Mini-Ep 416: Comfy Shoes, Chicken Butts, and Cook Times
Dor & E chat about the (possible?) effectiveness of a good vitamin, bringing in a puppy trainer, and whether a certain Trader Joe’s lunch item is worth cooking in the oven. They also hear from listeners about where to purchase the perfect comfy-but-still-cute-enough-for-a-dinner-out winter boot, the sphincter control of chickens, and the confidence gained from strength training.
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Transcript
*Transcripts are AI generated.
Doree: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise: And I'm Elise Hugh. And we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums,
Doree: 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. But please remember, we are podcast hosts. We have expertise in some areas, but definitely not in others like mental health or even really physical health. So we might suggest that you consult a medical and or mental health professional as needed.
Elise: How is your physical health lately? Do
Doree: I'm always loath to ascribe things to the vitamins that I take because who the heck knows? Who knows, right? Yeah. But knock on wood, I will say I've been pretty healthy lately and I
Elise: Haven't gotten any colds or
Doree: No
Elise: Another bite of covid or anything.
Doree: Is it the vitamin B? Is it? I don't know. That's the thing.
Elise: Who
Doree: Knows? That's the thing. No one knows who know. I don't want to attribute it to the vitamin D because I've been taking vitamin D for years and I've definitely gotten sick in that time, but I haven't been sick in a minute. Now, granted also, my son has not been sick in a minute, and I do feel like when you are the parent of a five-year-old, a lot of times your sicknesses come from your child. So I feel like the fact that he has not really been sick is probably helping my attempts to also stay well.
Elise: Yes, yes. And just staying out of crowded places like train stations, which we don't really go to in Los Angeles or
Doree: Air parties. Well, I did have the thought that going to high holiday services, I was like, oh, I might get covid from this. I mean, we were packed in there like sardines, so it was a little like, oh boy, and everyone's singing and it's a lot of germs able to spread in that environment. But so far, again, knock on wood so far seem to have not come down with anything good. But what I was also going to say is I'm feeling physically pretty good. My tennis elbow is so much better. It's almost totally gone.
Elise: Awesome.
Doree: My knee pain, I had a little bit of knee pain on and off. That seems gone, so I'm like, okay, you know what? For being my age, I'm feeling like things are okay, but also I feel like if I take my eye off the, I was going to say, if I take my eye off the gas, you know what I mean? If I just stop doing whatever I'm doing for a little while, then my arm might start acting up. It requires being in your forties requires so much maintenance
Elise: Or maintenance at all. I mean, for the first time, I really could tell around the change of my decades where I was like, oh man, I get hungover now. I think my 40th birthday where I was like, oh, no.
Doree: Yeah, I mean alcohol, I almost never drink anymore because I found that even when I had a glass of wine, I couldn't sleep. I felt sluggish the next day, and it was a real eyeopener because I felt like in my twenties and thirties I lived.
Elise: It didn't affect you the
Doree: Subway way? No, it didn't affect me so much, and I don't think I ever, a few times, of course, I drank two excess, but typically if I went out to dinner, let's say I would have two or three glasses of wine, feel great, go home, wake up the next day for work, no problem. I was always like, okay, four is where I cut it off. Now I'm like four glasses of wine. Isn't that a bottle? Four glasses is a bottle, right? Yes, a thousand percent. But I feel like there were a lot of dinners just where the bottles of wine just kept coming.
Elise: That's true.
Doree: That's true. You know what I mean? And then you turn around and you're like, oh, I actually drank a bottle. But that does not happen anymore. I'll tell you.
Elise: And you are physically well, so maybe there's a correlation there. I mean, honestly
Doree: Mean alcohol is so interesting because it is one of those things where I think you were talking about this recently where it's like every year a different study comes out and you're like, I don't know what to believe. Remember for years it was moderate drinking, especially red wine.
Elise: Red wine. Yeah. Because
Doree: It has you
Elise: Healthy.
Doree: Yes. And now I feel like the pendulum is kind of swinging back and all these doctors are like, you should not drink any alcohol whatsoever. Which is a very different message really
Elise: Than Oh,
Doree: Yes. Now these doctors who are coming out saying like, Hey, ear. I know, but they're also like, Hey, remember when we said it was good to drink a couple glass of wine every night? Just kidding. Which is like,
Elise: Yeah, this is my whole beef with caffeine.
Doree: Yes, exactly.
Elise: Because every once in a while, yeah, this is one of my soapbox.
Doree: Outrageous. I feel like you've definitely talked about this. Anyway, I didn't need to turn this. Are we supposed have coffee
Elise: Or not
Doree: Have coffee? Right? Come on. Anyway. How are you feeling physically these days?
Elise: Oh, I have my nagging knee issue and I'm just waiting for it to, I don't think it gets better. It could potentially get worse, at which point I might need to get surgery, but so far so good or so far, so stable. But I've had a little bit more time at home as I've been training the puppy and things and have also knock on wood, managed to not get sick, so that is a blessing. And then we had puppy training this week, which was Oh, wow.
Yeah, his brain was empty. His brain was empty. He couldn't do, he didn't know any commands, obviously. He was like 10 weeks old. And so for the first time we had somebody come to our house and just talk us through. Really, I feel like puppy training is kind of human training. They're training us. Totally, totally. And Rob needed a lot of training. He likes to get down and rehearse the kinds of behaviors that we don't want the puppy to be doing with the kids. He really wants to roughhouse with the dog. And then so the dog gets really excited and starts nipping at him and stuff, which Rob is happy to have happen, but then when it happens to Luna, the 7-year-old, she is not, and so then it's like, okay, let's, let's get on the same page here. We have to do some norms, which having an outside trainer here to help with has been great.
It was really fun, but it's a little far afield from your question. Overall, I'm fine. I just have a lot of, I'm frazzled. I have a lot of stuff going on and having the puppy around and possibly making noise right now. We actually had to deal with our editor, Sammy heard the puppy squeaking, like the squeaking toy, going really hard with the squeaking toy in the background of one of our casual chat episodes, I think. And they were like, yeah, love it, but very hard to edit around, so I need to take the squeaky toys away from Oscar During those particular recording sessions or all recording sessions already. Already a little bit troublesome, a little bit of a troublemaker.
Doree: Well, you were talking on a recent episode about how he's gotten so much bigger, and then you posted a picture on Instagram of you holding him, and I was like, oh my God.
Elise: I know.
Doree: I feel like two seconds ago he was like this tiny little puppy, and now he's
Elise: Like, I know. Even his face is different, right?
Doree: Yeah. He's like this big boy.
Elise: Yeah. Yeah. He's doubled his weight since he came home. I have been doing one selfie a week just to kind of mark his growth, because I remember, it's like the pregnancy photos, I think we joked about in the mirror, but I'm holding a puppy and he's enormous already. He's doubled his weight since he came home three weeks ago. Do you
Doree: Know how big he is? Supposed to get
Elise: 75 pounds. Okay, so the same weight as Issa, my 9-year-old.
Doree: Oh, sure. You know that my dog is almost 90 pounds.
Elise: So you don't lift him up with one arm, I assume. Fuck. No, I was actually thinking about this. I was like, how do I one arm him when he's 75 pounds for
Doree: Myself? No, you don't. Yeah, you don't. Don't. Have you seen those tiktoks of people who have taught their pets to talk using those buttons that they push with their paws?
Elise: Yes. It's astounding how expansive a dog's vocabulary can be.
Doree: Yeah. Do you think that's real? Or what do you think?
Elise: I asked the dog trainer about this and she said, an intelligent dog has a vocabulary of about 200 to 300 words, which actually sounds high.
Doree: It does.
Elise: But some of the dogs who not only recognize the word but can also point to a card with the photo of the word
Doree: And form a sentence and make that
Elise: Association, right? Right. Those might have a vocabulary in the thousands, and that is possible with dogs, but it takes 12 years of dedicated work and training. Interesting. So it is possible with a lot of dedication
Doree: Also, what's the payoff? You spend 12 years for him to tell you he wants to go for a walk? I mean, my dog already knows how to do that. You know what I mean?
Elise: You can do that without a sentence. Right?
Doree: Exactly. Exactly. It's a fun parlor trick, but they're kind of good at, they don't have a ton of needs. Their needs are like, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty. I need to poop.
Elise: Right.
Doree: I'm tired. That's kind of it. And they're pretty good at expressing when they need something, those needs,
Elise: Right?
Doree: Yeah. So I don't know, call me crazy, but I'm like, is this really necessary? Well, we should take a break, Elise, but before we do that, let's just remind everyone that they can call or text us at five nine one zero three nine zero. Please call and text us. Actually, these mini apps run on your emails and voicemails and texts, so if we don't get any, just have to listen to usap, which is like,
Elise: It's a much lesser episode without you.
Doree: Yeah.
Elise: Yes.
Doree: And you can email us at Forever35 podcast@gmail.com. You can visit our website Forever35 podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. Our website is newly redesigned, very pretty. You can go check that out. It even has a functional search. Now you can follow us on Instagram at Forever35 podcast. We also have a newsletter at Forever35 podcast.com/newsletter, and you can shop our favorite products at shop my us slash forever three five and state's project. It's almost election day, almost today.
Elise: It's almost election day.
Doree: Link is in our show notes and on our website. Please donate whatever you can. We are so grateful. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay. We are back. And before we get to our listeners, we just want to mention one thing, which is, if you remember a few months ago, we had the amazing makeup artist, Rachel Goodwin on the show, and she answered so many of your questions and we said that we were going to have her back to respond to more questions. She actually had more questions that came in after we recorded the episode that we didn't even have a chance to get to. And we thought it would be great if people wrote in with more questions, even more questions for Rachel? Yes, for an upcoming episode that we will tape in a few weeks. So please write in call, text us with your questions. For Rachel, no question is too big or too small.
Elise: Skincare makeup. She is so up to date on all of the products because she gets to test everything and she's always testing things on her celebrity faces that she works on. Most notably Emma Stone, who is her most frequent client and collaborator. I've heard of her. Yeah. Have you heard of her? Yeah, I think I have too. She's been in a few things, a few things, and Rachel agreed to come on with us quarterly, so it's time for her to come back. We're so excited. She will. So call in with your questions because she was very popular among you listeners and for good reason, you know how to reach us. Send in your questions for Rachel.
Doree: Okay. Alright. We got a question. This was actually left by someone on our Patreon, but we thought it would be a great question for everyone. So we asked if it would be okay to read it on the main episode, and this listener graciously said yes. So thank you so much. And they wrote Hi all needing some boot slash shoe wrecks for a trip to Boston in a few weeks. We have nice dinner plans, a couple of the nights that are either very close by our hotel or we'll take a lift or the tea, but the rest of the time will be lots of walking.
Elise: Doree, I feel like you're my shoe friend. You're my shoe
Doree: Expert
Elise: Friend. Oh my God. Wow.
Doree: Okay.
Elise: I defer to you on shoes. You do? Yeah, because I'm just not a shoe person. I'm way more of a bag person than I am a shoe person. And then Oh, interesting. My eldest daughter's a bit of a shoe person. She's really into her hokas because she's Jen z beginning of Alpha, and I guess the young kids really like the Hokas these days. Rob also really likes his
Doree: Hokas. Yes. Our recent guest, Amanda Mull, wrote a whole article about how the Gen Zs are only wearing comfortable shoes now.
Elise: And it's true. It's true.
Doree: Orthotics. Yes. So this listener didn't specify too much in here besides they have nice dinner plans. So here's what I'm going to,
Elise: No, she's saying mostly she's going to be walking though. I'm interpreting the session differently. Dating,
Doree: Right. But I guess what I'm wondering is, is she asking for one shoe wreck, something that she can walk in and go to dinner in, or does she want a dinner shoe wreck and then separately a walking shoe wreck? You know what I'm saying? These are two different things.
Elise: Well, how would you answer the question, Doree?
Doree: Okay,
Elise: Both questions.
Doree: If you want something that is going to be good for both, I suggest a little old website called aerosols.com
Elise: Aerosols.
Doree: So my former impression of aerosols, no offense to aerosols, was kind of not stylish, right? Just comfortable shoes. And lemme tell you, aerosols, this is not an ad. Aerosols has stepped it up. Aerosols has really stepped it up in the last few years. Nice
Elise: Play on words.
Doree: Yes, it's true. Oh my God, I didn't even think about that. And they have some really cute shoes, really cute boots. The price point is not that expensive. It's what you would spend at Macy's. Most of their boots are, I would say between 75 and top. Top is maybe a little under $200. Most are in the $99 range.
They have waterproof shoes, everything. They have a lot of options, and I have found that their shoes are indeed very comfortable. Now, the other brand that I'm like, oh, they actually have some cute shoes, is Naturalizer really? Yes, I'm in my forties. Yes, I'm in my forties, but they have some cute shoes and their shoes are legit comfortable. I got a pair of shoes from them for a black tie thing, and these, they were like strappy silver, high heeled sandals, the kinds of shoes that normally you would wear for five minutes and then have to take off
And they were so comfortable. So I'm like, I don't know what they're doing with these, but so for boots that will look cute for a nice dinner out and that you can walk in, I would suggest naturalizer or aerosols. I'm looking at their website right now, and of course I wouldn't wear every single one of these pairs of shoes, but there's multiple pairs of shoes that I'm like, those are cute. Those are cute. Those are cute. I would wear those, so I would check that out. Now if you are looking for walking shoes, not nice dinner shoes, I think Hokas are the way to go. I love a Hoka.
Elise: You and 12-year-old Ava,
Doree: 12-year-old Ava also loves a Hoka.
Elise: That's two recommendations right there.
Doree: Yeah.
Elise: Okay. This is awesome. And then listeners, obviously we want to throw this out to all of y'all too, so if you have suggestions for
Doree: Yes.
Elise: However you want to take this question, whether it's dressy or walking,
Doree: We're
Elise: All ears. Call her Texas.
Doree: We are all ears. Okay, Elise, I believe this next text is in reference to your anecdote about chickens. Do you remember
Elise: This? Oh yes. The chicken diapers.
Doree: The chicken diapers.
Elise: Yeah. How Rob was like, I need to get the chickens diapers because they are shitting everywhere.
Doree: Yes. Okay, so this listener writes in and says, first they put the laughing crying emoji and said, had to pause the pod. Chickens have no sphincter muscle, so they go when the spirit moves them LOL, they can't be trained to go in one place. Good for lawn fertilization, bad for soccer.
Elise: Yes, yes. And Rob would agree this is why he wanted the diapers, but couldn't get agreement on it.
Doree: This is so funny. I never thought about an animal not having a sphincter.
Elise: Yes, this is going to be my today. I learned at dinner.
Doree: This is definitely a today I learned
Elise: Because often at dinner we share today I learned.
Doree: Oh, you do? Yeah. That's really cute. That's really cute. Well, now I learned, now I know a lot about how chickens poop.
Elise: Yep.
Doree: Do all birds have no sphincter? That would track actually.
Elise: Yeah. Well, all the cars and people and everything underneath that's getting shatter
Doree: Upon would say. Yes. I mean, not that they care, you know what I mean? Not that they care that they're shitting on a car or a person for that matter, but it is just like, oh yeah, they just poop when they poop.
Elise: Yeah. Yeah.
Doree: Okay. Well, you never know what you're going to talk about on this podcast, I got to tell you. Okay. Let's take another short break and we'll be right back. We're back. A listener wrote, loved the discussion about strength training at the end of your recent episode with Delia Kai. I started a strength training plan in the spring of this year at the suggestion of my physical therapist, and I've come to love it. I work with a personal trainer who I know through boxing classes. I took pre Covid and she set up a plan for me to follow each month. It has become such a confidence boost for me. I also feel so cool and strong whenever I see a guy in the gym and I'm using heavier weights than him smirking emoji.
Elise: This is a theme. This strength training is a theme of Miranda j July's book All Fours, which I know a lot of you listeners have read about how she had no muscles and decided she wanted to get toned, and so she started working with a trainer and she ends up working with very, very heavy weights, kind as her arc proceeds in the story, and she gets stronger and stronger and feels really empowered from it. So it kind of reminds me of that.
Doree: That's very cool. It's great thing to do. I finished my Glutes and Legs program.
Elise: Yay.
Doree: I realize I've not given an update. I did not finish every single one of the classes on time. I did 10 out of 13 when I was supposed to, and then my program ended on Sunday, today's Wednesday, and then yesterday, which is Tuesday. I did one of the classes that I hadn't been able to do, so I'm going to finish it out and then I might do it again. Why not? Why not?
Elise: Why not? Yeah.
Doree: I do feel so stronger
Elise: And plus you can keep your glutes from getting amnesia.
Doree: Yeah. I was going to ask you about your glutes when we were talking at the top of the show about how we felt physically. How are your glutes feeling these days?
Elise: Well, I'm convinced I have dead butt syndrome
And that's why I sometimes have lower back pain and knee issues because my whole back chain is affected by having weak. I think it's medial glutes and I'm working on it. I work on it in my mega former classes. I guess that's my souped up Pilates classes. We do a lot of clamshells and lunges and things like that, but I hate it. I hate working on that part of my body. It's very painful, interesting. And not an exhausting, and that's why I don't do it. And plus I lay prone most of the time. I don't work at a standing desk. I barely work at a desk because I even take meetings from bed. I often work from bed. You probably know this because you have seen me on our Forever35 team meetings, and usually I'm in bed that's like my desk. And so when my kids make fun of me, they're like, why are you in bed again? I'm like, this is my desk. You need to respect. This is my desk. That's so funny. Most of my book was written there. I feel very productive in my space, but what it does is nothing for my glutes. It does nothing for my glutes at all, and in fact probably weakens them. So I'm working on it. I'm trying to walk more. I'm trying to do more string stuff. It's just going to be like you are saying, essentially at our age, you just basically have to keep doing it.
Doree: You
Elise: Can't really stop.
Doree: Right. It's not like you get to a point pain, the muscle pain, and then it's like, okay, you're done. Yeah, yeah. It's like, no, not
Elise: Done. But loved hearing that message from our listener. So
Doree: Yes,
Elise: Thank you all.
Doree: That was so great. All right. Well Elise, do you have any Costco or Trader Joe's? Rex for this week?
Elise: I never bought that giant Wolverine for Scoop spooky season,
Doree: Even
Elise: Though you had tempted me. The problem with that is the storage.
Doree: Totally.
Elise: Am I going to keep that out in the front yard? Somebody did say that they wanted to get it and then dress it up for various holidays. You would have a Wolverine in your yard and then when it was Christmas time, it'd be like a Santa Wolverine. And then when it was Valentine's Day, it'd be like a Cupid wolverine.
Doree: You know what that's like? It's like the people who have those banners outside of their house that change with the holidays and season. I feel like people don't have those so much in California or LA now that I think about it.
Elise: Yeah, I don't really see that in LA very often,
Doree: But that was a very northeast thing,
Elise: So you could have done that for the Wolverine,
Doree: Right? Like, oh, it's Easter. I'm going to put out my Easter egg banner. Oh, it's kind of festive and fun.
Elise: Anyway, so I haven't been to Costco and I still think about the Wolverine and that missed opportunity. And at Trader Joe's, my one recommendation right now as we are still in the throes of spooky season is the Lalo Cold Brew, canned cold brews. They have the pumpkin ones in stock right now. Are
Doree: They good? Is that variety good?
Elise: I like them. Yeah. And it's only for a limited time too. It's not too sweet. It's subtle. I don't like a really sweet drink
Doree: And
Elise: Every time I see it around this time of year, I'm excited to see it and they're back. So that's my big Trader Joe's update. What about you?
Doree: I'm trying to think if I've bought anything new recently that I haven't mentioned already on the pod. Oh, I did. I haven't tried it yet, but I did buy the Banno Bowl chicken and rice and beans. Matt is Cuban, so I might make him try it for authenticity's sake. Okay. Okay. How does this taste stays, blah? Yeah, I told Elise, I already told you this, but I was heating up a Schwar a bowl recently and they say you can heat it up in the microwave or you can put in the oven. And I was like, well, let's see what happens if I put it in the oven, will the extra time be worth it because it takes 40 minutes to cook in the oven and my verdict was not worth it.
Elise: Microwave is just fine.
Doree: Just stick it in the microwave.
Elise: Okay, great. I wasn't going to attempt the 40 minute wait for my formable anyway. Anyway. But I'm very glad to hear
Doree: That I attempted it for you.
Elise: Yes, you did it for me.
Doree: Thanks. No, thank you for your service. You're welcome. Anytime. Alright, thanks everybody.
Elise: Talk to you next time.
Doree: Bye.