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Colorado’s mega snow storm, The Crossfit Open, Missing Crossfit, Joe Rogan and Mat Fraser episode, part II Meghan and Oprah interview, celebrity culture, Netflix Marriage and Mortgage, and a quick listener Q&A.
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This is Joy & Claire Episode 66: Talkin’ More Crossfit
Episode Date: March 18, 2021, 2020
Audio Length: 52:58 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: [laughing] This is Joy and Claire.
Claire: Got a little phlegm. Let me tell you why I have phlegm.
Joy: Why?
Claire: It’s because I just ate half a bag of potato chips. And half way through the bag of potato chips, I was like, you know what this needs. To be dipped in cream cheese.
Joy: Oh no. I’ve made that mistake so many times before. When I was eating dairy and I would log on, and I’d be like, gosh dang it. I just had Greek yogurt. And I’d be so phlegmy the entire conversation.
Claire: Yeah. So I just ate a not insignificant amount of cream cheese atop Ruffles. I haven’t bought Ruffles potato chips –
Joy: “Ruffles have ridges.”
Claire: “Ruffles have ridges.” I haven’t had those potato chips – if you guys have any idea… I feel like most of you will know what commercial we’re talking about.
Joy: You really should.
Claire: You guys aren’t that young. Sorry.
Joy: [laughing] You guys are old.
Claire: You guys are old like us, it’s fine. Our au pair’s friend came over this weekend. They’re both vaccinated. I feel the need to make a disclaimer about everything.
Joy: Right, right, you have to explain everything.
Claire: This is the same friend I refer to who’s been in our bubble this whole time. And she brought over this giant, giant bag of Ruffles. And she left them here, and so I was just eating some and I’m like, “This needs to be dipped in some cream cheese.” So I just shoved them in my mouth. Don’t regret it at all except that now I’m feeling just a little phlegmy.
Joy: Yeah, no regrets.
Claire: So I have my La Croix, which we’ve also learned from experience can make me burpy on the podcast.
Joy: You just ate all the wrong things right before recording. So you don’t drink fizzy water or else you burp the whole time. And you don’t diary or else –
Claire: You don’t eat thick dairy because it coats your larynx.
Joy: I’m just going to have to do so much editing.
Claire: I don’t know. I think you should leave it in for ambiance.
Joy: You know what, we should. I edit so many coughs and sniffles and just human noises. What if we just were our raw selves? #nomakeup
Claire: You guys don’t even know how gross it sounds to be four inches away from someone’s face for an hour. It’s gross. Sorry.
Joy: So let’s talk real quick about the weather because that’s all we have to talk about in quarantine. How was the snow yesterday? We’re recording this on a Monday. Colorado just had one of its epic snow storms. Saturday, it was really funny because it was supposed to roll in on Saturday, so everyone in Colorado is like, “Oh my gosh, where’s the snow? Hahaha. All the weather forecasters are wrong.” Because that’s happened before where we’ve had storms and they’re like, “It’s going to be huge” and then it’s a flake of snow. So I think we were all prepared for that, and then of course Sunday we were very, very wrong.
Claire: Okay, well, it was supposed to start snowing early, early Saturday morning, and it didn’t start snowing until overnight into Sunday. So it was delayed by a good 18 hours. So on Saturday everyone was like, “What the heck.” Our friend Jess was like, “It was a flopageddon.” And then on Sunday she texted and was like, “I resend my flopageddon comment.” Because yeah, we ended up getting a solid couple of feet of snow, which is really common. In Colorado, the big snow storms come in the front range of Colorado, in the Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs. That’s not in order. It goes Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs. I want you to know that I know it.
Joy: Make sure that Claire knows her maps.
Claire: I do. I’ve lived here my whole life. I know that Colorado Springs is at the bottom. That from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins is referred to as the front range. And the biggest snow storms for the front range come in the spring. The reason for that – I know you guys want to know this. And I know that you know that I know it – is because where the moisture actually comes from is we get these tropical flows that actually come up and rather than coming up over the mountains, which we don’t tend to get that much moisture from the storms that come from the west because they dump all their moisture in the mountains and by the time they get to us they don’t have any left. So we get more from the storms that come up to us from the gulf. So when they reach the mountains and they meet the colder air – and this varies storm to storm – but that’s typically why they’ll just dump all their moisture right on top of us. So that’s what happened.
Joy: I actually didn’t know all about that, and I’d like to follow that guy you introduced me to. It’s like Denver and Front Range Weather on Facebook. He’s amazing. Well, he’s on Instagram too.
Claire: And Instagram, yeah. He’s like a hyper local weather man.
Joy: He knows his stuff. He should be on the news. Why isn’t he on the news?
Claire: Because he’s like, “I don’t want to be on the news. I can say whatever I want on my Facebook page.”
Joy: So true.
Claire: I know, it’s great.
Joy: Okay. So yesterday was a huge snow day for us. We stayed in and we shoveled a lot and we played with the dogs in the yard. Because they can’t really do anything, and we could go for walks but the snow was so deep that you borderline needed snow shoes.
Claire: We were shoveling, and if you started at your front door and work your way down the driveway, by the time you get to the end of the driveway you have to go back to the front door.
Joy: Yeah, because the snow just kept coming. And it was coming with a vengeance. We saw a couple walking down our street with their dog off leash. Which is find because no one was on the road. It wasn’t a danger. You could tell the dog was just staying close to them. They were walking with snow shoes. That’s the perfect idea right now because you really couldn’t walk. Even in snow boots, it would be so annoying. You would just have to lift your leg up and keep marching into the snow. So yeah, we spent most of the day playing with the dogs outside and staying inside and watching TV. And then at one point the satellite went out so we couldn’t watch the Grammy’s live.
Claire: Oh no.
Joy: I was sad about that, but I went back and watched the replay of Taylor Swift’s performance, which was great. So then today I completely binged all of her albums again, and I just cannot say enough. She won Album of the Year. I can’t say enough about Folklore. She’s the best songwriter. She’s such a good songwriter. So this morning I get up and I’m checking all my messages at work. Are we going to go into the office? First of all, anyone who works in healthcare, healthcare never closes. I don’t work in a hospital, but we work in a healthcare building. So I’m like, for sure we’re going to be closed today. This is pretty epic. Everyone on the news is saying this is the fourth worst storm in Denver’s history. So I’m like, okay, they’re going to close today. Well, we don’t close. I should say, we closed for in-person appointments, but we were all still able to do our virtual appointment. As a manager, it’s like, you’ve got to try to go in. I can’t just be like, I’m going to be cushy and sit at home.
Claire: See, my manager took the opposite approach. We work from home and have been for the past year, but it used to be if the school district closed then they would also close our office. For a variety of reasons because they were like –
Joy: Parents too.
Claire: Yeah, but primarily because they were like, there are so many parents that work here. If your kids are home, then we’ll close the office. But since nobody cares anymore because we’ve all been home with our kids for a year, they didn’t even acknowledge it today. And my boss was like, “I’m taking a half day. I don’t even care.” I was like, “You go dude.” I mean, he still probably had to take PTO, but he was like, “I’m not having this. I want to build a snowman.”
Joy: Yeah, it was a perfect day to have a fun snow day. So I started to pull out of the driveway, and at this point I’ve driven in plenty of snow before. Are you okay driving in the snow, or do you get nervous?
Claire: I don’t get nervous, but I get nervous because I know that other people around me are bad at driving in the snow.
Joy: Yeah. I don’t like driving in the snow when there’s other people around, which is, you know, really silly because there’s always going to be other cars around. So I got out. I’m fine driving in the snow, but today I was like, “It’s going to be pretty dicey.” So I get in my car to leave and I pull out and immediately get stuck in the street.
Claire: Does your car have all-wheel drive? Probably not.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Oh, it does?
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Do you have snow tires though?
Joy: Yeah, and the Tesla even has a feature that’s like all-road something so it turns on all these fancy features to turn into a Jeep. It actually turns into a Jeep.
Claire: It’s a transformer.
Joy: It’s actually a transformer.
Claire: It just becomes a snow cat.
Joy: Then all of the sudden it flies. So yeah, I was using all these gears. So the snow was so fluffy and wet, there’s no way you’re going anyway. I start laughing because I’m like, “I’m stuck. Well, I’m not going in to work.” And that was my immediate reaction, “I’m not going to work. I tried.”
Claire: Oh well. [laughing] I did my best.
Joy: So my neighbors were out shoveling, and Scott comes out. All of the sudden, they start pushing me. They’re like, “If you get to 32nd, you can make it.” Which is about 1/4 of a mile.
Claire: Yeah, and you’re like, “I’m good.”
Joy: I’m like, “No, I’m good. I can just stay home.”
Claire: “It’s fine.”
Joy: They were trying so hard –
Claire: That you couldn’t say no.
Joy: That I’m like, okay, I guess I’m going to work.
Claire: I’m just going to turn around actually.
Joy: And so they tried so hard. You could tell these men were just inside, cooped up for a day, and were like, “We need a job. I will shovel you out. I will get you to 32nd Avenue.”
Claire: Right. “I will help you in distress.”
Joy: “I will help you get to work.” So anyway, I made it to work, but it was pretty dicey though. The nice thing about storms like this in Colorado, especially in the spring – it happens in the winter too. Any shrink of sunshine just melts things immediately because the sun is so intense here. So anyway, we were fine, for anyone who was worried about us.
Claire: I know, that’s the best thing about Colorado as a whole. Any time it snows, it’s melted by the end of the week. I feel like I’ve told this story recently enough, I don’t know if it was on the podcast. But Brandon’s family, as you guys know, lives in Madison. And I remember one time they came to visit in December, and they were like, “Wow, it hasn’t snowed at all yet?” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And they were like, “Well, there’s no snow on the ground.” I was like, “What? Ohhh.” Because in Wisconsin, it snows and it just stays there until the spring.
Joy: Or like Minnesota people. It’s always there, which drives me crazy.
Claire: No, uh uh, that’s not how we operate her in Colorado.
Joy: Don’t you have friends in your life that think you constantly live in snow? Probably like you live in Minnesota.
Claire: Yeah. I remember one time when I was in 6th grade, 7th grade, I went on a cruise – which I hated by the way because I get so motion sick, but it was fun at the time. We went to Mexico.
Joy: Aren’t you on a big enough boat where you don’t get motion sickness, or do you still feel it?
Claire: For most people, that’s probably the case. I mean, I have been known to get seasick in a hammock, so I’m a sensitive little system. But it was fine. I actually feel like it probably wasn’t that bad at the time. But anyway, the point of the story is that when I was there you know you hang out in the little teen’s club, and I met these girls from Texas and they were like, “Oh my gosh, you’re from Colorado? Do you ski to school?” I was like, “What?” And that’s when I learned that people believe that in Colorado –
Joy: You’re always in the snow, yeah.
Claire: Most of Colorado is not even in the mountains.
Joy: No. Right, yeah. Especially living where we live in the cities, it melts immediately and then you would never know that it snowed here. Anyway, all the weather talk. Moving forward, daylight savings. How are the kids?
Claire: Honestly though –
Joy: Hey parents, how are you doing?
Claire: We’re not doing well. Check on your friends who have kids with sleep schedules. We are not okay. Honestly, because we had the big snow storm on daylight savings transition day, the whole day just felt like a wash. So it kind of actually was fine. Although, last night we were outside shoveling and all of the sudden Brandon was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s 6:15.” I was like, “Oh no.” Because usually we try to do dinner around the table at 6. Then that way Evie can be in bed between 7 and 7:30. We didn’t even start eating dinner until after 7 last night. One of my friends who has two twins who are the same age as Evie, she texted me and she was like, “What time are you doing bedtime?” I was like, “Girl, we haven’t even started dinner. Do not take parenting tips from me tonight. We are just throwing ourselves to the wolves. I don’t even know.”
Joy: The whole daylight at 6:30 all of the sudden threw me off too because I’m like, “I’m usually winding down by now. What is going on?”
Claire: I know, I hate daylight savings time. I mean, I like the lighter, later situation. But the change just feels unnecessary. And it’s like, I was just getting in the groove. So anyway, we’re okay. The other big thing is Evie already, her nap has been pushing later and later just because she’s getting closer and closer to dropping napping at all, which I hesitate to even say out loud because I don’t want to jinx it.
Joy: Don’t jinx it.
Claire: So now she’s been going down for her nap at like 1, which is very late. So anyway, it’s alright. We’re hanging in there. It’s not as bad as it could have been.
Joy: What happened with going out in the snow? That picture was so cute. Miles was like, “It’s too windy, and it’s too cold.”
Claire: They’re crying hysterically, and I’m like, “We’re out doing outdoorsy things, and we’re going out in the snow.” We went out. We tried to take the kids out.
Joy: Just in the front yard or what?
Claire: Just in the front yard. We’re not going on an expedition here guys. But you still have to get on all your stuff, right?
Joy: Of course, yeah.
Claire: It took 30 minutes just to get everyone dressed. We walk outside, and it was so windy, and the kids – we have goggles for them, but neither of them wanted to wear them and so they were just getting blasted in the face with snow. So immediately they both start crying. And Brandon had gotten these snow brick things, and he was like, “We’re going to build a fort.” So they go out. Brandon’s holding Evie, who’s smashing her face into his chest and just crying like “get me out of here.” Miles is so upset because the wind is in his face. But he’s acting like he’s upset about the bricks, so finally I was like, “We’re going back inside. This is not worth it. We are going back in side.” We get back inside, and they’re both just crying.
Joy: So cute.
Claire: Evie just looked so horror-struck.
Joy: And Miles was so cute. “It’s too windy. It’s too cold.”
Claire: It’s like, alright, well we tried. We tried to be that outdoorsy, any weather family, and it didn’t work.
Joy: And on your video, you were just like, “Yeah, it’s too windy, huh?”
Claire: Yeah. I know, buddy, I know. It’s windy outside. I’m just going to validate that because you’re sobbing. I know. And we’ve tried so hard to be like, “There’s no such thing as bad weather. Let’s get the kids outside, and everybody does better.” And it’s true. It could be the crappiest weather outside, and 9 times out of 10, everybody does better if we get some fresh air. But that was not the case yesterday.
Joy: That was not yesterday.
Claire: So instead we set up a sledding hill on our downstairs basement stairs where we just flattened a bunch of cardboard boxes and lines the stairs with them, and then Miles used his sled. Then when he’d get to the bottom, he found that you could flip. So the way that we found that out was an accident. I was sitting there trying to take a video of him. I had Evie in my lap, and all of the sudden he’s flipping over coming towards me and Evie. So that video I posted on our Instagram stories, which by the time you hear this it will be long gone, but if you saw it the story behind it is that at the end of the video, it pans over to Brandon who for some reason had a cheese head hat on. No idea why he was even wearing that, and he has this look on his face like [slow motion voice], “Oh no.”
Joy: Because it was slow motion.
Claire: It was slow motion. And here’s the thing is that while I was taking that video, I didn’t even realize that I had gotten his reaction because at that moment I was so preoccupied because Miles had just flipped into Evie, who was sitting in my lap. And Miles was screaming because he landed on a Hot Wheels car right on his butt cheek.
Joy: Oh, so it hurt.
Claire: So it hurt because he landed on something hard. But I didn’t know that’s all that it was. I was like, did he break his arm or land on a finger or something. And then Evie started crying because he was crying. So when I went back to watch the video, I was like, “Oh, this is hilarious.”
Joy: Oh my God, it was so funny. First of all, it just pans over to Brandon’s face. It truly is like a [slow motion voice], “Whoa.” And then he has a cheese hat on.
Claire: Why does he have a cheese hat on? And then also, he does not make any moves at all. He’s sitting there with his hands folded in his lap and is just watching all three of us turn into a mosh pit, and he’s just like [slow motion voice] but not actually moving. Okay, so the other fun thing that has happened since we last spoke is that the CrossFit Open started.
Joy: Yes, okay, and you posted that you still get nervous about the Open.
Claire: Yes. If you guys have been listening to us since our Girls Gone WOD days, you will remember that there was a year where – we used to be so into the Open. We used to do Open prep episodes. We were into it. And not that we were competitive, but just that we took it so seriously.
Joy: We got so excited.
Claire: And every year we have this conversation that the Open makes you crazy, just remember. It’s going to happen. And this year going into it, I didn’t even sign up for the Open because I was like, I don’t have the bandwidth for that type of stress. And still, even though I’m not signed up, it still made me crazy because like I was talking about a couple of weeks ago, I’m still trying to get out of the house, go to the gym as much as possible. So of course, I’m still going to end up doing the Open workout most of the time. The week one workout was wall walks and double unders, which you guys know I love double unders. First of all, I forgot my jump rope at home. So luckily, Nicole Christenson who I love is the owner of CrossFit Roots, she was in the workout. And I was like, “Nicole, can I use your jump rope?” So bless Nicole for letting me use her extra jump rope. But at the beginning, the coach was like, “So who here has not signed up for the Open?” And I raised my hand. She was like, “Claire, why are you not signed up for the Open?” Afterwards, she was like, “Really, tell me. Why didn’t you sign up for the Open? Haven’t you done it before?” And I was like, “Yeah, it just makes me stressed out. I just didn’t want to.” And I mean, she was fine with that. She was just like, “That’s so interesting that it affects you that much.” I don’t know what to tell you.
Joy: Yeah, I think it’s just also the history with it and you remember that’s how you feel. It’s important to you. You remember that it was important to you. How did it feel? How was the workout?
Claire: The workout itself was actually great. I have not done an RX wall walk probably since Miles was born. But in the Open, even though I’m not signed up, they still run the classes. Even if you’re not signed up, you can’t pick and choose the scales. You either have to do it as prescribed or as written scaled. So I couldn’t have scaled the wall walks but still done double unders. Because the scaled version was single unders. I freaking hate single unders.
Joy: Yeah, I do too. I feel like it’s not even close to the same.
Claire: Because I love double unders, when I have to single unders, I’m so bored.
Joy: I had to do that one year too where I had to scale it. I’m like, “Can I just do double unders and scale the rest of it?” Yeah.
Claire: And you just count them as singles. I don’t even care.
Joy: They’re totally different.
Claire: Totally different. I just don’t like them. I’m just going to do the double unders, and we’ll just see how far I get. So I got into the round of 15, which I was really happy with. So I ended up doing over 20 wall walks, which I was really happy with because like I said I’ve been scaling wall walks for years just because my core doesn’t feel good when I get up that close to the wall. It has been really hard for me to hold tension in my core. So that’s what I was really focused on. But it felt good, but it just was like, why am I so nervous? This is so weird. After all these years, I still get nervous going into a workout. But I will also say, it was so fun because I felt like one of the first times, I was back in the gym. CrossFit Roots is huge. Their facility is over 10,000 square feet. It’s this ginormous warehouse.
Joy: Such a great space.
Claire: Awesome space. And in non-COVID times, they have 2-3 classes running at a time. But so in COVID times, what that’s meant is that they only typically have had one class running at time, but it can be a pretty full class. You can have 15 or 20 people in that class.
Joy: Right, because it can be so spaced out. And don’t they have some rigs outside now?
Claire: Yes. So they have two rigs inside and a rig outside. So they’ve done such an awesome job. They were really good at enforcing masking. I say it every time. But the reason I bring this up is because there were so many people there, and the music was going and everyone was excited, they were judging. It really felt like being back in the gym for a Friday Night Lights during the Open.
Joy: For sure, for sure.
Claire: Even though it was the middle of the day. I missed it so much, and even just having a glimpse of it, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this was so fun.”
Joy: Yeah, so fun. It really is so fun. And when you do it and you’re in that energy, people are watching and cheering you on, and it’s kind of like this little mini competition, I would have been the same exact way. So when was the last Open? Didn’t they have a weird year where they did it in February and then October and then did it in February and then skipped it?
Claire: So the last one was in October 2019.
Joy: Wow. Okay. Because then they decided to do it in February because they moved it.
Claire: So then they were like, we’re going to postpone it because so many gyms were still closed in October. They were going to move it back to February. They did a bunch of other stuff that I am not familiar with in terms of, like they took away Sanctionals and brought back some sort of regional thing. I’m butchering this, and I feel like you guys would count on us to know these things.
Joy: We’re really out of touch with the CrossFit stuff.
Claire: Someone call Justin LoFranco because I don’t know what the heck’s going on.
Joy: Justin, call us.
Claire: Justin, please let us know.
Joy: I miss Justin. I miss all the CrossFit people. I really do.
Claire: Where’s Armon?
Joy: Where’s Armon? Speaking of Clubhouse last week when we talked about Clubhouse, the only person we talked to on Clubhouse that was online was Armon. So we set up a little call with Armon. We just happened to talk to Armon on Clubhouse when we all signed up, and it really made me miss just being at the Games around all these amazing people. So I think the history makes me nostalgic. Our whole inspiration for starting this podcast was because of The WODcast Podcast. And so I have such a soft spot in my heart for those guys and seeing all those people. I think the thing that makes me really nostalgic is thinking about when we went to the Open workout in Madison. That was so –
Claire: That was so fun!
Joy: So much fun.
Claire: To the point where people used to just call us Girls Gone WODcast all the time.
Joy: Oh yeah.
Claire: They’d be like, “Have you heard Girls Gone WODcast?” That’s not our name, but I accept.
Joy: Oh my gosh. And it was really great, and we were standing right there, and we got to hang out with Margo and Nichole. It’s great.
Claire: I know. The good ole days. We’ve been chatting about CrossFit more and more lately, and I’m like maybe we just need to bring that back as a topic. We needed a break. We needed some space from CrossFit as a topic, but I’m ready to talk about it again.
Joy: I’m ready to talk about it again. Especially because I’ve been going back in the gym, and I’m feeling so good. Insanely good to where I feel like I could do some light workouts. Nothing crazy and watch it closely, to where I just feel strong. Being in that gym –
Claire: Um, we did have a request for some more Open dance routines like you used to do, so that would be a good way to just dip your toe back in getting your heartrate up.
Joy: Really? Somebody requested that? Wow.
Claire: Yeah. They were like, bring them back.
Joy: Our gym owner would love that. He’s the cutest. He’s the cutest. I know he doesn’t listen to this, but he’s the cutest and he will gladly do a dance party.
Claire: Get him on because he has a fan club.
Joy: He really does. Hart. Hart Wise is his name. So yes, CrossFit is in our hearts forever and we should probably just talk about it.
Claire: Speaking of which, did you want to talk about that Joe Rogan interview with Mat Fraser?
Joy: Oh okay.
Claire: Those are the last two people I ever thought we would bring up on this podcast, let alone together. I can’t stand Joe Rogan. He makes me crazy. And I feel like when people are like, “Oh my gosh, I love Joe Rogan. It’s my favorite podcast.” I just learned so much about you in one sentence.
Joy: In one sentence.
Claire: If anybody is listening and your podcast is Joe Rogan and you currently feel highly offended, I just can’t stand him –
Joy: And I also wonder why you’re listening to our podcast.
Claire: He just, ugh, yeah.
Joy: Not to be fair, but my perspective is I do listen to some interviews because he’s had some great people on. Sometimes I don’t know how he got this guest because they’re so far from how his vibe is, but I’ll pick and choose and listen to some interviews that he’s done. He just does a three-hour long show. Who’s got time for that? But he makes like $30 million a year off podcasting, and I would like to sign up for that.
Claire: Yes, excuse me, I would like to sign up for $30 million a year. I will be highly unlikable for $30 million a year.
Joy: That’s the key, Claire. We are way too nice. We just need to start being assholes.
Claire: I accept. That’s all it takes.
Joy: I’m half way there. No, I’m just kidding.
Claire: Yeah, Joy, everyone would be like, “Yes, Joy is the unlikable one.”
Joy: [laughing] Oh my gosh, okay. So Joe Rogan, the Joe Rogan podcast.
Claire: We can just call it Joy Rogan. From Girls Gone WODcast to Joy Rogan. It’s just right there. We just align ourselves closely with the male counterparts of our dreams.
Joy: Totally. And then we sneak right in.
Claire: I see absolutely no flaws in our plan. Let’s execute immediately.
Joy: Okay. And scene.
Claire: And scene. You’re now listening to the Joy Rogan podcast, go on. Talking to Mat Fraser.
Joy: [announcer voice] You’re now listening to the Joy Rogan podcast.
Claire: See, that’s why I can’t stand it. I can’t even get through the introduction. I feel like I’m in an infomercial.
Joy: [announcer voice] Super, super, super. Yeah, it’s super bro-y. We got so much crap for saying bro-y all those years ago, but I’m going to say it.
Claire: Did we?
Joy: Oh yeah.
Claire: I don’t remember that.
Joy: Remember from the retreat we went on? We said bro-y a lot. Maybe you don’t remember that.
Claire: No, apparently that did not register for me as a controversy. Okay, go on.
Joy: Okay. So Joe Rogan had on Mat Fraser. They talked a lot about CrossFit. I listened to half of it because I just didn’t have three hours, but the thing that kind of stuck out for me, which I kind of laughed at, was Mat Fraser didn’t know a lot about the sport of CrossFit before he started. So he was kind of – maybe many people know this about him. I didn’t. But he was going to a CrossFit gym just to use the barbells, and he was mostly into weight lifting. So he was not interested in doing the workouts. And all his weight lifting friends were making fun of him when they saw him on ESPN. He was like, “I didn’t tell any of my friends that I was doing CrossFit until they saw me on TV.” The other thing he said was like, Joe Rogan would ask him questions about, “How much does it cost to run a CrossFit gym, or how much do they have to pay per year.” He’s like, “I don’t know.” I’m like, oh my gosh, how do you not know these things? He didn’t know much about the sport itself, even the history of it. Of course, you and I being geeks about it for all those years, oh my gosh, he just kind of walked in and won the CrossFit Games for years and years and years. And he could barely be like, “I think they used to drug test. I don’t know.” And just kind of was in his own world. Which, that’s fine. He won a ton. He also talked a little bit about how CrossFit, it’s not a lucrative business, if you want to be in it for the money. Where you make more money is with the sponsorships. So I thought that was interesting. But if you want to kind of just see the nuts and bolts of the interview and not go through the whole three hours, the Morning Chalk Up put up an article that I’ll link to in the show notes just about the four takeaways. I guess there was some beef with Dave Castro that I didn’t get to that point in the show yet, but he talked about something with Dave Castro not liking him. When asked why, Frazier said, “Everyone just jumps when he says jump, and I wasn’t that guy.” So I guess Dave posted something on his Instagram and there’s a little bit of drama there. I personally don’t know all the details, but it’s kind of funny because Mat Fraser’s now saying he’s retiring. He’s retiring.
Claire: Great for him.
Joy: You probably made tons of money. You won the Games five years in a row.
Claire: Exactly. I hope you were smart with that, and you can probably live off of that for a while. We’ve always talked about Dave Castro just being like, it seems like he really thrives on just starting stuff a little bit. He is always like, “Well, I just need to be the guy that people don’t like.”
Joy: The villain.
Claire: Sees himself as the villain. You know, whatever. I will say as a vote in Dave Castro’s favor, and to bring this back to the Open, my favorite thing is his completely random Open Instagram hints.
Joy: Yeah, you did one last week right before we ended the show I think.
Claire: Yeah, he put one on. He did one. It was a dead wolf skull or something, right? I just love it. We’ve often talked on Girls Gone, what’s Dave Castro’s vibe? We just can’t get a read on him.
Joy: Can’t get a read. I would love to get a good read. Not in an interview because he’s not, you know, right.
Claire: Right. What kind of a guy is he really like? Is he doing this on purpose? Is he just kind of standoffish? Is he actually a diva act? What’s going on in that head? I feel like he’s an enigma where even though he has a pretty public persona, it doesn’t feel like it’s his real personality.
Joy: Right, right.
Claire: Who knows? I also think it’s really interesting, just from the Mat Fraser perspective, that you can be at the top of a sport for that long and still have really no idea what – he just didn’t care. It wasn’t relative to him, the business of the sport. The business of CrossFit. Which is fine. I bet there’s a lot of professional athletes out there that don’t know how their team is making money. They wouldn’t be able to tell you, “We bring in X, Y, Z from places, and these are how games are scheduled and ads are bought and blah blah blah. But I just find that really interesting. I think it’s unusual in CrossFit because so many high-level CrossFit athletes also own gyms. Because you have to in most cases. But that just wasn’t the case for him.
Joy: You’re working out all the time, 24/7. Yeah, it’s interesting because I think I just wrongly assume that he was this super CrossFitter that had the goal of going to the Games, and it was kind of a fluke. I think that he’s just a very fit dude that happened to be like, “Oh, I’m really good at this.” Kind of like Rich Froning, that same thing where he just started showing up to competitions and killing it.
Claire: And winning.
Joy: And winning. And Matt, he talked about how he just started doing it to get some –
Claire: Right, to support himself through college.
Joy: But not even that, he’s like, “I would get a thousand dollars a year in free protein and I was excited about that.”
Claire: Totally. That’s how I feel about this podcast.
Joy: [laughing] That’s not wrong.
Claire: It’s not wrong. There was also an interview. It was in one of the fittest on earth documentaries where I remember them making a comment of, “Frazier’s got this in the bag. He’s so short. That’s what he’s doing. He’s killing it.” I remember them cutting to Frazier and him being like, “Why do they keep saying, ‘He’s so short.’ Why can’t they say, maybe it’s because I was training as an Olympic lifting athlete for ten years. It’s never, ‘Oh he has this amazing background in Olympic lifting.’ It’s always, ‘He’s so short.’”
Joy: He’s so short, that’s the reason why.
Claire: I just thought that was funny.
Joy: Here’s a note from the Morning Chalk Up article. It says, “Frazier was discussing what motivates him and how some people were galling him Games performance flukes, which led to a response from Rogan of, ‘How can anybody say it’s a fluke to win the CrossFit Games?’” Which I agree, it’s definitely not a fluke. And so I guess he discussed the infamous, “He’s slipping” comment about Frazier from CrossFit general manager of sport Dave Castro prior to the 2020 Games. I mean, there was something mentioned there. And then Dave I guess responded to that. Which is funny to me because I’m like, why don’t they just talk. Why can’t Dave Castro just call Matt and say, “Hey dude, you said something wrong. This is incorrect.” But they don’t have that relationship. He said, “Mat Fraser said that I published an article about him slipping. An article’s timeless. It’s a thoughtful record of a position. An article suggests an official statement. Problem is, that never happened. I never put out an article. I made a quick verbal opinion comment on an IG live discussion with fans. I don’t have a problem with Matt or anyone talking negative about me. I have a problem with blatant lies, as millions of people are watching Joe Rogan. Details matter, facts matter, the truth matters.” But to me, I don’t think it was a super significant part of the podcast. I don’t know.
Claire: How can it be? It was three hours long.
Joy: So in some way, maybe that got to Matt because he’s like, “The guy said I was slipping.”
Claire: I mean, it must have. It would get to you if you were –
Joy: Get under your skin if you were super competitive. I need to listen to the rest of the episode to really get the context of what he was saying.
Claire: I know, I feel like last week you hadn’t listened to the whole Meghan and Harry. This week –
Joy: Which I have updates and details on that, yes.
Claire: Right. Let’s talk about that.
Joy: So part two. The thing I walked away with was I feel that it was good that they got to be in the public to say what they needed to say. But I think, rightfully so, it was very guarded and very… I don’t want to say “calculated” because I don’t think that’s a very positive word.
Claire: Like scripted without being scripted.
Joy: Scripted without being scripted.
Claire: But I get why it would have to be.
Joy: Exactly. But I get why it would have to be. So I think what I was expecting was something a little more chit chatty. I didn’t expect it to be super relaxed because it’s a very serious topic, but everyone was very guarded. So then, I think I kind of made these assumptions that I’m like, oh my gosh, they have been through so much, and what’s going to happen to them, and how are they going to live their life without being close to the royals? What is he going to do without his family? But the reason why they were probably so guarded is because of what they’ve been through. They can’t just go out and have this tell-all story. I don’t think that we as the public deserve, or we don’t have a right to people’s information, but I think that what they wanted to do was truly be like – they’re kind of comparing it to Diana’s interview when she was kind of dismissed from being a part of the royal family and how she’s like, “This is how it is on the inside.” Nothing’s really changed apparently from people who were married into the royal family. But I think what made me sad and also like, “Oh my gosh,” I just hope that everyone has some type of their happy ending here, is how guarded Meghan seemed even talking to Oprah and how scripted it felt, which also made me sad. She’s still trying to figure out how she can talk about this life, and she’s married to a man who this is his family. In the end, it just made me sad. It made me very sad.
Claire: I didn’t watch it. I get why it would still need to be so scripted. I think that that probably was a smart thing to do, to not just go into it being like, “I don’t know, let’s just see what Oprah’s going to ask. We’ll go off the cuff.”
Joy: Totally, right, right.
Claire: There really are some big – I can only imagine, not only retributions from the family, but safety retributions from people who are just crazy and any time that you speak out against anybody in this world, let alone a family like the British royal family, I just can’t imagine how scary that would feel.
Joy: Very scary. So that’s the part two of that. I’ll say it again. I don’t take a huge, I wouldn’t say “interest,” but I don’t like to be super voyeur. As much as I love celebrities, I don’t read gossip magazines. I don’t like to read that trashy stuff. And this is by no means trashy, but I don’t follow Meghan and Harry. I watched the interview because it was Oprah. She’s going to have a very interesting and respectful conversation.
Claire: And it almost feels different when it’s like, okay, this is a serious issue going on in someone’s life. It’s not like Kim Kardashian flew to Mexico with her family. This feels more serious. It feels like a bigger deal of something versus some rich celebrity family gossip`.
Joy: Yeah. And I think it’s just that I look at celebrities, and as much as I’m like, “I love celebrity culture, I love it,” I do it because I love movies, I love Hollywood, I love the glitz and glam of all of that. But it just makes me very aware of how we even treat celebrities. You know, the whole Britney Spears documentary talks about that. How we build these women up just to tear them down. And I saw that with Meghan where it’s Meghan Markle, okay, then we have these horribly racist things in the tabloids. They’re just tearing her apart, and that’s what I think about as the Britney Spears thing too where they just build them up to tear them down. I think it made me even more aware of how we treat or think about females in media and how much we are so quick to throw our judgements and perceptions and criticism and judgements on them. Because I think there are some parts of it where I was watching her talk and I’m like, is this calculated? I was very much aware of how guarded she was. I’m like, yeah, but maybe she needs to be. I’m still going to love watching reality shows, but they’re putting that out there for reality.
Claire: Yeah, they know. They’re doing that on purpose.
Joy: Exactly. Speaking of reality shows, let me just put a quick shout out love for this new reality show I started called Marriage or Mortgage.
Claire: Okay, so is the premise exactly what it sounds like?
Joy: Exactly what it sounds like. It’s based in Nashville. They have a real estate agent and a wedding planner that are working together, who by the way are so cute. They’re both super, super cute and likable, so it’s fun to watch them. To be honest, I am at a point where – so I watched the first episode and I’m like, oh my gosh, this is really cute, the couples are really cute. Scott’s like, “These guys are really cute.” So it’s fun, likable people that you’re watching. But really the premise is the wedding planner takes them through their dream wedding, and she shows them places where they could get married and they pretty much plan a wedding together. And then the real estate agent goes and gets an idea of what their dream house is and then takes them to three or four houses that fall under their budget and their desires and so on and so forth. So at the end, they decide are they going to put their money towards the wedding or they’re going to go toward buying a house. And at the end, I’m like, really? You’re going to put all this money into a wedding and not buy a house.
Claire: Do any of them choose wedding?
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Oh wow.
Joy: Yeah, for sure.
Claire: I wish that somebody had done that for me when I was 24 or whatever getting married because it didn’t even cross my mind, “Hey Claire, maybe spend this on “ – I mean, although, who knows, who knows what life would have looked like. But if somebody would have been like, “I’m going to take you to a few houses that you could buy with this money instead, just give you a little reality check,” I think I would have been like, “Great, I will be going to the courthouse and I will be taking some of my friends out for drinks, and then I will be buying this house. Thank you.”
Joy: Exactly. So the funny thing that I notice as I’m watching this – I love watching them go through houses. I love watching that part. So maybe I just need to watch a show where they’re looking at houses.
Claire: Like House Hunters.
Joy: Like House Hunters or Million Dollar Beach House. You know, people love to just flip through Zillow and look at houses –
Claire: Didn’t you love that Selling Sunset one too?
Joy: Oh my gosh, I love Selling Sunset.
Claire: I spend so much time on Zillow. I just browse all the time.
Joy: Do you really?
Claire: Oh, every day.
Joy: Oh my gosh, what you looking for Claire?
Claire: I mean…
Joy: So many things.
Claire: So many things that could only occur in my dream house. I mean, I don’t know. We would move to a bigger house, so I’m always just like, “I’m keeping an eye out.” I tell myself.
Joy: I do that too.
Claire: And I mean, in this world, you can’t impulse buy a house. And also, if you’re not currently pre-approved for a loan, you can’t be serious. By the time you see a house that you like, it’s off the market.
Joy: Yeah. So Marriage or Mortgage. I’m not saying to run out and watch it, but it really is good eye candy for houses and also wedding ideas. Maybe you’re getting married and you just want wedding ideas.
Claire: I mean, a lot of people are at both those stages at the same time, so they have a huge target demographic.
Joy: Exactly. Oh my gosh, there was one couple – and I think someone DM’d us about this when we posted it – one couple picked wedding and then COVID hit.
Claire: Womp womp womp womp.
Joy: Because I think they filmed this back in February and then everything had to be changed. So they put all their money into a wedding that really had to be downsized. Whatever, it’s fine. They got married. But I think about how Scott and I got married in September 2008. We moved into this house in August 2008. I will never forget, it was like a trifecta. And they always say this – three huge life things happen at the same time, really check your mental health. We moved in August, my aunt passed away from cancer in September, and we got married 28 days later. Moved, death, marriage, all in two months. That was a huge, huge two months for us. I just think of how we bought a house and we got married, but we planned the wedding before we bought the house type of thing. I don’t really remember us being super worried because we were combining incomes and had that already planned out.
Claire: And also, are you talking about a giant stock market crash in 2008?
Joy: That’s true. That happened.
Claire: Also that, like the week after you got married.
Joy: Okay, so that’s a good show to watch if you want to just zone out. Lately, I’ve been really needing shows too where I don’t have to think much. I’ll do that with podcasts sometimes where I’m like, I can’t listen to something that I really need to be engaged. Let’s do some quick follow-up questions from people who left some comments on past posts. “What are your garden plans for 2021, Claire?”
Claire: Oh great, thank you for asking. Okay, so as a lot of you know, when we moved into this house – we live on a corner lot, and we took all of the sod out of the front corner of our yard. We have about, I don’t know, it’s big, a big patch of dirt that we’ve been doing mounded garden beds. So this year, our plan, which we haven’t really started moving on yet, which we really need to do because it’s mid-March is to put in raised beds instead of just mounded beds. Which a raised bed actually has walls. It’s a structure. Versus a big pile of dirt. And the reason for that is just weed mitigation. So we want to do that. I think we’re going to do mostly vegetables. When we originally started the garden, it was completely flowers for the first two years. Last year, we did a mix of flowers and vegetables, and this year we’ll probably do mostly vegetables with some flowers. It’s so fun to do the flowers because we do tons of zanies, which are good pollinators and they’re really easy to grow. If you’re looking for a really colorful, really easy to grow, super pollinator friendly flower, pick zanies. They’re just so brightly colored.
Joy: They’re so pretty.
Claire: A lot of them are a variety called “cut and come again,” which exactly what it sounds like. You can cut them and it will branch and grow back more, versus a tulip or something, which as soon as you cut it, it’s just done.
Joy: Oh my God, my poor tulips.
Claire: I know. This is okay, though. Tulips love this type of weather.
Joy: They’re going to bounce back.
Claire: They are.
Joy: They were blooming, so maybe they’re still going to pop out.
Claire: They will. They’ll be fine. And then we’ll probably also do some big sunflowers. We do a combo of branching sunflowers, which again is exactly what it sounds like, versus your traditional single sunflower where it’s just like one stalk, one big head. The other type are called branching sunflowers. Sometimes they call them prairie sunflowers.
Joy: Those are pretty.
Claire: They’re beautiful. So we do a combination. The single, one tall sunflower, you tend to get more sunflower seeds because they tend to be bigger. We will get birds and squirrels into December who are still eating the sunflower seeds. So it’s really fun. Not everyone wants to invite squirrels into their garden, but we love it. And also, this is a fun fact which we inadvertently found out. We also have pumpkin, squash, strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes. Most of the pumpkins and squash are what we worry about with the squirrels. And the sunflower seeds keep the birds and squirrels away from our other food because they would rather have the sunflowers seeds. Fun fact.
Joy: That is a fun fact.
Claire: If you’re looking for some natural pest mitigation in your garden, just do a big row of sunflowers and they will eat that instead.
Joy: That’s good to know. I love how the big sunflowers, all of the sudden their head tilts and they drop the seeds.
Claire: I know, right.
Joy: That’s so cool. Flowers are so cool.
Claire: So we’ll still do that. I think this year the thing I’m most excited for is growing onions and potatoes that we can store and use next winter. It just feels so fun to be cutting up a potato in February and be like, “I grew this.” I’m a pioneer basically.”
Joy: I love it. I have a friend at work who gives me eggs from her chickens.
Claire: Oh yeah, I would love to have chickens.
Joy: That’s the coolest thing. Every time, I’m like, “Thank you. Thank you, Martha, the hen.”
Claire: Yeah, right. We would love to have chickens. Our backyard isn’t quite big enough for it. We technically could, per the city. But we just wouldn’t have a very good spot to keep them. But one day I would really love to have chickens. And we used to live in a house on a property that had chickens, and it was so fun. Eat some eggs from right there. Doesn’t get any more local.
Joy: Okay, really quick want to back up about television really quick because someone asked about talking about Bridgerton. I have watched/fell asleep to one episode, and I can’t get into it still.
Claire: I haven’t even tried, which will shock none of you.
Joy: So here’s what’s going to happen. This is typical for me. I’ll get into it next year. It will just be the right time and place for me, and I’ll watch it and be like, “This is a great show. I can’t believe I didn’t watch it.”
Claire: Get a sinus whatever this summer and end up watching the whole thing or whatever.
Joy: Exactly, exactly. So not into it yet. I’m not saying it will never happen, but I’m not into the Bridgerton fanfare just yet. The guy that was on SNL who hosted was pretty hot though.
Claire: I know. That’s the thing is it’s soft porn, right? On Netflix.
Joy: Totally. It’s all hot people. Why not?
Claire: Why not?
Joy: Let’s address this one too because I want to address and move. “How do you move on from politics 2020?” My answer is, you don’t move on because that really sucked. What I’ve noticed is I’m waking up being like, wow, I’m so glad that I don’t have to be angry every day. I was so angry, very angry. So I think what I’m doing now is trying to not be angry, or notice if I’m like – because I’ll see posts. People are still holding onto Trump 2020 and that will put me into a rage. But this probably slides nicely into just going off social media. What I’m doing is if I see stupid stuff or things where I’m just like, this is ignorant, I’ll move on instead of letting myself get angry because I think I did a lot of that with the politics of 2020. Even four years with Trump in office is I had so much anger about the hate that he fostered while in office. I think right now it’s like, me being angry does nothing. So what I’m going to try to do is focus on the people who are doing good work and follow people who are trying to make the world a better place and be compassionate, thoughtful leaders who have a plan. Scott and I watched his address last week. Scott was like, “That was amazing. He’s really doing a good job. His speech-writers are awesome.” And he had symbols of unity. Even the hallway that he walked down was lined with all the flags from all 50 states. That is what we need. Little things like that that are making a huge difference. And his press secretary Jennifer Psaki is phenomenal. If you have not seen her speak or do a press conference, please just watch her because you will fall in love. I’m in love with her.
Claire: Press conferences are back.
Joy: Press conferences are back.
Claire: Normal things that we took for granted.
Joy: So I’m watching politics and not being angry, that’s my goal.
Claire: Yeah. And I also think, to me, moving on, if you have something to move on from, that probably means that that thing you just need to address head on at this point. There’s not a lot of – how do I say this. I don’t think we typically think of politics as something we need to heal from. But I do think a lot of us have to give some time to have boundaries around it, to treat it like getting out of an abusive relationship. Or maybe “abusive” is too strong of a word, but getting out of a dysfunctional relationship. What would you need to move forward after that and give yourself some of those same kinds of things? For me, I am not that engaged with politics right now. I’m engaged locally, and I’m engaged with the causes that are important to me around environmentalism and around anti-racism, but I’m not really paying that much attention into the day-to-day policies and day-to-day news around other types of things. I’ve picked, these are the things I am going to engage with, but I don’t have the motional space and capacity to be aware of all of the things all of the time. And sure, every single thing is related, of course. But that’s just kind of how I’ve had to draw some boundaries. And eventually over time, I will start following those press conferences again and start reading the news again. It was so stressful for me for so long that I just don’t do it.
Joy: So the thing that I want to be aware of too is that I’m not getting passive as a white person because we had such a racist a**hole in the office that we were trying so hard to be like this is not okay. We’re donating and reading and consuming all the information to try to be helpful, and I found myself being like, now that we have a “normal person” in the White House, I’ve found myself being more passive, which I don’t think is going to help people of color. So that’s something that I’m trying to be – inform yourself, of course, but be helpful and don’t just sit back and be like “now we’re okay,” because we’re not okay.
Claire: We’re not okay, right. And that’s what I mean by I’m staying engaged in the biggest things. We’ve also talked about this. Not every single person can be engaged in every single topic. There is important work, and antiracism work to be done in every topic across every single thing. So find the thing that resonates with you that doesn’t feel stressful, that feels energizing, to actually participate in. Really dig into that and that can really help too.
Joy: Yep, absolutely. Last quick question is, “Do you use affirmations?” I want to say you do not.
Claire: I mean, not like –
Joy: I’m good. I’m great. I’m wonderful.
Claire: I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful. I’m rubbing my temples like What About Bob?
Joy: I think about Stuart Smalley on SNL.
Claire: What?
Joy: Stuart Smalley on SNL?
Claire: No, that’s from What About Bob?
Joy: that’s from What About Bob? But the other one on SNL where he’s like, “Gosh darn it, people like me.” I can’t remember the first part of it. You guys are all yelling it, but it’s like –
Claire: I know.
Joy: My brain.
Claire: I don’t use them daily for everything. I have certain phrases. Like in a workout, I’ll use the “I can do hard things.” Which I would like to point out, I have been saying “I can do hard things” before Glennon Doyle made it cool. But I appreciate that she made it cool.
Joy: Yeah, she did make it cool.
Claire: Yeah, “I can do hard things.” I’m trying to think of any other ones. I don’t really feel like I have any one thing that I always turn back to.
Joy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Stuart Smalley. So for those of you who don’t know was played by Al Franken who before he was in politics was on SNL. But he would look in the mirror and be like, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. Dog done it, people like me.” He was kind of like this funny character that was about affirmations. I don’t have an affirmation. I try to take inspiration from the day. So this is silly, but if my Peloton instructors say something positive, I’m like, “I’m going to think of that today.” Or if I see something out in the world that made me happy, like sometimes I see butterflies flying around while I’m on my walk. I take inspiration from that. Just trying to be present and take one day at a time. I always try to think of that. I think it depends on the mood I’m in. If I’m in a crappy mood, then you just have to ride the wave.
Claire: Totally. Alright guys, well thank you for hanging in there with us for another week. We are actually going to have some guests coming up here in the next several weeks, TBD. But so you’ll get a short, not break, but an addition of some new voices here in the next couple of months for a couple of episodes, which we are excited about. Like we talked about, it’s just been so hard to get guests during COVID because people are so sick of being on Skype or on Zoom or whatever by the end of the day that it’s been a lot to try and get people to schedule. So that’s why you’ve gotten pretty much nothing but Joy and Claire for the last year. But we’re going to start mixing it back up again, which we’re really excited about. Whether you like it or not. So feel free to recommend a guest to us. Again, it’s always helpful if you have a connection to that person. If there’s also somebody that you just think is great, we also love getting those suggestions. It’s harder for us to do anything about them because we don’t have a publicist, but you never know. Shoot us an email thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You’re welcome to follow us on Facebook. We’re not really doing anything over there, so I’m probably going to stop bringing that up.
Joy: Welcome to get that going. If someone wants to run our Facebook page.
Claire: Welcome to get that going. Feel free to just email us any of your thoughts, any of your questions. We’d love to hear from you, and we normally get back to you within a couple of weeks at least.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: And again, if you’ve ever sent us an email and you were really hoping for a response and you didn’t get one, feel free to just –
Joy: Send it again.
Claire: Nudge that email right back into our inbox.
Joy: Nudge it.
Claire: Alright guys, well have a great week, and we will talk to you next week.
Joy: Bye.
Claire: Bye.
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