Mini-Ep 360: Free Mug Movement
Kate and Doree help a listener win Wordle and start the free mugging movement. Then, they hear from listeners who are questioning the institution of marriage and wondering what keepsakes to keep around after kids.
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to Forever35. This is a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Kate Spencer
Doree: And I am 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: 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: But please remember, we are podcast hosts. We're not experts, and we always encourage you to seek support first and foremost, from a medical and or a mental health professional as needed.
Kate: Of course, you should hit us up on the voicemails slash texts (781) 591-0390, or you can hit us up on the geems. That's forever35podcast@gmail.com.
Doree: And visit our website forever35podcast.com. For links to everything we mentioned on the show, follow us on Instagram @Forever35podcast. Join the Forever35 Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/forever35podcast. Sign up for our newsletter at forever35podcast.com/newsletter, And shop our fave prods at shopmy.us/forever35.
Kate: Hello, Doree. We are going to kick things off with a voicemail from a listener who, I don't wanna toot our own horns too much, but basically we helped them win a Wordle
Doree: Toot toot.
Voicemail: Hey, Kate and Doree, this is Carrie. I'm home recovering from Covid, which I live in Iowa, but I got last week and maybe at the Elton John show that you were at, which I brought my kid to. And it was an amazing experience. In any case, I'm home with Covid, doing some multitasking, listening to the pod. This is the pause the pod moment because I decided to also do Wordle while I was listening. And when I do wordle, I choose a different word to start every day. And usually it's like something that that's around me or happening that touches my attention. I choose a different word every day. Cause I was listening to the pod. I decided to use serum as my starting word, and it was not the word for wordle, but I got an E out of place and a U in place intriguing. And my next guess was undo. And that was the correct word. So I got Wordle in 2 thanks to the of you. So, I appreciate you and the pod. Yeah, that's it. I felt like I needed to share. Ok, take care. Bye.
Doree: Aw.
Kate: Hi mean. How sweet.
Doree: That is so sweet. I love that so much.
Kate: The only thing I don't love is that you start wordle with a different word because this me, this causes me to panic. I have to start with the same word. I have such a strategy and I feel it's such security that the thought of going off course really rattles me. I've gotta say, I've gotta say, I mean, do you wordle with the same word?
Doree: No, but I was going to say, yeah, there's the people who always start with the same word and there's people who don't. I do not always start with the same word.
Kate: Okay. I just, I mean that I can't even imagine.
Doree: Sometimes I like to do a thing where I'll deliberately start with a bad, a quote, bad word, just to see, just challenge myself.
Kate: Fuck with the wordle? Yeah. Okay.
Doree: No, not fuck with the wordle, but just to be like, will I still get it if I start with this word that is not a good word to start with. And sometimes I do that and I'll get a random letter. You know what I mean? I'll be like, oh, there's an F or whatever.
Kate: Yeah. I mean, maybe I should challenge myself and get out of my idea into storm or story habit. Those are my two. Those are my two. I've got a problem. But I love this. I love this for you and for the listener. Thank you for including us in your daily wordle. Makes me happy.
Doree: Yeah. This is so cool. So cool. All right, well Kate, we have another voicemail. Shall we listen?
Kate: Yeah. It's from one of my people.
Voicemail: Hi. Just need to quickly pause the pod to say that, I also a free mugger listening to the episode. Kate, you're talking about just splashing coffee all over with your open mug. Growing up, this neighbor's mom used to take us to school and she would do this. And to me, this just seems like the height of adulthood, just having an open, hot beverage in your car while taking her kids to school seemed like the height of adulthood. Now with my own kids, I do it and I still feel the same way. I feel like I am living out my childhood dreams by being an open mugger myself. Okay, that's all. Love y'all. Bye
Doree: For once. I'm speechless.
Kate: what? You can't handle the free mug life.
Doree: This is the thing that has finally rendered me speechless.
Kate: We've done it everybody.
Doree: Free mugger movement. I cannot believe that in the year of our Lord, 2022, the end of 2022, that people are free mugging. I kind of mean, okay, fine. In the nineties maybe, but what is this? <affirmative> travel mugs are readily and cheaply available. Why would you bring an open, open and open cup into a moving vehicle?
Kate: Yeah. some of us just live on the edge.
Doree: So what if? What if you have a child in the backseat and you stop short and the hot coffee goes splashing into your child's face? Wow. Bet you never thought about that. Did you? Free muggers. Kate's going, eh eh eh.
Kate: In my experience, the coffee just spills on me or the car. And to be clear, it spills often. I have coffee stains in my car. It's just, there's something I just love about the risk. I love the risk.
Doree: This blows my mind. This blows my mind. This is not a risk that I want to take. Well, it, it's not worth it. I don't wanna stain in my clothes. I don't wanna potentially get a third degree burn. I think we all listened to the, you're wrong about episode, about the McDonald's coffee cup.
Kate: That's a good episode.
Doree: I just
Kate: To be clear, my coffee is not burning.
Doree: Kate. I cannot endorse this. I cannot support this. I wanna just go on the record.
Kate: I love how angry you are.
Doree: As being, I'm not angry. I'm just stating facts. I'm just disappointed.
Kate: You would be surprised at how many fellow free muggers reached out and said that they also free mug. And I had a thought today, which was for new Forever35 merch, a mug that says, free mugger.
Doree: Wow. I've never felt so alienated from my co-host.
Kate: This mug should be used in the car while driving and it's just a non-travel mug
Doree: Whilest driving.
Kate: Whilest driving. Thank you. Thank you. I, yeah, I don't, don't know what it is. I don't
Doree: I would not be buying one of those mugs, Kate. I would not be buying one of those ones.
Kate: That's fine. The right people will.
Doree: And I'll not buy you one of those mugs either. I'm not going to endorse this. Okay.
Kate: Well, you know, have bought me a mug in the past and I've used it to free mug. So you have effectively endorsed my habit.
Doree: Oh, dare you.
Kate: I'm mugging in the car. In fact, I think I mugged in the car just today. I think I did it today. I drove my daughter and her friend to school. Yeah. Oh, I drove children.
Doree: So free mugging.
Kate: It's not a full mug of coffee with the burning hot liquid to the rim. It's literally one third full of lukewarm coffee. Sometimes I top it off and bring it, and sometimes I do bring a travel mug. I love a mug in the car. I can't be anybody else but that. That's who I am.
Doree: There really are two kinds of people in this world. I never knew that this was the division, but this is what it is.
Kate: I mean, we can divide on lots of lines. There's people who wipe front to back and people who wipe back to front.
Doree: There's no, it's just free muggers. Just free muggers. That's all I care about. Do you free mug or are you a rational human being?
Kate: I mean, there is something about my personality though, that I do shit like this. And I bet other people who free mug are are similar. There's a little bit of knowing it's going to go poorly and doing it anyway, that I kind of
Doree: You know what this reminds me of, your revenge bedtime procrastination syndrome.
Kate: Exactly. That's, that's exactly what it's like. It's the same thing.
Doree: It's the same psychology,
Kate: It's self-sabotage but you do it anyway.
Doree: I'm talking about your, I'm kind of joking about your kids. That would actually be a concern for me, but I'm not really concerned about that. But ultimately, you're mostly just hurting yourself, right?
Kate: Thats right. Yes.
Doree: Same with revenge, bedtime, procrastination. And I'm just like, but Kate, you know better. Why? Why do you do this? That's what I say, and you just say, I just gotta be me.
Kate: You've gotta live my truth.
Doree: Stop trying to stop my dreams. Skwelch, my personality.
Kate: Put me in a box. And
Doree: You're right, I am. That's right. That is what I'm doing. I'm just trying to put you in a box.
Kate: There's gotta be other things like this. There's other things. It's people who eat while driving. It's a little different, but it's like, you know this is going to, and you're eat a hamburger while you drive. It's going to get everywhere. And yet,
Doree: I did this recently. It was kind of not an emergency situation, but it was like I hadn't had time to eat. I just needed some food. But I got a croissant, a very delicious, buttery, flaky croissant. And I got to my destination and I was covered in croissant flakes. And I was like, huh, In retrospect, not the best driving food.
Kate: Those are croissants are, they are flaky.
Doree: They are flaky. They're very flaky.
Kate: Well, I would love to hear, well, some people eat in the bath and some of us drink coffee in the car. It's just, it's just how some of us live.
Doree: When you eat in the bath, you don't run the risk of staining your clothes or burning yourself. You're just eating in the bath. I don't like eating in the bath, but I'm like, go live your life. Eat in the bath. I don't care. Free mugging offends me. I'm offended by free mugging.
Kate: Ugh. I can't wait for other free muggers to weigh in.
Doree: Look, come at me. Free muggers. I'm, I'm waiting for them. Just waiting for them.
Kate: What if I'm the only one and I've created a bunch of fake accounts to email and call into the podcast with
Doree: Some free mugger sock puppets.
Kate: Yes. These are created by me.
Doree: An elaborate website. Yeah.
Kate: I'm catfishing you with 50 free muggers. Oh my gosh. Okay. This has gotten outta hand.
Doree: I wouldn't put it past you, Kate.
Kate: That's how passionate I am about the free mugging.
Doree: Sure. Yeah. It's true.
Kate: All right, Doree, we need to take a break and get off this topic for a little bit. But let's pause and come back. All right, let's switch gears. Doree.
Doree: Okay
Kate: Here's an email we received. Dear Kate and Doree, I have a question that I suspect other women are also thinking about. How do women decide if they really wanna get married or if it's just something they've been trained to want? For context, I have been with my boyfriend for three years. We live together. We have a dog together. He even has eye insurance through me. We are registered as a domestic partnership. He seems to go back and forth on whether he wants to get married. I really want to, I recognize that it would really only change our financial situation, but the rest of our lives would not change much. I do have thyroid cancer, it's fine. I'm fine. So we are often at doctor's appointments. I feel weird introducing him as my boyfriend because I do not want people thinking, I brought some guy I barely know to a doctor's appointment. Am I overthinking introducing him as my boyfriend? Do I just start calling him my partner? Do I just wanna get married because my whole life has just been preparing for marriage? How do women figure out if this is really right for them? Thank you. PS even just writing this into the void, hopefully not has helped a bit. I mean, these are good questions. I don't know if we can ever truly know if something like marriage is right for us because you are right. We have been so conditioned by the patriarchy to prescribe to marriage. I mean, specifically Heteros.
Doree: Yeah. I mean, I wrote a book that's kind of about this or a lot about this. Perhaps you've read it. Thanks for Waiting, The Joy and Weirdness of Being a Late Bloomer.
Kate: So what do you think? What is? How do you know?
Doree: Well, one thing I will say that is a little bit of a red flag for me, is he seems to go back and forth on whether he wants to get married. I really want to. Now, listener, you don't say how old you are. If you are 22. My thought on this is different than if you are 35. Regardless, it is not a good feeling to be with someone who is not sure whether they want to be with you, theoretically, for the rest of their lives. And when your partner waffles like this, I think it leads to some deep feelings of insecurity in the relationship and feeling like you're at their mercy kind of, right? Cause they know that you really wanna get married. And so the balance of power in the relationship shifts. And then it's also a lot of responsibility for this person. They kind of, I'm oversimplifying, but it's kind of like they can snap their fingers and you guys would get married. So I don't love this for you. Now, of course, I'm not privy to the rest of your relationship, but just based on the information that I have, I don't love this. I'm not saying you need to break up tomorrow, but I felt like it would be remiss for me not to flag this.
Kate: Okay. Wait,
Doree: I also, yes, Kate.
Kate: This is interesting to me because this person has told us that they wanna get married, but then they're wondering if they just wanna get married just because that's what they've been taught. Right? And I'm worried that they're trying to talk themselves out of wanting to marry this person who they are worried doesn't wanna marry them.
Doree: Oh, I see. I think,
Kate: Am I reading too into this?
Doree: I interpreted. No, I think that's a perfectly valid reading. I read this as you are questioning whether or not you wanna get married in general because you don't actually wanna get married to this person. And so that is making you question the whole institution of marriage. Again, I could be very off here, but that was just my reading of this.
Kate: Well, and to be clear, the institution of marriage does deserve questioning.
Doree: Of course
Kate: You should question it. And it is not for everybody. And you may not wanna get married. And that is perfectly fine.
Doree: And that's fine.
Kate: And in terms of what you call this person, I understand this feeling when you've been with someone for a very long time, that they feel that the term boyfriend or girlfriend feels too, not simplistic, but too casual
Doree: Partner, at least in our culture, sort of originated in the LGBTQ community for people to refer to their significant others who they were not able to get married with. And I know just anecdotally, some friends of mine who are in that community have expressed how weird they think it is that heterosexual people have adopted the term partner because it's something that they used to use kind of exclusively. I don't know. I don't personally have strong feelings about this either way. I'm just expressing what has been expressed to me.
Kate: Yeah. Now, do you just wanna get married because your whole life has been preparing for a marriage? I mean, there's no denying the cultural, cultural training we've all been under for a lot of this shit. So I think it's great that you're questioning it. I don't know if it's necessarily, marriage is an umbrella term. Everybody's marriage is different. So I think the question you need to be asking is if a marriage with this person in the way that we want to do it, is that what I want? Because everybody's marriage is different. It doesn't, no two marriages look the same. So I think, Doree, I actually think you are right. This is more a questioning of the specific relationship than really questioning the concept of marriage. I think judging from this very brief email, but it sounds like this listener's already asking the questions, which is what I think they need to be doing.
Doree: Yes. Yes. I agree.
Kate: All right. We have one more email here. You wanna read this one Doree?
Doree: Sure. 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 epp 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? Okay, first of all, I just wanna say thank you for listening. I love when we hear from listeners on either end of the age spectrum it just brings me a lot of joy. So thank you for listening. And I'm not going to lie, I feel a lot of responsibility, knowing that you're listening for advice on setting yourself up for success in your womanhood. But I am honored that you are doing that. So thank you. I wish I had started therapy in high school. And I wish that I had, cuz I wanted to go to therapy. I told my parents, I told my mom I wanted to go to therapy and she was like, you don't need therapy. And I wish I had pushed back on that, but I didn't. And I don't know, maybe if I had gone to a, I don't know, are there high schools? We had a school social worker, but to me my perspective was that they worked with very troubled kids and I didn't see myself as someone who rose to the level of needing the services of the one school social worker in a high school of 2000 kids. Do you know what I mean? It was just kind of like, well, who am I to? It just didn't seem like they had time for my level of need. Do you know what I mean? So that wasn't a resource but I don't know. I wish I had just kind of done it. And I wonder if I had been born 10 or 20 years later, we didn't have the internet in high school. No. I wonder if I would've sought it out on my own more aggressively if that had been just in my life. I don't know. It's interesting for me to think about, but I wish I had done that.
Kate: Yeah, I mean, thinking about this question and so much of it for me is related to self-esteem, but I also wonder if my experience, if I were a teenager now would be different because it's a completely different world. Just the same way that the world my mom was growing up in and the sixties as a teenager, it's completely different. So I'm not sure that my advice translates, but I think in general, my mom always used to say to me when I would get really fucking upset about, especially friendship, drama, it's like she always used to tell me, don't waste your energy. This is not worth your energy. And now I didn't take her advice until I was a lot older. And now her advice makes so much sense to me. But it was very hard to even wrap my head around it at the time cuz those things were so huge. My whole world was kind of this social life and everything because it's just how it is when you're 17, 18. But I think the other advice I would have is that we're set, life is set up with a lot of expectations, external expectations and external pressure and not meeting those does not say anything good or bad about you meeting them or not meeting them. Your life is going to look like your own and that's what makes it unique and wonderful. Not if you hit prescribed milestones by a certain time or age, or if you check certain things off your box or if you do things a certain way, you have to really navigate what feels best for you. And that can be very hard when other people are doing everything a certain way or you're being told you have to do it a certain way. So that's something that I think about too for my younger self. Well, any other olds have advice for the Youngs? Something that would've saved us trouble. I mean, don't pluck your eyebrows, wear sunscreen. Diet culture's a scam. That's it. That's probably good. Get a vibrator.
Doree: It's usually not a good idea to go to the second location.
Kate: Oh my God, yes. Never. I also think what is really good advice is, and I think somebody, some famous person said this, but when people show you who they are, believe them.
Doree: Yes. Believe them. Believe. Maya Angelou said it.
Kate: That's my, is that Maya Angelou? It's her. Yeah, it's her quote. Okay. Yeah. I mean, period. End of sentence.
Doree: Yes. I did not learn that until way too late. Not too late. But I think it just took me a long time to learn that.
Kate: Yeah, it's a tough one.
Doree: It's a tough one because whatever. We could get into that, but I won't get into it. Anyway. Alright, let's take another break. We'll be right back. Okay. We're back with an email. Hi. I have a question about keepsakes. I just had my second kid and I'm done having kids. I'm trying to figure out how many items to save for them, like bibs, burp, cloths, blankets, et cetera. Should I save an outfit for each milestone, three months, six months, et cetera? I'm going to save baptismal items, but not sure what else to save or toss. Thanks for your feedback.
Kate: This is up to the individual, but just a friendly reminder that the older a person gets, the more milestones there are. So by year 10 you might have a ton of stuff. So just wait until they start making artwork and you're just, every fucking day they're coming home with 17 scribbles and you start a little folder and then that folder becomes a box and then that box becomes 30 boxes. So just, it depends on if you're, you know, might be a keepsake keeper. There are lots of ways which you can, so many people have tried in true ways of saving things and photographing them and throwing all of it. But this is a personal thing. I wouldn't save an outfit for each milestone or that's not what I did. I do have some outfits saved that were my favorite outfits that they had when they were little babies or sentimental, somebody gave it to them or whatever. Burp cloths, bibs, is this listener, this is keepsake. They're not asking, I'm going to save a bunch of shit for my next kid cuz I wanna reuse everything. They're more like, what's special? I don't know. You can also hold onto stuff. And then when your kids are 15, you might be like, why the fuck do I have these bibs? I'm going to throw them out now. Sometimes I think we hold onto things in the moment that we then are able to release later. So in thinking of keepsakes, I don't think you have to think about them as forever items. Personally, definitely save their baby blankets.
Doree: That's a good way of looking at it.
Kate: They could grow into be 43 year old women like me who still sleep with their baby blankets. So I would say don't throw those out.
Doree: There you go.
Kate: I don't know. Doree, do you have thoughts? You have a younger kid, so maybe you have.
Doree: I do, I also have struggled with this and it's sort of compounded by the, I think this is going to be my only kid, but there is this tiny part of me that's maybe it not, so I feel like I'm saving more than I should. But I definitely have some special outfits, some of my favorite of his baby outfits and stuff like that. And other than that, I've pretty much given everything away. His bibs were not reusable pretty much. Or actually, I mean I did, I think I gave actually do think gave away his bibs now that I think about it. But yeah, I try not to toss anything per se. I there, it seems like there's always another parent with a baby who is happy to take all this stuff off your hands. So not that you have to do that, but I also view it as sort of paying it forward. I give hand me downs to people and then people give hand me downs to me. And it's just this eternal parent economy. So I don't know. I don't have a great answer. But one thing that I will say, my mom did not keep that many clothes. She kept some clothes, but not a ton. And also she kept some special dresses that my son is probably not going to wear, but his cousins, my sister's kids wear them sometimes and that's really cute. And she kept a t-shirt from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston that I used to wear. That all the cousins have worn, which is really sweet. It has my name tag sewn into it.
Kate: Oh my God, Doree.
Doree: I know, I know. So it's kind of fun to have a few items like that. I definitely didn't need my entire wardrobe from when I was six, but it's kind of cool to have a couple of those things. And then another thing that my mom did that I am so grateful that she did, she kept all of our puzzles, all of our toddler puzzles, all of our wooden puzzles. She had all the pieces. And I said, that is one of the things that I felt like I did not appreciate until I had a child when things go missing in the house all the time. I was like, how did you keep all the pieces through three children?
Kate: Seriously, how?
Doree: And she was like, I was kind of psycho about it. And I was like, apparently, I mean, I respect it. She also kept a lot of our books which is cool. So I think it's also cool to keep stuff like that, that is meaning meaningful toys are kind of cool to keep. But I don't think, I certainly don't think you need to keep everything. And I am trying to be better about getting rid of stuff. Kate, this is a pleasure as always. I mean, I'll still be thinking about free mugging.
Kate: I'm going to drive over what's just, you know what? I should pick you up one morning and I should pick you up with a free mug and see how you handle it.
Doree: Okay. See that's just mean.
Kate: I know I know,
Doree: I see your mean side coming out now.
Kate: It's finally here.
Doree: I've uncovered it. All right everyone.
Kate: Talk to you later.
Doree: Bye.