET.
Claire: [laughing] He was like this sickly weird little boy.
Joy: Yeah, but I was the same age as him. And then the other thing was the boy on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The boyfriend.
Claire: Oh, what about the boy from Hocus Pocus?
Joy: I don’t remember him.
Claire: Old timey. What was his name? He was like supposed to be a ghost. So many people are yelling the name.
Joy: Oh, Max Dennison.
Claire: Am I thinking of Max?
Joy: Oh, oh, okay. Max Dennison was the character name. And then his name is Omri Katz.
Claire: No, no, I’m thinking of Thackery Binx.
Joy: He’s cute.
Claire: Really cute, right?
Joy: Yes. Yes. Yeah, but the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids guy was like dreamy. Because I was the same age as them when I was watching the movie. And so I just remember being like [gasp] when she was in the kitchen dancing and he was watching her. I was like, oh my God. This is like the best. It was so teen angsty.
Claire: Like what you want it to be.
Joy: Yeah, it was not too angsty. But just like teen heartthrob II. That’s like how it felt watching it.
Claire: Sexual awakening.
Joy: Totally sexual awakening. It was like, what was it, the Goblin King. Oh, I just dropped my glasses.
Claire: Joy is getting hot and bothered.
Joy: Whoever wrote and said the Goblin King was her sexual awakening makes me laugh. From the Labyrinth. Oh my god. You guys kill me. You guys are so funny. Okay, so I don’t know. I think those are my main ones. If I didn’t say Ethan Hawke, we’ll add him to the list.
Claire: You did.
Joy: I feel like there’s some athletes in there that I really am just not doing a good job.
Claire: Oh sure, yeah.
Joy: I’m not doing a good job. So maybe we’ll give it some thought.
Claire: Okay, we’ll come back.
Joy: That was just a rough draft. That was shitty first draft, as Brene would say. Joy, do you need to follow any food or lifestyle guidelines to keep your thyroid healthy? Thank you for asking. For those of you who may or may not know, I had Graves’ disease a couple years ago. I saw naturopath and we were able to kind of put that baby to bed. We put it in remission. As far as lifestyle, yes, I am keeping my exercise moderate. I’m not doing heavy, like high intensity CrossFit type stuff anymore. So I’m keeping my exercise to be like mild to moderate exercise. I get plenty of rest. I do follow the diet that she had me on which is eliminating some dairy and some other things. I still will eat dairy on occasion. Like the other day I went to Postino with my friends, and they have these fabulous cheese boards. I’m like, I’m going to have some cheese. But the reason I feel okay doing that is because overall my life is a completely different place. Like when I had Graves’ disease, I 1,000% know it was from the most intense toxic workplace ever. I know that’s what it was from. So all these other things we had to kind of put on like the high blast full speed treatment to get it to reverse. So now that I’m not as stressed, I know that that is a huge benefit to me, but I still don’t want to just kind of like do undo everything that I worked so hard to kind of balance out. And I do get my thyroid checked every six months, maybe three to six months, just to make sure the levels are fine. They’re still fine. I just had it rechecked. So as far as food or lifestyle, yeah, I do my best to keep going on what my naturopathic doctor taught me to do. And I’m super forever grateful for that. Do either of you use laundry or dishwasher detergent that is more earth friendly? I love Mrs. Meyers everything.
Claire: The biggest thing that I do to try to be earth friendly is buy refills and that’s something that you can do with a wide variety of brands. A lot of them will sell bulk options. It made me think about it when you said Mrs. Meyers. We have a few like huge gallon jugs of Mrs. Meyers hand soap that we just use to refill hands so containers in our house and that is something that is overlooked as a really accessible option. You don’t need to have biodegradable everything. You don’t have to necessarily use the like the tablets. There’s a lot of different ways of doing that out there. But that is one that is really accessible to a lot of people. If you have a bulk market in your town. Cleaning supplies are often one of the number one things that they sell because they’re super shelf stable. So look around. Longmont has one. Denver has a few. And see what types of bulk options are available for you to buy refills. And then also as a fun part of that you get to buy like cute ceramic or glass hand soap dispensers to you know make your house really cute.
Joy: Which I really appreciate. I feel like I notice that when people have cute soap dispensers at their house. Like this is really great.
Claire: Totally. However I will also say that kind of the number one tenant of going lower waste is like don’t throw out all your plastic and replace it with glass and whatever right off the bat. Use your plastic ones reuse them for as long as you can. And then once they get to the point where – you know there does come a time. They’re not designed to be reused and so you probably can only reuse them a handful of times. But don’t just like go trash all your plastic stuff. Also I will say I don’t always buy this but at like Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, I think you can definitely get them online. They have these dissolvable laundry detergent strips. They are often sold in biodegradable packaging. It’s basically a condensed version of laundry soap because you know a lot of what you’re doing with laundry soap is just water with laundry detergent but you’re pouring it into a vat full of water. So either use of powder which comes in a cardboard box that you can recycle the tide powder is great for that if you’re if you’re sensitive, right but if you’re a little bit a little bit more sensitive skin, or you know you’re sensitive to fragrances or whatever, there are some dissolvable laundry –
Joy: Like free of everything. Oh yeah.
Claire: They’re like these sheets. It’s almost like, imagine like a giant – gosh, what were those things called? Those breath mints strips?
Joy: Yeah. Like Listerine strips.
Claire: You guys remember the Lysol strips?
Joy: Listerine.
Claire: Listerine, Listerine. Not Lysol. Please don’t drink Lysol. Don’t put Lysol in your mouth. Listerine.
Joy: Trump is talking to you.
Claire: The QAnon van is outside. It’s basically an enormous version of that except it was made out of laundry detergent and you can put it in. I actually found them to be really effective and our laundry, I mean, we go through a lot of laundry. Our laundry loads are humongous, and our laundry is really stinky. Kids’ clothes get dirty in a way that adult clothes do not. They actually get spills and just dirt, like actual just dirt. I just look at the clothes and I’m like, what have you been doing? Were you rolling around in the ground all day long? And the answer is yes, yes, they were. So those are some good options.
Joy: Fantastic. All right. I love cleaning products and it’s like the time of year when like pretty soon the fall scents are coming out.
Claire: I know, your Trader Joe’s trip is coming up.
Joy: I’ve got to prepare. I’ve got to train for it.
Claire: You’ve got to make a reel about it. I hope you’re ready to make some content.
Joy: [singing] I’m ready to make you some content. Bo Burnham, anyone? Okay. Next vacations for each of you? Well, we know we’re Claire’s going. I don’t have vacation planned yet. But that’s not because – I was talking to you about this. We were talking about this last week about like, I don’t feel the need to take a lot of vacation right now. Because, A, puppy raising sometimes it’s just hard logistics. But I don’t feel like we need a vacation right now. Like we’re going to, we’re going to eventually go back to Hawaii, I’m sure. But we have nothing planned as of yet.
Claire: Yeah, I was going to ask if you’re going to Hawaii. This feels like this time of year you normally go you haven’t been able to go the last couple years.
Joy: We’ll probably go next year maybe. I don’t know. I think COVID just really kind of –
Claire: It’s hard with the dogs.
Joy: Yeah, it’s hard with the dogs and COVID just kind of like slowed everything down for us. And we just are like, We’re fine. We’re fine, guys. We’ll figure it out. Has there been anything positive that was a result from diet culture? Your face says it all. The fact that we paused for a long time –
Claire: I’m really trying to think about it. I mean, I don’t…
Joy: Well, here’s the thing. The positive thing from diet culture has brought all the bullshit to the surface. So sure, everything used to be kind of like, you know, we had – if you want to go listen to Maintenance Phase, they go through all the diets. It’s an amazing podcast if you want to go through the history of diets. But if you think about the 80s where everything was low fat, low calorie, fat free this, fat free that.
Claire: Right.
Joy: And so people started really following diets, I would say a little bit blindly, because I’m not sure what was really prevalent in the 60s and 70s. But I feel like at least on my radar, just because of the age that I was that I saw it on television. And then like 90s 2000s, I feel like the internet really brought to the surface that diet culture is BS. So sure, I think diet culture ran its course and now we can push against it. I know that’s a little bit of a non-answer. But that’s what I think
Claire: it’s hard to imagine reverse engineering diet culture out of our society. And so it’s hard to say like, oh, well, without diet culture, we wouldn’t have body positivity. I can’t say that for sure. Because the reality is that as long as there have been human societies, or at least that we know of, there have been preferences for different physical attributes.
Joy: Correct.
Claire: That really aren’t grounded in anything other than just the trends of the time. So it’s hard to say like, oh, well, if diet culture wasn’t around, then you know, there would be no fatphobia. We can’t necessarily say that to be true. Because who knows what would have taken the place, or who knows what other culture –
Joy: I mean, we can go down a long history of people, racism, classism.
Claire: Absolutely.
Joy: We could go down the long history.
Claire: That’s what I mean. You know, we definitely blame culture for a lot. But at the same time, diet culture was a symptom of a larger problem as well. It wasn’t necessarily the cause of all of this. And so it’s hard for me to say if diet culture was useless and we didn’t get anything out of it. Because I think in some ways it’s not bad to put a microscope over these different metabolic functions of the human body and learn what we’ve learned because of diet culture. I think the way that that information has been used has kind of like been used against us in a lot of ways. But that might be something I would say what’s positive about it is that we have a lot more information about the way that fat and carbs and protein and everything impacts our bodies that we probably wouldn’t have had without it. But I’ll have to think about that once more.
Joy: Yeah. Maybe we’ll talk about that with Sassy. That’d be a good Sassy question. PMD microdermabrasion review? So I got that tool that everyone thought was a vibrator.
Claire: Not a vibrator.
Joy: Not a vibrator. It is amazing. So it has this little – it’s the thing that sucks the dirt off your face, like when you go get a facial, Claire, and they use that little vacuum. It’s kind of like that. I will say there’s a learning curve like any tool of how to use it. So you do have to kind of like start chill, and then you can ramp it up. Because it has like levels of suckage. Feels really weird saying that. It feels great.
Claire: Still not talking about a vibrator
Joy: Definitely not, and it is great. I’m kind of obsessed with products on my face right now. So I’m using the Ordinary line, which you can get at the Ulta in Target. Which is another just dream the Ulta in Target, the Starbucks in Target. Like what else is target going to come up with? The Ordinary is a great brand for serums. I love their undereye. Caffeine produces puffy eyes. Anyway PMD. I will say I wouldn’t buy it full price. The fact that I got it like the Nordstrom sale $100 cheaper than the retail price. I would not pay $300 for it. $200? Sure, that’s like two facials worth.
Claire: Right.
Joy: But I’m going to have it for a while. I’ll get a lot of use out of it. But I wouldn’t pay $300 for it. So wait till it goes on sale again.
Claire: Black Friday or something
Joy: Exactly. Which is right around the corner.
Claire: You know I hate that phrase.
Joy: I know you do. What are Joy’s recommendations for high quality T shirts again? That is James Perse. Forever and ever favorite brand of clothing. But listen, guys and gals and people, do not buy it full price. You know my rule with anything, don’t buy it full price. You can get it on sale always a Nordstrom Rack. So I always just go the Nordstrom Rack website. And I searched James Perse. And I sort by newest. And I look through the things that have just arrived and I buy it in my size. They do have weird sizing. Their sizing is 1,2,3,4. So just look at their measurements. For reference, I’m a size three in their shirts. Large shoulders, and I like things a little bit baggier in their style. They last. I probably have shirts of theirs of that line that have been 10 plus years. They don’t fade, they don’t break apart. They last forever and ever. I wash my clothes all the time. They stand the test of time, except for white. White gets little pit stains, but you can get those out with bleach.
Claire: Yeah, that’s not their fault.
Joy: It really isn’t. All right.
Claire: Your dirty body is not their fault.
Claire: Just to weigh in on this. I really liked the Everlane boxy cut T shirts. If you’re a little bit more petite, they are a little bit cropped, but if you are a little petite then it’s kind of just like hits you right at the top of your hips, which is really a nice flattering cut with the high waisted jeans. Which also if you’re petite maybe you’re running into the problem that I’m having where like all the jeans have a 12-inch rise. And that is like to my diaphragm. I have multiple pairs of jeans right now that come up to above my ribcage.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: I was wearing a pair the other day and I like tried to take a picture. I was going to do reel. And I stood in from of the camera, and I was like, I look like half pants right now. My body is just half pants.
Joy: Just eating up half your body.
Claire: Did not make the reel. Because all I can see is this like 12-inch fly.
Joy: Oh, that’s so funny. Okay.
Claire: But Everlane.
Joy: Everlane. That’s good. I have one of their shirts too. Ideal birthday day? Do you have an ideal birthday day? You’d get up and go on a hike probably,
Claire: Um, ideal birthday day. Okay, so here’s my here’s my question. My follow up question. My birthday is at the end of November. And so my ideal day can’t really take place at the end of November. Because it’s normally like –
Joy: Well, would you fly somewhere? Where would you go?
Claire: Maybe, yeah. I mean, if we’re talking ideal ideal, I’d probably like get up go get on a private jet.
Joy: I was going to say I’m going to get on a private jet and go somewhere.
Claire: Yeah. And maybe I would at the strike of midnight, I got on our private jet, and I’d go either somewhere with like some really nice mountains or somewhere with the beach. I’m not picky. Either or. I’d eat some really good baked goods. Maybe I go to France and pick up a croissant. And then I would just like relax and hang out. And while I was gone, I would have someone like sanitize my house and clean all the things and do all the house projects that need to get done so that when I could come home, my house would be exactly the way I wanted it. Yeah, that sounds nice.
Joy: That sounds amazing. I would take a private jet to Los Angeles. And I’d drink juices all day and I’d shop you.
Claire: You would just sit in Erewhon.
Joy: I would sit in Erewhon and I would try every product. Every product is so –
Claire: Joy would just rent out Erewhon for yourself and any celebrities that want to come.
Joy: Any celebrities, you’re welcome to join. I would shop. I would go to all the stores in Hollywood and all the stores that Cupcakes and Cashmere goes to because they look adorable.
Claire: You basically like live your dream Southern California influencer birthday life. I like that.
Joy: I’d go to Mozza. You want to come with me? Come on over.
Claire: I will come back for that. I’ll come back from my birthday croissants to have some Nancy Silverton.
Joy: Alright. That’s lovely, lovely, lovely.
Claire: Alright, that really is it for today.
Joy: That’s it for today.
Claire: You can find us on Instagram at @joyandclaire_. You can find us online at joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY today for 15% off your order. Try out their new Brain Blend. You’re going to love it. And we will talk to you next week.
Joy: See you later.
Claire: Bye.
Joy: Bye.
140: Conspiracy Theories
Popular conspiracy theories, Claire’s surfboard conundrum, update on Claire’s job and new house, and wonderful workplace appreciation.
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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
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This is Joy & Claire Episode 140: Conspiracy Theories
Episode Date: August 18, 2022
Transcription Completed: November 1, 2022
Audio Length: 48:17 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: Hi.
Claire: Hey!
Joy: How you doing?
Claire: Hey girl, hey.
Joy: Hey girl, hey. Now I can’t get that song out of my head something. “Something so strong” from Crowded House. You probably don’t know Crowded House Yeah, we were just talking –
Claire: I don’t know if any idea what you’re talking right now.
Joy: Well we just did another podcast episode, which we’ll share when it comes out because I don’t think it’ll be out for another month when we’re releasing this episode, but we were talking a lot about music and bands and I was talking about when I got hit in the face with a drumstick by –
Claire: When you got punched in the face by Regina George.
Joy: Yeah, Liam Finn, who’s Neil Finn’s son. Neil Finn was in Crowded House. And then I have a Crowded House song in my head. So there you go. Full circle. You’re up to speed.
Claire: Welcome.
Joy: Awesome.
Claire: Welcome. Okay, two things.
Joy: What?
Claire: First thing, dear listeners, I need to tell you that I almost had a rage stroke this morning. Not even a rage stroke. Well, hear what happened and then decide. So everyone knows my surfboard conundrum right now. I have ordered not one but two surfboards.
Joy: Do they know? Oh, wait. Okay.
Claire: I own two surfboards, one of which is like this beautiful custom hand shaped board. The other one of which is like a foamy basically. And I’ve been kind of trying to say like, because the surf trip I had coming up in Ireland, the website was like, you got to bring your own board, you got to bring your own wetsuit, you got to bring your own stuff.
Joy: It’s like right around the corner too.
Claire: It’s in two weeks. Yeah, you’re on your own. So I purchased a surfboard for this. I looked into like renting boards in Ireland There’s not a lot of options. I looked at everything I could think of to not have to fly with a board. I had reached out and I was like and was pretty much told like, “Nope, you got to bring a board. Here the rental options, but they’re few and far between. Would really be easier if you brought your own.” So I purchased a board. I purchased an eight-and-a-half-foot board bag, which is literally the length of this entire room. Like I can’t even stand it up straight because my ceilings are eight and a half feet tall. And this morning we’re in this like – they made this WhatsApp group for everyone. And this morning. I get this message and the WhatsApp group from the organizers. It’s like, “If anyone needs to rent a board let us know.”
Joy: No. No. [laughing] Oh my God. Oh no. You have been stressing about this for months. Months. Like, it is probably the top thing that you stressed about.
Claire: When I tell you I was speechless at this message.
Joy: Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Claire: You guys, hundreds upon hundreds of dollars have already been spent.
Joy: So much time and money.
Claire: The board bag itself was $400. Just the bag.
Joy: Oh my god. Oh my god. So when you originally asked, they were like, “No, you’re on your own.”
Claire: Yes. And then a different person – so the person I asked was like the coordinator of this entire, is like the owner of the local surf company that this has been contracted through. But then the person who this morning sent that message is like the coordinator for the retreat and is a little bit like closer to the organizer.
Joy: Sure.
Claire: So I think the person originally asked who was like the person we were supposed to sign up with, she was the contact. It wasn’t like I reached out to the wrong person. The information she was given was like, no, you have to bring your own board. It says on the website bring your own board. So now, here’s my conundrum. After what, I’ve been signed up for this for like what a month or two? After daily stress about how I’m going to get to Dublin. Not even get to Dublin. From Dublin to Sligo, which is like a three-hour drive, with an eight-foot board. After figuring all this out, after buying all the things. I had to buy fins. I had to buy a wax I had to buy leashes. I am fully equipped now living in Colorado with these surf boards where I will never have a reason to use them, where like I will never be able to use these without putting them on an airplane.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Do I just leave them here to be wall decor?
Joy: You can’t return them at this point?
Claire: No.
Joy: Is anything returnable?
Claire: I think the board bag maybe could be returnable. But the boxes are long gone, and these things are very hard to ship. Like, the act of returning it.
Joy: Sure.
Claire: I mean, who knows, maybe the board bag because I got it from backcountry.com and they’re pretty good about returns. But nonetheless. I might as well keep the board bag because I have to keep the boards. I live 1000 miles away from the nearest ocean.
Joy: Anyone want to buy a surfboard?
Claire: if you want to buy a surfboard, I have eight-and-a-half-foot board. It’s a hybrid soft top. So it’s not like a full on foamy, like you still like need to use wax with it, but it’s soft on the top. And then another one that’s like a full-on fiberglass board. Don’t ask me how I ended up with two. It’s a story that I’m not willing to recount
Joy: Okay.
Claire: I mean, it’s nothing like dramatic.
Joy: But you just don’t want to talk about it.
Claire: I just don’t want to talk about it.
Joy: You’re over it. Yeah. So now you –
Claire: Speechless. So now, do I? I mean, it’s not a no cost game to get these. It’s probably going to be a couple hundred bucks to check these bags.
Joy: Sure. Yeah.
Claire: And then once I’m there, transporting them, I have figured it out and have just been charging forward with blind optimism in my own ability to carry a nine-foot board bag. It has wheels.
Joy: Yeah, but still pretty big for a small human.
Joy: Yeah, not a big human over here. Nope. I am not. So do I just reach out and am like, “Hey, actually, yeah, I do want around a board.” Or do I stick to my guns and say like, no, I’ve come this far. I’m taking these GD boards to Ireland come hell or high water.
Joy: I mean, my first reaction is like, there’s no way I would want to travel with something like that.
Claire: No way.
Joy: Convenience over, you know. I would just –
Claire: What do I do with these freaking surfboards?
Joy: I’m sure there’s a place to sell them. People take the weirdest stuff in Colorado. You never know. Someone could be moving to California.
Claire: That’s true.
Joy: You never know.
Claire: If you’re listening to this and you’re like, I have been really wanting an eight-and-a-half-foot hybrid soft top fiberglass board. Or if you want my eight and a half foot custom fiberglass board that is this beautiful mint color, please email me.
Joy: You really never know.
Claire: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com I have fins and wax and leashes, everything you need.
Joy: Fully outfitted and ready to go if you would like to go on your own surfing adventure and you need some gear.
Claire: And you need some gear. I’ll give it to you cheap. Yeah, just man. I’m speechless.
Joy: You’ve just put so much time and energy into the logistics of getting the surfboard there. And then you just get, I mean, this is like something I would love to know yesterday.
Claire: Exactly. Something else that could have been brought to my attention yesterday. Exactly. So again, I might just do it anyway. I have come this far.
Joy: Sure.
Claire: I will spend $400 to check these damn bags.
Joy: How much does it cost to rent, then?
Claire: I don’t know.
Joy: I would figure that out first.
Claire: It’s going to be cheaper to rent.
Joy: Yeah, then I would just rent it and not check the bags. Yeah.
Claire: Welcome to my Sunday morning.
Joy: Wowsies.
Claire: I know. It’s been an emotional roller coaster. Also, I have a question. And this question could go either way. Let’s take this in as lighthearted of a way as I could mean it, and you’ll see what I mean in a second. I was thinking about this the other day, I was driving down the road, and I was thinking about flat earthers, and it’s got me thinking.
Joy: Oh, don’t even call them flat. earthers. It’s like there’s othering – I’m kidding.
Claire: Yeah. Exactly.
Joy: Yeah, I just remember someone got mad because we were like, anti-vaxxers. And they’re like, “As if it’s just the others.” And I’m like, you kind of are.
Claire: I mean, I don’t know what to tell you.
Joy: You kind of are. I’m calling myself a vaxer.
Claire: Right. I’m a pro-vaxer.
Joy: I’m a pro-vaxer. Calm down, everybody, calm down.
Claire: It’s alright. I have anti-vaxxer friends, so I can say that.
Joy: Actually, let me let me stop you really quick before you move forward. Because I was talking with one of my good friends last night over text and she was saying like, “Oh, my husband doesn’t like this guy because he doesn’t call him a friend even though they’ve hung out a few times. He doesn’t call him a friend because he thought the election was stolen.” And she thought that was silly. And I go, “To be fair, I don’t think I’d be like – she’s like, “That’s kind of silly, isn’t it?” I was like, not really, not to make
Claire: I agree with that judgment call. I agree. Okay, so on that vein – and we’re already going down the wrong side of the road. So let’s back it up and take the other fork in the road. What are conspiracy theories that you kind of believe?
Joy: Oh, that I kind of believe?
Claire: Or that you fully believe. What conspiracy theories are you like, “Yeah, that could be true.” But like, let’s keep it lighthearted. Conspiracy theories, but don’t get weird.
Joy: Don’t get too weird. Well, can you give me some options that come to mind?
Claire: So my conspiracy theory, and this one is actually pretty dark, that I definitely could believe is that COVID was created in a lab. Not that it was like released on purpose by the US government but that like this is a virus that was created in a lab and like somebody didn’t change their shoes before they went home that night.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: That’s the conspiracy theory that I believe. That’s actually the main one. I’m trying to think of other conspiracy theories that I kind of believe.
Joy: Yeah, I will say okay, the one that comes to mind for me that Scott and I will joke about, and I think there’s a little bit of him that believes it, is that secret societies control the world.
Claire: Okay, I reposted me on this the other day. Like a tweet. They’re like, “Conspiracy theorists are so useless. They’re like, ‘five mega wealthy billionaires control everything,’ and it’s like, yeah, we know.”
Joy: I mean, it’s kind of true. I kind of believe that I do think there’s these underground meetings that happen. I don’t know where underground, but it’s in a basement. It has to be.
Claire: Remember the movie Richie Rich where they had like a lair inside Mount Rushmore?
Joy: Totally. Or what’s that movie? You know what I’m talking about. The bone something.
Claire: Austin Powers.
Joy: Yeah, sure, that one with a car that he can’t back up and he keeps backing up. I believe in that. I think that there’s something to that.
Claire: Do you think that the moon landing was real?
Joy: Yes, I agree. I do think the moon landing was real.
Claire: I just Googled mainstream conspiracy theories, and this is like top 30 conspiracies theories.
Joy: Oh.
Claire: Um, the Earth has been sucked into a black hole. I didn’t know this one. The European Organization for Nuclear Research is at the heart of a lot of crazy conspiracy theories, including the belief that when they discovered the Higgs Boson particle in 2012, it inadvertently created a black hole and Earth was sucked into it. These believers think the world ended in 2012, but we haven’t realized it yet. That would check out.
Joy: What do you think about UFOs and Area 51?
Claire: I don’t think I believe in Area 51.
Joy: Really? Okay.
Claire: Do you believe in like extraterrestrials as a genre?
Joy: I don’t know. But here’s the thing, I kind of believe in spirits. You know, I’ll see a ladybug and I’ll be like, “That’s my grandma.” So who’s to say?
Claire: If a ladybug can be your grandma? Why can’t aliens be real?
Joy: Exactly. So I can’t be too much of a hypocrite.
Claire: I definitely believe in aliens. I don’t know if I believe that they’re visiting us. Okay like, apart from whether or not aliens have ever made contact with humans, do you think there’s other life in the universe?
Joy: Yes. Because of those new pictures of the universe that just came out.
Claire: They’re like, oh my God.
Joy: Yeah. So it’s like, woah, we’re not alone. The X-Files is real. So yes, I think that there’s something to that. I’m going to stay open minded with that one.
Claire: Okay. Evie is in here again. Do you have the hi? She whispered, “Hi.” Can you hear here? Do you want to sing a song?
Joy: What’s your morning song? Do you sing songs in the morning? Or it’s too early for that.
Claire: Oh, this one is hilarious. Disney created Frozen as a distraction. People have long discussed the conspiracy that Walt Disney used cryogenic technology to freeze himself when he died. Even though the Disney family refutes that claim, reasonably so. However, a new theory that the Walt Disney Company created Frozen as a way to hack Google’s search algorithm and distract consumers from information about the late Walt Disney’s possible frozen procedure.
Joy: Woah, that’s hilarious.
Claire: Why would you care? Why would it matter if Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen?
Joy: Yeah, like, it’s fine. But do you remember the weird theories about like, secret things that were in movies that were like –
Claire: Oh, yeah. Some of those are real.
Joy: What was the one in Aladdin that was like, “Do you want to have sex” or something?
Claire: Oh yeah.
Joy: Or like the dust spilled out “sex?”
Claire: Or it was a penis or something?
Joy: It’s always something weird.
Claire: Yeah. Um, okay. This one is more local to us. Do you believe that DIA is the Illuminati headquarters?
Joy: No, definitely not. Definitely not.
Claire: There are so many conspiracy theories.
Joy: But the Blue Mustang –
Claire: Yeah, that’s real. He killed the guy.
Joy: Yeah, it’s very terrifying.
Claire: Okay, so people who don’t know Denver International Airport has so many conspiracy theories around it. I feel like we’ve talked about this before potentially.
Joy: Yeah, maybe.
Claire: Where people think that like it was constructed on like old Navajo burial grounds.
Joy: Which that could be true.
Claire: Sure. That could be very true. Or that underneath it is like underground headquarters of the Illuminati. Or there’s like all these hidden Illuminati references. Like people will say like, “Well, if you look at it from above, it spells this thing out.” Which anyway, I don’t believe any of the Denver International America, the DIA conspiracy theories.
Joy: Yeah. Now this takes me to more movie conspiracy theories. Did you ever see Three Men and a Baby?
Claire: Oh my gosh, like, I mean, that movie was from like, the early 90s, right?
Joy: Yeah. So I mean, it was a pretty popular movie when I was a kid. Look it up, Google it, but it was three big movie star guys. Tom Selleck was one of them, I think. So there was this scene where they’re in the baby’s room. You could see like a boy standing behind a curtain. And the lore was like, you know, there was a young boy that was killed in that room and like his ghost is in the scene. And it is kind of freaky, but I think it later came out that was like it was just a cut out of something like a prop that was stored wrong. But it does look a little weird.
Claire: That’s what someone would say. It was a prop that was stored wrong.
Joy: Right? Yeah, exactly. Like trying to cover it up. But if you look up ghost from Three Men and a Baby, you’ll see. So there’s things like that. I actually live for that stuff. I love seeing like random things in movies or things that are wrong in movies. Do you remember on Clueless when Tai and Dion are in the jeep, she hits something or she or she goes through a stop sign and Dion looks to the left and she goes, “You ran that light,” and she’s like, “I totally paused.” When Dion looks and turns around, she has a nose ring. And before she doesn’t have a nose ring, and then she looks that she does have a nose ring. Those misses are my favorite. I love stuff like that.
Claire: Um, okay, here’s one. Apparently, there’s a conspiracy theory that Prince Charles is a vampire.
Joy: I mean, where do you come up with this stuff?
Claire: I don’t know. I just Googled it.
Joy: But who starts this stuff?
Claire: Let me finish the explanation because that’s the first question. Why? Well, the Prince of Wales is related to Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and many royals in Charles’s bloodline were known to have the disease porphyria, which is an iron deficiency that causes people to be sensitive to sunlight. That just sounds like inbreeding.
Joy: Well, I’m sorry Keith Richards is a vampire then because come on. He’s more of a vampire.
Claire: Okay, this is one of my here conspiracy theories. That Keanu Reeves is immortal.
Joy: Oh, I love that.
Claire: I love that one.
Joy: I kind of love that. I love Keanu Reeves. But so is what’s his name from like all those… Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
Claire: If you “Google “Keanu Reeves is immortal,” it’s great. Because there’s all these old like Victorian paintings where it has people and you’re like, oh my god, that doesn’t like Keanu Reeves. Y
Joy: Paul Rudd is immortal.
Claire: Oh, Paul Rudd, yes.
Joy: Paul Rudd is my favorite. I love him so much.
Claire: Do you believe in Bigfoot? Or what about like the Loch Ness monster?
Joy: Loch Ness monster. I will get into it when they have documentaries around it. Here it is, here it is. X-Files I want to believe like I want to believe. “Like I want to believe,” to quote X-Files.
Claire: I’m open to the possibility that those things are real.
Joy: It’d be so fun if it was. You know, people dedicate their lives to this stuff
Claire: Seriously. Which is bizarre. Okay, here’s are some ones that feel a little bit – we’re all really living in The Matrix.
Joy: I could see that. You know, we are. I think so.
Claire: Which could also then lean into this next one. The moon isn’t real. People think the moon doesn’t exist. They think the moon is simply a projection. The Titanic didn’t actually sink.
Joy: See, stuff like that will make me mad, like the Titanic. That that treads into, hey, people lost family members. You don’t mess around with that.
Claire: Totally.
Joy: You don’t mess around with it.
Claire: Like how people don’t think that COVID is real. And it’s like –
Joy: Oh, yeah. Or like, what’s his bucket… I’m not even going to say his name. But the guy that’s been in the news recently that – actually I’m not going to say it. But was talking about a shooting that was not real. I don’t even want to repeat it. But that level… to get money in just controversy. You shut your mouth right there. Now I’m all fired up.
Claire: That’s why at the beginning of the conversation, I was like, there’s two roads we could go down. Let’s keep it light. Let’s not go down that one that like is going to cause us to just… yeah.
Joy: Yeah, because that one just kind of set me off. But as far as like The Matrix, I think about, like how social media influences us. And then that’s a whole rabbit hole of – actually there is a great podcast about the rabbit hole. But how social media does influence us. And that scares me.
Claire: Oh yeah.
Joy: Of like commercials and ads and the content that you are fed, because we are constantly looking at our phones. I would love to be behind the scenes of what they decide that you see, really kind of are fed, especially around election season, when people are clicking on A, B and C and then they’re just kind of fed more conspiracy theories. There’s a lot of interviews around that.
Claire: Yeah, that’s really real.
Joy: Of people who are like, hey, I ended up on QAnon site and rest is history.
Claire: Right. But because you like started out in this pretty logical, somewhat logical place, and the links – it’s almost like being the frog in the pot of boiling water analogy where you don’t realize that the things you’re reading are more and more crazy because they kind of blend into each other. And you end up just sort of this natural crescendo into being a crazy person.
Joy: Yes. Which yes, if you’re in QAnon, we said that.
Claire: Yeah, not sorry about that. Um, here’s one that’s pretty popular in Boulder Chemtrails. Are you familiar with this?
Joy: No.
Claire: You know how sometimes planes will have like invisible jet streams coming out of them? People think that that is like chemicals that are being just like spread over the earth to various reasons. So it says, “As airplanes travel, they leave behind long water condensation trails called contrails. These cloud-like tracks dissipate quickly, and sometimes you can’t even see them. But to some conspiracy theorists, these condensation trails are much more nefarious.” I love that word. The “chemtrails” conspiracy theory holds that condensation trails are full of other chemicals that scientists and governments are seeding into the atmosphere. Why? Pick your reason? It might be biological warfare, population control, geoengineering, or an attempt to manipulate the weather.” I’ve heard this one a lot in Boulder. People think that they’re releasing who knows what into the atmosphere.
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: Oh, this is my favorite one. We’ll end with this. That birds aren’t real.
Joy: Oh my gosh, birds aren’t real. Who was that guy?
Claire: I don’t remember, but I love it.
Joy: A website like birdsarentrreal.com or something.
Claire: Peter McIndoe.
Joy: Great.
Claire: Birds aren’t real conspiracy is a movement developed by Peter McIndoe who started spraying the idea in 2017. Let’s see here.
Joy: And then it just took off and took off.
Claire: Yeah, they have birds aren’t real, but rather they are surveillance drones made by the US government.
Joy: I will say – this is weird. I want to know more about this is when we talk about things on this podcast and next thing you know people are getting ads about something weird, crazy, whatever. Right?
Claire: I mean, that’s all very engineered. If someone follows us, and we follow someone or we post a link that goes back to a site that tagged someone in it, or has it in the comments, or has it in the transcript or in the SEO. All of that’s connected. I was reading an article recently that was like, and I’m sure a ton of people have seen this, where it was an author who was like, “You know, I went and stayed with my mom for a couple of days. And next thing I know, I’m getting web ads for her toothpaste. I have never talked about her toothpaste. I’ve never purchased it. I’ve never even used it. But she has my whole life used this specific brand of toothpaste. And suddenly I’m getting Facebook ads for this type of toothpaste. Just from like being around her.” And it’s like, yeah, well, your phone can tell that you are with this person.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: You guys are pinging the same locations, you guys are both checked into the movie theater or whatever. And so even if it doesn’t know who that person is your mom, you’re constantly being compared to other lookalike audiences. So it’s like, okay, let’s take everyone who has checked in at this restaurant in the last six months. And you know, like, have other similarities about them. And I will extrapolate from those similarities that you might have similar shopping habits and maybe in a similar socio-economic demographic. So I’m going to start giving you these products.
Joy: People will send us ads of things that we talked about on the podcast or funny things that we’ve said on stories. I think when I was talking about the Nordstrom vibrator, they started getting ads for vibrators. Yeah, I’m so sorry. Yeah, sorry. And I’m sorry that it did it again now.
Claire: [laughing] I’m sorry for repeating it again now.
Joy: Alright, let’s take a quick break, shall we? Speaking of sponsors and ads that we hope you get this one. [laughing]
Claire: Oh, no.
Joy: Oh, we’re just laying it on thick. Well, you know that our favorite sponsor Ned sponsors our podcast. They are loyal supporters of this podcast. I recently got my latest batch of the Sleep Blend. You know how I feel about sleep. You know that I love the Sleep Blend. It is such a great addition to my nightly routine because I know winding down, I’m going to be laying in bed. I’m going to just lull into this wonderful sleep. I sleep so well wanted to take the Sleep Blend, and daily routines are really important to us. And I think that when we’re talking about CBD products, you think about all of the products that are on the market. There’s so many CBD products to choose from. It’s really important to us that these products are science backed. They’re chock full of premium CBD full spectrum active cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, and trichomes. I don’t know if you know what those are, but they’re really good with Ned. Ned’s full spectrum hemp oil nourishes the body’s endocannabinoid system to offer functional support for stress, sleep, inflammation and balance. They have full transparency. They share third party lab reports, who farms their products, and their extraction process, all right on their site. They have over 2000 5-star reviews. If you heard Ret on one of our podcasts, he talks about the farmers, he talks about playing binaural beats while they’re bottling it. These products are so good and good for your body.
Claire: And so intentional. One of the main reasons that we love Ned and we love the brand and we love the founders, everything they do is so intentional. I think as part of that daily ritual, like just knowing that all the way starting at the foundation of the company through the farming through the bottling through every single thing has that incredible layer of intention. Even down to like the artwork on the little tubes that they come in.
Joy: Right. Handwritten number batched.
Claire: Totally. It just makes it feel so authentic. And you’re like okay, this is something that I can really trust and this is something that I really feel good about putting in my body on a daily basis.
Joy: Become the best version of yourself and get 15% off Ned products with code JOY, Go to helloned.com/JOY or enter code JOY at checkout. That’s helloned.com/joy to get 15% off. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring the show and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. I want to ask for an update on how your job is going and how the new house is going. Because we haven’t heard about – well I shouldn’t say new job. It’s been actually almost a year, right?
Claire: Almost a year.
Joy: It feels new because we haven’t checked in about job. But more importantly, how’s your new house?
Claire: Yeah, the house is getting there. You know, we moved in at the end of May and then our whole family got COVID right away and then we just like dove headfirst into summer. And so it’s been kind of an uphill battle to get things organized and arranged. We finally have most of the main floor painted. We have the kids’ rooms in a pretty good spot to where we want them. Our room is fine. I feel like your own bedroom is always like the most neglected room in the house in terms of organization and decoration, which I think is ironic, but I even feel like celebrities – like when they would do Cribs, their whole house is immaculate, and then you’d go into their bedroom and it would look like just like a mattress on the floor.
Joy: Right.
Claire: A dirty duvet cover and you’re like, oh, celebrities are just like us. They don’t make their beds either. Do you make your bed every day? I bet you do.
Joy: Yeah, I do.
Claire: I would have like 50/50. A lot of times I’ll make my bed at night right before I get in. Just like make sure everything’s in place.
Joy: Okay. The reason I do it is JT gets on the bed sometimes. So I just can’t handle the thought of dog hair all day, so I have to make the bed, put all the blankets on top, so that he can lay on top of it.
Claire: Aw, JT. Everything we do, we do for JT.
Joy: We really do.
Claire: I feel like after you live in a house for a couple of months, you kind of start to be able to prioritize things little bit more and think, okay, what are the first couple big things we’re going to tackle? Luckily, nothing huge has come up in the first couple of months of living here. This poor girl who is on my team moved into this beautiful house in downtown Boulder, and within a month they had to replace their sewer line.
Joy: No!
Claire: Like 15 grand, like dig into the street.
Joy: That’s not cheap. What? Did that not come up in the like…
Claire: So, it did. It came up in the inspection. But what came up in the inspection was not as severe as what the problem ended up being.
Joy: Oy, oy.
Claire: So they were like, oh, there’s like a weakness in the pipe, and we can just sort of like put this sleeve over it and it’ll be fine. Then the sleeve wasn’t enough, and they ended up having to replace the whole thing. Knock on wood, nothing like that has happened here. I mean, I’m sure in the winter, like more things will come up. We have to replace our garbage disposal. It just got a hole in it. Apparently, it is very old. But other than that, we’re really loving it. I would say probably a third of our stuff is still in boxes.
Joy: And you sold your old house, right?
Claire: Oh, yeah. So we sold our old house. We closed on our old house sale like about three weeks ago. And I really feel like we dodged a bullet with getting our house under contract when we did. It was just like the week that we put our house on the market, the market just slammed on the brakes. And we were very much anticipating that our house would sell in a weekend, which is what the house we bought was sold in, which is when we bought the house, we had to get it in the first weekend. The market for the last I mean really like six or seven years has been to the point where every house in the market that is in livable shape has gone in a weekend. And suddenly with interest rates going up and everything, it just slammed on the brakes the first week of June and that was when we listed, and so it took us three weeks to sell our house. We were panicking. I mean, not panicking, but trying very hard to stay cool. We ended up getting less than what we listed for, which also has been unheard of. Which not by a lot but and thankfully like the buyer’s financing was totally fine and everything worked out. We even were able to close like a week early. So I felt really grateful that we were able to get that done. But when we bought this house, we somehow qualified for both houses, which I know I’ve joked about this, but I have a hard time if my grocery bill is like $50 extra or $100 extra that week. Let alone thinking that I can have another house just goes to show you what you can “qualify” for. A mortgage is just absolutely fake money.
Joy: That’s a conspiracy theory I believe in. Money isn’t real. Bitcoin all the way. I’m kidding, kidding, kidding.
Claire: Also definitely Bitcoin, definitely less real. Less real than real money. But yeah, that mortgage money is not real stuff. The amount that you can qualify for is not real and not based on anything. And it was also very mentally taxing to know that we still have that. Even when we’re under contract, we still had to go over there mow the lawn and make sure the sprinklers were running and make sure that like it didn’t fall into disrepair, basically.
Joy: Right, you go over there and you’re just like, “The pictures don’t look like this on the on the Zillow ad.”
Claire: Right, like shoot, we’ve got to update this. So that also has been the main reason that we haven’t gotten this house our current house into as good of shape was because a lot of the times like if we had an afternoon, we had to –
Joy: Right, you were managing the other one.
Claire: So anyway, we’re getting there. Like I said, I think about a quarter of our stuff in still in boxes. But of that quarter of stuff that’s still in boxes, probably half of that is stuff that like is like Christmas decorations or camping gear, that it’s bound for storage anyway. I’s in our garage right now, which I’m really hoping that we can get our garage to the point where we can park in it before winter. But I’m loving the house. I’m really glad that we moved. Having a little bit extra space is so nice. Having a table to sit at when we eat is so huge. Every night when we’re sitting down eating, it’s like this is what we’ve been missing.
Joy: This is what you’ve been missing.
Claire: Yeah. And our neighborhoods really great. We have wonderful, amazing neighbors. They have a three-month-old baby who we babysat yesterday and she –
Joy: Aw, three months old. Little nugget.
Claire: Yes, and the kids were like entranced.
Joy: Oh, that’s so cute.
Claire: They were just crowded around her.
Joy: How was Evie?
Claire: Oh my gosh, okay so the baby was smiling.
Joy: Evie is the baby is the baby, so she’s never right baby.
Claire: Right. She loved it. The baby was smiling and Evie was like, “She loves my dress.”
Joy: Oh, I love that so much.
Claire: Every time she would smile, she’d be like, “She loves me.” It’s like, “She does love you, Evie.” It was so cute.
Joy: Oh, that’s so cute. That’s so cute. Three months old.
Claire: She was born like the week before we moved in.
Joy: That’s so fun.
Claire: And then my job is going great. I love my job. I feel like everybody knows I work in marketing for an outdoor apparel company. Based in Denver, I love it. We’re getting ready to get go into a really busy season of like fall and holiday. The outdoor apparel company that I work for is very heavily based in like winter activities.
Joy: Are you not allowed to say it on the podcast?
Claire: It’s not that I’m not allowed to say it.
Joy: Okay, okay.
Claire: It’s like a well-known brand.
Joy: Sure. You just want to be respectful sometimes.
Claire: I think if people are paying attention, they could easily infer where I work.
Joy: Sure.
Claire: It’s more just that like, because I say things on here a lot of the time, not about my work, but like I wouldn’t necessarily – I like to keep the keep my worlds a little bit separate.
Joy: Sure. I totally get that. I totally get that.
Claire: That’s my only reason for doing that.
Joy: Yeah, I totally get that.
Claire: It’s not a secret. Yeah, I don’t have like an NDA. And again, it would probably take most people two seconds to figure out where I work.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: But yeah, I just I also don’t want them like it like coming up in our SEO.
Joy: Sure. Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. That makes total sense. Yeah.
Claire: So but I love it, I have a great team, I have really good work life balance, which I kind of hate that phrase. Here’s what I’ve landed on. In a job, I think in order to feel like your job is not taking over your life, your schedule needs to either be consistent or flexible, you need to know that you’re starting and ending at the same time, you’re working a certain number of hours, certain number of days and like have very little variance in those parameters. Or you need to have the ability to fit it in wherever. Maybe you don’t have a specific start and end time, or you don’t have certain days you work. But if you have to take off for two hours in the middle of day to go to a doctor’s appointment, you’re able to do that. With this job, I really have both consistency and flexibility. Where I am not expected to be at work before certain hours except on specific for a specific reason that I know well ahead of time. I’m not expected to work late except for specific reasons that I will know ahead of time. And also, you know, if I have to leave to go pick my kid up from school, I can just put a block on my calendar and there’s no questions asked.
Joy: That’s great.
Claire: It’s awesome. And you don’t have to lie about it.
Joy: No. Which is so silly.
Claire: I don’t have to say anything about it. But if someone were to be like, “Hey, is this thing on your calendar flexible? Can I schedule a meeting?” And I say, “Oh, actually, I have to go pick my son up from school. I can’t move that.” They’re like, “Oh, okay. I’ll find another time.”
Joy: Yes.
Claire: Like, I don’t have to pretend that’s not what I’m doing.
Joy: Yes, I think that’s so important. I
Claire: t’s hugely important. And I think that it’s also really modeled by my leadership, which I think is huge, where in the same exact way, I’ll reach out to my boss and say, “Hey, you know, I’m trying to schedule a meeting. Your calendar is really full. Do you have any flexibility here?” And he’s like, “Oh, actually, you know, that’s like that Friday, my son’s in a hockey tournament, and I blocked it off. I’ll be available by text, but I’m not taking any meetings that day.” And Friday is a bad example because none of us have meetings on Fridays anyway.
Joy: Right, that’s so cool. We have that at my company as well. And at first it because I came from such a horrible culture, coming into the company I’m at now everyone was like, yeah, can you just make sure your calendars are shared, just like that whole transparency thing. And at first, I was going to this place of like, oh, they’re just going to be micromanagy because that’s the culture that I came from. And what it is, is just no, we just need to be transparent. Because if I go look at other people’s calendars, if I look at a lot of the leadership calendars, they have the same thing. They’ll say, “Do not schedule, Sophie’s ballet practice,” or whatever. They’re blocking out time for their children, for their personal lives. It’s modeled, so you feel supported doing the same thing. There’s just something really lovely to that.
Claire: Totally. It’s wonderful. And it’s like, hey, this is the world that we live in now.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: We all have proven that we are trustworthy, we can work from home.
Joy: We can be productive from home. Like, I had to take JT to the vet last week, and I had to cancel a couple of clients that I did on my own. I just blocked out the afternoon and it’s no big deal. It’s just no big deal. And there’s no question. And I was going to tell you this. I was like, tell me what your reaction would be to this. My old company, one of my peers. So a fellow manager who also left, our boss used to schedule a standing meeting with her at 4pm on Fridays.
Claire: No. That is passive harassment.
Joy: So passive harassment. And that’s exactly the type of person she was. It was horrible. When this coworker told me that, I was like, “Are you kidding me?” And it was such a manipulative power move. And I [sound of disgust]. That’s all I have to say when I found that out. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” She’s like, “Yeah.” I’m like, [sound of frustration]. So happy to be out of there.
Claire: I mean, I even told the people who work for me like, hey, listen, I know we have a certain amount of PTO. But if you need to take a day and not enter it, if you are getting your work done, I don’t care whether you “take your PTO” or not, and no one else but me is checking. Don’t abuse that, and I know you won’t abuse it. That’s why I’m telling you this. But like, even there are some sort of corporate rules. And I’m not, you know, meaning to say that this person has even done that, or my team has even done that. But that’s kind of how I feel about it is like, listen, even when it comes to PTO, why are we still doing this? Why are we still limiting the amount of time that people need to go do what they want to do? Yeah, I will say that I appreciate PTO. Have you ever worked for a company that has unlimited PTO? That’s what I do right now. So the last time I worked for a company that had unlimited PTO, it was used in the other direction, because you didn’t have PTO that you had to take.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Because PTO is on the books, it’s a financial liability, like it hits a budget, and if you don’t use it, you have to pay off to pay it out. Right. And so in that way, you know, like, kind of in the beginning of the summer, when things slow down, they’ll send out things that are like, hey, please remember to use your PTO. You have it. Go out there and do some stuff. Not only do we want you guys to like use it and live your life, but also like it’s a financial liability. When that’s not the case, if you are in a toxic workplace, it will often turn into not having PTO. Where people will be like, “Oh, I haven’t taken PTO all year.”
Joy: It’s the badge of honor.
Claire: It’s a badge of honor that you don’t use your vacation.
Joy: Whereas now, when we were hired with unlimited PTO, it was kind of like one of the obvious benefits and every single place I’ve worked up to this point, has you either earn it, you bank it, you know, when you leave you cash it out, or whatever. So going into it, I thought, well, this is really amazing, because they’re really kind of putting it it’s like when you need it, just take it.
Claire: Yeah.
Joy: There’s never a time that I’ve felt – the odd part about it, because where I work now also gives us two Fridays off a month if we need it. No questions asked, you just don’t work on Fridays. And I don’t even use those because I feel so flexible. Sometimes I’ll just work like a half day. But because life is so much easier now because I can just walk into my home office and then I turn off my computer at the end of the day, and I walk out into my house that I don’t feel like I need all this additional time off to recover. So I do find myself swinging the other way where I’m like, I just don’t really need the time. And my supervisor will always be like, “Are you scheduling time off for yourself?” I’m like, “Honestly, I don’t know if I need it right now.” And she’s like, “Okay, just make sure you think about that.” I will. We don’t have any vacations planned. Like trust me, we’re good about planning vacations. We just haven’t really been in the space to do it. And I don’t feel like I need it. I don’t feel like I need all this like timeout to come down. Because when you work in a healthy workplace, you actually enjoy what you’re doing, and you don’t feel so stressed out that you need all this time off. So it’s a smart way of working. I don’t know if everyone feels that way. But I think it’s kind of genius.
Claire: For sure. I agree. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, these workplaces aren’t real. This is not what work is like. I feel so stressed out. I log on at 7am on Monday morning. I don’t log off till 7pm on Friday night. Or even like I never log off. I mean, some people thrive in that. They think it’s great. But if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what you guys are describing is like a job utopia that is not real.”
Joy: It’s real.
Claire: It’s real.
Joy: It’s really real.
Claire: You too can have a job.
Joy: I’ll send you some job openings to come into my company. The thing that I remember in that my old work is I can see how you can get swept up into a work culture. So it’s very easy to think that that you’re doing well, that you’re really hustling, and to be so blinded by a toxic workplace. I think that’s also something that we really don’t understand until we’re out of it of like how bad it was like, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but there were times when after I left my previous company, I had two cell phones because I had a work phone and then I had my personal phone. And I remember I would always put my work phone in the kitchen on the weekends. And I would just turn it off. I’d turn off all notifications. I would just mute it so it wouldn’t ring or ding or anything. But I remember throughout the weekend anytime I would pass that kitchen counter I would turn on the phone to see if I got any messages. And I would always have this jolt of like [gasp] am I going to have something for my boss that’s like you know punitive and whatever, snarky because that’s how she was. So I was like, okay, I would always kind of brace myself. And after I left, I found myself walking by that same kitchen counter almost reaching for a phone that wasn’t there. And it took me so long to come down from that feeling of like, okay, what’s she going to email me next that’s punitive and mean? And it’s just a weird thing. Now I’m like, Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine that coming from anyone at my office because everyone’s just so amazing. But those things once you’re out of it, you don’t realize how you’re like, yes, it can be better. There’s a better way. And it’s so much of “that’s how it is” that you’re in that culture. But everyone’s just trying to survive in that culture, that you think that’s normal. And it’s not, it’s not okay.
Claire: Totally. Alright. Well, all that to say, obviously, you’re enjoying your job too.
Joy: Yes. And we are both in good spots.
Claire: Yes. Yes. New jobs.
Joy: New life.
Claire: What’s the plural of us? New jobs new…
Joy: We…
Claire: Nope, uh uh. You asked some questions. Let’s wrap this up with a couple of listener questions from Instagram. And we’ve not left very much time for this, so we will get to most of your questions on our next episode.
Joy: Future. Talk about everyday versus bougie coffee order.
Claire: Okay. My everyday order is either an oat milk latte or a cold brew with a splash of oat milk, and my bougie coffee order is the sweet cream collagen iced latte from Just Be.
Joy: Whoa, that’s really good.
Claire: You remember that one? I actually just went to Just Be this week for lunch and Jennifer was there and she was so cute.
Joy: I love Just Be. Well, my everyday coffee order is the one I make at home because I love my Nespresso and yes, I still use it. I have the Nespresso Virtuo. Fun fact, if you are sick of ordering – because the thing with Nespresso machines is you can’t get the pods from a store until now. You have to either go to a Nespresso store or order them online. But now Target sells Nespresso pods.
Claire: Oh. I’m surprised it took that long.
Joy: Made by Starbucks because I think there’s like some connection. I don’t know if they own one another whatever. But Starbucks makes Nespresso pods.
Claire: Wait, wait, wait. Let’s just do the genealogy here. It’s a Nespresso Starbucks in a Target,
Joy: Yes. Nespresso pods
Claire: It’s Starbucks in a Nespresso in a Target.
Joy: Yes. You don’t get it in the Starbucks.
Claire: I’m trying to make a Starbucks in a Target reference here.
Joy: I love that very much. Yes. I just want to be clear, it’s sold in the coffee aisle. You don’t have to go into the Starbucks to buy the pods, but you have to go into the coffee aisle. Let me just look at this because we purchased a few incorrect ones. If you want the full coffee, you have to get the 8-pod pack. The 10-pod pack is an is an espresso.
Claire: Espresso for your Nespresso.
Joy: Yes, exactly. So if you got the 10 pack, just know you’re getting espresso pods. We want the eight pack if you want a coffee pod, so we will supplement our Nespresso order by getting the Starbucks Nespresso at Target.
Claire: Got it, got it, got it. What’s your favorite Nespresso color pod?
Joy: I really liked the basic ones so what I tend to order is – I do not like flavor coffees. Gross. I don’t like anything – like they’ll do like special chocolate fudge, hazelnut, caramel. No, thank you. So I will get just like the Costa Rica, Ethiopia. I like the Colombia and Mexico coffee for the virtuosos. So I get the basic stuff. Sometimes I’ll get like Stormio, Melozio. Intenso is good. Those are the standing like they’re always available to order, but I never buy like the special ones. So just so you know, Target sells those pods. They cost about the same, so you’re not like sending any big amount of money unless you have a Target Red Card, which I don’t understand if you do not link your target red card to your debit account what you’re doing because you’re saving 5% on every purchase, and that is not sponsored. I always am like, why aren’t people doing this more often? And if you have the app, you can get all those target circle discounts. It’s my favorite thing to do. Okay, and then if I am doing like a specialty coffee order, I will do the honey almond milk flat white at Starbucks because I love it.
Claire: ’m not a big Starbucks person.
Joy: I know you’re not. Or the lavender latte at Just Be. If we’re going to go to Just Be together, lavender latte. Oy, good.
Claire: Okay, let’s do one more question. That was a really long.
Joy: Yeah, we really went far with the Nespresso, but I really had to tell you all about a secret at Target.
Claire: It’s true.
Joy: I’ll answer this one really quick. Someone missed it. Any update on the bone marrow donation? It was cancelled. The patient went a different treatment route. I will be notified in the future if they need me. I will be here waiting. I think they were probably like worried about keeping me hanging for so long. And so they just canceled it for the time being because it sounds like the patient has other treatment options. So that’s a good thing.
Claire: Yeah. Okay. There’s really no other short questions.
Joy: favorite snack?
Claire: I feel like we answer that all the time.
Joy: But it changes all the time.
Claire: Okay, what’s your favorite snacks right now?
Joy: My favorite snack right now is the Wild Planet tuna salads.
Claire: Those little like –
Joy: Yes! They’re so good. You actually can buy them on… this is… I feel… actually, I’m not going to apologize because I wouldn’t make this on my own because it’s just convenience and they have sustainable packaging. But Wild Planet has these awesome tuna bean salads. And I order either from Thrive Market or they do sell them on Amazon, and I’m obsessed. I’ll have one for lunch every day.
Claire: They sell them at Whole Foods too.
Joy: Great. Yeah. That’s a snack or I’ll have like as a side dish with lunch or whatever. They’re delicious. They’re delicious.
Claire: My favorite snack right now is overnight oats. I really consider them to be a snack. Like I’m not going to eat that as my whole breakfast. It’s just not enough food unless they make like four cups of oats, which is not the experience I’m going for.
Joy: I love overnight oats.
Claire: I love that they’re cold.
Joy: Yeah, Sassy has got some good – Laura Ligos has great recipes in her cookbook if you want to go to her website and order her cookbook.
Claire: I will say – she’s great. It’s a great cookbook, two great cookbooks. I was posting about it on my personal Instagram and somebody was like, “What is your recipe for this? Because I feel like all the recipes are so complicated.” I go as basic as possible. I do a cup of vanilla almond milk, a cup of Bob’s Red Mill rolled oats, a scoop of protein powder. That’s it. That’s all that’s in mind.
Joy: Oh, protein powder? I’ve not tried that yet. That’s a good idea.
Claire: I just, I have a hard time getting protein in my day.
Joy: So do I.
Claire: So I like to kind of sneak it in.
Joy: Yeah, I think we all do.
Claire: Yeah. So it’s really easy to just put it in there. It just makes it a little bit sweeter. I use vanilla protein powder, but you could use whatever you want. And I sometimes will just like chop up a peach and put it on top right before I eat it because peach season in Colorado is a big deal and it’s here. And it’s only like two or three weeks long, and we’re right in the middle of it right now.
Joy: I just bought a huge pallet of peaches at Costco and I’m just like eating them constantly.
Claire: Yeah, yeah, get there.
Joy: I just really try not to everything. I know there are like a thousand recipes out there if you want to get fancy, but for me, it’s just about convenience. So that’s what I do. Alright guys, we’ll answer more of your questions in future episodes. We actually have a few weeks coming up because of my upcoming surf trip where I may or may not be dragging a surfboard across the world where we’re going to be recording much episodes ahead of time for that trip. So we’ll have a chance to get to all your questions. Thank you so much for being here. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online at joyandclaire.com You can email us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com Don’t forget to check out our favorite sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off all your orders. Don’t forget that your first order has a 30-day money back guarantee. Give them a shot.
Joy: Got nothing to lose.
Claire: Support the brands that support our podcast. We will talk to you next Thursday, just like every Thursday.
Joy: All the time forever.
Claire: Bye.
Joy: Bye.
139: Flavors of Validation
Our favorite live music memories and favorite bands to see in concert. Prioritization of thinness and seeking validation for weight loss. Rage against the before/after photos and much, much more!
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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
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This is Joy & Claire Episode 139: Flavors of Validation
Episode Date: August 11, 2022
Transcription Completed: October 31, 2022
Audio Length: 43:11 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire. Good morning.
Joy: How is everybody doing? Wherever you are, we are here with you.
Claire: That sounds like the beginning of a Backstreet Boys song.
Joy: [laughing] You know they came to concert here a couple weeks ago?
Claire: What?
Joy: Yeah. I’m kind of kicking myself that I didn’t go.
Claire: Joy!
Joy: Well it was at Green… whatever it’s called?
Claire: Fiddler’s Green.
Joy: Yeah, Fiddler’s Green. And I was like, I don’t want to travel down there. You guys, this is where snobbiness kicks in, and I’m like, “I don’t want to drive that far.”
Claire: It’s less than an hour. Not far.
Joy: It’s not that far. But it’s also just a part of town where I’m like, so exhausting.
Claire: It’s hard to get to.
Joy: Because I live close to most of the popular –
Claire: Yeah, you live a cheap Uber ride away from most of the other venues.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: When I was in early high school, I was really into pop punk.
Joy: Like Fallout Boy?
Claire: Not even Fallout Boy. I would consider that to be pop emo. Like Green Day.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: Randomly, I have seen Green Day in concert more than anyone else.
Joy: Okay, next time they come, will you go with me? They are my favorite. To this day, the best concert I’ve ever seen.
Claire: Honestly, I could take or leave their music just if I’m driving, but they do have such good concerts.
Joy: Oh, the concerts, yeah.
Claire: I’m not going to just turn on Green Day while I’m drinking my coffee.
Joy: No, definitely not. But I appreciate their music so much, just because they’re Green Day. I get very attached to bands and their relationships to each other and because they’ve known each other since they were like ten years old. I always get into the stories of that.
Claire: I’ll totally go with you. I remember seeing them at Red Rocks. I was 14. This would have been 2002 or 2003. And then I saw them at the Pepsi Center in probably 2004.
Joy: Oh, I bet you I was there too.
Claire: Stop it.
Joy: The Pepsi Center one was so fun when all the confetti fell.
Claire: And I was on the floor.
Joy: So was I!
Claire: Oh my gosh.
Joy: We were probably next to each other.
Claire: Probably just danced right by you.
Joy: We never knew what was to come.
Claire: I mean, I was young enough that I couldn’t drive myself to either of those concerts.
Joy: Oh, that’s so funny. I went with a guy – hi, Jerry.
Claire: Hi, Jerry. In general, I am not that into live music. I feel like for me, I don’t like crave that kind of experiential music. To me, music is something that’s on in the background.
Joy: Okay. Not like Scott Parrish level of like, he’s into it.
Claire: No, and I appreciate that this is not the way that most people – I mean, a lot of people buy music as part of their personality.
Joy: For sure.
Claire: And I don’t begrudge that at all. I’m not like, “Ugh, what are you doing?” I get it. I’m just not that person. Which saves me thousands of dollars a year probably.
Joy: Same here. I am not at that level. I will go to see people I have a really strong connection to, but I don’t get into it on the level of Scott where he is going to at least one concert a month. At least. Because he just has to see live music.
Claire: And then I think that there is another subset of that personality type which I think is music festival people.
Joy: Oh yeah. Music festival people. I was actually just talking about this when I got my haircut, and she was talking about how she goes to this dance – we were talking about Burning Man and Coachella.
Claire: Man, Burning Man and Coachella are like their own personality trait.
Joy: Yeah, exactly. They definitely are in the DSM-5. So the festival that she goes to is just like this local dance festival that’s at the Bronco’s Stadium parking lot, and they do it every year.
Claire: Maxine went to that.
Joy: Oh, she did? How fun. And I can totally see how it would be a young, clubbish vibe.
Claire: Yeah, and you have your outfit.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: You have the whole thing. Yeah.
Joy: So I was talking to her, and I said, there’s a part of me that really wants to experience it once. But I would just have to do a lot of drugs to get through it. And then I’m also like, I don’t do drugs, so that might actually be a bad thing because I don’t know if I would enjoy it. But anyway, basically I’m like, do I need to experience Burning Man at least once in my life just so I can get dressed up? Or do I just let that go? Or Coachella?
Claire: You know what? You could just dress like that and go out to dinner in Boulder.
Joy: Yeah, it’s true. Because I fit in in Boulder.
Claire: Yeah. People would be like, “Oh look, that lady is going to get some sushi.”
Joy: But you know what, it just feels like it is an experience –
Claire: I agree. It’s a whole experience. I have some friends who are like lifelong music festival people.
Joy: Yeah. Do you have friends who will be the three days in a row Fishpeople?
Claire: Oh, one thousand percent. I have those people.
Joy: I don’t get it. Please tell them. Gypsy Kings. Please make it make sense to me.
Claire: Widespread Panic.
Joy: Please make it make sense to me.
Claire: You know what, let’s be honest though.
J: Look, look. I have those friends.
C: I do too. Okay, I’m going to out myself here, and just say that I cannot stand jam band music.
Joy: I can’t either.
Claire: In the same way, I also don’t even really like jazz.
Joy: Okay. I have no opinion about it because I have not steeped myself in –
Claire: I think jazz – again, I don’t want to slam jam bands because I don’t know anything about them. So me, jazz is more culturally interesting.
Joy: Yes, for sure.
Claire: I can appreciate it from the standpoint of this was a huge musical – there’s so much –
Joy: There’s so much history there.
Claire: History and culture there. But I don’t like listening to it. And for the same reason that I don’t like listening to jam bands. Which is that in my brain, I need a song to have a start, a stop, a chorus. I need to be able to follow along. If I’m listening to a song and I look up 20 minutes later and I’m like, “Is this the same song, or are we on a different song now?” I’m not having a good time. My brain is not enjoying that.
Joy: But are you okay with the ten-minute version of the Taylor Swift –
Claire: No.
Joy: What the hell is the name of that song?
Claire: I don’t know.
Joy: I just listened to it yesterday. “All Too Well,” yeah.
Claire: I mean, I guess, fine. I can sort of appreciate it objectively. That’s an interesting artistic decision or whatever. But I’m not going to be like, “Ten minutes of this, give it to me.” I don’t know. My brain needs a little bit more structure in my music listening.
Joy: Yeah, I can appreciate that.
Claire: I don’t like just sort of long, rambling songs.
Joy: I don’t either.
Claire: So that sort of precludes me from most music festivals. I also can appreciate that – I mean, I get it. You’re there with your friends and you have outfits and you may or may not be taking some substances that help you just relax when the song just keeps going forever and ever. So anyway. All that to say –
Joy: It’s an interesting thing. I’m glad we’re talking about this because it is so interesting to me. We do, we have those friends that will go to three nights in a row of Fish. Or three nights in a row of Widespread Panic.
Claire: I work with this guy who he’s a little bit newer to the team. Recently at a sales meeting, he did a little “intro to me” slide. Because he was giving the presentation and he was like, “I know a lot of people here don’t know me yet. Here’s a little bit about me.” And one of them was that he has been to like hundreds of Widespread Panic shows.
Joy: Oh no. When they hold that as a badge of honor. Are we going to have to worry about you?
Claire: To be clear, I used to go to a gym in Broomfield. I loved the owners, and it was called Widespread CrossFit.
Joy: Okay. Because of Widespread Panic.
Claire: That guy was so into Widespread Panic that he named his business after it.
Joy: Yeah. And okay, there’s a part of me – just before people get upset and think that we’re trash talking – there is a part of me that wishes that I could get into something like that. There is a part of me that wishes that I was obsessed with one band, with a sports team, with a football team, with a basketball team. To where you’re getting all the gear and you’re getting all amped up to go to the concerts, and it’s a yearly thing with your friends. There is a part of me that wishes that I had that bone in my body, and I just don’t have it. I just don’t care enough to be like, “Yeah, let’s go!” I’ve always been this way. And I know that not everyone goes and does drugs and drinks a lot. But I associate that with in order to really have fun standing around and tailgating for hours beforehand. I’m not going to just sit around and… I don’t know, play games. There’s a part of me that’s like you kind of have to do some drugs or drink to sit there for hours. I don’t know, maybe not.
Claire: Maybe a less blanket statement way to say what you’re trying to say is that for me personally to find something like that interesting, I don’t imagine I could be engaged in that for that amount of time unless I was intoxicated.
Joy: Exactly, yeah.
Claire: That is not something that I personally find a lot of joy in, being intoxicated for an entire day.
Joy: No, I don’t enjoy that, and I would probably be asleep before the band took the stage.
Claire: Right.
Joy: That’s a whole other issue. It’s impressive for those of you who do that.
Claire: I would go to three nights in a row of Britney Spears.
Joy: I would 100% go to Vegas and see her if she went to do her residency again and I could stay in the hotel that she was in. I would do that one thousand percent.
Claire: So we say we would never do this, but there are people out there who we do find culturally significant enough, who we do feel connected to enough that if you were to say, “Hey, Britney is headlining Red Rocks for the next three nights,” you would be like, “Yeah, I’m going all three nights.”
Joy: All three nights.
Claire: And I’m wearing a different outfit every night.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: And I’m tailgating, and I’m bringing my snacks.
Joy: Because to me, that would be a once in a lifetime event. That would be a once in a lifetime event. Okay.
Claire: We’ve come full circle.
Joy: We are walking that back.
Claire: You did not tell us that Backstreet Boys came to town.
Joy: Yeah, and that Green Day is the best live show that I’ve seen. You know what, let’s see. Let me rank a few.
Claire: Because despite everything you just said, you do go to live music. You are on the higher end of people I know at least that go see music. And part of that is because you’re married to someone who is obsessed with music. And not only that, Scott has this talent – I mean, you guys know. We talk about Scott having this talent for gifts. Scott has a talent for tickets.
Joy: Yes, he does.
Claire: He will find the box seats or the front row orchestra seating.
Joy: He has miraculous luck.
Claire: Two hours before the concert is going to start for $80. You guys sat almost on the floor for Bruce Springsteen.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: And you got those tickets that day, didn’t you?
Joy: That day.
Claire: And they were under $100.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Yeah, that doesn’t happen.
Joy: No. But I call it good karma. I’m like, “You always have good ticket karma.” Because he will give tickets away. If he has tickets to a show and he’s like, “I just don’t want to try to sell these,” he’ll give them away to somebody. He is very much this – I don’t know. I think it’s good juju because he is never trying to make a bunch of money off of tickets if he ends up not being able to go.
Claire: Right. He is not turning around and then reselling the same seats for $500.
Joy: Oh no. Yeah.
Claire: He totally sees it as… what’s the word I’m looking for?
Joy: He wants to give away an experience to someone else, and he doesn’t want to charge them for it.
Claire: Like, he’s the… what’s the word I’m looking for?
Joy: Altruistic?
Claire: Yeah. Like he is the purveyor of the secret tickets.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: In the same way that he is the purveyor of the super niche perfect gift idea. Scott is a curator.
Joy: He’s definitely a curator. That’s such a great talent. Because if there is a show that I want to go to – and the main secret, guys, which it’s not really a huge secret, is that he has all the ticket apps on his phone and he will scour them constantly. Because tickets drop last minute all the time. So you just have to be really persistent. You can’t just look once and be like, “Well, there’s no tickets available.” You have to look throughout the day. So he will do that on his breaks, when he’s on calls.
Claire: He gets tickets from people who are like, “Oh, we got four seats, and then our two friends weren’t able to come at the very last minute. Their babysitter got sick. Now, it’s 90 minutes before the show starts, and we just want people to use these tickets.”
Joy: Exactly, exactly. It’s really a gift. But if I’m ranking – I just have to get this out of my system of ranking shows. I want to hear if you have favorite shows that you’ve seen. The ones that stick out in my mind – well, just because it was really fun that my mom went with me, but we did see NKOTBSB. So we saw New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys. I want to say it was 2010, 2011, 2012, around there. In Arizona. So my friend Cindy, my mom, and I went and saw them. And that was real fun because Kevin – was it Kevin? I think it was AJ. AJ walked right by us, and we were so excited. That was a great show. But Green Day just lives in my mind as one of the most fun nights of my life. They just played at Lollapalooza, so we watched them live at Lollapalooza on Hulu. That was just so much fun. We were like dancing in the living room. They’re so good at what they do. They’re so good at doing live shows. They always bring people on stage. It’s just the energy is just phenomenal. And I will say any Arcade Fire concert that I’ve been to has been magical. I went to the Green Day concert with this guy that I used to date named Jerry who still goes to my CrossFit gym from when I was going to CrossFit. I ran into him the other day in our neighborhood. He still lives in our neighborhood. And I got to say, it’s always a jolt to see someone you dated, even if it’s 15-20 years later.
Claire: Also, you’ve seen him dozens of times.
Joy: All the time because he would go to my CrossFit gym.
Claire: It’s not like, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen him in years.”
Joy: No, it’s so funny. So the other day, I was taking JT to the vet. I walked out, and he was right there. I was like, “Oh hey, Jerry, how is it going?” But anyway.
Claire: Evie snuck in here and she’s telling me to, “Shh, be quiet” so Maxine doesn’t find her.
Joy: Oh, that’s so cute. [laughing] You guys, she is just hiding behind the door. She’s holding onto the doorknob. “Shh, be quiet.”
Claire: Why are you in here? Are you hiding?
Joy: She says, “Because.”
Claire: “Because, because.”
[Evie speaking inaudibly.]
Claire: No, leave that picture here please. You can be in here, but you have to be quiet okay. I said, “Evie, you can be in here, but you have to be quiet.” And she goes, “So Maxine doesn’t find me.”
Joy: Yes, that too.
Claire: Oh goodness.
Joy: So what are your favorite shows off the top of your head.
Claire: My very first concert was Christina Aguilera, and Destiny’s Child opened for her.
Joy: Oh no, you did not see Beyonce in the beginning days. That’s amazing.
Claire: So that one is really memorable. What was your first concert?
Joy: My first concert – don’t laugh you guys. My first concert was Amy Grant and Peter Cetera.
Claire: Oh, that is amazing. I feel like you’ve talked about that. Evie, I am on the phone. I am not going to be quiet. I am talking.
Evie: You have to be quiet.
Claire: I can’t be quiet.
Evie: You have to be quiet before Maxine finds me.
Claire: Maxine is not going to find me. I’m supposed to be in here.
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: Okay. So that was really memorable. I saw NSYNC. Pretty much all my early teenage concerts. I saw NSYNC, I think it must have been at the Bronco Stadium. And yeah, when I saw Green Day that was really good. I went to this concert in Red Rocks called “Punk Rocks on the Rock” when I was like 14. I should not have been at that concert.
Joy: There’s things that I’m like, “I should not have been at this show.” But my friend who had older siblings would always take us, and my parents were just like, “Okay, sure.” I think they took us to like a Duran Duran concert. Anyway, so.
Claire: I mean, my first CD and I was probably like 6 or 7 years old was Boyz II Men. I shouldn’t have had that CD.
Joy: No. Well my first record my aunt got me was “Like a Virgin.” I was 7. My mom was probably like, “Hmm, thanks Aunt Laura.”
Claire: What’s the worst concert you’ve ever been to?
Joy: Oh my God, the worst one was – okay, my friend and I went to see, I want to say it was Jason Mraz, which he was phenomenal. But I think Howie Day either opened for him or I don’t know. This was probably 2005 or 2006. So Jason Mraz was in the height of his Jason Mraz-ness. He did great. But then I think Howie Day did some follow up or opener. I can’t remember what the direction was, if he was before or after. But he shows up late, and he was so wasted that he just walks on stage, grabs a keyboard, and starts doing one of those slide things. Maybe it was one of those slide guitars, and he just did some random music for like 20 minutes. Everyone is like, you know, we really want to hear the song that’s really popular on the radio right now. Not some random stream of consciousness.
Claire: Not you just free styling.
Joy: Yes, and it was horrible.
Claire: We did not come here to hear Howie Day free style.
Joy: It was horrible. So we just left. But it was like, oh, poor Howie Day, he’s not doing too well. It was bad.
Claire: It was not a good day to be Howie Day. That’s really funny. I would say it wasn’t a bad concert per se. It was just really weird. I saw Flight of the Concords but at Red Rocks.
Joy: Yeah, you told me. It just wasn’t the venue for that.
Claire: It just wasn’t the venue. Their whole show was basically – if Flight of the Concords is not familiar to you, this is a show sort of this borderline sketch comedy –
Joy: Like The Lonely Island, guys.
Claire: I have never seen The Lonely Island.
Joy: Amy Sandberg, all those guys on SNL
Claire: It’s a very sort of SNL spinoff vibe of a show. It’s a New Zealand based show. The two main characters are these comedians, and part of it is that they sang these silly songs. So they ended up going on tour. But their whole show was set up as a skit. It would have been great if it had been a small venue and it sort of felt like you were at an open mic night sort of thing. Not at a giant world renowned almost stadium.
Joy: Yeah, because we saw Tenacious D with Jack Black.
Claire: Oh, that would be so fun.
Joy: In a small venue, and it was perfect. It was so fun.
Claire: You need that back-and-forth energy.
Joy: Yes. The first thing that they did – so they had the stage set up so that there was just this couch on the stage. It was empty obviously. They hadn’t come on stage yet. We’re thinking, oh cool, they’re just going to sit on a couch and hang out or whatever. And then the lights go out, and the lights come back on, and they are just both on the couch pretending like they are sleeping with blankets over them. And then they slowly rise and look at the audience like, “Where the “f” are we?” It was so funny. It was such a good show. I love Jack Black so much. He’s the best.
Claire: I do love Jack Black. That would be a really good one to see.
Joy: It was great.
Claire: Alright. So that’s probably enough reminiscing about live music.
Joy: This has been the music 101 show.
Claire: This has been the live music episode. So before we move on, let’s take a minute to talk about our favorite sponsor, Ned, the CBD products that we love so much. You can check them out at helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off any order. I love their Daily Blend. I do the 750mg blend. They have lower concentrations, and I think they have one higher concentration. If you are still dabbling in CBD and still trying to figure out what is the correct concentration and dosage for you. For me, 750, it’s a little bit on the higher end, but then I feel like I have to take less of it, and then it starts working a little bit faster. But if you’re someone whose system is a little bit more sensitive, you might want something lower. If you’re somebody who is used to taking more stuff, maybe you want something a little bit higher. And then I love their Mello Magnesium drink powder. This is something that does not have CBD in it. It’s magnesium and a few botanicals and minerals. They really just help relax my system. I like to take it before bed. It really helps me chill out. Or if I’ve had a really hectic day, if something went wrong at work and I’ve had that feeling all day, I’ll even take it right before dinner and it helps me chill out as I go into the evening and helps me feel like I’m able to shed the skin of that day.
Joy: I’ve been starting your routine of taking the – not the brushing of the teeth after… or before? What do you do? You brush your teeth, and then you take your magnesium?
Claire: Magnesium is a little bit earlier, and then I brush my teeth –
Joy: Oh, it’s the CBD oil. That’s right.
Claire: I brush my teeth, and then CBD.
Joy: And then your CBD, got it. I’ve been doing just the Mello Magnesium at night, and that’s been lovely. I’m reading on their website right now of all the great things that are in Mello. We encourage you to check it out. They have so much transparency on their website of where their products come from. And if you did not hear the episode with one of the co-founders, Ret, you can go back and listen to that episode. We really get into the mission behind Ned. As you guys know if you’ve listened to this podcast over the years, we don’t like to promote products that we don’t use and love ourselves. So please support the podcast. Thank you so much, Ned, for supporting our podcast.
Claire: Alright, so this weekend I was on a hike with my friend Amanda – hi, Amanda.
Joy: Hi, Amanda.
Claire: And we started talking about Diane Sanfilippo newer podcast. I think there’s maybe two dozen or so episodes out there already. I think I’ve heard one or two episodes. We’ve been following Diane for a long time. I think we’re going to try to have her on the podcast here soon. But it just started this conversation with Amanda and I about this post-diet culture culture. Like people who have been advocates of diets in the past who are coming around and saying, “Wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t have been doing that.” Or it’s time for us to reexamine that and move away from it. And we were talking about the difference between being the person who says, “Hey, this is what’s out there. Here’s how you should notice that these thoughts are influenced by diet culture. Here is how you should notice these patterns are influenced by diet culture. And here’s all the stuff that we’ve been taking for granted, and it’s all diet culture, diet culture,” versus the people who are just sort of living their lives outside of diet culture and not calling it out as much.
Joy: Right.
Claire: I think this is something that we’ve talked a lot about when it comes to body image. Sometimes it’s even more powerful when you see somebody who has a post where they’re not looking as posed or polished as maybe most people would, and the caption is all about how they posted this photo anyway even though they don’t look amazing because it doesn’t matter what you look like, and you should take photos anyway. Versus the person who posts that photo and doesn’t call out, “Hey, you should post the photo anyway.” It’s just, “A day at the beach” without calling out, “I went to the beach, and I was nervous about putting on the bikini, but I did it anyway.” Kind of the difference between the person who is still in it by virtue of the fact that everything they do is still sort of, here is how I’m not participating in diet culture. And the person who is just sort of like, eh, I’ve moved on and here is my life.
Joy: It’s not even in your vocabulary. It’s not in your periphery. It’s nowhere to be seen. I think that’s a really important distinction. I know that people feel very differently. There will be a lot of comments when we talk about this. “But I really needed to lose blah blah blah, and I was so proud of it, and I actually really loved when people would comment on my weight.” And I think there’s no black and white to this conversation. With anything, it really depends. But I can’t help but think about the larger picture and influence that diet culture as on us. That’s where I go with it. Great for you if that is something that you can do in the “healthy mindset” of it all. But I just have what I feel is a personal responsibility to really shed light on how damaging diet culture is as a whole and that it will always be present, so we have to be even stronger talking against it and making people aware of how easy it can just slip into your life, how easy it is. That’s what is important to me. Not about every single person has to jump on the anti-diet train, but that is just my lens because it’s everywhere and I worry about people. I see the damage that it does to people, whether it be in my practice or in my personal life. I’m not speaking to everybody, I just want to make that clear. Because I know we’ll get an email of someone who has really worked really hard to lose an amount of weight for whatever reason that they wanted to, and that’s great if that’s something in your life that you have a personal relationship with that’s good for you. We’re not bashing that. I’m just saying, bigger picture.
Claire: Yeah. I think it is hard for me when people post things like, “Stop commenting on people’s bodies, for better or for worse. Just find something else to talk about.” And inevitably we’ll get a few messages saying, “But I want people to comment about my body. I put a lot of work into it, and I want people to notice.” Part of me wants to take a step back and say, but why do you want people to notice?
Joy: Yeah, it’s really interesting. This brings up – someone commented on my shoulders. I have not had a comment on my body in so long. This was an acquaintance in real life. It wasn’t on social media or anything. It kind of jolted me. I was very dismissive. I was trying to turn the conversation away because they kind of kept asking questions of like, “Well, how do you do that?” And I was like, “Well, it’s kind of genetics.” I was just really passive.
Claire: My skeleton just grew this way.
Joy: If you look at my dad, it’s probably not hard to tell where I get my body type. So all that to say is I am grateful that I’ve been so far removed. And I think that you and I have developed a safe place corner of the internet where that is just not talked about. And if you want to go to a corner of the internet where that exists, then that’s fine. Everyone has the will to do whatever you want. Clearly. I was struck by how impactful that comment was because it just isn’t in my life anymore, and I don’t talk about that stuff anymore, and I don’t really absorb it anymore. Do I see things that I’m like, I don’t want to go there? Yeah, I notice the contrast much stronger because when I see someone who is posting things that are like, “Eat this meal for this effect on your body” and “eat this type of diet for these abs,” whatever, it’s very much like, oh yeah, I used to kind of be in that world and now we’re stepping away from that. Or we have been. It was something where I was like, woah, I haven’t felt this weird cringy feeling in a long time.
Claire: Right. I think part of this is that within diet culture, so much of this is so normalized and has been for a long time. Especially if you’re somebody who is in their 30’s and 40’s, which I think the majority of our listeners are, it was something that was so pervasive as you were growing up that you didn’t give it a second thought because there wasn’t an alternative. If you grew up in mainstream culture, then these are the things that you grew up believing and you didn’t question them because that’s just how it was. You didn’t think to yourself – like we talked about the Victoria’s Secret documentary a few weeks ago. A lot of people have sent us this song that somebody wrote in that same time frame that’s like, “I know Victoria’s Secret. She was made up by a man.” But when you were growing up, you didn’t question that this person was the pinnacle of beauty. You don’t even think, “Oh, society is saying that.” You’re just like, this is what it is. You’re a teenager or you’re in your early 20’s, and this is what it is. The conversations didn’t exist then around even having the awareness to step outside of that and say, but why is it that way? It wasn’t even a question. It was just, this is what it is. Enter people would be like, “This isn’t realistic. These people are airbrushed in magazines.” But the airbrushed in magazines thing was where it stopped. It wasn’t like, this is a homogenous body viewpoint. It was just like, “Oh you know, real people don’t look like that. These people are airbrushed.” Not like, “Hey, we should stop and examine why this combination of characteristics is desirable.”
Joy: Right.
Claire: I think that is something that I take for granted, is having the awareness – back to someone who says, “But I want people to comment on my body.” And asking them, “Well, why do you want people to comment on your body?” What is it about your external – why are you looking for that particular flavor of validation? Why do you want people to see that you lost weight and praise you for that? Why is that worthy of praise? Sure, you’ve put in hard work. But what about that do you feel is worthy of external validation. Or not even worthy but is in need of external validation.
Joy: In need of external validation. I am going to just project and think – I’m making assumptions, just based off of our culture. Thinness is praised. Not historically, but in the past 20-30 years has been the “standard.” Everything is in air quotes. Therefore smaller equals better.
Claire: I get it from that lens. From a diet culture lens, I agree. And that’s what we’re saying. Is there a reason that is not rooted in the prioritization of thinness that you would want external validation for weight loss?
Joy: Right.
Claire: I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe there is something out there. To me, it’s hard to imagine that. I think a lot of people would say, “It’s because I put in a lot of work, and I want that work to be validated.” But then why can’t someone come up to you and say, “Hey, I’ve noticed you’ve been really working hard at eating this certain way. Good job on your hard work.” That’s not a comment about your body. It’s like, “Hey, that recipe looks really good. I’ve noticed you’ve put a lot of effort into trying new foods lately. It looks like you’re really working on eating more vegetables. That’s awesome that you’re doing that.” That to me is a recognition of you’re putting in hard work. Food planning or grocery shopping was always really stressful for you, and now you’re doing this food prep system, and your really good friend can be like, “I’ve noticed you’ve started doing that. It’s really helping you out. That’s so cool. I’m so glad that you found that.” That’s not a comment about your body.
Joy: I think this goes into some of the discussion that we had with Molly. I did this on the Girls Gone WOD feed. We had a conversation with Molly Bahr about intuitive eating, and that’s one way of looking at things but how it’s not black and white, that it’s not one thing or another thing. A lot of things can be true at the same time. But once we open the door to say, “Well, what if I want to eat healthy, and that’s feeding into diet culture?” Well, not really. I talk to a lot of people about this in counseling too. They have a really hard time separating – if I try to exercise and eat right, I’m feeding into diet culture. Not necessarily. It’s how you feel about yourself and the voices that are in your head around it. If you’re sitting there going, “I’ve got to hustle. I’ve got to grind every day because I have to be” fill in the blank diet culture statement.
Claire: Never miss a Monday. And you’re coming at it from, if I mess this up, that means that I am lazy. That means that I am equating those things with negativity about yourself. Versus, hey, I’m going to try really hard to get to the gym on Monday because I know that makes me feel better. I know that sets up my habits in a way that takes less effort. Same action, different motivation.
Joy: Yes. And different internal dialogue. And I think the internal dialogue is really key. So I think about that piece of it’s fine if you want to eat fruits and vegetables more often if you want to eat – I don’t want to say “healthier” choices. I don’t really understand that. But if you want to objectively look at food, sure, there’s foods that nourish your body differently. Okay. So those things that are just a neutral fact.
Claire: Right. If you want to prioritize a wide variety of choices and plants and non-processed foods. I mean, I think we’ve talked about this years ago with [INAUDIBLE 00:32:19.11] where in the same way that it’s all about motivation, we also need to be honest that you’re not getting the same nutrition from a donut that you are from a salad. Those are two wide variety extremes. But the problem is that we’ve assigned moral priority. Well then, that makes salad better than a donut. Well, it’s not better or worse. It’s just two different things. You would never sit there and be like, well, my pajamas – this is a bad example because I think you would say that your pajamas are better than a work suit. You would never say, hey, my blue leggings are better than my black leggings. They are just different.
Joy: They are just different.
Claire: And that is the neutral mindset that is a helpful steppingstone to get away from the constant diet culture buzz. But at the same time, we need to acknowledge there are some choices that are going to be more nourishing to your body than others objectively. So let’s not pretend that they’re not. But at the same time, let’s not make it something that it’s not in a moral sense.
Joy: Right. Let’s not demonize a donut. Let’s not demonize any food.
Claire: No one is saying donuts are healthy. But what we are saying is there’s nothing wrong with eating them.
Joy: They’re delicious!
Claire: That’s been the problem is it’s been very black and white. If this isn’t healthy, you shouldn’t eat it. No, no.
Joy: Right.
Claire: So then people say, well then, if the only things that can go in the “you can eat them” category are healthy things, then I’m going to try to justify why these unhealthy things are healthy. We’re saying just get rid of “I can only eat healthy things.” I can eat whatever I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s “healthy” or “unhealthy.” It doesn’t matter the micronutrient content or the fiber content or if this is a plant or a donut. But I’m maybe going to try to take that information from my body after I do eat it and think, okay, “How do I want to feel?” And I’m going to use some objective information about how I feel after I eat certain things, use that to inform my decisions about when I choose to eat what.
Joy: Yes. And I think the kicker, what you just said, is objective information. We can’t – I shouldn’t say we all – but most of us cannot, and I think we’re getting there collectively, hopefully, don’t know what it’s like to just be objective about food or our bodies. We cannot. We can’t. So we really need to work on that piece of just being super objective of looking at it for what it is. If you have a reaction when you see people posting food. Let’s take Emily Schuman for example who has the Cupcakes & Cashmere blog that lives my dream life in Los Angeles. She is always posting the most delicious treats, candies. I see people comment and they’re like, “How do you keep so thin by eating all this?” I just want to go through the screen and be like, why is that a problem? You don’t know her genetics. You don’t know her diet choices. And who cares?
Claire: Just, why does it matter?
Joy: Why does it matter? But people want to go there because then you’re equating a type of food to having more weight on your body, and that’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. So anyway, that’s just what diet culture has done to us. I think the original comment around this whole topic of Diane’s new podcast, which is great – it’s called Full Plate. I’ve only listened to a handful of episodes, but it’s a nice turn to see what she’s done over the years. I think a lot of us have kind of evolved and pushed up against the social media diet culture crap that’s constantly coming at us. But this is just a friendly reminder that if you’re following someone and these emotions are coming up of either negativity or diet culture, posting pictures of their bodies, before and afters. If it makes you feel bad about yourself, like, “Oh, I should do this” or “I should be doing that,” maybe give it an unfollow or mute it for a while. What is your opinion about posting pictures of bodies of before and afters?
Claire: I’m not for it. I think there is no way that I’ve ever seen that. There’s no motivation for that that I’ve ever heard that passes the body neutrality check. There is no way to compare side by side photos of yourself or anyone else that does not inherently lend itself to saying one is better than the other.
Joy: To prioritizing thinness.
Claire: The question that you need to ask yourself is what beauty standard is being upheld here. Something right now that makes me crazy is people who will enter body building competitions and say, “I just want to see what my body is capable of.”
Joy: Oh, I can’t. I can’t. “I’m doing an experiment.” “I just want to experiment.”
Claire: “I’m doing this to learn. I just want to see what my body is capable of.” You know what, if you want to go on that journey and keep it to yourself because you are curious about your personal body and what this experience will personally feel like to you, I’m not going to begrudge you. But when I see it with somebody who has tens or hundreds of thousands of followers and they’re posting about their entire process, and they’re posting the “progress” photos, they’re posting before and afters. There is this inherent visibility to that where maybe I’m just missing it, but rarely am I finding people saying, “Hey, I tried this. It was a horrible experience. It took my hormones months to recover.”
Joy: Yep.
Claire: “And I was grumpy.”
Joy: Just horrible.
Claire: “I was irritable for weeks.” I can imagine that’s how I would feel if I put my body in that position is mentally it would be very challenging. And we’ve talked about body building before. But that I feel like is the line I hear a lot lately is, “Well, I’m just trying to see what my body is capable of. I just want to push it to this limit and see what happens.”
Joy: Yeah, let me just try to starve myself for months on end and workout when I have no energy.
Claire: You have to be in a defect in order to look that way. So we can go down that rabbit hole for hours. But that to me is an area where I’m still seeing a lot. You can’t put those photos side by side and not expect people to view your competition body as something that you’re saying that this is the improved version.
Joy: Yeah, right.
Claire: And whether or not you personally believe that when you’re putting that out there, that’s what other people are seeing.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: There is a responsibility by people who post things. To say, “I’m just posting things. People can take it however they want.” To a degree, that’s true. You can’t control how people are going to react. But you have the responsibility to not post things that have… it’s one thing to post an opinion and somebody takes it the wrong way. And you’re like, “Well, I can’t control if you took that the wrong way.” If you’re posting a before and after picture, it does feel like your responsibility is to know that people are going to look at this and see the before and after. You’re going to look at the after and say, “This person is prioritizing that.” This person is inherently telling me that that is better than the before.
Joy: Yeah. There’s a lot of anti-fatness in there. There’s a lot. Prove me wrong. To quote JK, help me understand. That is one area that it’s hard for me to budge on that.
Claire: I hope JK doesn’t mind us using that all the time whenever we’re in a bad mood.
Joy: Help me understand. Just go to his podcast and listen to it because that is really good. That is just one area that I have a hard time budging because it does not make sense to me. It perpetuates this really horrible cycle of diet culture that we’re really trying to push against and make a difference. Now if someone has this influence in saying that this is what my body can do and you’re literally on a stage, people judging your body. What the actual [raspberry sound].
Claire: So I think before and afters take many forms. People are still posting them for a variety of things. But any time that you post a photo of your body next to another photo of your body – and this goes back to how we opened this conversation about people posting photos where they have visible rolls or cellulite, whatever, that in the past would have been really uncomfortable for them to post and they’re calling it out and saying, “I never would have used to post this photo, and now I’m learning how to be more comfortable with it or overlook it or just not see it” versus a person that just posts that photo and is like, “a day at the beach” and doesn’t even call it out. I think the opposite of that is still the before and after where it just invites you to pick apart every single piece of your body. That’s what I have to say about that.
Joy: That’s all we can wrap up in this episode. That’s going to be an ongoing discussion. Alright, let’s wrap up with a couple quick announcements and reminders. The teacher list is still in our highlights. You can go and support the Amazon wish lists for the teachers.
Claire: And I am going to be adding to that this week. I’ll post about it on our stories, if you’re a teacher. We’re recording Monday morning. I’ll probably post about it today or tomorrow and put those new stories up on Thursday after the episode comes out. So if you are a teacher who has missed the memo up until now and you want us to put up your Amazon wish list, email it to us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. It needs to be an Amazon wish list. We don’t have the bandwidth to post people’s individual lists of items. It’s just easier to handle the wish list with the address. Make sure you have it completely set up. It’s not hard to do. If you don’t know, Google it. And email it to us. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us your name, what you teach, where you live. That just kind of helps people feel like they are a little bit more a part of your story. If you want to send a picture of your classroom, obviously without the kids in it, or a picture of yourself, feel free to do that. I’ll post those up. And then the older ones that we posted from a couple weeks ago are also in our Instagram highlights.
Joy: Great. Did we ever find a home for those pillow covers?
Claire: I don’t think so, no.
Joy: If you’re missing some pillow covers, please email us. And then I just want to say thank you to everyone who wrote about the colonoscopy advice. That was amazing advice. Thank you so much. As well as the dental products advice. I got a cavity last week. I always get cavities. I asked for advice for products that I can use, and I got some really good ones. So I will just keep posting those if you guys want to know the tips or how to prevent cavities, and I’ll let you know if it works. Alright, Pete and Kim broke up. Let’s just gloss over that. Blah, blah, blah.
Claire: Oh, Kim Kardashian. I was like, who? Pete and Kim?
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: Do we know them?
Joy: Yeah, Pete and Kim, you know.
Claire: Come on. I will share some of those colonoscopy tips. Maybe Joy after you get yours, you can be like, I tried this. I would do it differently next time. Alright guys, well thanks for joining us. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online at joyanclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off your order. Don’t forget, they have a 30-day money back guarantee for first-time orders. So give it a try. You have nothing to lose. And support the products that support our podcast. Thank you, guys, so much for being here. We will talk to you next week.
Joy: Bye, guys.
Claire: Bye.
138: Uncorking the Pain Terrarium
What on earth is a pain terrarium? You’ll have to listen to find out. We get personal with the therapy hat and also discuss the Crossfit Games FOMO. Finally, what happened with Joe and the recent dog attack? There is lots to catch up on, don’t miss this episode!
HELLO NED DISCOUNT CODE JOY for 15% OFF
email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
Instagram: joyandclaire_
This is Joy & Claire Episode 138: Uncorking the Pain Terrarium
Episode Date: August 4, 2022
Transcription Completed: October 30, 2022
Audio Length: 58:53 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: Hi.
Claire: Happy Thursday.
Joy: Happy Thursday forever and ever. You know, would we ever switch the days? Probably not. That would just be too much change.
Claire: Of all the things we want to change up, we cannot mess with the schedule.
Joy: People do not like when we change the songs.
Claire: I think about our schedule all the time. I always think back to what we say every time, which is that if you told us we would find time for this every week for nine years, we never would have started.
Joy: Oh, heck no.
Claire: I compare this to the other habits in my life that I’m trying to create. I’m like, how do we always make this work every single week? It just happens.
Joy: It’s in the DNA.
Claire: Yeah, you’ve just got to set aside an hour every single week.
Joy: I think about the Gretchen Rubin Four Tendencies.
Claire: Right.
Joy: How a lot of it also is for other people that are kind of counting on us. And then every once in a while, I’ll be like, “Is anyone out there?” And then we’ll get a great email and be like, yes, there are still people out there.
Claire: Wait, which tendency do you have?
Joy: I believe that I am part… four tendencies… let me look it up.
Claire: Okay, there’s the upholder, the obliger, the rebel, and the questioner.
Joy: I think I came out with the upholder and the obliger.
Claire: Gotcha.
Joy: I have a crossover between the two. I’m really big on outer expectations. Like if somebody is counting on me, I’ll be like, “Yes, I will do that.” And then I also have a big piece of inner expectations. However, I’ll talk myself out of it. I’ll easily be like, “I don’t want to do that” if I have some type of goal.
Claire: Interesting.
Joy: Like recently I had to take this exam – so if you’re in any type of field where you have to do continuing education credits or get a license in the state of wherever you’re practicing in. Because now I work for a telehealth company, it really is beneficial to get licensed in multiple states so you can see more people. So recently they were like, “We have a need in Utah. Would you like to get licensed in Utah?” I’m like, sure. These days, it’s very easy to get cross-licensed. Meaning, there’s this great platform website called Medallion that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. It’s awesome. I was like, sure, let’s try Utah. They were like, “You need to have this extra exam,” which is basically the same exam I took 20 years ago. It’s a narrative version. So it’s more like you read case studies and reply or you respond to these case studies and talk through what you would do. So I studied for this exam. I was like, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. I want to meet this goal. I stopped studying for a while because I’m so exhausted. If you’ve taken these standardized tests before, you understand how much of a pain they are. It’s more about how to outsmart the test than it is knowing the content. And it’s also very weird to take a test about content you’ve done for 20 years because you have to go back to the book. You can’t do something out of clinical practice. You have to do something by the book. Which is two totally different ways of practicing. So I get it. And I was kind of getting into that framework again of the by the book stuff. Went to take the test. And I was actually really enjoying the test. I think I was more fearful of, “Will I be able to take this test?” I have not done a standardized test in so long. And I missed it by three points. Like so close. So close. That lit a fire in me where I was like, oh my gosh, I’m so mad. I didn’t meet that expectation for myself, and then I also didn’t meet it for my work. Which it matters, but they’re not going to fire me for it.
Claire: It just would have been nice to have.
Joy: It’s a nice to have, not a must have. And so that’s not the issue. It was more of, I was so close, and the inner expectation was pretty fiery. And also, I didn’t realize how fiery it was until I failed.
Claire: So on the day that Joy took the test, she was texting me. She was like, “I have this test. I’m probably going to fail. I don’t even care. I’m just taking it to see how it goes.”
Joy: I was trying to be super cas. Not be nervous. Total chill girl.
Claire: And then she texted me and was like, “I missed it by three points!” I was like, it almost would have been better if you had bombed it. Because then you would have known, aw man, not for me, not happening. To miss it by only three points is I think a worst-case scenario.
Joy: I agree. It was pretty painful. I can’t decide if I’m happy that I was so close because I’ve still got it in a way. But it also really hurt that I was so freaking – and I knew the last question. It was the last question. It was so frustrating because I knew exactly the question that screwed me. And this test is written to where it will give you feedback based on your answers of when you go on to the next question of how you are doing. It’s hard to explain. But basically –
Claire: It’s a dynamic test.
Joy: Yeah. So I was responding, and it would be like, “Pick another answer.” Basically, you got it wrong. So if you pick an answer and it says, “Pick another answer,” it means you got it wrong and they start deducting points. But the case study was so – I mean, I ran it by almost every therapist I know. And they are like, “I cannot believe that was the answer that they picked.” I almost wanted to dispute it. I even told my boss. She was like, “I would write and dispute it.” I get it. You could argue that this question was very much giving a stigma to a person who was pregnant. Like a diagnosis to someone who was pregnant. The question was alluding to someone who was pregnant. And I would never diagnose this person with bipolar – which is what they wanted you to answer. Anyway. Not worth going into. But I was running it by all my friends. They’re like, “That’s sexist. That’s totally discriminatory.” Basically I would never diagnose someone with bipolar because they accidentally got pregnant. Bipolar can come along with risky behaviors and unprotected sex. But then I’m also like, but that’s judgmental. I wasn’t thinking that way. So this question was just like, deducting, deducting points, deducting points. The last answer I picked was “bipolar,” and I was like, oh shit, I just lost so many points. It tricked me. And the fact that it was the last question made me so mad because I was feeling so confident, and then the last question just screwed me. So clearly because I just spent the last five minutes talking about a stupid test, the upholder is that inner expectation where I got so mad that I didn’t pass it. I want to go back. Get me back in right now. I want to pass it right now. Even though I don’t need it. I don’t need it. Back to our original point of would we have those outer-inner expectations going into this podcast? Probably not. Do you still have a good handle on what you do? Has it changed at all?
Claire: I never have read the whole book, but I remember taking the quiz the last time this came up. I was in between an upholder and a questioner. I’m more likely to resist outer expectations. Inner and outer expectations are important to me, but if I have to choose, I am more likely to follow my inner expectations than outer expectations. I also think it’s interesting for you that rebel doesn’t come up. It feels like you also have this streak in you that won’t do something if you think that someone else expects you to do it.
Joy: I wouldn’t say expectation. I would say –
Claire: Sorry. Not expects. But if someone expects, but not in a – like you don’t want to do something if it’s predictable.
Joy: That is correct. I think expectations are different. If it’s like I’m relying on you, it’s very likely that I’ll stick to that because that’s important to me. But if someone is like, this is the newest trend. I’m like, no it’s not. That’s where I get rebellious. The newest reel trend, or the newest Instagram trend, or the newest social media trend. I’ll be like, no, I don’t want to do that. Because that sameness freaks me out. It’s always been that way. I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. If the group was doing one thing, I did the complete opposite. So it’s different from, “Joy, I’m expecting you to meet this goal.” And I’m like, “I’m on it. I got it.”
Claire: Right. It’s more like a societal expectation.
Joy: A societal expectation, exactly.
Claire: Maybe that’s another category. Or maybe the book goes into this, or maybe her podcast goes into this. I’ve not really consumed that much content around this topic, but maybe there’s another distinction between personal expectations that you feel that an individual has for you, that you may have a personal relationship versus society’s expectations that you don’t feel connected to in the same way. I don’t know. I feel like of all the different personality types – Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, all that that we occasionally reference – that particular grouping, the four types is the one that I resonate with the least. I don’t really think about my life in terms of expectations being met or being questioned.
Joy: But you’re pretty good about just independently thinking, not being too much – you’re definitely not this rebel of, “No, I’m not going to do that.” It’s like a healthy questioning.
Claire: I think that I just have a very logical approach – logical in the real sense of the word in that I take things very subjectively. I look at things very subjectively. Expectations tend to not really come into it. It’s just like, hey, fi this then that, if that then this. If I can’t do that, then this will happen. If I do do it, then that will happen. Let me choose which outcome that I want. And you know, it’s more complicated than that.
Joy: Isn’t it interesting if you think about how this really isn’t something that is biological, I don’t think. Because I don’t think that this was passed down, the expectation piece. This wasn’t passed down from my family dynamics.
Claire: Right.
Joy: My mom is a complete upholder. She might be a little bit of an obliger. Actually, that’s exactly the same as mine.
Claire: Wait a minute. The call is coming from inside the house.
Joy: That’s so funny.
Claire: I mean, genetic maybe not, but I definitely think that it has to do with how you were raised. I think most of those tendencies probably come from the way that you were raised as a child to meet others’ expectations and how other people’s expectations were communicated to you, and the importance that other people’s expectations were put on you as a child and an adolescent.
Joy: Right.
Claire: I think about a lot of people who so many of their goals and achievements as children and teenagers and young adults even are just directly related to something that their parents wanted them to do. Or their teachers, whatever.
Joy: That’s fair. Have I talked about my little theory about templates? Of how you’re raised?
Claire: No, go on.
Joy: I repeat this so much in therapy that I forget where I’m saying this. I always say that it feels like you’re raised and you have a template. This is the vision and the lens that you have from the world from how you were brought up. And so many people have this struggle because they’re trying to fit their more mature, grown-up, adult life from an old template. I’m like, “It’s like an iPhone update. You just need to update your template.” And you need to get rid of the old way of thinking. Sure, it had benefits. And sure, it taught you a lot of great things. But there’s so much from that lens that you look at life with that’s really dysfunctional now, that’s not serving you anymore. But it’s so hard to change. It’s not just like an overnight thing. Anyway, I find that really interesting. I think of my dad. I think he’d be more rebel. He is straight up rebel. If he had it his way, I think he would just build airplanes in a garage his whole life and not work for “the man,” but he had to provide for a family. And now he gets to do that in his retired life.
Claire: I think about this a lot when I’m doing therapy. Again, Joy is a therapist. I am a receiver of the therapy.
Joy: Hey look, we’re all receivers of the therapy in life.
Claire: It’s so true.
Joy: It just so happens that I’m –
Claire: Not from Joy. Joy is not my therapist. That would be wild. That would be a fun podcast though.
Joy: That would be unethical and a dual relationship.
Claire: [laughing]
Joy: However, I would be reported to the board immediately and lose my license.
Claire: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joy: It’s okay. Let’s just do it on a podcast.
Claire: What I’m trying to say is in my own therapy, I think I’ll always resist digging too much into, “Where did this come from? What are your childhood patterns that are showing up here?” I’m just like, “Listen” – like, have you seen that tweet that’s going around that’s like, “Therapist: Can we unpack that together? Me: Um, no. I spent years packing it nicely away.” That’s pretty much how I feel. Excuse me, if things are in my subconscious, they’re doing fine there. I don’t need to take them out. They’re there for a reason. Let’s just let sleeping dogs lie. Maybe that’s why therapy is so hard for me because therapy is to uncover things from my past. I mean, “hard time” is not the right way to say it. I sort of resist thinking too much about, oh, this pattern comes from X, Y, Z. Like communication style in my childhood or the types of expectations my parents had for me, this dynamic with my siblings. I don’t know. For me, I think if I look back and I can say, “Oh yeah, I’m sure this probably came from” – whatever. But I also feel like sometimes that feels distracting. I’m like, yeah, yeah, fine, I don’t need to know what this has to do with, whatever my childhood issues. What do I do with it now?
Joy: What do I do about it now? I mean, everybody is different in therapy, and I definitely don’t subscribe to we all have to unpack the childhood stuff. However, we would be doing a disservice if we didn’t look at how we are doing now as a direct result of how we were and how we were raised. It’s more about I don’t think we have to pick apart every single thing, but it’s more of drawing the correlation of there’s parts of us that just weren’t healed as a kid that we carry through with us now. That these patterns just no longer service. It’s that template thing. I’m operating from this because it’s automatic. It’s a default setting. To update this default setting, it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of awareness. And sometimes that awareness comes from a lot of pain, and we don’t like to deal with pain. So it turns into, let’s just put that back.
Claire: Yeah, but is there something wrong with that? Can I just be like, “Hey, that looks painful. I’m just going to keep it behind the glass.”
Joy: But why would you want to look at it? Why not just explore it just to see what comes up? Why not?
Claire: What you just said. It’s painful, and you don’t want to deal with pain. So can’t you just look at it like in a tank, and it can be a terrarium of your childhood pain.
Joy: You sure can, but it’s not going to benefit you in the way that it could. No one is forcing you to take out the stuff and look at it.
Claire: To uncork my pain terrarium.
Joy: There’s really no way around it. The only way out is through.
Claire: This is going to come up in therapy this week.
Joy: It really does suck.
Claire: I’m going to use the phrase “uncork my pain terrarium,” and my therapist is going to be like, “I’m sorry, what?”
Joy: Uncork my pain terrarium. Is that what you called it? That’s the name of this episode. [laughing]
Claire: Uncorking the pain terrarium.
Joy: It’s going to be the weirdest title. No one will ever listen to this podcast. “I just don’t know where these girls are going.” But I think about when we had Zac Anderson on the show.
Claire: Man, two weeks in a row talking about that.
Joy: Which he put a reel together of when we were like, “I’m talking to you Zac Anderson.” When he said there’s so much that you can put on the shelf before the shelf breaks. It’s very true. But here’s the thing that people are very afraid of in therapy. Once I uncork that pain terrarium – which I really wish that I could use in therapy – I’ll never be able to recover from that. That’s the biggest fear. That’s when I talk about increasing your tolerance to uncomfortable feelings, that’s what I’m talking about. You just kind of got to dig in a little bit. It’s not going to come crashing down. You’re a strong person. You can tolerate it. You can handle it. It’s just that looking at it is like, “I just don’t want to.” So you can start to look at it and just consider it and then be like, “It’s uncomfortable, but I can deal with that level of uncomfort.” No one is asking you to dive in and go into the deep end with weights on you and try to swim. You know?
Claire: Okay. Just to play devil’s advocate here –
Joy: Please.
Claire: This is like a meta therapy session. You’re not giving me therapy. We’re just –
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: But in my experience, there is no middle ground. It’s terrarium of pain stays corked, or you are in the deep end with concrete shoes on. There is no experience in the pain terrarium that does not feel like being in the deep end with concrete shoes on.
Joy: To you?
Claire: Yeah.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: It feels very all or nothing.
Joy: It feels very all or nothing. So if you were to open that, you would be like, “It’s too much. I’m shutting down.”
Claire: It would be like when the Ghost Busters tank of containment got shut down and all the ghosts were released back into the city immediately. That’s probably a better analogy.
Joy: That’s a great analogy. That’s a great analogy.
Claire: The containment field does not need to be breached. It’s all or nothing. Once the containment field is shut down by the EPA guy with the bad hair, all of the ghosts are going to be released into the city –
Joy: “Shut this down. Shut this all down. Everybody, shut this down.”
Claire: I’m going to have to go through an enormous Michelin Man moment and have to cross the strings to get them back in.
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: And that just feels like a lot of work.
Joy: I hear you. I hear you. And I think that so much of it really is in our mind of how painful it’s going to be. I think if you were to decide to go there and talk about some of those things, that’s what a therapist is for, to walk you through it. To be like, “You’re okay. You’re sitting here. You’re fine. There’s nothing scary. What’s the worst thing that could happen.” What’s the worst thing that could happen if you open the Ghost Busters gate?
Claire: I don’t know, I feel like a lot of bad things could happen.
Joy: What’s going to happen? What is the worst thing that’s going to happen if the Ghost Busters gate opens?
Claire: I don’t know. It feels like a mental health spiral would be a pretty bad thing to go through.
Joy: Have you ever gone through a major mental health spiral?
Claire: Well yeah, when I had postpartum depression, I did.
Joy: That was definitely related to a significant event.
Claire: A significant event.
Joy: Every significant.
Claire: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I think that there is – again, I think looking at patterns and saying, “Oh, this pattern exists” is one thing. Versus being like, “This comes from this moment or this thing in my childhood.” I am more curious about – I have this problem now. What do I do with it? So do you feel like there’s no way to get to that point of “Okay, I have this problem, what do I do with it?” Without being like, okay, really, let’s dig this problem up. What does it really look like?
Joy: It depends. It totally depends. And that again is what a therapist would tell you. I definitely have some people who are like, “This is what’s going on with me.” I’ll be like, alright, let’s talk about why you interact this way with this type of person or this partner, whatever. I’m just throwing out very vague examples. But it inevitably ends up with, how did you get to this pattern of behavior? Or it’s always about a belief system about yourself. Belief systems are huge. Your template. What do you think about yourself? How do you navigate throughout the world and what your inner talk is and what your inner confidence level is. I’m always asking people, where do you get your confidence? So I feel like, to answer your question without all the information – because of course I would never have that – just knowing you as a friend, I could objectively be like, I don’t see you as someone who – first of all, you survived a very difficult and tumultuous, I don’t want to say “childhood” per se, but situations were not great all the time with your stepparents. With the stepmothers in your life. But you found ways to survive that by overachieving. That was a survival technique because you were like, “Get me out of here. Bye.” So you have survival mode in you. There is nothing you could talk about your past, in my opinion. And I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t know what’s in the Ghost Busters box, the terrarium. But it would shock me if that took you down now.
Claire: Okay. Okay.
Joy: It would surprise me if all of the sudden I never hear from Claire again because she had a complete mental breakdown and shut off her phone and we never heard from her again. That to me is very unlikely. I think that’s probably how it feels. Remember when I talked about the more you put it in the closet, you think it’s the scariest monster, but it’s just the cute Monsters, Inc. cuddly bear?
Claire: Sully.
Joy: Not always cuddly. But it’s not always as bad as it seems. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not discounting people’s pain. But I’m just saying, most of the time, the thought around it –
Claire: You built it up in your head –
Joy: Built it up in your head.
Claire: About like, “This is going to be horrible.” And then you actually do it and you’re like, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad.”
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: Yeah, fair enough.
Joy: But it’s also not to say that – acknowledging it can be painful, sure. Releasing that, it would be interesting/possibly healing to see what’s on the other side of that. If I finally was just like, “Let’s clear the cobwebs,” so to speak.
Claire: Turn the light on in the scary closet.
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: A lot of analogies here.
Joy: Terrarium is my favorite one though. And the Ghost Busters one.
Claire: That one feels more.
Joy: It really does.
Claire: The containment field. Well, all that to say.
Joy: All that to say. I mean, really, initially I opened this discussion with Claire when she signed on talking about how I’m turning 45 soon and my doctor says when you turn 45, you have to start getting colonoscopies. So just so you know, that’s what we were planning to open with.
Claire: And somehow we got into Claire’s past trauma. Yes. But we were planning on talking about getting older, getting colonoscopies.
Joy: Which is not as fun as going into the cave of wisdom.
Claire: Pain terrarium.
Joy: You remember the pain of wisdom.
Claire: How could I not.
Joy: Why did you just gloss over that?
Claire: If you guys are not familiar with the cave of wisdom, probably this was back in 2014 probably.
Joy: Probably.
Claire: I went to Madison – which we’re going to talk about Madison here in a couple minutes too. I went to Madison, not for the CrossFit Games because this was before the CrossFit Games were there. But Brandon’s family lives in Madison, and Brandon convinced me to do a Tarot reading. Which as you guys know, Tarot, I do not begrudge people – who am I to say that stuff is not real? I don’t really take a whole lot of stock in it. So I got this Tarot reading, and it was so awful. It was like, “You’re entering into a cave of wisdom.” I was like, hmm, that doesn’t check out at all.
Joy: And Brandon was super into it.
Claire: He’s like, “Yeah, that’s exactly right.” And I was like, “No.”
Joy: That tracks.
Claire: Does not track. So that’s what that reference is from. As a follow up to the colonoscopy comment.
Joy: Ugh.
Claire: Please send us your recommendations for Joy.
Joy: Tips and tricks.
Claire: I have heard that you have to drink a bunch of stuff the day before.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: But I’ve heard it sort of compared to the pregnancy gestational diabetes test where it’s like horror stories, and then when you actually do it it’s like, that wasn’t as big of a deal. And I’ve heard to get the liquid and make sure that it’s cold. Because drinking a bunch of lukewarm liquid, that seems to always be at the root of the problem of these tests. People are like, “Yeah, it was room temperature.” Well, there’s your problem. Who wants to drink a gallon of room temperature anything?
Joy: I just want to know what to expect. No one has really told me. Actually, I should just ask my mom. My mom and my dad have had this multiple times. Plenty of people in my life. I am not taking this lightly whatsoever because my aunt passed away from colon cancer. I am not joking around, like, “Oh, I have to get a colonoscopy.” I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying, I’m 45, this is now on my radar officially. I know it can be on your radar for other reasons. But when I went to my checkup recently with my new primary care physician, she was like, “Oh, you’re turning 45. You get to get colonoscopies now.” I was like, yay. And I’m getting a mammogram on Saturday. I’m getting it all done. So anyway, tips, tricks, advice, mental preparation, please send it my way. Would greatly appreciate it.
Claire: I had a mammogram two years ago. I think it was before Covid.
Joy: Mine was last year, and I have to get them annually now.
Claire: I had one because I had a cyst. I’ve heard horror stories. And again, my boobs are so small, the amount of breast tissue involved is minor, so maybe that was part of it.
Joy: I wonder if that’s worse?
Claire: Right. You really have to get in there. They really just squeeze. I wish you guys could see what we’re doing.
Joy: I know. We’re both grabbing our boobs and shoving our boobs into the camera. I think I’m going to put that on reels actually.
Claire: As you should.
Joy: The tech is usually trying to grab every morsel to get it into that plastic thing. Yeah, super fun. Super fun. But anyway, get it done, get it done. No joking, no joking. It is really something serious to get checked out.
Claire: Also in another genre of “get it done,” I donated blood on Saturday. I’ve never done it before. Turns out, it’s really not a big deal. I feel like because I had always seen blood drives as these big productions, I had assumed that donating blood was this huge deal. And it really wasn’t that big of a deal. There is a huge national blood shortage right now. It would be great if ten people who are listening to this episode would go right not and schedule a blood donation in your area. Just Google “blood donation your city.” I was surprised, it was really easy to find an appointment. There were a lot of weekend appointments. I was in and out in 20 minutes.
Joy: That’s amazing.
Claire: I had never gone before. That included the whole intake, everything.
Joy: That’s awesome.
Claire: The actual blood donation, literally I was hooked up for seven minutes.
Joy: Really? That’s so good to know. By the way, thank you to everybody who wrote in a couple months ago when I was talking about drawing blood. So many people were like, it’s a very specific technique. I really appreciate the nurses who wrote in, or whatever profession you were in the medical field, and informed me of that. It’s really good to know. They’re like, “It’s a very specific skill.” And if you’re not doing a lot, that’s why it’s harder for some people. But anyway, did you have a good prick situation?
Claire: Yeah, I mean think about it. If you are the phlebotomist of a blood donation center –
Joy: It’s all you do all day.
Claire: It’s all you do all day. So you are very good at it. It was borderline pain free. I don’t have a single mark or bruise. Yeah. But I will say, I was not prepared for being tired the next day. They were like, “Take it easy for the rest of the day. No strenuous activity.” I donated blood at like three in the afternoon. The next morning at 5am, I wake up to go on a hike with my friend Amanda. We were going to hike Royal Arch, which is a fairly strenuous hike, but it’s not long and I’ve done it a hundred times. It’s in the Chautauqua trail system. We didn’t even get to the real start of the trail. I was in such bad shape. We sat down for probably a good five minutes. I was breathing super hard, having a hard time. Like, man, Claire, I thought you were working out. We’ve got to up the cardio. This is really not going well. Sat down, caught my breath, kept hiking. Within five minutes, I had one of those moment where you feel like you’re going to pass out where all of the sudden, my guts started hurting, I felt super nauseous. I could feel the blood pounding in my ears, and I just sat down exactly where I was in the middle of the trail and was like, I’m going to pass out. I’m going to throw up. I was like, okay, this is well beyond, “Wow, this hike is hard.” This is, “I donated a pint of blood ten hours ago, maybe I should have thought of that.” It did not occur to me that it would have that much of an impact. I’m not a very big person. Maybe a pint of blood is a lot for me. So now I know. The next day, just don’t go on a 5am hike up a mountain. Checkmark. Got it.
Joy: Checkmark, got it.
Claire: Probably a lot of people are like, “Claire, you’re a dummy.” But I didn’t know, guys. To me, that type of a hike is a very standard operating procedure type of hike. Maybe I’m getting a little bit out of breath. I would not consider it a strenuous exercise. Let’s keep in mind here, I’m from Boulder. Strenuous exercise is training in an altitude chamber with a VO2 max on. Not going for a little hike with friends.
Joy: No. That’s really good to know about the blood donation.
Claire: It was so easy.
Joy: And know that if you’re going to a place like that, if people are afraid of needles, it’s really –
Claire: Yeah, they are super on it. It was very, very easy.
Joy: Great, great.
Claire: I will also say that when I walked in, there was this guy hooked up to, now looking back he must have been donating plasma or something. He was getting his blood cycled through this little machine. I was like, oh my gosh, you’re going to be here forever. So there’s all different types of blood donation. I just donated “whole blood” they call it. So straight forward. Anyway, ten out of ten. Huge blood shortage. You taking action about this matters. Just throwing it out there.
Joy: And you can go to Red Cross website?
Claire: Doesn’t matter. Just Google. Actually in Colorado, it’s not Red Cross. It’s Vitalant.
Joy: Oh, okay.
Claire: Or Bonfils is another one. It’s not always Red Cross. If you Google it, it will come up. They have great SEO people. They’re very on the ball for getting me signed up. But if you’re in the Denver area, look up Vitalant or Bonfils I think are the two main ones in the front range.
Joy: Great to know.
Claire: They have centers. You don’t have to wait for a blood drive. I used to think you have to wait until the blood drive mobile pulls up in front of your office. Not the case.
Joy: I really want to donate blood, but I want a listener, someone who maybe does this for a living, to reassure me. I tried to donate blood once, and they were like, I’m not going to do this. Because my veins, they look great. But they roll, they move, they collapse. So the people at the blood donation center were like – this was back when I worked at the DA’s office and they had a blood drive at our office, so we were all going in. And they wouldn’t do it. So now I’m really afraid to go there because someone is going to be like, “No, I’m not going to do it.” And they make it feel like blood is going to start shooting out of my arm because they are so afraid of drawing blood.
Claire: But you get blood drawn at the doctor’s all the time?
Joy: I know. But it’s not for seven minutes.
Claire: No, no, that feels like user error on the part of the donor people.
Joy: So now I’m scared. I mean, I had a ton of blood drawn for when I was potentially going to be –
Claire: Is that Graves’?
Joy: Yeah, and Be the Match. They had a ton of blood draws.
Claire: You’re fine. I feel like maybe they had too many people coming through.
Joy: Probably.
Claire: One nice thing about doing it at the center, it was just me and that other plasma guy.
Joy: Oh, you and just plasma guy?
Claire: Me and plasma guy avoiding eye contact.
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: It was great.
Joy: Okay, let’s take a quick break and talk about our favorite people that we do not avoid eye contact with because they’re so good looking. [laughing]
Claire: And also because we love their products. We don’t just endorse them because we think they’re cuties, but we think they’re cuties. Our favorite CBD products, Ned, of course is what we’re talking about. I love their Daily Blend. I get the 750 mg CBD Daily Blend. I take it every single night. I love their Mello Magnesium. I finally just got the bag with the scooper instead of the individual little packets. I get the Meyer lemon. I love it. I drink that every night as well. We’ve talked about this. It feels like it takes the edge off. It feels like a really strong tool in my toolbox to help me get really, really good, solid sleep. And solid sleep improves everything.
Joy: Everything. I need to do some Mello tonight. I had a very stressful day, which I’ll briefly mention.
Claire: You did.
Joy: But Ned is the best for upping your stress game if you need those tools. Put it in your toolbox. Ned is a great sponsor. Please support the sponsors that support our podcast. You can get a discount by going to helloned.com/JOY. That’s helloned.com/JOY for 15% off any order. That’s any order. And you do get a moneyback guarantee for your first order if you do not like the products, no questions asked. So please support us. We’ve been doing this a long time, and we love sponsors that stick with us for the long haul, and that is Ned. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Ned.
Claire: Okay, so tomorrow – actually today by the time you guys are hearing this. Or even yesterday. The CrossFit Games are starting.
Joy: What? What just happened?
Claire: I forgot what day it was. Today is Tuesday. The CrossFit Games start tomorrow. When you guys hear this on Thursday, it will have been yesterday. We’re going to time travel with you to Thursday. Okay so yesterday, the CrossFit Games are happening in Madison this week, and I’m having a lot of FOMO. This is only the second year since 2013 that I haven’t gone. The only other time I didn’t go was in 2020 for obvious reasons. We went last summer.
Joy: Well because they didn’t have it in 2020, right?
Claire: They had a little something at the ranch.
Joy: Right.
Claire: We’re not going obviously. Joy and I were kind of reflecting. I have FOMO, but it’s more that I have nostalgia.
Joy: I have nostalgia FOMO, yeah. I just have to take a trip down memory lane. The people who aren’t CrossFitters or didn’t really follow us during our CrossFit days, just go on this journey with us because it’s really full of love.
Claire: Let’s just enjoy this.
Joy: But I think that back in the day when the CrossFit Games were in Carson, I think the first time I went, Mom Sandy met me there. Scott got this amazing hotel room at the Hilton, and Sandy stayed with me for the night. I just remember, you and Brandon drove, and didn’t you have a horrible hotel room? Were you pregnant that first year that we went?
Claire: No.
Joy: I just remember that one year you had this horrible room that was so hot.
Claire: The first time that Brandon and I went was in 2013 when we had just started the podcast.
Joy: Okay. I wasn’t there.
Claire: But you weren’t there.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Next year was 2014 when we all went. And then the following year in 2015 was the year I was pregnant and I had this horrible hotel room. My feet were so swollen the whole time, and I had horrible calf cramps. We stayed in this hotel room that was like – because the thing about Carson you guys, it is not a nice town. We stayed in this really crappy, cheap hotel room. The entire hotel smelled like somebody had been heating up broccoli in the microwave. We had a double bed. Which sharing a double bed with Brandon, the entire lower half of his legs hang off the bed. And I was six months pregnant, so I was really big. It was horrible. And then we came to your hotel room for something, and you had this suite. I was like, this is fine…
Joy: You’re like, can I just sleep on the floor and sit here in the AC?
Claire: Exactly. In 2013 and 2014, we stayed at my mom’s house in San Diego and would drive up every morning.
Joy: I remember that.
Claire: We were commuting between San Diego.
Joy: Yes.
Claire: Which is almost like a two-hour drive, I want to say.
Joy: Oh my God. I just have memories of the first Carson Games being so much fun because everything was really coming to life. I feel like that was CrossFit’s sweet spot. Don’t you agree? It was kind of the sweet spot where things were super exciting –
Claire: For us, it was. It was getting really popular, but it wasn’t so crazy that you had to get reservations in the stadium yet. The tickets weren’t selling like hot cakes. You could still go to the tent and meet all the athletes you really wanted to meet. And 2013 was the year that I did that car tire thing with Christmas Abbott.
Joy: That’s so great.
Claire: I have this nostalgia for feeling like this is Disney Land. All of my hobbies right now are completely focused on CrossFit, and I’m going to this place where everyone else is focused on CrossFit. And CrossFit at the time was still kind of subversive, so you would see somebody with their nanos on, and you’d be like, “Do they know?” Everyone was walking around with their Tupperwares full of sweet potatoes. It just felt very like, “Oh my gosh, these are my people.” And I think over the years as we have become less and less those people and as CrossFit got bigger and bigger, it felt a little bit less like going to the meetup of the secret club. Versus now you’re at this convention. We’ve talked about this a thousand times. I loved Madison. I loved being in Madison. It’s so convenient for us because Brandon’s family is in Madison, but nothing will ever compare to the early days at Carson.
Joy: No.
Claire: I’m seeing all the athlete check ins right now. But I don’t even know most of the athletes anymore.
Joy: Yeah, I don’t know most of the athletes.
Claire: We aren’t in that world.
Joy: Yeah, we aren’t in that world. I think the place we were in when the CrossFit Games were really kind of ramping up and the CrossFit stars were – again, it’s the equivalent to me of the rise of a star. Where you think of Billie Eilish, her sophomore album that just kind of blew up. She was all the sudden riding – everything was top, top, top. I feel like on that smaller scale for CrossFit, that’s what it was. Instagram was there. Instagram was this new thing that was blowing up and giving them this platform. For us, it was the mysteriousness, the mystery, the mystique of Dave Castro and us really wanting to break into that scene. So we were in a completely different place too. We were in that place where we were idolizing all these people.
Claire: We were going to CrossFit every day at home.
Joy: Yeah, we wanted in. We just wanted in. And when Reebok would send us a ton of clothes and shoes, we’d be like, “We made it.” That felt really special. And we did meet such great friends and such great people that were in CrossFit HQ. The first time we got invited to CrossFit HQ, and I think Claire and I have talked about this privately of just now that we have our podcast focused on our lives and this journal/diary-type of podcast is we don’t have something to hang our hat on in terms of a goal. Like meeting Greg Glassman or meeting Dave Castro or getting connected with Reebok and getting in on the club, so to speak. There is a reason behind that, but I think that’s what we miss a little about that. We don’t have that connection. The podcast had a main purpose. And now it is a little out there floating of where are we going to attach to?
Claire: Right. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. We don’t feel so tied to that content. But at the same time, we don’t have a tie to really anything than just ourselves. Which is fun.
Joy: Which is fun.
Claire: You know, it’s great. I think it is crazy to realize I recognize some of these athletes, but I don’t really know them. And I really only recognize the ones that have been around for a couple years. Most of those athletes who were in that first wave of Instagram famous CrossFit athletes are pretty much retired or they’ve moved on to do team. I even look at Lauren Fisher who was the youngest athlete ever, and now even she went team and is on that wave of athletes who are not at the cutting edge anymore. It’s interesting to watch it. I think we made the analogy that it’s like trying to keep in touch with somebody who you knew really well at one point in your life but now have kind of lost touch with, you just see their Facebook posts.
Joy: Yeah, totally.
Claire: So anyway, if you are going to Madison this week, sorry we’re not there. Maybe next year.
Joy: Yeah. I do miss that feeling of walking around meeting people. I do really miss that. It was so fun. It just felt like Disney Land.
Claire: Last year, Brandon and I went. Joy didn’t go because she was still in the bad breakup job transition.
Joy: I was in a bad breakup phase, yeah.
Claire: This year, it just kind of was not meant to be with all the other stuff that’s been going on this summer. But maybe next year, we’ll make it happen. I still do like making it happen because I know a lot of our longtime listeners do still go. And if nothing else, it’s still fun to have a time to see people and say hi. Like last year, I got to see Kelly, I got to see [UNSURE 40:56] We, a ton of people. Of course I’ll never forget spending time with David and his family. That was so great.
Joy: I’ll never forget seeing David for the first time in Carson and taking a picture with his family. Truly, we have made so many good friends through this podcast. Like salt of the earth people. In case people are listening like, “What kind of community do you have?” We have the best salt of the earth people.
Claire: So good.
Joy: I think of Mira. I think of Kelly. I think of Meagan. I think of Donna. I think of Sandy. I think of Zach.
Claire: I mean, Sandy is like her own little – Jessie.
Joy: Tina. Sassy. Laura Ligos.
Claire: I mean, I feel like we are going to exclude people if we don’t name them.
Joy: I know. Will. All of you. I feel like I’m at the Oscars. This is what’s going to happen at the Oscars. Who did I forget to thank? I forgot to thank my husband. I would like to thank my co-host, Claire. I would not be here without you.
Claire: Oh Lord. So all that to say, we’re clearly feeling a little nostalgic.
Joy: Just inner feelings today.
Claire: Just reminiscent. I mean, even remember when we were walking around like, “Look at that weight belt. That’s such a good weight belt.”
Joy: Totally, oh my gosh.
Claire: Remember when we used to get that excited about bootie shorts with lemons on them or something.
Joy: Seriously. If anyone needs a weight belt by the way, I have a small one that I don’t wear anymore. I’d love to donate to someone who needs it. Just let me know.
Claire: Hand it down.
Joy: Yeah. It’s a really nice one too. It’s one of those really thick ones with the buckle buckle, not Velcro. Anyway, if anyone wants it. Seriously.
Claire: Send us a DM.
Joy: I can hook you up.
Claire: Actually, don’t send us a DM. Send us an email.
Joy: Yeah, email. It will get lost.
Claire: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
Joy: Thank you.
Claire: So let’s talk a little bit about what happened today. Then we can process for a moment and then move on.
Joy: And then move on, yeah. So I woke up this morning. You know those morning where you just start like, ugh, I’m just in my head. Maybe I’m in a weird mood. Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever. So I already kind of felt like it was a weird day. I take the dogs on a walk this morning. I usually take them on a short walk in the morning when it’s cooler out. It’s been really hot. So I’m walking to this park that we always go to. Whenever I see dogs on our walk – I usually recognize people in our neighborhood, and I usually know most of the dogs. But even if I know people, I just go to the other side of the street. Because I don’t want dogs tangled together. They always want to say hi. I’m not in the mood for that. There is a time and place for it. Most of the time on morning walks, people just have that etiquette to go on the other side and avoid each other. But we would wave and say hi. But you just kind of etiquette know that if you get dogs close to each other, they’re going to try and sniff and play or whatever. It’s just annoying, okay. So we go to this park, and it’s a pretty small park. It’s by this senior center. It has a little walkway in it, so it’s really cute. One of those kind of parks that has a sidewalk so that every so often there is a little exercise station so that you can do little pull-ups. They have a twisty wheel. Or you have, I don’t know, something where you can twist your waist or do a backbend. It’s one of those kind of parks. So we go around, and we’re walking towards this park, and I see this huge Great Dane. Do not recognize this couple. Granted, it’s not like I know everyone in my neighborhood, but for the most part I know people in my neighborhood. Never seen this dog before. So we’re approaching him, and I’m kind of keeping an eye on it. I’m cutting through to go to the other side of the park because I don’t want to pass this dog. He’s huge. I don’t know this couple. But I’m trying to do the nice etiquette thing where I’m also waiting to say hello. So as we’re cutting – and we’re not cutting in front of them. I’m cutting to the side of them. Veering the opposite direction if you will. They look at us, and the woman of the couple – it was a man and a woman. And the woman says, “Oh, what a cute puppy.” I said, “Oh, thanks.” And we’re starting to walk away, but the dog just starts lunging, lunging towards us. I kind of stop and freeze because I’m trying to get the dogs to go with me, but the dogs are stopping because they are clearly aware of this dog lunging at them. So Joe and JT are just kind of staring. I’m trying to pull them away. Next thing I know, this dog just charges towards us and breaks away from the owners. Completely pummels Joe. When I’m saying this dog is a huge Great Dane, he is probably up to my boobs. That’s how tall. And I’m 5’8”, so he was so tall. Just completely tackles Joe. Joe is freaking out and whining and screaming. I drop the leash. In Canine Companions training, they always say if a dog attacks your dog, you can do your best to push the dog off of your dog but drop the leash because you do not want to get bit. And it also can cause more aggression if you’re trying to pull your dog away. So they always say drop the leash. So I drop the leash because I’m in a panic, and that’s one of those things that you don’t know what to do – you don’t know what you’re going to do until you’re in the moment. The dog is attacking Joe. I can see him literally biting on Joe. The owners – and I start yelling. I’m like, “No, no, no, no!” And so I let go of JT as well. JT was just standing there observing. JT is not a fighter.
Claire: He’s just being an old man.
Joy: He’s being an old man. And I knew that if I drop JT’s leash, he wouldn’t go anywhere. He was just going to stay there. So the couple finally gets this dog off of Joe. Joe takes off sprinting the other way. It’s a neighborhood. It’s a very quiet neighborhood. So it’s not like a main road, but he starts taking off towards the street. Holy… apples. So I start running toward the street calling him, “Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe.” And I’m like yelling and yelling. I have my treat bag and the treats are flying everywhere. Finally he stops. Like a good boy. Like a good, sweet boy, he finally stops and turns around because he has the best recall and he’s so good at keeping eye contact with me that he doesn’t bolt and try to run away across the street. He just stops and turns and looks at me. So I run up to him. I grab his leash, and I’m petting him. I’m checking out his body. The guy of the couple has JT on the leash, and the girl kind of took the dog a little bit farther way. So I take Joe, and I tell the guy. “Hey, you can just drop his leash. He’ll come to me.” But the guy was really nice. He starts walking towards me. He’s like, “I am so sorry.” He just apologizes profusely. Profusely. Which was so kind. And it was a weird accident. It’s not something that I was mad at them for. I was just so, so shaken. I take JT from him, and he’s like, “I am so sorry.” I’m looking at Joe to make sure there’s no blood, there’s no puncture wounds. Thankfully there’s not. I’m said, “It’s okay.” Which I hate saying it’s okay because it wasn’t okay. But in the moment, I was like, “It’s okay. It was just a really big dog, and Joe is very small.” I think that’s what I said. I didn’t want to get mad because this guy felt horrible.
Claire: You didn’t want to be like, “What the hell was that? Take control of your giant dog.”
Joy: Yeah. I was in shock, and I just wanted to get out of there. I literally just wanted to time travel to a different moment because I was so mad. But also, I don’t want to get into it with this guy. I don’t know these people. They were like our age. They were young and looked really cute and hip.
Claire: 30’s, 40’s.
Joy: Yeah. Cute and hip and fun. And I didn’t want to be a jerk. Which whatever. I didn’t need to be a jerk in that moment. It was just more, let me get out of here and get my dog away from this situation. JT was unphased, which is hilarious. So we start walking away, and Joe is just clearly shaken. He is jumping up on me. Which is a sign with him that he is trying to get into my arms kind of thing. So it wasn’t like he’s jumping like excited. He was jumping like, “Get me out of here. I’m trying to get into your arms so you can hold me” type of thing. So we finally get home, and he’s fine. I think we’re all just freaked out. I tell Scott, and I’m like, “I am just so exhausted.” I was like that feeling when you just go through something, and it’s like the biggest adrenaline jump, and all day you feel like you’re kind of floating out of your body. That’s where I’m at today.
Claire: That’s the feeling that I associate with if you get rear ended on your way to work or something.
Joy: Totally. Exactly.
Claire: Start the day with just what flood of adrenaline.
Joy: Totally. Something like that. Luckily, I have a great community here. People in the CCI community are just so helpful on our little Facebook group. And we have a puppy program manager. She’s like our liaison any time you have a question about the dog. You can reach out to her, ask questions, ask any concerns if something like this comes up. So I just said hey, this is what happened. Is there anything I can do to build his confidence? Because really what you don’t want – and I don’t want this to happen to any dog. Sadly when I posted this on Instagram, so many people have been through something like this. It is just devastating to me, and I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through it. It’s terrifying. It’s my worst nightmare. This is the thing that I’ve always worried about when I’m walking my dogs is some random dog coming up to us. But the piece that’s really worrisome for me is that Joe will develop a fear. He’s young. He’s only 6 months old. That he will now develop a fear of other dogs. And that’s a concern because he won’t be able to work if he can’t get through that. So what we’re going to focus on is having really positive experiences with dogs. We usually only take him places where he knows dogs anyway. I think we’re going to be super mindful of taking him places and having positive dog interactions. I’ve had a couple local people reach out. They’re like, “I have a really, really sweet dog that’s a big dog.” I do too. I have friends with really huge dogs that are so sweet. I think that’s what he needs right now.
Claire: Yeah. Positive reinforcement.
Joy: I’m going to keep an eye on it. My hope is that it didn’t make it worse. Just by nature, Joe is a very sensitive, sweet little dog. He’s got a sensitive heart. Cadet was like – I’ve said this before – fiery, determined, headstrong. She could get pummeled by five dogs and roll around and get right back up and start playing again. Whereas Joe kind of cowers when big dogs come up to him. He’s kind of a little skittish, and he runs between my legs and tries to get a little more passive. We will keep you posted on him, but that just happened this morning, so I’m still king of in that headspace.
Claire: I think also for some context, you’re not friends with this person, but you know of another service dog who went through something like this and was attacked by a dog in their puppy raising years, and then it went on and was not able to graduate because they developed a fear of other dogs.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: This is not an abstract, random fear of, “Oh, this could happen.”
Joy: No.
Claire: This happens.
Joy: This happens. Sadly when I posted in our private Facebook group today for Canine Companions, because I was like, “I’ve already reached out to our puppy program manager, but I want to hear if anyone else has gone through this what they’ve done to help their dog.” It’s so sad how common this is. Because so many people have responded like, “Yep, happened to me,” “Yep, happened to me.” It’s like half and half. It’s 50/50 of my dog developed a fear and aversion to dogs, and they didn’t pass, and they got released from the program or they were able to work through it. So it is totally 50/50 at this point. So I’m a little worried about that piece because you go into this raising a dog hoping that they’re going to be confident and graduate. I think he’s got plenty of time to work through this. It’s just a matter of me being really mindful to work extra hard to build his confidence back up. I think on some level, I am probably more freaked out than he is, so I have to keep that in check too.
Claire: And that’s so hard too because you know that animals and dogs especially pick up your subconscious feelings.
Joy: On your energy, yeah.
Claire: So you’re like, how do I act like I’m cool without acting like I’m cool.
Joy: Totally.
Claire: Like I need to act like I’m acting.
Joy: Just be chill.
Claire: Yeah.
Joy: So I think going on walks, I’m just going to be super confident. Normal walks with him. The normal routine that we do. And just stay away from that area. Just go the other routes that we go. But yeah, one of our acquaintances – actually she is now a trainer at Canine Companions. If you follow @fosteringpuppies on Instagram, she’s a great follow. She’s such a love. We met her at Oceanside because now she’s a trainer for Canine Companions. So she actually raised a dog named Phil a few years ago. Phil was attacked in her school. She studied animal interventions, like animal-assisted therapy. And a dog in that program just walked by Phil and completely attacked him. Phil did exhibit some fear and aggression towards other dogs when he went to advanced training, and that’s just devastating. You know that accidents like this happen. You try so much to prevent it. But when it does, you never know how it’s going to affect their psyche and their confidence. That’s why I get on my high horse and soap box about do not take untrained dogs, especially into public places, where service dogs might be present. Because it can really change their career path. It can ruin their career path.
Claire: It sounds like these people were obviously very upset that it happened as well.
Joy: Oh, so upset, yeah.
Claire: Also, we got a lot of comments today on our stories. We hear a lot of stories about people not worrying about their poorly-behaved dog, like, “Oh, they’re fine.” No, put your dog on a leash. This is why you get so fired up about pet dogs trying to pass as service animals in public places. If they don’t have this level of training from when they’re literally born, then you can’t rely on them in the same way that you can rely –
Joy: And predictability is the thing that you need when you’re going out in public. These are animals. These are animals. You have no idea how they are going to react if they’re in a setting that they’ve never been in before. It’s very unethical for the dog. It’s totally stressful for the dog, which is why they react. But this couple was so – at least, the guy. The girl I didn’t really see because I think she took this dog far away. But the guy could not have been nicer. I felt for him of how he was apologizing. I think that’s why I just wanted to get out of there. I was like, I know that you feel really bad, but I don’t want to take this on from you right now. I need to get out of here. I don’t need to take on your sorry right now. I need to go.
Claire: And also, that’s an appropriate reaction. You don’t have to fix that. His reaction in that is very appropriate. He’s not feeling remorseful for something that he should not be feeling remorseful for.
Joy: Right.
Claire: That was my reaction when you texted me this morning, “They were so sorry.” I hope they were sorry. Don’t take your enormous, horse-sized, aggressive, out of control dog on a walk if you can’t control it on a leash. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what your other options are. I can’t help you with that. Put a muzzle on her or something. I think there are a lot of humane ways to muzzle dogs.
Joy: Oh, absolutely.
Claire: If that’s something that you need to do. But you can’t pretend that that’s not the issue and just take your dog out and hope for the best because you’re setting yourself up for a situation like this. Our previous dog before River, who is just too stupid to be reactive, Luna was so reactive. We had to very, very cautious and very explicit with what we did with her and how we managed her and where we were when we were in different situations with her. Other dogs she could be around, other people, other kids. It was never something that was far from our minds of how are we going to manage Luna, or let’s just not take her. Especially around other dogs. I mean, we spent hundreds upon hundreds, practically thousands of dollars on training for her to try and get her over that. She still never fully became non-reactive. Anyway, I think it’s just important to be honest with yourself about the type of personality that your dog has because in the end – I saw Marie @shelter_mom_ on Instagram also.
Joy: Oh @shelter_mom_, fantastic follow.
Claire: She posted something of, “Reactive dogs are still good dogs.” And I think that that’s true.
Joy: Totally.
Claire: But I think that you have to be honest with yourself about the situation that you’re in with your dog and what they can handle.
Joy: What they can handle.
Claire: That’s all we’re saying.
Joy: Yep. This has been dog talk 101.
Claire: Dog talk, CrossFit talk, therapy talk.
Joy: It’s been a day. Like I said, I’m still kind of in that aftershock mode. I think I’m going to sleep really well tonight because I was just like, adrenaline dump. So yeah, we’re going to schedule some good, fun, light play dates with some very sweet dogs and get Joe Joe back to his confident level self.
Claire: Oh Joe Joe.
Joy: Oh Joe Joe.
Claire: Alright guys, well that is it for this week. Thank you for joining us. Don’t forget to check out our sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off all your orders, 30-day money back guarantee on your first order. Check out their Daily Blend, their Mello Magnesium are some of our favorites. The Sleep Blend, the Stress Blend. We just love all their products, and we love the company, and we love what they stand for. So thank you for supporting the brands that support our podcast. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. We are online at joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. We love getting your messages. We love reading them. We just love interacting with you guys, so please feel free to reach out. But just a reminder that if you do have something really important that you want us to read, put it in an email, not in a DM. Because DM’s get lost so easily. Thank you, guys, for being here. We’ll talk to you next week.
Joy: Bye, guys.
Claire: Bye.