Don't Blame Me! - He's Too White For Her

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

It's been a wet week in LA! Meghan shares the sweet details of making a birthday cake for her nephew and excitedly installing her new Christmas lights. Meanwhile, Melisa opens up about her frustratingly inconsistent period and all the hectic Thanksgiving preparation for her mother's arrival. A listener asks if they were wrong for discouraging their mother from trying to hook up a teenager with an adult. We tackle a sensitive question from a listener who is dealing with their own and their mother's intense emotions following the death of their father. Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Subscribe to But Am I Watching? Apple  Spotify Subscribe to Don’t Blame Me! Apple Spotify Call In for DBM - 310-694-0976 (3 minutes or less) Write In for DBM - [e-mail] (300 words or less) DBM Submission Form Buy Our Merch https://crowdmade.com/collections/sister-sign Follow Us! instagram.com/meghanandmelisa @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/diamondmprint.productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

well welcome to don't blame me which is an advice podcast a current events podcast a ranting podcast a gossip podcast we just like to talk whatever's on our mind but we also give advice to people who can call in or write in how they do that megan they can call in by leaving us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and if they prefer to write in they can send an email to meganpodcasts at gmail.com or they can fill out our form which we have listed in the show notes it's also listed on our socials or if they're like i would love to call in and i would love to hear my voice because i have like a beautiful i've got i've got a voice for the moving pictures the opposite of what kyle says which is he will say that someone has a face for the boom mic

which i was like that's that's okay um and uh if you've got a absolutely gorgeous sexy beautiful voice and you want to hear it we would love to hear it and you're not in the united states and you can't call into our google voice number you can also just record yourself and send a voice memo to meganpodcast at gmail.com for the voice recordings and for the voice memo you have three minutes time is up for the written versions 300 words and then pencils down everybody and we do cut you off at that so there is no follow-up with a second one that's the same amount no no no summarize and you're great at it and if you're a little nervous just listen to a couple of other episodes and how other people phrased it worded it just need as much info as possible tell us how

old you are because you if you're under 18 no go and it determines all the advice we give advice we give to an 18 year old isn't going to be the same advice we give to a 35 year old exactly so how was your weekend it was very wet wet weekend it was the wettest weekend we've had in two years something like that no clue it it was very very wet and i watched my rain can like fill up twice full all the way and i was like that's a little wild um and i spent most of the weekend i mean i spent all the weekend indoors but i did spend in fact most of the weekend making a dodger's birthday cake for my nephew because we did in fact have to reschedule his birthday party because of the torrential downpour which his mother was out of the country uh literally the

weekend before and got back on like monday no it was the week before the week of on monday and i called her uh and i actually informed her i said what do you want to do about the rain she had no idea that it was even going to her husband didn't clue her in at all no and he was there because we were facetiming and then she looked at him she's like honey and he was like uh you weren't you weren't gonna tell me that we have to reschedule his birthday party so we went over there he had like a little like he'd had like a play date with his friends and then we came over i made the cake my god i have put an end there is we're on a we're in a memoriam of deeply saturated colored cakes like those kids i said next year it's pastels and natural colors like dodger blue

is very specific and if you don't get it right it just doesn't look right so it was and like going from elmo to this which was almost easy like that's except it's so much red it's so much red but at least you know like yeah it's just it's just red yeah dodger blue involved um and people ask me like when they see the pictures and they're like oh my god like i can never get my like my frosting that saturated how do you do it it's exactly how you think you do it and the reason why you're not doing it is because you're like there's no way it i'm sorry it is you have to use more you it's quite literally like i'm not kidding it's only gel food coloring you can do because it won't change the consistency and it is bare minimum three tubes usually closer to four

between four or six like it is so much but for this it was like i think this was three tubes of blue or two and a half yeah three tubes of blue and then or four then royal blue then also some violet and then a little bit of black yeah and this was just like a normal size cake it wasn't giant but anyways no no no no no it was a three layer six inch cake eight inch cake i can't remember an eight inch maybe but like not big at all six seven um and oh god um and uh but the other key component is is to leave it like make the frosting the day before because it once it sits for a while it darkens in color so you just need to know that but then don't take the word for it of the color that it is that you see in the fridge you have to whip it up

again and then see what it like where it's at once it hardens you'll be able to see but you can't get freaked out so did that and then we went over there we watched lilo and stitch for the first time because i have told them that they have to wait for me to watch it because it's my favorite disney movie they loved it i mean my niece uh she did in fact have to go to bed she skipped her nap and stayed up way past her bedtime had a total meltdown about not wanting to get into the bath and the only thing that like marginally like calmed her down by the way i didn't get in the bath but the only thing that marginally calmed her down was me singing frozen to her with like the music on spotify only thing that worked her mom was like hey maybe megan wants to come sing to

you while you're like we're just trying anything um and then didn't want to put her pajamas on because then they were like well you have to go to bed honey like what do you want to do and she goes I didn't take a bath and they're like you're kidding me that is and take in mind no bath after the blue frosting cake okay well you know there's battles you have either 100 you won the battle to get in bed but lost the bath that girl wasn't getting in the bathtub like there was just no way um but I also accidentally forgot to separate I didn't I didn't make enough white frosting so like i accidentally made too much of it blue and i usually only do blue as like the cr or the color as like the crumb coat and like the final coat not on the inside so the inside in fact was blue so

everybody was very blue everybody their teeth their tongues died blue but uh my nephew loved lilo and stitch which made me so happy he just like kept turning around and like laughing to see if i was laughing and i was like oh my god this is like so special um and he loved his present which we got him this like big fort building kit did i tell you about it yeah you talked about it last episode i we didn't have enough time to play with it but i'm so fucking excited yeah my weekend i mostly slept i didn't know my period my period has been inconsistent i don't even know what on time is anymore but the last few months just whenever last month i cramped for like two weeks straight and then it came no warnings this month it just showed up hi no cramps hello hello hello

and uh i slept all weekend i literally couldn't do anything else all i wanted to do was sleep and i was exhausted and it was raining and also my internet went out for a long time so yeah was it windy by you yeah okay it was windy and it was just so much rain so much rain and my car is low to the ground so i wasn't going anywhere anyway i drove by um someone who has your car as it was starting to rain and they were parked like next to a curb so i was able to like kind of gauge the size and i said good god if you end up in a spot that like like your car could just straight up flood there were so many streets that just collapse no thanks yeah i we say this every time it rains here that like people are like nobody knows how to drive i don't know we're

not supposed to drive in the rain here like it's like a legitimate thing our when i can't like not only do our side streets flood everything floods our freeways our highways they flood we don't have sewer gates here like there's it doesn't run off into anything and then the ground because it hasn't been wet in a while it doesn't absorb anything it's just sitting on top so no I'm not unless I'm going somewhere super close I'm not going outside but I was also directing an audio book this week and my mom is here she ended up coming earlier because the flights were ridiculous so she came last night and yesterday i had the longest day ever directed from 7 30 to 7 30 a.m to 3 30 p.m and then i had to like do some final touches here and then i taught a class

and then and my mom came couldn't pick her up from the airport and this is uh guys yeah and uh This is the first time she's, like, taken an Uber for herself. And then I ordered this roll-away bed from Amazon. It arrived. From the reviews, it looked like, oh, it's just in the box. You just take it out. Because, you know, it's folded up. I would think that's how it would arrive.

No. It came in several pieces. It took me four hours to put this bed together. What? Why so many pieces? I don't know. to put the we're gonna put the rolls on it not just that i had to put the whole all the base together and the way that it comes it is folded up but it's not connected so not connected how

it would actually be connected there's these two long metal strips on each section that was closing it up close by a screw so i want you to imagine one of those tubes of biscuits no i don't like so as i'm unscrewing just pops like literally pops i said i need to put on some pants some shoes and safety glasses yeah i literally they're yeah they're right here each one was getting scarier and scarier because now they're just the tension is getting tighter on the remaining ones the final one your adrenaline must have been through the roof i was terrified i would be so scared the final one because there's so much tension is now pulled it so you can't even do it everything has slipped so i'm like okay i guess i'll get a hammer so i

got a hammer and put it back in the opposite direction and then it just flew open this feels like the first time i ever did like a jack-in-the-box yeah it was like that oh and i i literally put it in the closet but with hard metal pieces that are flying with shrapnel you were enduring shrapnel oh my gosh it was so scary i would have given up you're really brave you're really brave the only way i kept i did it because what else there's a fucking option yeah and as i was putting it together my mom's like well i can just sleep in your room and i said absolutely not no and that I like to sleep naked and cold. You like to be, have the heat on, plus a heating blanket, plus a weighted blanket.

Okay, sure. I'm claustrophobic and hot. I sleep, mind you, I sleep with my air conditioner on 64 degrees. Yeah. It's hot in here right now because I was like, well, when I wake up, you can turn it up. She's like, I need a space heater. It's so hot. wait what temperature is her preferred like 76 that's ungodly 72 i know it's hell 72 literally

is pushing it hell when i go to my parents house i have to close the vent i sleep with the window open and the fan on the window opens nice though yeah there's also winter time i love i love an open window during the winter yeah once i got it together it's very nice cute really nice yeah give me a tour okay which room is this again which floor third floor it's my office okay so um it came with um like a four inch mattress and then i put a memory foam and then a down topper on it so it's very comfortable i'm very i feel very bad that i interrupted your quick nap that sounds so nice. Damn. So that's good. And then I can just roll it away and put it in my closet when she's gone. That's really smart. All right. We're going to take a break.

Your playlist might get you through the workday, but have you ever wondered how your ancestors spent theirs? What work helped them build a life? How did they adapt as the world around them changed? With Ancestry, you can search select historical occupational records for free for a limited time and discover the stories behind the jobs in your family tree. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Search free until August 31st. Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. I was looking at Pilates machines. We need to live next door to each other and then we can split the cost of a Pilates machine. Yeah. Or you can just buy one and then you can use the rest of my equipment that i have and i feel like it evens out you're gonna come here for a plies

machine no i'm just saying if we were close to each other oh 100 because you have if you have the plies machine i've got the bike row machine and everything so smart weights i should specify yeah which make no sense but i i like it's the same thing with bluetooth and same thing with wi-fi like i don't need and you need both of those to operate it and that's the thing the things i don't understand that is the through line it is the common denominator i'm just like yeah i don't get it and that's fine by me oh i also forgot to say we got uh new christmas lights so i will not in fact be starting any fires yeah you said that last week but we know we got them though okay we found them we had to go to we had a snafu i was looking everywhere and i was like

why is this brand just not here it says it's available it says it's right here whatever and i show months the thing and he goes because we're at lows he's like you didn't realize that everything's blue like we're at lowe's we are not at what was i think i was looking at ace or home depot or something because they're the only ones who have it and i was like oh oops but we found them they're expensive but they're beautiful and they're gonna last forever exactly and they don't look like leds except i do i did think that the little white ones we got were looking like leds and i told him i was like are they like you know vibrating and pulsating to you and he was like no i think you have a headache and i was like i do have a headache he's like two things he was like

do you not realize everything's blue and i think you have a headache no that was when we were looking before he was like this is the whitest that they'll get he's like they're so white and i was like they're not they're blue they're blue and we finally go to the other store and it shows like a comparison and he goes i guess they were very blue i was like i meant blue as it being lows oh okay i was like leds are blue too yes they are but i was referring to he told you did you not realize everything here is blue because you were at lows yep that's a good point good point and i didn't i need to get my hair done i need to take these braids out you know things things need to be done and they'll get done when they get done that's the exact vibe of this time

of year between now and january 1st things will get done i don't know how i don't know when they will i might not be happy about how they get done or the manner in the time and how timely they are but it'll happen yeah eventually should we take a break and then take then do some advice let's do it you're really missing out if you don't watch the video versions of the podcast because we're just synced right up yeah we're back and uh we're gonna give some somebody's writing in with the but am i wrong and we're going to listen to that let's do it roll the tapes i am an m i'm 21 and i use they she pronouns i normally wouldn't call in for the situation um because i know i'm not in the wrong um but y'all said you wanted more calls so i thought i would do my part and

you guys can give your two cents um the situation which was one of the more recent times i was questioning the logic of my mother um basically this happened a few weeks ago we were on the phone and she was telling me about all the different contractors who had been coming to her house because she had just moved back and they were getting things updated. And then there's this one guy she mentioned, the plumber. Let's call him John. And he is, I think, 26, which is relevant later. But he has been coming a lot and him and my mom have started to become friends. And he even got a job for my brother, which is all fine and good. Except for the fact that now that they're close my mother has started to be my mother um and she let me know that she was trying to set up

john the 26 year old um with a 19 year old let's call her ava um which is one of the girls she calls her other daughters um and so i immediately tried to shut that down and explain with an age gap like that there's an inherent score imbalance and they should not be in a relationship in the slightest however my mom was like the boys mature slower so it's better if she dates older he already has a house and he owns his own business it's what Ava needs the stability and I was like no not all boys mature slower that's there's a shit ton ton of immature ones out there and age gap like that will be way more harm than whatever good that you think is going to come from And luckily, my mother's meddling did not pay off because Ava said John was, quote, too white for her to go on a date with, which she said as a white girl.

So she wouldn't date him. And it hasn't been brought up since, thankfully. But I still can't have him the idea that that's an actual conversation I had to have with my mother. Anyway, that's also the story. But I'm not, I know I'm not wrong. if you want to share your opinion on that um but people please call in i promise it's not scary um if you have to do what you're told write it down practice it it's all fun okay bye i love your energy i love your vibe why does your mom have a 19 year old who is like her other

daughter like how who is ava how does she know why is your own collecting like youngins that's exactly what i was gonna say why is your mom collecting all these young people like why does she have a quote-unquote friend that's 26 years old yeah does your mom have a job and i mean that like with love and care like she sounds a little bored yeah like does she volunteer like any type of work is she get her into like romantic like get her into a new book series like i just think that like she i don't what is it that idle hens make something along the lines of like hey too much free time nothing good comes from that yeah also how can she say that this that boys mature keep in mind this is a grown man boys mature slower than women when this man owns his own

business and owns his own house at 26 years old that sounds like a very mature 26 year old to me 100 and also like i'm sorry at 19 i actually don't want the person i date to have that because like i live in an apartment with like 15 roommates like and so do all of my friends like you can't that's like the whole reason why the the power imbalance is like so fucked is because like it is so different and isolating from your social life and your friends that like you then cannot bring this other person around and you become more isolated from your peers i do love ava's response um and i thank you for clarifying that she also is in fact white um i would i would love to know like how white is this man like if she's like that's too white is any white too white for

ava or is like they're a threshold of white i think because she said too white and not white period yeah then there's a threshold and i have to know like is it like john mulaney white like is it like she's like i prefer like a timothy chalamet white yeah there is a huge there is a big difference between john mulaney and timothy chalamet and like we're not even saying like a chet hanks like that's not but it could be like a benedict cumberbatch versus honestly tom holland marvel universe they occupy the same area of white to me maybe i'm just thinking of their specifically their faith like benedict cumberbatch to me exists in the 1800s like he has he has a ye olde face yeah and tom holland like i could see tom holland like you know shopping in a store

yeah i'd go like cumberbatch versus like sebastian stan robert downey jr i was trying to go marvel shannon tatum oh yeah i was trying to come up with a like a slightly closer gap because that to me is a wide that is a very wide gap yeah that's a very clearly wide gap this is a fun game they're just those the ones you just named just they feel too close i know i was trying to come up with something like slightly closer to be like this not even you know is it even a closer is there someone is it is he almost not white enough or is he like so far gone like there's no it is what it is yeah so i would love to know that um did she tell you that did she tell your mother that i hope she told your mother me too because also like serves your mom right to like what was

her reaction to that because again why again why is your mom friends with or like collect these young these youngins yeah because like she considers her daughter do you consider her sister does she consider you a daughter like sinitra is like daughter sister but like hey and sometimes it changes sometimes you're like this girl is my sister and then that girl just becomes a daughter but then there's somebody that wants to be a daughter but doesn't want to be a sister and me and my sisters are like absolutely not no you can't be here how can you hate from outside the club when you can't even get in why are you closer to our age and sitting at the table with our mother and not over here with the millennials it's with the boomers it's

very um teacher's pet kind of vibe sitting at the front of the class you forgot to give out the homework shut up shut the fuck up you get out of that nothing we had one kid who did that i remember a teacher was like that was not nice of you i was like yeah thank you thank you um but god yeah obviously you're not obviously you're not wrong and i love the conviction in which you're like well clearly i know i'm not wrong and that's that's how like i i think we should all feel satisfied in most of our decisions it's being like well i'm certainly not wrong did you see trump likes filet-o-fish does not check out yeah that doesn't surprise me in the least he loves mcdonald's no i know he loves mcdonald's but like i actually don't know anybody who like

rides so hard for mcdonald's and their order is filet-o-fish yeah yeah anyways lots of interesting things about him this week interesting is a word interesting is a word i just the way that epstein's brother well i guess he's technically epstein too jeffrey epstein's brother came out and was like bubba is not bill clinton but did not clarify that trump was not giving head did you know who do you know who they pivoted it to what they're saying bubba is now the horse yes and i'm like which that is the name of the horse that's not better it's not better exponentially more dangerous and like from like a logistics point of view like i don't know how that i don't know how that works so anyways should we do the next

did you watch snl i forgot to ask you no it was way more political than i thought it was gonna be and i think he like very he like essentially went on snl with a flag saying i am not sydney sweeney we just did a movie together i mean literally after he first guessed on kimmel when he came back like and then went on some podcast and was talking about his beliefs and you know i tried to tell you before you know and i will give you that like you did and i resisted and i'm i'm loving him i did watch i guess he did a reference like one of his like intro videos was like a reference to christopher walken on um right no not christopher i have to picture the voice and then be like is that the face behind it oh yes um and i guess like glenn powell did a homage to

his little like dance thing that christopher walken does and i didn't know about it and mox was like oh here let me show you what it's in reference to and he put it on and within two seconds i said pause that man is classic that man is a dancer yes and mox was like what do you mean he's hardly moved was it his uh the music video with fat boy slim yes this is when he's in a suit right and like it was like two seconds and i was like pause i have to watch was like how can you tell that he i was like no no there's you don't see the stark difference between glenn powell doing this and christopher like i was like christopher walken i was like i'm gonna be even the way he snaps his fingers in the video i was like he i was like not only does he have

dance experience like he is a trained dancer and i'm telling you he's trained in more than one day like he is he is an accomplice and i like looked it up and he was a monster like how and i was trying to explain to him like just how you can tell he moves oh my god his shoulders his like his control of his body but like even like how he's tapping it i was like that man's taking tap classes like based on how he's moving his feet and i was just so shocked and impressed and i had no idea that that was like his original come up was a dancer i would love to hear him like call out like six seven eight in his christopher walk-in voice you know what i mean like i'm just like i would kill to have a dance class taught by that man in that voice i think you could probably

find i'm sure he's in some at some video he is he does count something i've seen him count i'll gotta get him in another live musical also that was like 30 years ago not 30 but like 20 years ago i don't know if he's moving like that once you're a dancer always answer it's in it's in here just like my man dick van dyke who just turned 100 they're doing a meet and greet at disneyland on december 20th when i will be in arkansas so damn that really sucks for you it does i would have gone with you just to go to disneyland well so i was gonna say you'll catch him next time but i mean he's even made the joke if he was saying if i even make it to 100 so If I make it to Disneyland.

He's been saying it for the last few months. If I make it there. Anyways. Let's take a break, and when we get back, we can get into another one. Your playlist might get you through the workday, but have you ever wondered how your ancestors spent theirs? What work helped them build a life? How did they adapt as the world around them changed?

With Ancestry, you can search select historical occupational records for free for a limited time and discover the stories behind the jobs in your family tree. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Search free until August 31st. Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. We are back and let's do our next one.

Trigger warning, alcoholism and parent death. I need advice from the Dead Dads Club slash Dead to Me Parents Club. Don't worry, I am in therapy for this. my dad died at the end of september from alcoholism induced kidney failure and other complications he made me health care proxy despite the fact that i live across the country and my brother and mom who mom has been divorced from him for 17 years live in the same town as him where i grew up the last five years my relationship with my dad was only via phone after an email agreeing to a date and time call maybe once a year sometime in 2018 2019 my dad

was homeless and missing i didn't find out until months after his eviction my brother found him via police which somehow destroyed their relationship apparently my dad asked to stay with my brother in his one-bedroom apartment prior to eviction which they could not accommodate i did not fly out to visit my dad in the hospital i only found out about my dad's alcoholism in 2018 ish my mom wants to make her feelings about this all my problem so now i'm dreading going home for christmas any and all advice tips or anything welcome on an alcoholic family members or dealing with the death of a parent i don't think i'm sensitive but grief is fucking weird man no one I know who has lost a parent has dealt with it well, and I think I need community. Thank you.

Oof. First of all, I'm really sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sorry that your mom is putting all this on you too. Yeah, I know that you are, obviously you said you're going home for the holidays. Is there anything you can change about that? Like, not the dreading it or not the going home, but like, can you get there a day later? Can you leave a day earlier? Like, can you do something that you feel like is taking a little bit of, like, control over the situation that's not just like, okay, this is what I'm being told to do or this is what I have to do or whatever? Even just, like, making plans with friends to get out of the house or being like, oh, when I'm here, I'm going to, like, read a new book series. Like, I'm going to, like, do something here that I'm not necessarily doing somewhere else. So it will specifically occupy your time.

I'm going to pick up a new craft project. And it can be something where you can excuse yourself to go do this thing. And bonus points if that thing gets you physically out of the house. But if not, it gives you a, I'm sorry, I'm busy, I'm doing this thing. And it's also a distraction from what's going on there. Because I'm not sure if you said you're staying in your childhood home. that is like just tough for like that that is like bottom line tough for you tough for your brother tough for your mom and people will deal with that differently um and if you find that there's like something that's like oh it's the worst when it's you know dinner time and we're sitting down together schedule to like only to like not be home for dinner as like just doing

that a couple times and even if like this is like upsetting to your mom or hurtful to your mom like that's okay that's like her hers to deal with and like you said like grief is really fucking weird everyone will grieve differently and sometimes people will grieve in a way that they want to require you to grieve with them in their way and like that is that is not your responsibility and i think you've been tasked with being like the responsible like the responsible sister for so much and for so long that that will be a role that people assume for you to take on and you don't you do not have to take that on you can be like i'm i'm not going to do this and the world won't implode if you don't if you don't if you're like well everything will fall apart if i don't take the

reins i promise you it you you don't have that amount of control like you you just don't it's not fair to you to put that pressure on yourself because it's other people not wanting to to take any of that from you yeah also like can you set guidelines with your mom before you even get there and be like if you bring x y and z up then i will leave so like this is not my fault she's putting all this on you which is completely unfair to you and I'm sure like part of you being gone was also like a reprieve so you didn't have to deal with this these type of things but like can you say hey mom you know what happened to dad was very tragic and it's in fact it's affecting all of us in different ways and I understand that like you are also grieving but you're also trying to put

this on me if you bring this up I am leaving I'm going to stay with a friend I'm going I don't know if you have the option to like go to a hotel or something but like I will not be around you if you bring this up and you need to also the way that you know I'm your I need you to respect my boundaries and i will respect you and if you disrespect me you will be disrespected as well and i i would also like urge you to to remove the well it's christmas well it's the holidays kind of expectation from it that like spending it together is better regardless of the how fraught it is in the moment it's not like there are things like oftentimes people will be like you have to like just suck it up yeah and like power through because like ultimately you will be glad that you

did that's not true like there are times where like you will be so miserable doing something like it's not worth it in the end you're not going to look back on it and be like i'm so glad that i did that like oftentimes what is what is worth what what what is your feelings about what you want to do for it in the moment honoring those feelings you usually will look back on that and being like i'm glad i i prioritize that but i'm not going to look back on like a horrific holiday we spent together and be like i'm so glad that we did that and i'm so glad that i endured that because it also sets the expectation that like that can continue to happen and be like that but i think that like if you're quite literally there and i've had friends who've who've done this where

it's like they have given uh their families a chance they've gone for a holiday and and uh they were there for like 24 hours and they were like nope I told you this you had like Melissa said like I set the boundaries ahead of time and you're saying fuck it to that and you think that I'm just going to put up with it because it's Christmas and because like it's better to spend it together than to like any alternative and I was like nope flying back to LA going to go see a move like I'm doing all this stuff and it's like it might not be like the traditional way that you see it but like if you're miserable on the holiday that's also not the traditional way like that that's not fun either like there's it's not worth it in that sense and I think a lot of people

expect other people to put up with a lot more shit in like these like occasions because it's like well you know at the end of the day it's all it's all a movie and the soundtrack plays and we're all one big happy family and it's like if you're not actively being a good family member and you're not actively being like a good person to me and a good like a good mom to me and a good brother like if you're not doing that in the moment I'm not looking back on this saying what a what a great sibling you are it's an active you have to actively participate yeah i'm so glad i went home for the holidays no like you haven't even talked to your brother yeah years so there's no there's no rules written that you have to be there there's a reason that you're going i'm guessing

it's because you want to go but if if it gets to the point where you can't be around them you know if you can leave leave if not then lock yourself in a room and and i would save things that you're excited about that you're looking forward to to do when you're there so you have like something that feels and something that doesn't feel just like you're running back all of the holidays you've previously had before because like that is a big thing with that like it's it's different like traditions change you're grieving like life is different and so doing the same thing that you've done before but with a with a different set of circumstances can be really hard to swallow and so doing something it's like oh we always go to like this breakfast place don't go to that

breakfast place go to a different breakfast place like do anything you can to kind of like switch switch it up um because sometimes doing the same thing isn't really honoring that person it can just put you and your grief like through something that makes it like very abundantly clear that that person is missing from your life and especially when you have complicated feelings around that person um and how the people you're with are grieving but i think like even something as simple as like getting a like a cute new like scarf and hat and you don't wear it until you go there like something that you can just like look forward to that doesn't that can't be ruined by you know someone else so i'm really sorry and you know just just know that you're also allowed to be

a miserable person to be around when you're grieving and you don't just have to take other people other people are allowed to be miserable too but like you don't have to mitigate that and manage all those other feelings while not letting yourself be like miserable you're allowed to do that too so but yeah i'm really sorry it's really tough if anybody has any personal experience with this um i yeah i have like people i want to like phone a friend to be like i would love if they could talk to you about it because this is like a very i know a lot of people like personally who have gone through like truly this exact situation and it's really hard yeah all right that's the end of our episode thank you for joining hope you have a great thanksgiving week if that's what

you celebrate and you're in the u.s um join us on thursday we're going to be doing the whiz for what am i watching yeah we are and uh it's a thanksgiving film and then we're gonna is i forgot like i got like 90 of the way through and i was like why is this thanksgiving again and then i like i was like oh because it just starts on thanksgiving it starts on thanksgiving also it just works out well with the Wiz

the Wiz it works out well with Oz the Wiz no keep trying oh my god keep trying

to be fair there are so many iterations of this god damn IP take the second half of the Wiz use that same letter

use that same big letter for a different word wah wizard oh shit wicked no duh Melissa wicked wizard everybody

wizard wizard that was questioning it no she was like wizard wicked for greater good bad i don't even know what what those words are those were never in my mind there's good or bad at the end i don't know wicked for good for good there we go wicked for good we'll be doing the following week but we will not eat the following week we'll be having we'll have a break because we're not recording next week because holiday and i can't go see it when it's too crowded yeah

then we'll be back enjoy we'll play some old episode yeah get stuffed sorry gobble me swallow me i love when you manage my energy um okay goodbye this is a sister sign production hosted by me megan ranks and me melissa d montz plus diamond imprint productions. Post-production by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.