We've Got a Surprise Guest! | Dinner Plus Drinks #31

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Welcome everybody, newest edition of Dinner Plus Dreads Podcast. We are upgrading our space.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Oh look at it.

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Isn't it beautiful? We have a very special guest coming up.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

That's why there's this space right here.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

So, anyway, we're very excited. It's time to pop some bubbles. Yeah, we are. Who is that?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Okay, because guys, if you've been listening, you've been on Baby Watch 2020 with us, and the baby's here! Yay!

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Congrats, Shannon, congrats, Michael, congrats, Max.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Congratulations to my sister and brother-in-law. Um, I am not sharing any details besides that the baby is here, so you'll have to keep listening when Shannon and Michael and family are ready to chat about it. So, but Baby Watch 2020 is still ongoing, but you know, the suspenseful part is over. So, congratulations. So, we will cheers for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Bubbles for celebrations. That's what we're drinking. We have another thing to celebrate later.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

We do. So many bubbles. This is a good episode to have bubbles. And when Shannon is, you know, up to it, maybe she can have some bubbles with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

I know we're supposed to say bubbles aren't just for celebrations, they're for every day. But really. They're for every day you're celebrating. Celebrate something every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

That's so thoughtful, Nick. There's so much going on. What else is on your mind?

SPEAKER_03 1:23

I gotta talk about Yeezy. Yeezy, Yeezy, what you do into Meezy.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

For those of you that don't know, please explain who Yeezy is. Kanye West, the voice of our generation, is I must just spit my bubbles on my expensive laptop.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

We all know Kanye. We love Kanye.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

He's best concert, one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

His songs speak to a lot of the struggles people have. Uh I'm just a white dude, but still like the whole like generational divide thing that's a good thing. Well, I mean, his music has changed a lot. Well, he's a gospel person now, and he's his gospel's terrible, and he should not be a gospel person. The rap is what he should stick with. He knows that. He's, you know, he had them beats. Like, nobody had them beats like Kanye.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Um we feel passionately about Kanye here.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

He's bipolar, which is I'm very happy that he came out and talked about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

No, but did he or his wife?

SPEAKER_03 2:16

No, he did. Okay, I only saw his wife years ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Oh. I just saw Kim's post about it recently.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

He talked about it. He talked about his mother's death in 2007 combined with the fame, uh, was really kind of what triggered that.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I was at a concert like recently after that happened, and he had a full-on breakdown on stage.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

And for a lot of people that suffer from things like bipolar disorder, uh, it is a traumatic event like that that really triggers it and makes you have to realize that you have this situation and you need help. And I think the fact that he actually went and talked about it and explained his whole process has done tremendous good for mental health. What he's not doing tremendous good for mental health is not being on his meds, flaunting that he's not on his meds, being like, I'm crazy, I'm cool with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

And I'm not very nice. Running for president, but also not running for president, and then running for president.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Talking about how your wife wanted to abort your daughter, maybe, maybe not. Like, okay, easy.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

What are you doing? Well, does any of this surprise you for 2020? No. This is all very 2020, so Kanye's 2020 bingo.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Congratulations. You've won. But I mean, come on.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Yeah. I mean get back to making some sick beats. He's one of the people that I'm like ashamed to admit that I love his music because he's. First of all, I didn't know four years ago he came out and said he was bipolar. I just legit saw a post like last week. I I don't follow Kim Kardashian West um on any social media. And I saw like. So I know Kanye is running for president. Kanye is not running for president. Kanye is running for president. My husband is bipolar. That's the news I saw.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

He literally bought his way onto the ballot in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, you can write a check for 50 grand and get on the ballot, or you can get the signatures. So it's like get 5,000 signatures, or just screw that. Or just write the check for 50 grand.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Here we are. America 2020, everybody. But okay. I don't want to talk about that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

I was just, I can't. I want to turn on I just want to turn on my music and like not have these horrible thoughts about I want to talk about how I feel like a real news anchor at this table. Yeah. Because look at us, don't we look official? I think we do. We have stools. I just don't have them assembled yet.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Do my workout like this. We have stools. Should we squat the whole time? Okay. We did something else really cool this week.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

I don't even know what day it is anymore, but it came out like um Wednesday.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

Yeah, Wednesday. So you're all watching this, listening this at different times. All these days are different, you guys. So a 2020 timeline.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Every day's the same. So we did a really cool podcast interview with Lauren Sype of Sype Brew. Lauren Mac. Lauren Mack. I'm sorry. God. Lauren, you know, I'm making you the queen, okay? So Lauren is a lovely, lovely person. She answered some really great questions about Sype beer, and we got to taste some, which we've talked about before. It's delicious. Yeah, it's great. And she shared some really great history, which Nick can tell you all about. Uh-huh. But you have to listen to the podcast to find out.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Listen to it. We have uh the whole thing. If you are into watching Zoom meetings, we recorded it over Zoom, so you can watch it on YouTube. Uh it's funny that way, I think.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Lauren had a really great background, so props to she looked very profesh like us.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

We're working on that. I'm working on that. I think I'm gonna have Shiplap at some point. No, should we just get some should we change the art everything? Mahogany, mahogany bookshelves with leather-bound volumes.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

It's gonna be I think we're gonna change the art everything.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

We still have like books from law school. I could like put those up. You know, so it'd be like the atoms of American. I could do that.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Well, guys, okay, we had a lot going on this week. So usually you just hear one or two things, but you heard we're drinking bubbles because we're celebrating. So what kind of bubbles?

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Oh, so this is the uh US Us US, I don't know. I've seen it both once before. They're Brut from Mobby in Michigan, made with grapes grown and vented in Michigan. So shout out to Midwest. Uh if you paid attention to what we did at like China Country Meets over the holidays, we did Bubbles for Your Troubles. Little custom label to deal with all the problems of the world, which we need right now. And this is that wine.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Oh, we should have done a 2020 Bubbles for Your Troubles. It was hilarious. It was a great one.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Like the mine apocalypse, locust. There's bubonic plague in Colorado.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Okay, I'm ignoring all of it because now we're just gonna talk about food. Okay. I want to make a coronavirus bubbles for your trouble, so let's mark that up as an idea. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

We should do it with uh Lucy's TikTok too.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Oh, yeah, okay. So we'll just add that to the list of things I have not done. Everybody, thanks for calling me out, Nick. I'm gonna say the best thing I ate was just the most memorable thing, not necessarily the most tasty. Well, that's what it's all about. Yeah, we talked about food as memories last week as well.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

So Was it the Bosco sticks you had in the hospital cafeteria while you're waiting for the We weren't allowed to the hospital cafeteria? Actually, maybe we were.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I was never a Bosco sticks kid. Like what the hell? I know. I feel like all my friends were. Well, yeah, you went to St. Francis. You didn't go to public. But I did go to high school at a public high school. That's true. Um, I wasn't-I'm not a Bosco sticks. I don't like like wads of cheese inside bread. I don't even like a lot of cheese on my pizza. Speaking of pizza, the best thing I ate, or the most memorable thing, was this giant. I'm not like a devout Costco person, like I feel like most of my friends are.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Is it Costco or is it Costco? Like I'm honestly confused. It's Costco, but Costco is like this giant Chinese shipping company that has their container.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

So it would be Costco, the big giant warehouse store.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

I'm aggravated today.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Can you tell? Um, here you go, Nick. So Costco. Um, while we were in the hospital parking lot.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

I'm gonna spill that on myself.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

We're doing great. Um, we did we had a lot of fun in the hospital parking lot. So you're as you know, I'm sure we are not allowed in the hospital. So one person is, and that is obviously uh my brother-in-law, my sister's husband. So we still wanted to like, we're a very close family, and we wanted to, you know, make Shannon make my sister know that we were there and have a little fun, and so we made giant signs and like we legit camped out in the parking lot. Did you have fireworks? Uh no, we had a kite though. Fireworks are the bigger-well, fireworks maybe would have gotten us kicked out.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

I thought my suggestion of having a drone outside the window to like live stream it was Well, the the day that the baby was born, the curtains were closed, unfortunately, the blinds.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

So, but in the meantime, the day before that it was so fun. Um, but anyway, there is a Costco across the street. And while we thought, like, we're gonna be here for a while, we need some snacks.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

So we went to Costco and beef jerky and salted nuts and uh string cheese and um none of those things.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Butterfingers? No, salted caramels though. Salted caramels. Um I don't know what we got. We ate like four bites of the 27 things we bought. But um, but anyway, the food court apparently is like a thing. People like I don't know. I told Shannon, my sister, who had a baby. We were like talking after she had the baby, and she's like, Oh my god, did you eat at the food court? I'm like, yeah, I guess. Like, we got food. I wouldn't call it a food court. She's like, Did you get the pizza? Yes, I did. It was so greasy. She's like, it's so good. So anyway, I got a giant piece of pizza. Um, and it was the most memorable thing I ate. It was the legit greasiest piece of pizza I've ever had, but like cut off half of like the triangle part, and the crust was quite good. Oh, yeah, but like it needed 20 napkins. Are you a pizza blotter? I blot my pizza, yes. So anyway, Costco pizza, I'm gonna say for the win with an asterisk of make a good memory.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Welcome, baby McCarthy.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yes. What'd you eat, Nick?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

I had the most glorious tomato facaccio from Simple Bakery in Lake Geneva. I was hungry the other day, and I happened to be at Simple delivering some stuff and some things. And I said, hmm, self, I'm gonna actually I want to get a cinnamon roll because I get cinnamon rolls for everybody else in my life, and I never eat them myself. And I'm like, I'm gonna have a cinnamon roll today. Yep. Then I walked in and they had this glorious-looking facacha with slices of tomatoes and parmesan.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I know it sounded so good. I wish I would have gotten one.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

I had a tomato asparagus one, but I don't like cold asparagus, so I didn't eat that one. They said, yeah, they said like eat this. Like, you know when they do like asparagus tips and salads and stuff? Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Shocking Nick and I don't agree on something that we're eating.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Tomato facasha, oh the tomatoes. I'm gonna say tomato and tomato in the same time.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Because Nick is classy.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

The fact that it was perfect, the parmesan baked into it, a little salt on top.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

I love baked parmesan parmesan, like crispy.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

The only reason to live in Wisconsin is for tomatoes at their peak.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

But like for for what, three weeks?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, but we have the best tomatoes when they're when they're good, which, yes, and it's right now, which I thought was a little early, no? It seemed a little early to me. Yeah, well, everything else is late.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

But we have the global warming, and it's been very hot this year.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

So Nick is on the negative train today, you guys.

unknown 11:07

Global warming.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Global warming. Okay, here we are.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Alright, so time for a random news story, and you know what? Time to put some masks on.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Well, guys.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Because we have a special guest.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So, yes, this is bananas, because why juice do a boring one? So we have a special guest for my news story of the week. I have guess we're not gonna have our bubbles, but I'm bringing on this special guest. Please join us. Everybody, you may have heard me talk about her in the past. This is my sister, Brittany! So this is the sister that lives in Seattle. We have talked about her. We have, I'm gonna take these off because they're fogging up. Um, we have talked about Brittany. Oh no, I can't see. Um, we've talked about Britney before. We've talked about the awesome work she does, and a couple weeks ago we talked about a really cool thing she was working on. And so, Brittany, give us an update on that really cool thing you're working on.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Okay. Well, thank you so much for having me. I was honored to be on this podcast subscribers since day one. Or like day 12 or something. Hashtag first follower. Um so, as some of you may know, I work for a large um nonprofit conservation organization, the Nature Conservancy. I work in the Washington State chapter, of course. And we have been working for many, many years um on permanent reauthorization and full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is our country's most important um conservation tool. And yesterday, um, well, Wednesday, as you're listening to this. These days are hard when we're doing it. Yes, on June on July 22nd. July 23rd? What day is it? July 22nd, you're right. Um, the U.S. House of Representatives passed it with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. Yeah. And this is called what? The they passed um that funding as part of a bill called the Great American Outdoors Act. Yes. So it not only permanently and fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund, it also uh provides a bunch of funding to schools for more bubbles. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Well, we're just gonna stare at them though, because we can't drink them.

unknown 13:14

We'll get there.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

It um provides funding to restore our parks and public lands. Good work. Cheers to that. So cheers. I will Brittany has been working really hard on this and she's very humble, but we introduced this a couple weeks ago on the podcast, and she's the real expert on it. It's a really cool thing. She does a lot of important work at her job. So we thought, you know what? She's here for Babywatch 2020. Why not let us brag about her a little bit too? So cheers to Shannon, cheers to Brittany.

unknown 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Nix being then with Nancy. We're being happy this week.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Glad you're it's great news. It's news that you can get behind no matter what your political persuasion is.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yes, it is. So super cool. We're super happy about the work they've done. I've had the pleasure of visiting the office out there a million years ago when everyone was going into the office. Yeah. Feels like a million years ago.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

I haven't seen that office since February.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yes, it was a million years ago. So we're happy to have Brittany and uh are so happy that this all your hard work paid off. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

So congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Thank you. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

So, what does this like? Does this mean we all get more as parks? Or was it meaningful?

SPEAKER_01 14:13

It does, yeah. Um, so this act um, you know, not only funds our parks maintenance on national parks and other federal public lands, it also um funds LWCF, as we call it, um, which is kind of the greatest conservation funding mechanism you've never heard of. So you don't necessarily know it, but chances are the ball field where your kid plays little league or the place you like to take picnics or family vacations has benefited from this funding. So it funds trails and campgrounds and boat ramps and other sorts of public access to the outdoors, um, which, you know, in these times of COVID, we're realizing is like maybe the safest place to hang out with people.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

It's definitely the safest place to hang out.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

I have no clue about that funding mechanism. I called our congressman who ended up being a poop head about it. Yeah, uh but who said it wouldn't? Yeah, and I didn't know, like the baseball field was a project on that list. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So boat ramps, that's an interesting one. I never would have thought of that either. I don't think people realize that I have the benefit of learning from my sister about this, but I definitely never would have realized those things either. So well, look at you, Britney. What's the next big project that we should all do? Yeah, I mean that's gonna take a couple years of your life, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

We'll see. There are plenty of other things that we're working on at the state and federal level in conservation. I'm hoping that we're gonna be able to do more work on climate pretty soon.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

This one, um, how long have you been there now? I've been with the Washington State Chapter for four years, and before that, I was with the Iowa State Chapter.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

So you've been working on this since you started in the Washington State Chapter, basically. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah. And the fund was created in the 60s. Oh, wow. Um and it ex and it was created initially for 50 years, and then it expired, and we had to kind of um lobby for it to get uh, you know, another year, another three years, and now it's permanent and it's permanently funded.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

So we're just waiting on a signature, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Uh we're waiting on a signature. We expect it in the next couple of weeks. Uh we've we've heard that it's gonna happen, so that's awesome. Um, I should also note for those of you listening.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

So keeping America great.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

We've got to find that.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Well, this sort of thing outdoors.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

No matter, again, no matter your structure, your political persuasion, this fund is not, does not use taxpayer money. Instead, LWCF, the fund itself, is filled by um money from offshore drilling receipts. So oil companies have to pay a fee to be able to drill on our public lands and waters, our in our public waters, I guess. And so the the thought back in the day in the 60s when they created this was that using one resource should should be used to replenish and enhance another resource, our public lands and waters.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Seems like a pretty novel idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

So no taxpayer dollars. This is just, I mean, straight up, it's it's a win-win. The votes were hugely bipartisan, so we're super happy.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yes, super and yeah, it's been fun. Brittany obviously is here visiting, so she's doing um a lot of Zoom calls and meetings, of course, remotely. And so I've heard bits and pieces of lots of um wonderful support from her coworkers and celebratory yes here and there. So we just wanted to be part of that. So yay!

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Well, thanks so much for having me. I also got to eat that Costco pizza. Um, ma'am, what do you think? She told me it was I did like turn it on the side and let it drip before I blotted it.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Um yours was a little cold, so maybe it coagulated.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah. I mean, it's cool. I'm like, I'm from Seattle. I live in Seattle where Costco started, right? And uh we're we're big fans.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

It was like a thing. Again, I think if you're a Costco person, maybe you know, if you know you know about the pizza. It just wasn't it's also a dollar fifty. I mean, it wasn't worth that.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

You know, New York City, you can get it for a buck probably. Yeah, maybe good dollar slides.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

So we thought since Brittany's here, we're gonna let her hang out with us and learn all about the fun that we have here on Dinner Plus Drinks.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

So we're gonna, I would usually say a terrible dad joke, but I think we should just We're skipping we should just I was gonna try and come up with a tree hugging one and I couldn't come up with a good one.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Oh, well then I'll plug our blog. Yeah, yeah, do that. Every year at um at Father's Day, we post a blog post with a bunch of dad jokes. And the the title, um this is thanks to my colleague Nikolai, who runs our digital media, and that just the title for that blog post every June is Dad Jokes So Bad You'll Want to Make Like a Tree and leave Nikolai, I don't know you, but I love you already. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, it's uh welcome to nature.org and you can you can just you can learn a lot of great things, but also check out the dad joke father's day post. We will be And they are nature themed to clear them.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

So we could all enjoy things like time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

All right, everybody, welcome back. We are here with our favorite product recommendations. I had a different one in mind, but I obviously switched to the last minute because I remember for Christmas last year, maybe the year before, I got Brittany and her husband some awesome merch, and it was national parks. So I got a national parks calendar, right? Um, I feel like I've bought one or two things, so maybe I hid it and never remembered to give it to you. No, no, we got it. You'll get it for a different Christmas. So um spoiler alert calendar wouldn't work for you. Yeah, well, you can use it for art.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

It's 2022, but it's just day.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Just burn it if it's 2020, okay? So everything on my day is just blank. So there's an awesome website called parksproject.us. They have all kinds of really cool merch, great for gifts, um, but even better, they obviously give back. Um, so they say on their website, so they are an official business partner to the national parks. So they work with over 50 nonprofit groups to help protect parks and public lands in the US. So you can buy some really cool gifts and then also do good. So I think we all like to do that as much as possible. So check out parksproject.us and get all kinds of awesome products.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Neato.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Neato.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Super neat. Love that calendar. Love that calendar.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Well, I'll have to get you a new one.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Yeah. My recommendation is a library card. Awesome, awesome. Uh, I reached out to uh Emily, library director. Shout out Emily, our favorite library. She was stopping out and get some stuff, and I had a book on hold. She brought it out to me, and the kind librarians added in a few extra recommendations they thought I would enjoy. Oh sweet. You know, you have it made when your local library is just sending you books that they think you would like. It's like, yes, I am a big deal. I like this. But your library card, especially in the times of the COVID, gets you access to a library's worth of resources. And that library isn't just your local library, it's the network. It's everything. So you get millions of books, movies, music, all reservable. Awesome things in addition to checkout, like take and make kits, steam kits, and that's not like a steam boiler that's you know science, technology.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Dumb with me. Engineering, art and math.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Thank you. Dolls, cake pans, the cake pans are good, cookie cutters, especially when you're doing your holiday thing and don't want to have them float around your house all the time. Metal detectors. So your library card is profitable. Audio cassette converters for one, you know, your good old mixtape that you made to impress your high school girlfriend, you know. Uh vinyl albums, vintage, super cool, and record players, plus much, much more. I think they have a drone you can check out.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, what you can rent a metal detector? Or borrow, rather, not even read. The library chart is borrowed.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Yes. Oh my goodness. You get online programs via Zoom during the COVID to keep you entertained, educated, and informed. Summer reading programs for all ages. You can win Lake Chief Country Music Gift certificates, where you can log your books, read for chances to win, and get fabulous prizes. You get tons of brand new cookbooks. We're working on donating some more. We just keep writing them cookbook checks. Access to the online databases, which includes career assistance, resume review services, live tutoring, instantly available movies to stream, ebooks, audiobooks, new food databases or recipes. Wow, this is new to me. I didn't know this. It's all accessible anywhere where you have the internet and your library card. We could keep going, but there's so many things. Get a library card, go down to the library, and that's my product recommendation.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

I am I'm jumping on and plugging. You mentioned it. I popped in the other day too, just to kind of see, visit some friends there that we haven't seen. And they have um great little take, like they do programming, that's really awesome. So during coronavirus, obviously that's on pause. So they've put together little kits. So I picked up a little art kit for my son to do, and it's a fishing pole, and they made little like fish that you can pick up with a magnet. It's adorable. And then they also had make your own mosquito spray, um, mosquito repellent with essential oils. So like everyone got their own essential oils and make your own mosquito repellent. So I love their programming, and these kits are all free for you to take with your library.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

There's also like occasionally a food festival there if COVID doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Gosh. We love our library. That's great. That's yeah. I haven't been in that library in such a long time, but I sure loved it as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

It's um they're only allowing 20 people in right now, so there's plenty of space. Um, you are required to wear a mask, and I felt incredibly safe for the 30 minutes I was there. So cool. Great library. Brandon, you got a product recommendation? Oh. Well, not to put you on the spot, but we're going to um what can I say?

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Um, Bridget's uh recommendation from the Parks Project reminded me of I have a coworker who discovered these. Um I don't know if this is a project, but I'm sure you can buy them. Somebody took terrible reviews of our national parks and made them into art, into posters. So my coworker has um has occasionally posted some of these on her Instagram, and um, she's an artsy person herself, but they're so funny. So they say things like, yeah, the only thing to do here is walk around the desert, and that's Joshua Tree.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I mean, like, yes, that's what you're supposed to do. Oh, that's really funny. And like an ugliest place I've ever seen. Which one is that? I don't know. Oh, Death Valley. I mean, yeah. So we're on the My Modern Net website, but you can just Google the National Park, like funny bad review posters and all kinds of stuff. It's it's like come on, America.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

There are bugs and they will bite you on your face.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

I feel like that's just a review for Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

That's just like the one that I was thinking.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Sequoia National Park in California. This is funny. I need all of these posters. You should have never told me, and these are perfect gifts for me. Hint, hint, hint, hint, mm. Okay, guys. Those were some good product recommendations, I think, this week. I don't know if we can get any better, but.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yeah. All right, let's take a break and let Britney get ready for the next segment. Which you know what it is. All right, we are back, and it is time for interesting questions with Bridget and Nick. And Britney! Hey Britney! So this is a special guest edition, so Brittany has the questions. I'm a little nervous. I hope I did this right.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Um I told her the only rules were like it has to be a choice between two things. So that's the rule.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

So the first thing I thought of was um I I have a good friend from graduate school who works for Washington Trails Association, which is another outdoor group, and they spend a lot of time camping and hiking with kids outside, and so they play this game. Um children. Yeah, and it's usually just a two-part, so I added a third one, which yeah, is gonna work. So the first the first question you need, oh no, it's easy, easy. Mountain or ocean.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Ocean. Why? Uh I I I like being in water. I think the sound of the waves lapping at my feet is peaceful. Um yeah, it's like when, you know, I would rather like go with the scuba diving than the Yeah, we did scuba diving and skydiving. So I just I like the ocean. I like, I like, I think it's pretty. I I like water.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Okay.

unknown 26:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I think actually I'm gonna go with mountain. Wow. So I know, I'm not totally sure, but I distinctly remember one of the first times I think it's because she's here and mountains make you think of her and thinking of her, so you're thinking of mountains. So do options. So um, one of the first times I well, probably not the first time. Anyway, I was in Colorado, and I distinctly remember being in the mountains and was like, I, if I was gonna make a dream home, I would make it. We were right by water, and there there it was like a little pond, and there was a moose nearby.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

So you're not making a choice. You're saying, I want the mountains and the water.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Yes, that's why I chose the mountains.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

I mean, really, this is a trick question. Like, if you can't choose between mountains and ocean, you should just move to Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing you have them both. Yeah, um, I don't I want fresh water in the mountains, and plus you can have really awesome views if you climb the mountains. And I have spent more time in oceans than I have in the mountains, so I'd like to explore more. That I am surprised. Yes, this segment is the best because you learn the weirdest things about people.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

All right. Okay, great. Well, so this started. The second question of this uh two-part thing is um cake or pie? Oh, easy. Cake. Cake. Cake.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

All right.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah. Are you a pie person? No, I'm a cake. I thought so. Yeah, frosting.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Brittany, oh yeah, Britney likes the frosting, like the flowers on the frosting. Give me all the sugar. I'll just give her. Yeah, I like an equal amount of frosting to cake ratio.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

I like the multi-layer cakes that have frosting in between the layers. So it's like a bunch of thin layers of frosting, but well distributed.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

But what about like the big flower, like you fight around the corner piece because you're gonna eat that? Oh, that's too much for me. Oh, yeah, I'll take it. Give it to that. I'm wrong. Okay, fine.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So you're so you're a you're a mountain cake. Mountain cake. You're an ocean cake. I'm an ocean cake. Yeah. Yeah, I'm an ocean cake. Ocean cake. And we we were doing an unofficial experiment while we were in grad school, because we learned about this from my friend Andrea. And uh seeing like, yeah, Pridget, who who's uh like how people in romantic relationships catch what happens. Because I I'm pretty sure my husband is a mountain pie. A mountain pie, I think so too. And I'm an ocean cake, and people tend to be like, and of course, we're we're very happy living in Puget Sound, where we live, where there's all of those things within within the city.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Tyler would be a mountain pie. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

She'd be an ocean cake.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Okay. See? Okay, this is very interesting. It's like a modern-day disc analysis. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, just a scientific. There's supposed to be a third question to love languages? Close, yes. We've talked about love languages. Okay, there is a third question. There's always three.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Well, I was gonna ask uh baseball versus football, but I'm gonna change. Easy. I know. Yeah, yeah. Baseball. Football. Baseball.

unknown 29:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Well, so can I still ask myself? Yes, ask a third one. That one was easy. Because of what we talked about with our outdoor access and parks and things. And I'll know I totally know this answer. Zero hunting. Um glamping or backpacking.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Okay, this isn't fair. Because I've done one of those and not the other.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Are we talking about like backpacking through Europe or like what are you talking about? Because I've done that.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

I mean, this is like a highly developed question that I just made.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

This is always what we do, is we rip the question apart. We're like, well, I don't know, I backpack through Europe.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Well, that's fair. I I hadn't thought about it. I mean, I was thinking backpacking in a place where there are bugs and they will bite you on your face.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Oh, glamping. Or glamping before I knew that's what she meant by backpacking, but it was easier to say I've already backpacked, so I'm going with clamping.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

I did my two weeks in the middle of nowhere in Canada, and that was fine.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

I did my two weeks in a very populated Italy and England.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

I almost hit a bear in the middle of the road. Oh. Stories for another.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

No, we're telling a story now that you said that. We were driving back, Britney, Shannon, and I, sister road trip back from Washington to Wisconsin. Brittany, we were driving none of our cars. We were driving a car back as a favor for someone. So I think it was a Jeddah. Britney was asleep across the back seat. Okay, this is why I don't remember this. Well, you may remember when I finish it. So Shannon and I were in the front seat and we were pitch black, like 2 a.m. in the middle of somewhere with no old streetlights, like in the middle of nature somewhere. And so like nature is everywhere, Brittany. Nature is everywhere. I don't know where we were. Okay. Yes, somewhere along I-90s. An animal came out of nowhere. Like its butt touched our car, and I was driving, so I slammed on the brakes, and Britney rolled off the back seat and fell down onto the ground. No way, I was definitely wearing my seatbelt. I mean, she had her seatbelt on and didn't do that, but if she wouldn't have had her seatbelt on, she would have done that and woken up. Um, it was terrifying. We were nowhere near a hotel. Was it a chair? I don't know, because it disappeared. So, like, we almost had the animal. We discussed this for the next hour because we had to drive for another hour until we found a um a hotel. It was horrifying. I can't say I remember that because you went right back to sleep. Fine with it. Just okay with it.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

So, one thing that can that can um minimize the number of uh vehicle wildlife interactions like this. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Wow, that's such a kind of way of putting it.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Are wildlife crossings over and under the interstate. So on I-90, which starts in Boston and ends in Seattle. Yep. But goes, it's the way we drove home. Yep. Um, we have those in Washington. I think we have three along um I-90 in the Cascade Mountains. And they totally redeem. They just know to use them. Well, there are there's fencing that sort of funnels them to use these crossings rather than trying to cross.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yeah, well, it would have been great wherever I was. I don't remember. Yeah. Traumatic, but anyway. So that's good. That's good ones. Okay. Good work. Cool. It's time for meal favorite. Oh, I always want to skip meal time. I skip it every time. And we even had a discussion about this. I know. Well. I do this every week. I make a meal plan, I forget about it because it's been done for days. Okay. My meal plan. Well, one thing probably only. And pinadas. Casco pizza. Casco pizza. Okay. And the meal plan this week. There's always a lot of good things. Somebody has good Spanish here. Brittany's fluent in Spanish. She'll speak the rest of the podcast in Spanish. If you want.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

I have to pay for translation, probably.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Please. Please don't. Subtitles are weird. My recipe pick of the week is beef and bananas. So I don't think we've talked about this one before, but I love empanadas. So you can put anything inside of them and they're little pockets of goodness. Okay. I think that's all you need to know. Specifically, we're putting beef and onions and things inside of ours. So it's ground beef, onions, garlic, and cheese is what's going inside. But the best part, chimichuri. Yes. We've definitely talked about chimichuri before and how much we love that. So um, but get creative with this recipe. So I think it's on Sunday. So it's a perfect one that you can like make with kids if you want, and you can put whatever you have in the inside. You can make vegetarian options, beef, chicken, you know. You could use seafood if you're weird. Yeah, that would be weird. I don't recommend it. You can make cheese and corn and we have a really awesome. Cheese, potato, pepper. Ooh, yeah, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomato or tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Yeah, either one of those you could put in.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

So all about empanadas this week, but not as excited as Nick is about his recipe pick. What is it? You guys. This is the only thing you're happy about this week.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

Just showed it here. Yeah. Lucy. Uh Arotero Tacos. Uh this was inspired by our local taqueria, which we all love. Yep. The Takerio de Gaia Oro. Um, or as we would call it, the golden cock. Uh they do some, so I usually get the carnitas, but I always try to like, I do a three-taco thing. I always try to rotate the third one, and I got an archero one, which is skirt steak. And uh they do a really nice like marinade and like chop of it and cook it. So this recipe is inspired by that. I think I did it maybe a little bit more fancy than they did, just because you know they're shorting out a bunch. But so basically you take your skirt steak, which is long, thin, and you cut it into little strips, toss it in this marinade with uh some beer, some lime juice, some other things, get it really flavorful, and then just like really quick on the grill. And then I swear to god, if you do gringo style tacos with this, I will murder you.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Nick does not agree with my taco choices, is what he's getting from.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Like if you have this beautiful, like hot seared beef with the I wouldn't do jack robot grill. Yeah. You gotta put the onion in the cilantro. I will just skip the onion. Queso fresco is acceptable, salsa verde is acceptable.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

But not lettuce and cheese and tomatoes. Not acceptable.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

I swear I will find you and I will make you suffer for your terrible crimes against the city.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

He feels very passionately about tacos. Love the tacos. Stay tuned, there'll be more taco talk in the coming weeks.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

There's so much taco talk on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

There's more. We have something exciting planned in a couple weeks. So much more. We got ahead on our planning. Great. So get excited in August, everybody. Now's the time. Now's the time. It's time for Kid Corner! Brittany, you can go first. Talk about Lucy. We did not tell Britney to prepare for this. But yeah, what have you seen my kids do? That's ridiculous, funny, hilarious, adorable in the last couple of times you've done here. Weeks funny, hilarious, or adorable.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Well, just this morning. Just this morning. Um, Elliot spent the night. I asked for a sleepover at Grandma's, yeah. At grandma's house. And I've been staying at grandma's house for like two and a half weeks now. Yeah. On Babywatch 2020. And um, Elliot has um our our parents live in a neighborhood where airplanes take off. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

They do not have done this before. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Yeah, we have that.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

So I just explained this to someone on a Zoom call earlier this morning, somebody at my office, and I said, well, yeah, instead of a garage, the people have airplane hangers for their small planes. We are that.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Uh we do not aviate.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

My best friend uh lives across the street and they they they have a plate in a hangar. Yeah, yeah. In the hangar, in fact.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah. So for a plane, for a four-year-old, he is like super stoked when he hears the airplanes going off. He's at an airport. Yeah. So he'll run outside. It's just as cool. Sure. I don't have kids. I have dogs. So she learned about paw patrol from us. Yeah. Um, so anyway, we've we've spent a few um a few times this morning. We scurried outside to watch the airplane um go and go and come, like land and take off, and I took little videos of Elliot, and he was being hilarious and adorable. So that counts. That counts.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

And and he needed to see the video immediately. Boo, show me the video. Did you take a video? Yep. Did you take a video? What does it look like? Oh wow, it's so cool. Yeah, kid loves to see himself on video. Really. I wonder why. Oh no. Okay, well, yeah, they're hilarious and adorable. Is it my turn?

SPEAKER_03 37:45

No, I'm gonna go because we'll we'll do a Lucy Elliott sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Okay, excellent.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

Uh Simona is not walking yet, she's not crawling yet, but she is already crawling. Oh god. And she's able to get herself from a supine position to an upright position. Oh, okay. And she's uh able to like maneuver all of the ways to eventually get to where she wants to do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I wish she could already involve making uh like she's a grunter, isn't she?

SPEAKER_03 38:11

She she makes all the noises, and it's the preview of all the terrible things that we're in for when she starts actually crawling. Uh she has the worst role model for crawling, which is Lucy, who is the fastest crawler I've seen in my life. That girl can get from here to there crawling and like faster than she walks, so she should be walking.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Instead, she's like, bye, I'm lazy, zoom. Yeah. So uh she's a monster.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

I just cannot believe the whole uh she's like very good geometry to figure out like the angles to, you know, is it more efficient to roll army crawl? Like, I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

I haven't seen her in a long time.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

She likes she likes to use her mom for this. Her mom's like perfect, like uh leverage. You know, she's she's good at leverage. There's something she can always grab onto to you know that's a weird description. Yeah, you know, it's a leg, sometimes a nose, an arm, you know, whatever. So she she gets all over.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

I request a video immediately.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

She's going to eventually be crawling in that we're screwed. I know. And all this like stuff we have over here, it's all gotta be. Yeah, you should see our setup, but the plug thing, so she stops putting her fingers in the phone. Oh, we have a million of those.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

So Elliot never put his fingers in the plugs, and Lucy just like will stick her tongue in. Absolutely. Yeah. Everything.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Lucy eats everything.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Lucy is a house. She's adorable. So she's the cutest house. She's hilarious. You know what? Girlfriend is not gonna grow up with body images. Body image.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Like the beautiful shutters and flowers out front. She is a beautiful house.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

We don't ever describe her as a delicate flower if you listen to this podcast, so she's a tank. Okay, so guys, my kid corner is all about matching outfits. Um, when I was a child, I wish Okay, TikTok. Hello, tick tock, tock. It's back Bridget. Christmas idea. Mommy daughter matching outfits. Just saying, that's all right.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Hey Gap, I know you're watching.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Like she would just mother-daughter matching outfit, please. Send it over here. So, um, okay, when I was I have a twin, as you know, and we had matching Easter outfits. Like most times my parents were good about letting us just like wear what we wanted, which was a disaster. But at Easter, two years I can distinctly remember, we had homemade dresses with bonnets that we like chose. And I also remember going to take a picture with the Easter bunny with matching floral overalls. So keep that in mind. The other day, Elliot and Lucy have a matching um onesie and top that my Tyler's mom got them from this like special place in Michigan where we vacation. And um, so so great, they have matching outfits. So I put the shirt on Elliot, and I'm like, okay, cool, Elliot, go. Lucy was in something else. Elliot had a fit. He needed him and Lucy to be matching. So he's like, no, Lucy needs to wear hers. I'm like, Lucy's impossible to dress because she just yeah. So um, anyway, I had to take off Elliot's shirt and then lay out the outfits for the next day. And Elliot, like, I had to lay them out precisely with bottoms and socks laying on the couch. Yeah. So if you didn't already know, Elliot's very precise and picky. And so, anyway, they had cute little adorable matching outfits, and it made me remember the ridiculous Easter outfits that my sisters and I my sister and I wore. So Brittany didn't have to match us. No.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

He was over the other day and uh he helped me move our sprinklers. We have to we have the new grass for new sprinklers. He did a fantastic job of lining up the sprinkler powder.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Yes, really. Maybe he'll be an engineer one time. She did a great job. Or a pilot.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Very impressed with that.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

We told him this morning he could be a pilot.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

You know, drones. I I wouldn't chase that.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Oh, I thought you were gonna go with a dad joke.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

No, drones are gonna take all the pilots.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Oh, yeah. So, Elliot, maybe don't be a pilot.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

Don't be a pilot. Don't be a semi-truck driver, don't be a pilot, don't be uh a taxi driver. But Uber! No, no, the drones.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Okay, the drones are taking over the world.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

Thanks for listening. All right, uh, remember, listen to the site podcast. Uh you can follow us on social media. Uh, Brittany, do you want to like pimp some of your nature stuff? Yeah, sure. You can pimp it away.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Pimp away, man. It's time. This is very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Well, so like I said, um our Washington State chapter for anybody listening on the West Coast is Washington Nature.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Um is Washington Nature.org. But if anywhere else um in the US or in the world, we do work in 72 countries, you can just go to nature.org and that is the nature consultant. I think you can remember that. You can find all sorts of ways to get involved. So, you know, I'm partial to policy, but you could also um sign up to volunteer outside on a preserve or like from the comfort of your couch. Um you can, of course, donate.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Um can buy merch if that's what you want, and that helps support National Parks in a roundabout way.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

In honor of Britney's great victory. Yes, it was just donate say in honor of Britney's great victory.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

This was many, many people for many, many years across the country. Um, our shared victory. We're super happy.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

And I'm so thrilled that you invited me in. Yes, it was a huge win. Thanks for having me. We're so happy to have my sister. So now you guys know, if you haven't ever watched our YouTube page, now is the time so you can see Britney's face when we talk about her. Part of my face. You will know what her eyes look like and her forehead.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Yep. Yeah, we should leave the room and you can take your mask off and everybody can see you.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

We'll just post a picture of her for you. So please make sure you subscribe and rate us. Especially after this episode. Yeah, I mean, really, after this episode, just say I only want to listen when Britney's here. Um, make sure to send us a note. I love hearing from you.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

Hello at dinnerplusdrinks.com.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

And then find us on social media, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, Dinner Plus Drinks 5K.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Thanks for watching and people.