What's The Best That Could Happen?

Picture This: Summer 1980s You've got sunshine for days and a neighborhood ripe with opportunities. There will be movies at the drive-in,  hours at the arcade,  music pumping through the speakers from a homemade cassette tape, sunburns, sweat, ice cream for a dollar, and the company of your closest friends.  

Could you do it all over again? This week Eileen is reminded to be greedy about her time and the people she keeps in her company. 
Summer of 2026 will be used as a portal to go back to the past. Reclaim the season and spend way more moments creating memories and indulging in the present just as we did when we were young.

Transcript

Eileen Kelly (00:00)
But I heard that there's this retro arcade by me and I'm gonna go to an arcade and just play a bunch of games that I haven't played in decades and have that just like bring a well, I don't even know if you do it by quote. I was gonna say bring a roll of quarters, but I'm probably dating myself. It's probably Apple Pay

Hi, welcome to Strangers with Kittens. I'm Eileen Kelly, and I'm glad you're here so that I'm not alone because I don't have a guest today. It's just me and Kermit and ⁓ the studio audience, who you may hear from if the mailman walks by. it's the end of June, and the weather has been amazing in New Jersey, and it's just really bringing back a lot of memories of the end of school.

And not the end of school as a parent, because that's very stressful, but the end of school being a kid and just that anticipation and that freedom and feeling like the days are wide open and what are you going to do with them. Also, I just had the celebration of life for my friend Rachel last week. And it was so beautiful and so healing to get together with

so many other people who loved her. And it just reminded me of all the good times that we've shared, especially in high school. And ⁓ one of the things that we used to do a lot was go to Island Beach State Park in New Jersey. And it's this protected area in New Jersey that is a beach and sort of piny, brushy forest and it's really beautiful. And it was our favorite place to go. So quiet and

No boardwalk. ⁓ I mean, the Jersey Shore has its charms, and I love the boardwalk and I love so much about the Jersey Shore, but this is kind of another, a different sort of a Jersey Shore experience. so I was thinking about that and how I haven't been there in a while, and how I wanna go this summer, which made me think that I want to have an 80s summer. What do you say? I say.

2026 is gonna be an 80s summer. I'm gonna make homemade popsicles from juice and eat them. I'm gonna try different flavors. I'm gonna try layering it, doing a freezing of flavor, and then pouring another flavor on top of that, another flavor on top of that. So if you don't have your homemade popsicle form, go get one. They probably have one at the supermarket or the hardware store, or definitely on Amazon.

I'm going to go to a concert. I wanna go to at least one dance party. I know I've talked about it before, but I'll say it again. There are a bunch of dance parties for Gen Xers that are one's early birds. ⁓ there's another one by me, I think, called All Your Friends or All My Friends. That might be more for millennials, but I feel like Gen Xers could sneak in there too. ⁓ might not be 80s music, might be 90s and 2000s, but still.

Awesome. And a dance party.

I'm gonna go to the movies, which doesn't sound so groundbreaking, but really I'm always streaming at home. It just I don't know. I think I wanna go see a movie and then it's in the theaters and gone before I get a chance to go. So I'm gonna go to especially like on a really hot day, I'm gonna go to an air conditioned movie theater. Maybe not during the day, because that kind of weirds me out being like on in a sunny day and then being in a dark theater and then being in a sunny day, but maybe because we used to do that as kids.

⁓ but I'm gonna try to find a drive-in. See if I can see a movie at a drive-in. I know there's one in Cape Cod because I've been. ⁓ I don't have any plans to be up there, but if I happen to find myself there, then I'll go. I don't know where the closest one is to me, but I'm gonna find out.

So that'll be fun researching things like where can I find a drive in. I'm gonna go to the mall and just walk around. I'm not gonna go because I have to find a certain thing for an event or whatever. I'm going to go and meander around and have the closest thing I can find to a California smoothie. I think that's what they were called. California smoothie was the place. That was like the place that introduced me to smoothies in the eighties.

⁓ my friends and I were so strapped for cash that we would chip in and sometimes split a smoothie among the three of us, take turns sipping out of it. I'm gonna get my own smoothie and I'm gonna get my smoothie on. Not that I don't make them at home, but it's just a different experience walking around kind of window shopping with your smoothie. but I was trying to think of all these 80s things. I mean

Not just little ki you know, not just being a kid, but specifically kind of analog, unplugged things that we did. And I know plenty of kids are riding their bikes right now, I'm gonna get on my bike.

Eileen Kelly (05:31)
Leave the house on your bike without a set destination. Pack a classic lunch of baloney sandwiches. I I'm not gonna do that, but ⁓ peanut butter jelly maybe, cheese. ⁓

Potato chips and a drink from the garden hose. I'm also not gonna do that. ⁓ I had enough of that for my whole childhood. I'm gonna pack a water bottle.

Or maybe something fun, like a Snapple or something. and don't be home until dinner. See where the day takes you. Be on your bike with your snacks, ride around and see where the day takes you. Let's see how long we last. I don't know if I can be out for an entire summer day. I'm not gonna lie. But I'll do my best. And maybe when I'm about to keel over the ice cream man will come and fortify me so I can get home.

But I'm gonna try it. ⁓ okay, here's another one.

Make a mixtape. I mean, you know, in this case it's a playlist. But I mean that's easy, you know. You can always look up eighties, nineties playlists or you can do it yourself. I make a lot of ⁓

Eileen Kelly (06:40)
I'm gonna walk places.

Just walk you know, you had no choice but to walk back then before you had a driver's license. And I know that's not specifically 80s, 90s, it's more age. But still walking to get somewhere, but along the way you see something cool, or you meet someone, or you find a bird's nest, or

Just that curiosity, just being open and not being on your phone and just opening your eyes and looking around. I'm gonna I'm gonna do that.

But yeah, I am I'm committed to having an 80s summer. I wish you guys could talk back to me right now and and tell me ideas on way to have an 80s summer because I could use them. I did write a few down, although I think I got most of them, but I wrote I wrote a couple down. ⁓ I I I gotta tell ya, don't wanna run through a sprinkler. I never did. I didn't like it when I was a kid.

I I don't know. I the feeling of wet grass under my feet is one of my least favorite sensations. So I'm gonna skip that. But I'm gonna go swimming, which I'm not a big swimming at the pool person, but I'm gonna drag myself and go swimming. I'm gonna go to the beach. I'm also going to go to the boardwalk. I'm I'm gonna go to Island Beach State Park, but I'm gonna go to other places as well.

And I'm going to you know what else? I'm gonna go to an arcade and I'm gonna bring you guys with me, at least for part of it.

But I heard that there's this retro arcade by me and I'm gonna go to an arcade and just play a bunch of games that I haven't played in decades and have that just like bring a well, I don't even know if you do it by quote. I was gonna say bring a roll of quarters, but I'm probably dating myself. It's probably Apple Pay

now. I don't know.

I'll do both. ⁓ maybe the old games still go by quarters. I don't know. But I'm gonna play some pinball, I'm gonna play some Space Invaders, I'm gonna play some Galactica, ⁓ some Pac-Man.

I don't show the big ones. I'm trying to think of the other one that was kinda like Galac Galactica? Galaga? Something like that. ⁓ I feel like it was kinda like Space Invaders, but you like had a ship that moved around, if that's ringing any bells.

Space Invaders was my fave. So I'm really gonna I'm gonna seek out an arcade that has Space Invaders so I can play it. We'll see if I can play for hours like I used to last time. I mean the real flex was that you could play for hours if you were good, right? Like on one quarter. It's not like you had a lot of money, it's that you had to be good to be able to play a long time. So we'll see if I can ⁓ I am certain I am not that good anymore, but it'll be fun to find out.

If there are any suggestions that you can think of, go on strangerswithkittens.com and write to me. Leave it on the answering machine, even better. Leave me a message on the answering machine, comment on Instagram, leave it in the comments.

'Cause I could really use some 80s summer suggestions. I just, you know, losing my friend and just I the last like 11 years really have been really hard. No exaggeration. And I and I feel that that's true for a lot of people. ⁓ I feel like I've had a boot on my head, just to someone like

standing on my the side of my face, smashing it into the ground for eleven years. And it's it's I feel like the boot has come off. I feel like that person has walked away. I feel like things are gonna get better and better. And

I just want to kickstart it with fun stuff. You know, there's always going to be elderly parents that need help or sick people that we love who pass away or relationship problems, falling out with friends, falling out with relatives. you know, we're not twenty and things are complicated and there's a lot of water under the bridge and we're all healing and learning and

I feel like Gen X is really the first generation to embrace

Boundaries. I mean, it's taken us a while, but we set the precedent and and now the younger generation is so much better and faster and and clearer about that. But just that we're the generation that said I'm not p I'm not gonna be around a toxic relative just because they're my relative. You know, well that's your grandmother, that's your uncle.

That's your you have to, you know, no, we don't. We don't. And so family, I feel like for us and then generations going forward, our generation was the first one to really choose friends as part of our family, or sometimes as our family, right? And to decide what we want our people, our family to look like and not just stay in that toxic.

family dynamic of whatever has been served up to you in life and you have to stay there and be the person that they have designated you to be because this is who you are in the family. it's been a long road to getting there and people are still getting there and adjusting and figuring things out but

feel like things are opening up and the light is coming in and I don't know, also also COVID. I know it's been six years, but

w it's taken us years really to come back from that and and it'll have lasting effects like forever. But I feel like

For me anyway, it's just taken a really long time because of many factors to figure out how to be again in the world and and not again, but in a new way, right? Like

kind of curate where my time and energy goes and who I feel good after I've spent time with and who I feel bad after I've spent time with and how to feel better. So in light of that.

I feel like an 80s summer would kickstart us all into just better, right? There's gonna be, there's always gonna be challenges. There's always gonna be stuff coming down the pike that's gonna be rough, but we have to consciously reach out and grab good things so that we balance this other stuff,

And have as much of it as we can, be greedy about it. That's the thing I feel like I could really improve on is just being greedy about good things. Good times, good energy, good people, just more, more of that. a friend of mine a couple years ago said this, and I not that she invented it, I'm sure someone else coined it, but she was the first person who

Made me aware of it. She said, What's the best that can happen? And that's gonna be my mantra for my 80s summer. What's the best that can happen? That kind of open-hearted, like, yeah, what's what's around the next corner? Who's having a party tonight? That's the that's the vibe that I want to grab for summer 2026. So you have the party. I'm gonna have the party. Just not a not a planny, ⁓ fancy

Get stressed out, figure out what you're gonna wear, party. How about like stay in exactly what you're wearing? have a party with the food that's in your fridge and in your cabinets and people coming over and just be like, Yeah, what are you doing? Come over. Let's blast some music and hang out in my backyard. It's gonna be that kind of summer for me anyway. And I and I hope for you.

Just get back to the uncomplicated, open summer possibilities of our youth. It's still there. We just kind of got swept away and

forgot to look for it weren't able to look for it it was obscured not our fault but now hopefully you can reach out and grab some so do that all right have a great week