Laugh Love Law
Real conversations. Real people. Real impact. A podcast about life, law and everything in between.
Laugh Love Law
Growing Into Ourselves with Marissa Sciremammano
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Some conversations just feel like home—and this is one of them. In this episode, Marissa Sciremammano and I settle in like old friends on the best blue couch, reminiscing about our Brooklyn roots, the people who shaped us, and the experiences that made us who we are today. We laugh our way through childhood memories, growing up, raising families, shopping trips with our daughters, and all the moments in between that somehow become the memories you cherish most.
Today, Marissa is a respected educator, a dedicated Board of Education trustee, and somehow also manages to be a true super mom. She also shares how, in her 40s, she’s feeling healthier, stronger, and more confident than ever before—a reminder that sometimes your best chapter comes when you least expect it.
This episode is full of laughter, nostalgia, friendship, and honest conversation. It’s about remembering where you came from, appreciating the people who helped shape you, and embracing every stage of life with gratitude, humor, and heart.
Real conversations. Real people. Real impact.
Welcome back to Laugh Love Law. I'm Heather Kaplan and I am so happy today to be joined by one of my oldest and dearest friends, Marissa Secromomano. Welcome, Marissa.
SPEAKER_01Secromamano? Yeah. Okay. That was close. It was close. Alright, go ahead, you do it. Oh, go ahead. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00She'll always be Marissa Lynch to me. Absolutely. And she went and and and and acquired that very long last name by choice. Um I've always referred to her as Little Lynch. Okay. Which is funny because Heather is littler. Yeah, but that's okay. Okay. So anyway, back to the good stuff. So Marissa is somebody that I've known, I'm gonna say, for well over thirty years at this point. She is an educator, a national presenter, a newly elected Board of Education trustee, a future college instructor, a mom of three incredible girls, and one of the most thoughtful, authentic people that I know. But before any of those titles, she was just Jamie's little sister. I was, and here we are, 30 years later. That's right. Um, thank you so much for being here. I have to say this episode feels a little different than all the others so far because we've known each other through so many seasons of life. We've seen each other as as daughters and sisters and moms and young professionals trying to figure it out, and there aren't that many people who have witnessed that many versions of of you or me, and you've been one of those people for me.
SPEAKER_01So I still love you.
SPEAKER_00I still love you too. But people know you as all of these things. You're an educator, a board of education trustee. You're you're an impressive chick. But aside from all that other stuff, what what doesn't make it onto your bio? Like what's something that doesn't get included in your professional bio?
SPEAKER_01So it's funny because I feel like this wouldn't be on my bio, but this is definitely me. I'm a little unhinged about some things. Okay, okay I have lots of thoughts and feelings about things. Um I don't know. I I I I think anybody who knows me knows who I am. Um, because I am always me. I don't actually have the capacity to be anybody else. You're authentic. I am because I just I think because I'm tired, but maybe I've always been tired. I just I'm always me. So that's really I don't know where that would fit in my bio. Um but I hope anybody who does know me or reads it will want to know more to figure out what that actually means.
SPEAKER_00One of the things I've always admired about you is that you're unapologetic. You are you, true and true, genuinely. And you're sort of like here I am, if you don't like it, well, that's a that's a you problem.
SPEAKER_01Definitely, although I feel bad if you don't like me at the same time, but I am I I mean, and maybe this isn't a good thing. I am very much willing to walk away if it's just not working out. Yeah. So um I just feel like time is limited, so it's like why waste anybody's time? And what brings you the most joy these days? I mean, I know the best answer is my children, but they also bring with me, they bring a lot of exhaustion along the lines with that. So um I'm not a really joyful person. Is that a weird, terrible thing to say? It's not. Um, so I don't know actually if I could answer that. My children obviously bring me great happiness. I love them. Um, they are they are amazing and crazy.
SPEAKER_00It's exhausting being a mom of things.
SPEAKER_01It is exhausting. I know because I'm a girl's girl, but it's exhausting also being a girl's girl.
SPEAKER_00Expensive too.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yes, and I'm expensive. So imagine now what they are. They are also very much expensive. They are expensive as well. So it is.
SPEAKER_00It's like carbon coffee times three.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. You want Starbucks? Absolutely. So do I. Let's go. You like that sweatshirt? Oh my god, so do I. Let's get it in a size like we can both fit in. Oh, we can't? Let's get two. Yeah, let's get started.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but it's like having built-in best friends that sometimes you want to strangle.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and they probably feel the same about me. Oh, 100%. Because sometimes I'll say, I'm not that nice. Like, why do you always want to be around me? And they do want to be around me. So it's yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm at the point. My girls are a little older than yours, but my girls are 20, 17, and almost 13. And for the most part, I think they're back to the point where they enjoy being with me. There was a while where everything I did made them cringe.
SPEAKER_01I think everything I do does make my children cringe. Um, like I have no problems dancing in the middle of the street when we're walking the dog. We always bring like music to listen to. Um, it's often inappropriate, and so we're dancing like through our neighborhood. Um, and that definitely makes them cringe, but then they go along with it. So I, you know, sometimes I, you know, you're not supposed to say like you kind of you want them to grow up, although I obviously want them to grow up and like be these great people, but because I feel like sometimes I need a little break. Um, but at the same time, they're always with me, and then it's like they're always with me, and they want to be with me, and I'm kind of like, why? Like, I'm not that nice. And then but then it's also I do let them eat in the car, I do take them for Starbucks, we do have dance parties everywhere we go, even in the middle of the mall. So it's um so then that part of me is also like, oh, I can see maybe why they want to be around me. You're fun. Sometimes.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you've always been fun for me. I so so I that's a really loaded comment, by the way, for me. Yes, yes, so the summer before I took the bar exam was probably the most stressful summer of my life, and I needed to leave my house because I needed peace and quiet. We'll we'll sum it up. And the lynches lived in the same town a few blocks away, and my oldest friend Jamie, Marissa's sister, was living in Chicago at the time. And I told Marissa how stressed I was, and she was like, Why don't you just come live with us for the summer while you study for the bar? You can stay in Jamie's room. And I just moved in. I moved in. And you were welcome.
SPEAKER_01Pat and Molly were very happy to have you. I think probably more than having me there.
SPEAKER_00So You know, it was, and I think that's when our friendship went from being like friends, because you were very, very close to my sister Britney, and I was very close to your sister Jamie, same ages. But that I think that was the summer that you and I were like, oh wait, we're besties too.
SPEAKER_01And this was like totally besties in the best sort of way, although obviously you had the responsibility of studying for the bar, so you also were very responsible. I don't know what I was I in college then and home for the summer. I don't even know what I was doing at that point. Um was I home and working in the city? Whatever year it was.
SPEAKER_00You were done with college.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I was working in the city. Yeah, so you were working, but it's funny because I just feel like it was, you know, it was you basically became an extension of each other and did like really fun things. Yeah. Um, and again, not a fun person. I am not a fun person, but with you, but with you, I was fun. I think it depends on who I'm with. Yeah, I think alone I'm not a fun person, although I like to be alone, so that's uh kind of a conundrum I'm in.
SPEAKER_00But you're like your truth, your like realism isn't like Debbie Downer is like this is it, and here it is, and tough shit if you don't like it. Well, although I'm probably slowly dying, but I'm probably dying inside.
SPEAKER_01Like I'm probably slowly dying inside, but that's okay, I'm okay with it. Yeah, just keep pushing through.
SPEAKER_00Alright, well, I have no choice. You've been doing well all these years. I remember. So, so my our parents did the same thing to us. They pulled us out of Brooklyn and they moved us to Long Island. And I think we talked about it a little bit with Linady earlier, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of out of a kid, and none of us drove. Like, no, you guys had your yeah, I didn't have my license till I was almost 20, but that's a story for another day. Which is why when we did anything, it was funny that I would be the one that would be driving. And Britney was not the best driver, so but but we didn't have a car between the four of us, and Jamie and Marissa's dad was he got us a car for for I guess it was the summer, and it was a converted con Edison van. It was a electric blue like the things criminal minds, like almost like what is happening here?
SPEAKER_01Where did you get that from an auction? Yeah, electric blue minivan. It didn't have a radio, so we had a boom box or seats in the back. I think we sat on like paint. My dad was a painter, um, like a house painter. So it was like it was like paint cans upside down and a boom box in the middle, which by the way, and this is not like we're not talking about like in the 70s, right? Like this is really not that long ago.
SPEAKER_00So this was like the late 90s, and we were driving around. Well, you were driving around, I was a passenger in in this electric blue going to Brooklyn, going to Roll and Roaster, going, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That was it's so funny. I don't even I remember, but I don't remember, but that's actually pretty funny. Yes, that was it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I I often think about the no the the no radio, and but you know, we made the best of it.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, I didn't know what they had coming, Long Island, when we moved here. Like they were just not they weren't prepared.
SPEAKER_00No, you know, I often use your parents' blue couches as a metaphor in life. Do you remember the blue couches? The ones down in the middle. Yeah. So so your family had the ugliest, oldest, stinkiest blue couches in your basement. But they were the most comfortable couches, and we could sit down there. Yeah, and it didn't matter what we ate on them or if we got them dirty, or they were just comfortable and they were old and they were Well, we weren't allowed to go in the other, like in the real living room.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So we sat in the shitty one.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of people slept down there, yeah, but comfortably.
SPEAKER_00And I remember I guess I hadn't seen you for a while, and I came over and the couches were gone. There were these beautiful new fancy couches. And I was legitimately scarred. And your mom kept asking me, Why are you so upset about the couches? And it was like this pivotal moment of like, don't know what you got until it's gone. Because it was the comfort of these really gross couches that they were just always there. And so, you know, as my girls have gotten older with trials and tribulations with friends, when a friend is taking them for granted, I will say to them, and I know I know they're listening to me right now, but I will say to them, they're blue couching you, they're they're taking you for granted.
SPEAKER_01That's pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00It is, but I I swear, and we talk about it, and like you have to appreciate the things you have when you have them, because even if they're not fancy or what you had thought of as like perfectionism, and it it's just there and it's comfortable, and when it's not there anymore, you're like, Oh, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01Although it's so funny when they were replaced with nice couches, the dark paneling before paneling was cool. Like it's still are still there, it's still there, the paneling around the room. So it almost still seems like very dark-esque down there, but it is almost I think the room itself really just sucks you in. Well, no matter what. But yes, the couches were disgusting. I think they followed us from Brooklyn. Yeah, well, Brooklyn basement.
SPEAKER_00Just putting a PSA out there. If anybody knows where the Lynch's couches are, I'm willing to pay top dollar for them. It's pretty funny. Okay. All right. So let's talk about your home. There was so much love in your home, and I say that I say that because I mean it, but you know, we had we had, you know, these very wonderful mothers with strong personalities, and your mother's personality as mixed with your late dad's was just it was a it was an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Always. It was an episode of the the greatest sitcom TV.
SPEAKER_01It's so it's interesting. Um, because I looking at my parents, they were they were really polar opposites, right? So, you know, they both grew up in East New York. They had we they had children, we lived in Canarsi before we moved to Long Island. Um, my dad was like 6'2, my mom is like 5'2, barely, you know, that's where I get my height and from. But um, you know, Irish Catholic, Sephardic Jew, like it was just it was, you know, you would almost not expect that to be like a love match. Um but they knew each other since they were each other. They were together since they were teenagers. Um, they did love each other um forever. You know, my dad passed away when he was 58. My mom was 56 at the time, so that's like a early time to become a widow, widower. Um, my mom is a lot in the best, like how I'm a lot, by the way. Molly, when you listen to this, I mean this in the best sort of way. Like she was a lot, is a lot. Um my dad was just a little bit more even keeled. Um, so it's, you know, and my mom is is truly wonderful human being. She really is our only village for my sister and I. She's our only village. Um, so you know, which is also sad because I think about how much my dad is missing um for the last 19 years um that he's been gone. Um, so it's just it's interesting because we did both have um, we both have strong mothers, very strong moms. I love you too. And it's like, where did you come from, by the way? But then I think back, my grandmother was strong, and it's you know, so it's almost like, yeah, you have strong, you have strong, you're raising strong women, my sister and I, and obviously Heather and Britney and Chelsea. Um, but it's also like where did you come from? Thinking back to what their growing up was like. Um, it's just it's it's interesting to see that part of it. And while sometimes I will joke and my sister and I will joke, where I was like, great, like you instilled values and hardworking, um, to be hardworking and all these things, and really all I want to do is be a lady of leisure. Like I just want to go to lunch. Um, but it's not in me to do that, and I'm which is probably also why I'm tired, although I do love a good lunch. Yeah. Um, but it is interesting to think about where they came from that they helped create us.
SPEAKER_00Well, they were daughters of the depression babies, and so it was different. And listen, do I do I think that all of the values and their value system is one that I wanted to pass on entirely to my girls? No. Right. You know, the the vast important on the physical appearance and the weight and you know, getting married and being a wife and a mother as being the most important thing in the world before becoming a successful career person, before seeing the world and traveling. But again, I think your mother, my mother gave it their best, did a fantastic job, but they were raised to believe that that stuff was way more important. I I I joke around all the time, you know, when my grandma passed last year, I said she waited for me to lose the weight before she died. Because that was the the ultimate goal was free now. I was married, I had a family, I had a career, it didn't matter, I was still chubby. I lost the weight, she's gone. And I remember her saying to me for the first time in my entire life, you need to eat. And I'm like, What? What? You know, it was like weird, and she waited, and then that was it.
SPEAKER_01It it's interesting. So there's so many, so I think about obviously my mom and I think about me and you know, all the things that they instilled. So my mom, she had a career, she was a teacher and then a guidance counselor in the city. Um, but when we talk about and where did they grow up and where they are now? And so my mom once told me a story um about how when she was 14, we had actually gone to an ENT doctor, and so she's like, I know that name. And turns out this doctor's father was my mom's doctor when she was 14. Okay. And he was the per first person at 14 to put her on diet pills. So I'm like, Oh, this is where it comes from. Like, this is where a little bit of like the obsession about weight. So, and I was never big until I got big, which you have kids, it's stressful, life is whatever. And then I in the last two years lost a lot of weight. Um, and it's it's crazy because now it's almost the opposite where I'm so happy you're doing this. I hope you're doing it healthy, by the way, because in my 20s when I was doing it, it was not healthy, right? So, you know, I hope you're doing it the right way, and then it became okay, you're too skinny. Like, are you and and then it's like, okay, like what do you want from me? Like, by the way, I'm still eating and I look fantastic, and don't judge me. Oh, and I'm also gonna add a tummy tuck just to make sure we make sure I'm really skinny. Um, but like, don't judge me at this point because I'm 47, so and I never have never felt better about myself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you look amazing, and you, you know, it like I was saying earlier, it's not so much about how you look, it's about reclaiming your own health, like saying, like, I can do this because I'm worthy of it, and it's okay for me to spend time and money and energy on feeling good and having, you know, respect for for your appearance and your health more than anything else. But I think it's both.
SPEAKER_01I'm not gonna lie to you. I think there's like two people, like, don't make it wrong, health is so important. Um, and doing it the right way and doing Pilates four times a week and things that like do make you feel good and are good for you. Um, but honestly, like looking in the mirror, I'm like, oh my god, I'm so cute.
SPEAKER_00You feel good for the first time in a long time. In a long time.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00But back to like when I was in my twenties. Yeah. So but your your mom, my mom, I I mean, I want to say thank you. I mean, it wasn't all perfect, but it was all out of love. It was all out of love.
SPEAKER_01Like, and they'll and they'll remind you how much out of love it was. Yeah. But it was, and my mom till this day, everything she does truly is out of love. Um, but it's also it's a different world we live in now. It is, you know, raising our kids is very different now than it was when they were raising us. Yes. Um, and so that's kind of I think uh there's a like a tug between like my mom and I sometimes or like my sister and my mom, or you know, even my sister and I, because my sister has boys. I have she has two boys, I have three girls. Right. You know, sometimes it's like there's a difference, and the difference, first of all, is time, but the difference is also, you know, the life and where you live. I live in the suburbs, my sister lives in Brooklyn. My mom is, you know, a widower in you know, on Long Island, but it's also but she raised us at a very different time um than things are now. However, my obsession with shopping or being expensive 100% comes from my mom. Um, she's she is one of those people, but she was actually always better with money than I will ever be.
SPEAKER_00Your mother, my favorite line, my favorite Molly Lynch line will always be wouldn't you rather have you remember a piece of cantaloupe or watermelon? Wouldn't you rather have a grapefruit? No matter. Because that wasn't said to me, it was said to my sister, because I don't eat grapefruit. Neither do I. But whatever we were eating in the kitchen, whether it was it was a salad or or or or eggs or it didn't matter, it was wouldn't you rather have a grapefruit? And your sister once turned to her and she said, Mom, if I wanted a goddamn grapefruit, I would eat one.
SPEAKER_01I think, and I I truly believe it was like generational like coming from what she came from, because honestly, to hear that she was 14 and put on diet pills is crazy because I've seen pictures of my mother at 14 and she was this tiny thing. But that was normal back then. And it's also so I was just I was recently reading a couple of books, um, and they were one book take took place in the 50s and one in the 60s, and it was all about you know how women in a sense were powerless, but in this sense, it was like their husbands or the men around them who who made the decisions for them. And um it was one of those things where like I like I was so angered by some of the things I was reading. And it's not, by the way, just men for the men who are listening, it's not about them, it's about anybody, any relationship with you're in, whether it's with your parents, your mom, um, your friends, when someone is, you know, when they're trying to control you, it's it's what the impact that it has on you, whether you can push away the control or whether you survive the control. Um, or and sometimes it's out of love, we say, and sometimes it's not. And um, it's just interesting, which is probably why I am so hell-bent on like things being right, because it's just trying to make sure um that I'm doing right for me at this point in my life and my children. Um, just because I don't want them to have I want them to have obviously the good stuff that I have continued on in my family, but then there's other things that I hope I don't want them to be people pleasers or things like that.
SPEAKER_00You've done a lot professionally, especially in the last 15 years, that has sort of blown my mind. Um you're you're always stepping beyond your last achievement. What what are you up to professionally now? And how do you feel about it? I mean, I know you say you look in the mirror now and you you like what you see physically, but are you also like I'm so cute. But you're adorable. But like, do you look in the mirror now and also say, like, wow, I'm pretty accomplished. Like, I've I've I've done it.
SPEAKER_01I I don't it's so funny because I actually have no idea who I've become, to be completely honest. Like, I think back to when I went to college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I I was like, I'll be in I'll do computer science. And then I took a computer science class because I thought if I was good at word, I can handle computer science. Definitely was above me. Um, maybe I'll be a social worker, and then I took a class and I was like, I can't handle that. It's true, it was like just very hard for me. So um I wound up going into retail when I left college. I was a buyer, an assistant buyer in retail. I loved doing that. I loved fashion and clothing and being a part of it. Um and I was like, oh, maybe I'll do this. So I actually, when I first graduated college, I was a buyer in the city for a couple of different places. And then one day I was kind of like, I don't want to do this. I want to go and be a teacher, which is funny because my mom probably told my sister and I our whole lives to be teachers. So that was like our both of our ways of rebelling and being like, we're not going into education. Although we both wound up going into education. So I became a teacher, um, and then became an administrator, which I've actually been doing for the last 19 years um in terms uh for mathematics, K through 12 in charge um across two districts. And so I truly I want to say I love what I what I do, but I also think my job is uh misunderstood, maybe even by me sometimes. Um, but I've been doing that and I will probably do that till I retire, but I'm also um dabbling in I'm helping to co facilitate um seminars for people who teachers who are becoming or people in education who are becoming administrators. Um, and then I'm going to be teaching courses in the fall for college courses for those coming, you know, within education. So it's just interesting, along with obviously being just elected as a board trustee um in my home district so I'm all over the place I'm all over the place in a sense but it's also part of it I just think I can't stop moving. Yeah. And even though my time is limited, I truly every time I think something's important, I kind of just I I just can't not take it further. So I just keep I just keep doing.
SPEAKER_00So are you not going to go to law school since we've sort of each other's less follow your path and everything.
SPEAKER_01I had three girls you have three girls. I you know we really have other than taking a little longer to get your driver's license because that was like the first thing I did that I could do. Um no I I don't know if I I couldn't handle good I couldn't handle law school or being an attorney or I think I've got enough. Although I feel like sometimes when you are so again not a political person like to really be behind the scenes um I'm the Venmo mom. I am like I'll create I will create the t-shirts for our kids and I will actually make them because I'm fake crafty like you although you're probably really more crafty I'm fake crafty. But I will do all those things um but at the same time it's one of those things when I think about my role in terms of running for a board of education which was bizarre for me to do because I've never run for anything nor would I run even if I was being chased. Like that's just not I will never do it. So the reality is running for something very public was very hard for me. The fact that I won was almost like like like it was like like I won an Oscar really um and then and then at the same time I was like please you know fix my crown. Totally kidding by the way um but it just it's it's for the right reasons right so I think about my kids I think about their age I think about schools I have experience in schools um but at the same time all the things that get you elected to do something so your experience your personality who you are are actually the things once you become you know the face of something you you really can't use those right because you have to be um you know it's really more boards of education are about governance and not um you know putting your opinion into things although obviously that might guide some of your questions that you ask so it will be interesting. I'll let you know come July 1st when I first takes effect.
SPEAKER_00I'm excited to see what you're gonna do. I know you will do everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do and then so and I will still always be me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah so I will ask thoughtful questions always if I don't understand something or I do understand it but I want someone else to say it out loud. Like I will always ask the questions because I just think not everybody is as self-aware.
SPEAKER_00But I love it.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00So um I need you to grab those three paddles on the table. Great. Yeah you ready? You got them all my gosh. Alright we're gonna play laugh love law. You ready? So remind me again the rules. Yeah I'm gonna tell you I mean this is everybody's favorite game show you don't know that I mean I'm a little obsessed with this this is so funny in my bedroom. Okay. So laugh love law. I'm gonna give you a topic if you love it obviously you're gonna hold up love. If you have a little story you want to tell us feel free but you don't have to laugh as if it makes you smile it's something that brings you joy and law is just a big fat no. Okay. Alright uh you ready to start? So this is a topic yeah clarifying question can you handle this?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. You ready? Yes promestly I don't even remember my prom. Alright and not for any reason other than I it really clearly was not memorable.
SPEAKER_00Alright um karaoke yeah I mean I love karaoke I love karaoke too and we used to karaoke in the car like nobody's business.
SPEAKER_01I mean I like to pretend it stems back to like my time at Mark Twain junior high school for the gifted and talented when I was in singing talent just because I did like to sing, do like to sing. However my first experience with legitimately singing out loud and being crazy is with you always in the car. Always in the car. On the random road trips which were sometimes to casinos. Yes um I don't even know where they were to be completely honest. And so it's I so I was thinking about this the other day actually because I do this now with my children whether we're going to Starbucks or we're wherever we're going and you know we're playing music and it's like really what the words are versus like the ones we like to make up and all I can think about I'm the girl who does the dishes I don't know the real song of that though. What was the who does the dishes something something wishes it is it Jodice I can't even remember the real words enough or clearly the tune. Sorry about that. It wasn't even no it's that Jodice but that was the timeline like that was the time frame of when that music was but either way the ro the words we turn you turned it in because that was your s that was your line in the song because I'm the girl who does the dishes and I can't even remember the real song. So we do that like my girls and do that with the girl we do that all the time and it's very funny because the things they come up with and I'm just like you impressed I so impressed and it and I'm like you know what because that's something you want to pass down. You want to pass down the ability to make up songs but it's almost like we make songs up to our like what's happening in our lives. So it's like you know the one what was the most recent one it was like you know the song baby baby where the hell's my husband so we we kind of joke because my husband disappears often like in the house so it always it will be kind of like it's so there's more words that come after that but they make them up and it's it's just very funny because um like that's something you want to pass down. Yeah always because it's funny it makes you laugh and it literally like that gives you the good belly laughing especially from them. Absolutely so I credit you for that.
SPEAKER_00Okay okay I don't I'll take the credit there.
SPEAKER_01Um keeping up with the trends um I mean you do it I do it I don't know is that like a I mean I don't even have a funny story. I do it but that's I think I just have my own little obsession with things I like and don't like because I will tell you you know how I like I just I mean I like clothing I like fashion there's things like that. Um is everybody getting their eyelashes done these days probably but I actually love the way I look in them but when I go home I sometimes like you wouldn't recognize me because I am in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, socks up to my knees like when I walk the dog you probably wouldn't know who I at was in terms of that. Yeah. I don't know what other trends there are to be completely honest. But you keep up with that. And if I don't like them I don't like them. So internet rabbit holes um like I'm gonna say you love I do laugh so it depends. I think everybody who was born um in the 70s and 80s I think when the internet came and you were you know that you can find out so much about anybody. So anytime a name comes up I'm like let me see what I can find out about them right because I want to know and then I'm sometimes surprised surprised when you when nothing comes up and then I'm like that's kind of weird like something too if nothing's coming up absolutely and now with AI and it's like now you don't even know if anything's real. No. So um so I'm actually almost more nervous about internet rabbit holes but I am I am a spiraler. Yeah it's usually at two in the morning because I don't sleep. Um and it you know sometimes I'm not gonna lie to you I will find like a random video about math obviously thinking about my job and it's and I'm like oh my god how cool is this and then I will text someone people know that they will sometimes get texts from me in the middle of the night of like a a video on how to do something and how great that would be if we use that with kids. So yeah no I love the internet but I also with um artificial intelligence it's you know I'm also I I worry I love it by the way just to be clear I use it but I worry about what um you can't always tell what's real and not anymore. That's right. And that's that's a little nerve wracking. That that's right. Although I will say just a really quick funny story I think about it the other day my eight year old sends me from her iPad a message and it's a picture of me and the two other elected board trustees and she puts a heart around me and she's like oh my God you're she goes you're on the safari and I was like so I'm like Safari because she sends me a text message she means safari's the app I go you mean the internet because she put in who won the so and so board of education trusty came up. So I'm laughing so I was like okay you mean the internet safari is the app you use like first of all let's clarify she's also eight and although she's like eight going on 25. Um but I was laughing because the things that are out there you know once you put it out there it's there forever. It is but now you also don't know if it's real or not. So I know that I'm glad she put a heart around me. Oh that's good because that was cute because she loves me. So she's loving you she likes to be with you. She's my only child who's nice to me all the time.
SPEAKER_00And being the youngest sibling which is one you have and I do not I am the oldest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I don't um I mean I feel like that's a love to talk about like my sister is legitimately my world no one will know our history like we do although I don't remember a lot of it so sometimes she has to remind me. Um but it's interesting because I think sometimes it's almost like our roles were reversed only because my sister is definitely more fun than I am. So sometimes you think the younger one is the wild child. I'm definitely the more outspoken right and she's more of the it's you know internalizing and kind of being like whatever. But it's you know I'm so grateful for our relationship because we are we are we have lived through everything together um and she's just such a wonderful human being. So it's just one of those things where it's like I don't always feel like the younger one because I was always the warrior. I am still always the warrior. Yeah. Um where she's able to kind of you know she's definitely the one who was you know maybe going to the bars when she was younger where I was too once I had your ID. But I was more like you know oh no am I gonna get in trouble still like maybe make sure like this is you know I just I'll go but I'm not gonna lose control while I'm there. I'm gonna make sure I could drive everybody home. Like I was kind of that person. So but your parents were easier on you I think than your sister. Um I so I said to my sister once about how like your mommy's favorite and I was definitely daddy's favorite and I think she took offense to that. Um but I don't I don't know if they were easier on me. I think my sister just has a really she my sister can set boundaries. So her boundaries are I'm not gonna answer your phone call. And so you know I'm busy where I if I don't answer my mom's phone call she'll call again and maybe two more times and then I'm like okay she's she's gonna send out the Marines looking for me. So part of it is like um I think I'm more I don't know if they were easier on me or if I just never gave them anything to not be easy on me with. Right I never I never buck the system and we were both very good kids. Yeah. Um but I lived in fear which I don't really know why of doing bad kids getting in trouble and which is funny now because when I my kids do something I'm like oh whatever who cares? Like I mean just don't hurt anybody. Be kind always and like that's like don't everything else we can fix. Like we can replace it's not where um I don't know we didn't grow up that way and not for any reason I feel like we just had this internal fear of or at least I did of like doing something wrong or what the consequences would be even though I never really did anything to earn consequences right where my sister would be like I'm not answering your call and she does that to this day. She doesn't always answer her phone. So love your sister. I do too. Are you ready to pull some capsules?
SPEAKER_00Sure little capsule confession for sure you want to know the rules okay yes please all right so you can put these down okay you go in a grab a couple quarters because because the fancy pretty tokens don't fit okay okay and you're gonna pull three capsules you're gonna open them up you can either answer the question make me answer the question or save the question for the next guest so you have an out if you need one. I mean I don't want an out but good good good um we've been having some technical difficulties so do your best look at that you think it's gonna give me three like a pro, no it gets you're gonna get one at a time but there was no jiggling involved at a time yeah go for it. Just in case yeah here I'll hold that one for you got a green one yeah this is where my slot machines um yeah it didn't do well closer with the camera no no oh they might be mad at you with the cameras but it's okay all right now jiggle it a little bit okay now try there we go like a process number two jiggle jiggle jiggle first I want to jiggle it's all good all right jiggle jiggle getting judged right turn there you go you see you got it you got the jiggle got it all right yeah okay all right let's open them up all of them one at a time okay what'd you got let's see who is the most famous person in your cell phone contacts um I'm gonna give that to you because I know no one that's famous um I would say I'll I'll go anonymous but a couple of musicians and and actresses really would you call them not right now but yeah I could you know what you totally couldn't you absolutely could I could and they would know you like that's what's crazy to me I would say I would say I'm not even surprised by that actually like I I'm not also surprised that I know nobody that's famous so um I mean that's pretty fun that's pretty fun. Alright we'll do the next one.
SPEAKER_01Okay all right what's one thing instantly lowers your stress level I can answer that for you shopping you know what yes but that's because it gives you like a boost of dopamine like it's definitely it actually does. Yeah I know that's shopping I do like I like shopping I do it's okay I get it from it's a good answer. I get it from my mama.
SPEAKER_00You do?
SPEAKER_01Okay all right who is most proud of you oh that's a good I mean in my mind I would like to be my dad is very proud of me. Um I was gonna say this before he passed I had actually gotten my first administrative job and I remember calling him to tell him about it and it was like he not that he was shocked and I was I think I was 27 at the time but it was almost like oh my gosh it was like such a big deal because I went from being like a classroom teacher and now a big job. But he I would love to say he is although sometimes I actually pretend that he's on vacation and not actually not actually buried at Pine Lawn. But I'd like to believe that he is I will also tell you that I think right now um when I the night of the vote for the board trustee position my uh my daughter Ava my older one called my mom crying hysterical she thought something was wrong and so she was like what's wrong you know what what what's the matter and she felt like something happened and she was like I'm just so nervous for mommy. I'm just so scared for her. And um pure love. It is pure love. And then after I called her to tell her that I had you know I had won in a sense right one of the three seats and so she was like she was so and by the way she's like a tween so she's definitely like in her life like right now like not always nice to me but I probably deserve most of it. So she was like so happy and when I got home she hugged me and she was like I am so proud of you. So it was like one of those things where it was like this validation of like you know not for any reason other than she knows how big of a deal this is you know to be a part of something. Yeah. And so I would also probably say she's probably the most proud because I think she also understands it. She understands what that role means versus like my other ones because even though she's a tween she's you know she's obviously very involved in her school so um so I guess my dad and my daughter yeah my oldest I'm really proud of you too thank you I'm proud of you I want to give you well I'm gonna reach for it off camera.
SPEAKER_00Oh okay I have a little hoodie for you.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god it's so cute it is and I just told you I love all I wear outside of like my day life is that's for you so cute.
SPEAKER_00That's for you thank you and then I need you to just take out one of the pretty tokens okay give us a little signature and then we'll drop it in the other container where we're keeping the little keepsakes from all of our guests. I'm really just signing oh you need to use the Sharpie oh lot of judgment in that tone right there I was saying there was a little because I'm thinking how are you thinking that that pen is gonna write on the token I want to give you a hard too a little bit of drop it in drop it in judge me all you want so yeah all out of love probably nothing I want to do to myself all out of love yes okay and then I want to just say thank you because this was a special interview because it wasn't one it was a conversation it was a conversation with one of my oldest friends and I would only do this for you and I love you I love you too and I appreciate you thank you thank you everybody for tuning in and we'll be back with another episode of Laugh Love Law