Thoughts From the Couch - Thursday Food Day

Greetings and salutations. Welcome to. Sorry, that's my Inside Voice Thoughts from the Couch. I'm your host, kat Garcia, and, yes, once again I'm coming to you. Live from my couch, not covered in cats. It's been a long friggin' month. I don't know about the rest of you, but it's been a long month and it's been an even longer year, and we've still got the holidays ahead of us. I'm recording this the day before Thanksgiving. So buckle up, you're gonna make it through Coming into the holidays. Holidays are hard. Holidays are hard, I feel like no matter what, and they get harder as you get older. You know, this year I'm not spending Thanksgiving with my family, so that's different. I'm actually gonna be with my PLP and her family and I'm super excited about doing something different and starting new things, and I'm also sad that I'm not doing the things I normally do. So I just want to make sure that you guys know that it's okay to have both of those feelings at the same time. If your therapist hasn't told you, if no one in your life has told you, if the voices in your head have not told you, it is okay to hold grief and joy in the same breath for the same thing, it's okay. It's okay If you are going through your first holiday after a loss, after a death, after a big life shift. It's okay to not show up if that's what you need to do, it's also okay to show up and just exist. So you guys know I've been sick. You can still hear it in my voice. Right, I sound better than I have, thank goodness. But I'm still getting over this gunky crud that I've had. And you know I'm going to my PLP's family's Thanksgiving, going to her sister's house, and they knew I was sick and they were like tell Kat to come, anyways, we're going to put her in a comfy chair, we'll bring her food, make sure she brings her knitting and that she's cozy, because it's okay to show up and have no energy but still acknowledge that people want you there. You don't have to perform for your families, you don't have to perform for anybody and it's okay to just not show up. That's okay. You don't have to give any. You can tell them you know I'm not, I can't come. You know I'm not going to be able to make it. They don't. They don't need any other explanation. They don't need a reason, a justification. They don't need you to make up a story because you don't want to tell them the real reason, all you have to do is say I'm not going to make it and that's the end of the conversation. If you're going to spend the holiday hanging out just chilling, watching, oh, what would I watch? Oh, oh, charlie Brown Thanksgiving definitely would watch that Independence Day. That happened when Thanksgiving. Do those things. If that's what you need to do to take care of yourself this holiday, do that. And the other thing that I think is really important, especially for this holiday, is recognizing that what we grew up thinking we were celebrating isn't reality. It's, it's just, it's not. There are tons of online creators that you can go follow who are talking about quote, unquote the first Thanksgiving. They're talking about the, the diseases and the devastation and the, the taking for granted of everything by white colonizers. Like. I'm not the person to speak about that because I don't know. I'm still learning, I'm still figuring out, but I'm also going to acknowledge that that's a part of this holiday. I'm trying to reframe this holiday. Thanksgiving is better. Um, thursday food day um, that's currently what I'm calling it, thursday food day, like in my head. Call it whatever you need, to call it whatever you want, but just know that, again, it's okay to have mixed emotions about the holiday itself. Um, you can be excited to spend time with your family to eat excuse me, to eat food that you really only eat one time a year. Um, your turkey hangovers are a real thing. And it's also okay to be angry and upset about the atrocities committed against indigenous peoples in the us and all over. You can hold those at the same time, um, I don't know if you are a black friday shopper. Um, way to go, capitalism for the uh, creation of a holiday in which all we do is shop. I'm not shopping on black friday. I'm not judging you if you do shop, shop away. I'm just the whole idea it cracks me up. Um, I'm not shopping, I'm working from home still, because I am still home, um, but I will be hopefully recording some episodes the next week or so, full-on episodes, not just from my couch, um, but if you're, if you're doing any black friday shopping, uh, good luck. If you're waking up at the butt crack of dawn, please caffeinate appropriately. Um, I had to do that when my brother was in high school because he worked retail and, uh, he worked coals for a long time and so he would uh volunteer to work first shift the day after thanksgiving and, uh, we don't want him leaving his car in the parking lot all day. So, uh, my mom and I got up and drove him. It's like, well, we're already awake and I will tell you, the first year I went to the fredmeyer sock sale was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life, because I love socks and they didn't have any cool socks on sale. Well, crushed, crushed. I was never gotten over it and it'll be fine, but if you're shopping, I hope you have better luck than I did that time. Yeah, yeah, it's a little, uh, crazy, crazy thoughts from the couch today. I I'm not still not being touched by any cats. They don't see a microphone, so they don't feel the need to help. Um, I can see two and a half cats. It's very exciting. Um, they would wish you a happy food thursday, uh, if they knew what it was. They just are hoping that they get multiple cans of wet food tomorrow for funsies, which they will, because I work hard so they can have a bougie life. But I hope that whatever you do for this holiday, this holiday weekend, is what you need and what you want, and I just I hope that you know that you are enough. You are exactly what and who you need to be, and there are always awkward questions from well-meaning family or friends sometimes less than well-meaning family or friends but you don't have to answer any question that makes you uncomfortable. You can say I'm sorry, I don't, I don't have an answer to that question, or I'm sorry I won't be answering that question. You can say it however you want. You can also say fuck, you already said no, like that's loud. I read on the internet that somebody was using an air horn when family was misgendering and dead naming their trans siblings. So I obviously support that. Air horns will definitely correct very quickly. But the most important thing is I hope you get the time you need. I hope you get all of the roles possible, gluten free and otherwise and if you get this as a longer weekend, if you get the holiday off, I hope that you get some recharge as this insane season kicks into gear. So I will be hopefully back to almost normal, whatever. That is pretty soon, because I've missed recording with you guys, but in the meantime I have a pie to finish. Okay, okay, okay. So I wasn't going to wrap this up. But then I remembered my story about the pie. I'm going to the PLP family food Thursday and I'm making a gluten free apple pie. Because I make a bomb gluten free apple pie. I will share the recipe with you guys if you want it. But I'm making this apple pie so yesterday, because you know I'm still getting over being sick, so I don't have a lot of energy. So I peeled, and I peeled four pounds of apples while sitting on my couch and then I decided to slice them as you do. You can't put a whole apple in a pie pan and call it a pie. That's not really practical, nor will it work particularly well. So I decided to try out my mandolin, because I've never used it before. I just need the disclaimer that all of my fingers are intact going into this portion of the story. So I'm sitting on the couch with the mandolin and, for those of you who don't know, a mandolin is like a slicer as like a really really sharp slicer, and you go jaz, jaz, jaz, jaz, back and forth on a thing and it slices everything really uniform and it comes with like a, like a handguard. Well, when you, the way I did my apples, the handguard didn't really fit. So I used my hands and I was paying really really good attention and then, all of a sudden, I don't know if I like breathed wrong or like blinked, but I'm like Ow, yep, yep, yep, I did that. So I, the first victim of Thanksgiving, was my right, the Very, very, very side of my right ring finger. Uh, so it's a little bit that hurts. Check off some nail, it's fine, it's fine. Um, but the pie is gonna be great. It's also helpful that this was the very first slice of that and it's a whole thing. Anyways, um, when the pie is done, I will, I will share a picture, because it's gonna be glorious. Um, please, use the hand guard when possible when utilizing a mandolin. I swear it will make things better. Um, but have, have a good holiday, have Good time with your family, your chosen family, have good times on your own or at home with all of your animals and, uh, with that, the cats are gonna go. If you're enjoying listening to me ramble um, like, share, subscribe. You can follow me on Instagram, at inside voice podcast. Um, facebook, inside voice podcast and at the website Inside or voice podcast. I'm pretty sure that's what it is, god, I don't even remember. I'll have to go look, you know where to find me, on all the places and all of the things, um, but thank you for listening to us. We appreciate it. Noodle like perked up and twitched your ear at us. So she says hey, um, but we're really glad you're here. We'll talk to y'all soon. Bye.