Mini-Ep 346: Office Toothbrushers
Doree eats her words about getting sick and Kate’s dehydrated skin loves skin cycling. Then, listeners send in their advice about dating someone with bad breath, and dealing with office politics. Plus, a young listener asks a thoughtful question about past self-care.
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer,
Doree: And I'm Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: We're not, but we are two friends who like to talk a lot about Serums
Kate: Baby. And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts and we answer your questions to the best of our ability
Doree: Indeed. But please do remember, we are not experts. We're a podcast hosts. We always encourage you to seek support first and foremost from a medical and or mental health professional as needed
Kate: Indeed we do. And if you would like to reach us, our voicemail number and our text message number is 7 8 1 5 9 1 0 3 9 0 and our email is Forever 35 podcast@gmail.com. And I do wanna say, I do try to respond to the text messages. And today we got one that was like, This text message is for Doree. And it was, Wow. It was what we do in the Shadows reference. And I wrote back and I said, You had made a comment about not wanting Henry to grow up to be a child performer. And the listener was like, this reminds me of, oh my God, something from what we do in the shadows with Colin Robertson Robinson. Oh, this is for do. And I wrote back and I was like, Jokes on. Yeah. Sorry, Colin Robinson. Robinson?
Doree: Robinson. But you haven't gotten to that part yet, right? Cuz you're only in season two.
Kate: No.
Doree: Okay.
Kate: I'm only in season two, but I did say I know who Colin Robinson is now, but I'll pass this message on.
Doree: Oh my gosh.
Kate: So that's the kind of fun you can look forward to if you happen to send us a text message. Another listener sent us a message of them eating chili in a the tub.
Doree: Oh,
Kate: I haven't asked if I can share the photo on our Instagram, so stay tuned. But there's like a teetering bowl of of chilly on the edge of their bathtub.
Doree: That Sounds,
Kate: Oh, anyway.
Doree: Wow. All right. Okay. All right. Yeah,
Kate: Literally living on the edge with that bowl of chili
Doree: That's dangerous. Yeah.
Kate: Also, where you can visit our website for 35 podcast for links to everything that gets mentioned on the show are Twitter Forever 35 Pod, Instagram, Forever 35 podcast. There's the Forever 35 Facebook group where the password is serums. We have the Forever 35 newsletter, which you can find at Forever 35 podcast.com/newsletter. And a curated selection of products that we love can be found at shop my dot slash forever 35.
Doree: Kate, I have to eat my words. Chomp chomp.
Kate: Okay, go on. Chomp chomp cho. And why is that, Doree?
Doree: Well, the other day I was like, Henry and Matt, Matt are both sick and I haven't gotten sick and
Kate: Oh, Doree,
Doree: now I think I'm getting it. I can feel it. You know what I mean? And you can feel it. So
Kate: Oh, I do.
Doree: I don't know. It
Kate: Creepy. Crawls up from your chest into your throat,
Doree: It's more just like I'm suddenly, yesterday afternoon I was tired and I was like, Huh. I just have that feeling in my head of I can feel the sickness coming.
Kate: So let me pose this question, Doree. When we are in this position, and let's take Covid out of the conversation, right? Cause that's a different beast, but when we're feeling the sickness coming on, what, if anything do you, do you kind of launch into trying to nip it in the bud mode? I have a couple things that I do, but I'm curious if you do anything, or do you just give in and accept the fact that you're getting sick no matter what?
Doree: I mean, a little bit of both. I did take some vitamin C last night cause I have these vitamin C pills that I just don't take very often. But I was like, Oh, I guess I'll take some vitamin C. And I tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour and get
Kate: Sleep.
Doree: To me, the sleep component of it is just so crucial. The rest and the sleep component is so important. And I know there have been studies about covid, about this. They say that you have to really do have to rest when you have covid and there's correlations between people who didn't rest and long covid, like there's just all this stuff. And I'm like, Yeah. I mean, that's true. Even when you don't have covid, if you can have the privilege of being able to get some more sleep, then you should do that. You should do whatever's in your power to rest. So this morning I was supposed to play tennis and I was like, No, no. I say No <laugh>. Wow. So yeah, I mean also it's kind of hot <laugh>. It
Kate: Was hot. It's hot. We
Doree: Have a weird blip of a hot day. It was, it's just gonna be hot today and then it's gonna go back to Walmart.
Kate: It was hot. It was hot yesterday too. It was like 90. And I had my pickle ball lesson and I was like, It's been so nice every other day. Why is today the roasty day? But that's just
Doree: In Los Angeles, and today is kind of roasty too. Anyway, point being, I'm really trying to lean into that and just take it easy. So yeah. Good. That's it. Other than that, though, I know some people believe in, I don't know, various concoctions you can do to stave off a cold. I personally don't know that any of those really stave it off. I think they can help alleviate some symptoms. I do to eat a nice bowl of chicken fu when I'm sick.
Kate: <affirmative>. So I always make bone broth when I'm sick.
Doree: So there's stuff like that. But I don't think that, I don't know
Kate: I, I have these things that I do like that I actually do think help. And it could also be just placebo effect, but I get these drops at Whole Foods. They're called Wellness Source Natural Wellness, Herbal Resistance Liquid. That's the official name of this stuff. And I can't open a link to it because I have my computer super locked down using the Freedom app to prevent me from searching the internet while I work. But those drops I do find, I pound them the second I feel some sort of tickle come on. But I've been sick for three. I've been sick for three weeks. And I also think my immune system has been impacted from my long covid issues. So we can do all the things, but sometimes it takes up our bodies a really long time. And I agree. I think rest is Rest and hydration. Yes. Hydration. All annoying things that you hear and it's like swamp. I know. I don't want rest and hydration. I miracle pills.
Doree: I know. I know.
Kate: I'm sorry. You don't feel good though. That's, It's frustrating. And there's obviously still the added edge of Covid and it's all a lot. It is all a lot.
Doree: It's still, It's a lot. Yes. So that's where I'm at today.
Kate: Well, I did not get a lot of sleep last night because I stayed out until one in the morning.
Doree: Damn. Okay.
Kate: I know. I went to see Adam Sandler do an intimate standup show here in Los Angeles. It was very fun. But it went till midnight. 1145, midnight. No. Yeah, it went to late. It went late. That was fun. But I did wanna note Doree, that <affirmative>, I got a facial a couple weeks ago, my first facial in six months. I have not trotted myself down to the facialist office, but I saw my facialist. If you're curious about where I've been going, you can go to Joy and honey.com. She's wonderful. Her name is Joy. And she said my skin was looking good. And
Doree: I said, That's awesome.
Kate: It's not dehydrated. Cuz normally I have dusty patches on my cheekbones under my eyes. She was like, No, you good work.
Doree: Wow. Okay.
Kate: So I have been practicing my skin cycling for, I don't know, six weeks now. That's been the rhythm of my products, I think is really more an appropriate way of calling. It is. These are the sequence. I've had a clear sequence, a system, if you will, of my nighttime products, <affirmative>. So I don't know, I if that can't, can't take any credit. Yeah. But dot, dot, dot question mark. Maybe it's working.
Doree: <affirmative>, <affirmative>, <affirmative>. That's exciting.
Kate: It felt good. I felt proud of myself. Even though it's like when you get a on a test that it triggers that feeling of being the people pleasing student in 19, like 93 that I was And <laugh> Doree. Let's just, let's cap things off here with just a email from a listener because we got this sweet little email yesterday and both of us were just charmed as could be. This person wrote to us. Hi, I'm a young listener, I'm 18, but I love listening to you guys and I feel like I learn so much every episode. I love listening and reading things that will set myself up for success in my womanhood. I've been binging the podcast as I work on my punch needle rug and I'm on mini apps, 71 right now listening as I'm typing. It's funny because I relate so much to things you guys say but differently instead of Facebook, it's Snapchat. I always feel super empowered to show myself love. After listening to you guys, what is something you guys wish you did for self-care when you were younger that would've saved you some trouble? Now, deep question.
Doree: I mean, I wish I had been in therapy earlier.
Kate: Oh yes. Mental health.
Doree: That's
Kate: Like, when did you start therapy
Doree: In college, but not till senior year of college.
Kate: Oh, that's impressive. I didn't start till I was like 25
Doree: But I mean, I wish I'd started even earlier.
Kate: I think for me, I wish that I had given myself a lot more and been aware of the misogynistic systems that I was participating in. I'm still more aware now. It doesn't mean that I have freed myself, but the way I berated myself and treated myself was really hard on myself. And I wish, I think it's not that I think it would've saved me some, although it probably would've saved me some trouble. Now I'm doing the work on myself now, but I have such a love for my younger self now, and I wish I had been able to give myself that love in the present.
Doree: I think it's hard. I mean, I think it's hard for any 18 year old to do that. I think it was especially hard when we were 18 because there were broader social and cultural forces that were just working against us. And now there's so much more awareness of those systems and the systemic anti-feminist and patriarchal systems that the systemic systems. But you know what I mean? I think there's just much more awareness of it now. Not to say that everything is fixed, but there's awareness of it in a way that I don't think was really there in the mainstream culture when we were 18. Yeah. So I mean, you did major in gender studies, so you have what was going, you kinda knew what was going on. Let's take a break, Kate, and we have some listeners to hear from when we get back.
Kate: So Doree, you will almost certainly recall the message we got from a listener who's dating someone with bad breath and they didn't know how to handle it. <affirmative>, and we kind of ruminated on the topic and we luckily received a lot of listener feedback on this issue. And so we wanted to share some thoughts from people. First up is this email, my boyfriend of three years has bad breath. I brought it up at the beginning of our relationship. It was really uncomfortable and he wouldn't respond. He doesn't have the best teeth. However, I learned that his abusive parents refused TA to take him to the dentist growing up. I actually asked his sister about his teeth when I met her. And she had explained this to me as he's in his mid thirties. There's not much that a professional can do to change this now since gotten over it. And love is love. I'm sure there's things about my hygiene that he doesn't like but doesn't complain about anymore either. And this just, I wanted to share this because this raised something for me in terms of one thing that I don't know if we talked about, which is classism and how it relates to hygiene, <affirmative> and access and all that stuff. And I just thought this was a really important reminder.
Doree: Totally.
Kate: And so thank you listener for sharing this.
Doree: All right. We got a couple of voicemails on this same topic,
Voicemail: Ladies pausing the pod to, I had to chime in with the caller who is dating someone with a bad breath. I'm usually always on Team Doree and Kate. For whatever reason I to always agree with the feedback, except in this case I think breath is so personal and you guys said, this is really a tricky one. I would not bring it up to someone I'm dating right away. What I would do first is suggest a mint or leave min. And if someone did that to me, I would get the hint right away and I would check my breath and I would do something about it. But if he doesn't take a hint after I would say two or three times of do you wanna min <laugh> then, I mean, I just think that's so obvious and it's less embarrassing in that he can just kind of fix it on his own.
But if he doesn't take a hint and by the second or third time she suggested mint or gum when they're kissing or making out or whatever, hanging out, then at that point I think they've been dating long enough and she's already made more subtle hints at that point. She can say, Look, I really like you and I've tried to of hint at this, but don't take it personally and blah, blah blah. Anyways, I just kind of turned the tables and thought how would I want someone to approach me about it? And I wouldn't want them to just come out and have a discussion about my breath. It's, it's too sensitive. I would way rather have someone who likes me and giving me little tips to have a mint and then I'd be like, Shit, maybe my breast stinks. And then do it on my own and then whatever. Anyways, just my two tic tacs <laugh> have a great day by suddenly craving a piece of gum
Doree: <laugh>.
Kate: I dunno. What do you think? For me, I feel like if someone had offered me mince for a couple months and then they were like, and I didn't get the hint, and then they were like, We need to talk about your breath. I would've been like, Why didn't you just say something to begin with? This is kind of my feeling too. I don't know, This feels, I, it's tricky. I get that this person is trying to protect the other person's feelings, but to me this feels like a little bit too subtle, maybe a little passive aggressive. Well, I think don't know, this is also person dependent, right? Yeah. Do you think it kind of also depends on the person, their personality and you know, can get a vibe with you? I do feel like I would be like, Hey, you're, you're direct and I think you're open to direct feedback. <affirmative>, <affirmative>. I don't feel like you would be offended. I would be mortified, but I would be mortified, but I wouldn't be offended, of course. Which I think is actually a good distinction. <affirmative>, you're probably not going to get around the fact that the person is
Doree: Going to feel embarrassed. But it is. Both things can be true sort of thing or totally, I don't know. And yeah, I don't know. I'd be curious to hear if someone actually did this and it worked. Because it sounds like this person is just suggesting this as a tactic, but has not actually tried it. Is that, was that the vibe that you got? That was the vibe that I got. Yes. But let's hear, let's listen to this next voicemail. Okay,
Voicemail: So I had to pause the pod. I have given this call, no forethought. I'm doing it live, doing it live baby. So I'm calling in regards to the whole bad breath conversation, how to address that with I guess the significant other or whatever. So my boyfriend whatever you would call him, he had bad breaths, ok. And he doesn't brush his teeth as much as someone should. Maybe once a day definitely doesn't floss at all. And definitely does the dentist. So the way I framed it is, and mind you, I'm already a kind of tact, but it, it's also partly the relationship we have maybe. But I think the best way to go about, it's kinda like you guys started to delve into, from a medical perspective. One day I looked at him and I was like, You know what, your breast hey and smell almost like gingivitis. Have you been to the dentist in a while? And it kind of put the onus less on him, and I think implied that it was a medical condition that had fallen upon him but was his responsibility to address and get checked out, if that makes sense. So yeah, I said that. And then literally the next time I saw him, he came bearing a toothbrush in a large packet of floss and immediately started taking better care of his teeth. And if ever he does have bad breath I go back to the gingivitis.
Did you get suck out yet? I still am getting some gingivitis, I dunno, maybe that is tactless completely tactless. I guess I wouldn't know. But that's how I do it. And he's been receptive and it didn't seem like his feeling for hurt and he's kinda sensitive. So I don't know. That's an idea. Anyway you all have a great week. Thanks for the, And I love you. I love you. I love you.
Doree: Oh, I love you listener.
Kate: Wow. I also love you. That was <laugh>, that so sweet there at the end.
Doree: Yeah,
Kate: I mean, this seems reasonable.
Doree: Yeah, I think this worked out really well for everyone.
Kate: I mean, it just made me think too, so often our bodies are not within our control. I'm hard to separate ourselves from our bodies, but I think this can be on smaller levels with bad breath or with chronic illness. So there are so many ways in which we do not have actual control over things that our body does. And it's, But it's not hard to be impacted by those things personally. But something like having chronic mouth, breath, illness, whatever you wanna call it, gingivitis, I don't know. So often that's beyond our ability to control it <affirmative>. So taking out the, I don't know, I, what I'm trying to say here. I'm working through my feelings about the body, but this is an interesting topic to me.
Doree: Yeah, very interesting.
Kate: I will say, I had a coworker who I shared an office with, and he flossed and brushed after lunch. And I never like, Oh my God was,
Doree: I thought you were going to say he flossed and brushed in your office.
Kate: Oh, no, no, no. He would get his stuff and go to the bathroom and come back. And he was very conscientious. And I remember he said, Plaque smells bad and I don't wanna get plaque. And this rocked me because I would be chomp chomp and I still don't brush my teeth or floss after lunch. But he was just very diligent in his take care.
Doree: I know there were always those office tooth brushers were so interesting to me. I was never one of them, but I respect it.
Kate: Office to Brushers are certainly a specific type of, they're their own crew.
Doree: They are their own crew.
Kate: Are you an office Toothbrusher flosser or also the three a day brushing, flossing person? The person who brushes after lunch daily, Some once in a while I'll brunch, I'll
Doree: Brush up. Well, I will say since getting Invisalign, I have had to be a little bit more mindful and conscientious of more frequent brushing. Especially if I would eat a lunch that was very flavorful or you know what I mean, spicy. Because sometimes I would just rinse my mouth out and call in a day. But then other times it was like, you gotta get in there
Kate: Because the flavors get trapped in the Invisalign basically.
Doree: It can also discolor it. And you don't wanna get food stuck in your Invisalign. It's just not great. I have moved onto the retainer phase though. Officially done with
Kate: Invisalign. Congratulations.
Doree: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Kate: Well, Doree, let's take another
Doree: Break. All right, let's do it. Okay, Kate, we're back. And we got an interesting message from a listener on a recent episode who was bummed out because her colleagues, her work colleagues had not noted her baby's birth. There was no shower, there was no card, there was no acknowledgement of it.
Kate: No acknowledgement.
Doree: And this bummed her out because, but just bummed her out in general, but also especially bummed her out because they had done that for other colleagues. <affirmative>. So we got some feedback on this. Hi Kainor. I'm writing in response to the speech therapist who was bummed out over the lack of thoughtfulness from her work teammates after having a baby. I've been in a similar role in public school districts for the better part of a decade, and I just have to share that in every district I've worked in. Something that consistently irks me is the lack of community care or responsiveness to each other's. Full humanity outside of the workplace, acknowledgements or celebrations. This were inconsistent at best and popularity contests at worst pre pandemic. And at this point, while it may sound bleak, I've come to see it as yet another symptom of a system that was not built to value or care for its employees in their full humanity.
We are natural helpers and caregivers, and while these characteristics make us good at our jobs, many of us are exploited by employers and systems that do not care for us in return. So it sadly makes sense to me that we often have nothing left to give each other. We are entitled to our hurt feelings, in instance, instances like this. And I also find it helpful to reframe the narrative from an interpersonal failing to a systemic failing, sending love to this listener and to all of my fellow educators, feeling the disillusionment and disappointment of our current realities. I love a systemic reframe.
Kate: Yeah, I, And you'll see, I think the other message that we got, that we included about this is also kind of speaks to just something we hadn't considered. But yeah, boy, this is looking at on a very deep level that I hadn't thought about <affirmative>. And I do like that this person points out the inconsistencies. Totally. Who gets the acknowledgements and the celebrations which is another thing to think about. It makes the doodle. Well, this other message we received on this topic wrote listening to many F 334, which by the way, off topic, but wow, we've done a lot of, many episodes for three 30
Doree: <laugh>,
Kate: Sorry. Getting to the message. And it reminded me of my recent experience being assigned by my boss to plan and host team wide Zoom baby showers for coworkers, One of the coworkers I knew. And one, I set calendar invites, collected money for gift cards, purchased the gift cards and planned games. This is way outside the scope of my role, and I am currently looking for a new job. In case you are wondering, in addition to the implications for people in the infertility community, as Doree mentioned, I think another piece of the discussion of workplace life celebrations is the labor they involve, even if it's just the signing of a card and who that falls to. This is more about my boss than the concept of work baby showers. But just wanted to share, I mean a ding, ding, ding, listener, because we know this predominantly falls on women.
Doree: <affirmative>, <affirmative>, <affirmative>, <affirmative>, <affirmative>.
Kate: Very good point. Ooh, very good point. I did wanna mention something another listener wrote to they called in with a message and they shared an anecdote about how they lost their father-in-law. At the same time, a colleague lost their dog and the colleague who lost the dog got a card. And they didn't, after they had lost their father-in-law, <affirmative>, and they were blown away by this <affirmative>. And then it turned out that their colleagues had signed a card for them. It just kind of got lost in the shuffle of things. Oh shit. So that listener, Yeah, I know. <laugh>, that listener basically kind of encouraged the original listener to that is another possible reality that perhaps the intention is there and it has been started, but not fully executed in that sort of thing. So another perspective that I thought was kinda interesting, but whoa, workplace dynamics, man. The kind of shit that's expected of us. And I think, I don't know, this is maybe specifically American workplace culture. I don't know. I'd be very curious to keep talking about it.
Doree: Very interesting. Well, I wonder, I if in other countries where there is more of a social safety net, there's less pressure on employees to show up for their coworkers in this way, because there's other mechanisms for them to get that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> kind of, I don't know, commemoration.
Kate: Yeah. Also for me, as someone with a lot of social, not social anxiety, but sometimes I get really overwhelmed in social, interact, social settings. I find the constant having of office gatherings or parties to be draining. And I'm an extrovert who just gets drained easily, but, or office happy hours or going to a bar after that to me was always a lot. It required a lot of emotional energy. Well, Doree, great to see you, Great to talk to you listeners. We're grateful for you and Doree. I really hope you feel better.
Doree: Thank you so much.
Kate: All right. T T Y L.