Transcript - BSFC #26: Claudia and the Sad Good-bye

Brooke Suchomel: 0:07

Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.

Kaykay Brady: 0:24

And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist, and I am brand new to the books.

Brooke Suchomel: 0:29

And this week's book was published in July 1989, so let's take a look back at what was happening in the culture at that time. On the music charts, we had multiple number ones that month, including Milli Vanilli with "Baby Don't Forget My Number."

Kaykay Brady: 0:46

I don't remember this song.

Brooke Suchomel: 0:47

Oh, this one's fun. "Baby...don't forget...my...number. Ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, baby."

Kaykay Brady: 0:52

Oh, okay. Yeah, it's coming back to me.

Brooke Suchomel: 0:57

Yeah, it's great. So that, you had more Fine Young Cannibals with "Good Thing," and you had Martika with "Toy Soldiers." Do you remember this song?

Kaykay Brady: 1:08

Ah, it's coming back. I think the chorus is in my mind.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:11

It's creepy. "Step by step. Heart to heart. Left right left. We all fall down, like toy soldiers."

Kaykay Brady: 1:24

All right.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:25

Yeah. She was another Kids Incorporated alum.

Kaykay Brady: 1:28

Shut up!

Brooke Suchomel: 1:29

Mm hmm.

Kaykay Brady: 1:30

Man, the talent that emerged from Kids Incorporated.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:33

Legendary.

Kaykay Brady: 1:35

Legendary children.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:36

I mean, Fergie?

Kaykay Brady: 1:38

Fergie.

Brooke Suchomel: 1:39

Martika? Jennifer Love Hewitt?

Kaykay Brady: 1:43

Jennifer Love Hewitt!

Brooke Suchomel: 1:44

Jennifer Love Hewitt, who went as Love Hewitt. Anyway, so another another big hit from Kids Incorporated. At the movies, number ones, it was copaganda, just non stop. So you had Batman, and then Lethal Weapon 2 and Turner & Hooch.

Kaykay Brady: 2:04

Turner and Hooch!

Brooke Suchomel: 2:06

Hooch is my favorite cop.

Kaykay Brady: 2:08

Sure. I mean, if you got to pick a cop, it's Hooch.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:10

Go with Hooch. Go with the big slobbering dog, for sure. But there were some fun movies that were also released that were not number one, but I think you'll enjoy. This was the month of Weekend at Bernie's.

Kaykay Brady: 2:23

Hey! Classic. Classic HBO childhood shit right there.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:29

Also, When Harry Met Sally came out this month.

Kaykay Brady: 2:32

That was a cultural phenomenon.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:33

Yeah.

Kaykay Brady: 2:34

I also remember that as a Christmas movie for some reason.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:37

Right? I was very surprised to see that it came out in July. It came out in like, summer blockbuster period.

Kaykay Brady: 2:43

That is interesting.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:45

And then, were you a fan of Weird Al's UHF?

Kaykay Brady: 2:50

Of course. Of course.

Brooke Suchomel: 2:53

Do you have any memories of UHF?

Kaykay Brady: 2:55

For some reason, it's not coming back to me right now. It's probably so good I blocked it out.

Brooke Suchomel: 3:00

It's just too much. You were like, "It's too good!"

Kaykay Brady: 3:03

I flew too close to the sun. I just had to retire it. It would have taken over all the space in my brain, so I just was like, I gotta shut it out. I'm gonna experience this in the moment and then I'm gonna leave it behind. Kaykay and the Sad Good-bye. Spoiler alert.

Brooke Suchomel: 3:21

Kaykay and the Sad Good-bye to Weird Al's UHF because it hit you at such a profound level. You need to be able to go on and live your life. You know? Like, you're just gonna be transfixed by UHF for the rest of your life, so you've just got to let it go. If you love something, sometimes you have to set it free, right?

Kaykay Brady: 3:41

Fly free, UHF.

Brooke Suchomel: 3:43

So normally July is a dead zone for television.

Kaykay Brady: 3:47

Mm hmm.

Brooke Suchomel: 3:48

But on July 5 1989, a pilot aired on NBC, the pilot of a show entitled The Seinfeld Chronicles. I remember watching this and I remember thinking it was funny, which is really odd, because it goes on to become Seinfeld, which I never once found funny in my life.

Kaykay Brady: 4:07

Interesting. Do you remember the difference?

Brooke Suchomel: 4:11

Just that it was funny?

Kaykay Brady: 4:12

Yeah, it's hard to explain. It's hard to explain what's funny to you and what's not.

Brooke Suchomel: 4:15

Yeah, either you get the humor or you don't, and I got that humor but I didn't get the other one. And the show actually didn't do great. So they just aired one episode to see how it did. Didn't really connect with people. NBC tried to sell it to Fox, Fox wouldn't buy it, they were stuck with this show and they're like, "Shit, what are we gonna do with it?" So get this, this would have died. So Seinfeld would not have ever become a thing, but ultimately an executive was like, "You know what? Screw it. I've got this Bob Hope special on the calendar that we probably don't really need. I'll cancel this Bob Hope special, use the budget for that to film four more episodes, and we'll see what happens."

Kaykay Brady: 4:55

And then here we are with the cultural phenomenon that was Seinfeld.

Brooke Suchomel: 4:59

Yeah. Again, as we said in our last episode, we are transitioning into the 90s.

Kaykay Brady: 5:03

We sure are.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:05

And this is yet another indicator of that. And then on July 14, a show on Nickelodeon premiered that I remember well, and I wonder if you did. Do you remember Hey Dude?

Kaykay Brady: 5:19

Okay, so we're also going into Kaykay's blackout period, where Kaykay went away to school.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:25

Oh, no!

Kaykay Brady: 5:26

Yeah. So no, Hey Dude was in that zone where I started going away to school, so do tell.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:32

Do you know what it is?

Kaykay Brady: 5:33

No.

Brooke Suchomel: 5:34

So it's a Nickelodeon show set at a dude ranch. The premise behind it is that there are these teenagers that work a summer job at a dude ranch, and the dude ranch was bought by this accountant from New Jersey or something who's completely out of his element.

Kaykay Brady: 5:53

"Watch the fuckin' horses!" Is that his tagline?

Brooke Suchomel: 5:58

No. It should be, though. There needs to be a reboot of Hey Dude that is like, The Sopranos meets Hey Dude.

Kaykay Brady: 6:07

Yeah, that's what I'm imagining!

Brooke Suchomel: 6:09

There's definitely a mob connection there. I mean, come on, that is mob money that bought that dude ranch. I would love for us sometime, next time we're all together, let's watch an episode of Hey Dude. It's on Paramount Plus. Paramount Plus has all of the old Nickelodeon shows, which has been a damn treat. One of the girls that works there is named Brad, and she shows up rocking some Dorothy Zbornak realness.

Kaykay Brady: 6:36

Oh, what?!

Brooke Suchomel: 6:38

Yeah. So she's supposed to be this teenager from the Detroit suburbs, this is when Detroit was synonymous with rich, which was a thing. It's been a while, but that was definitely a thing.

Kaykay Brady: 6:50

It's been a minute.

Brooke Suchomel: 6:51

Yeah. Going back and watching Hey Dude, just the gloriousness of the late 80s-ness of it, and everything good and bad that you would imagine the late 80s brings, is there in Hey Dude.

Kaykay Brady: 7:04

There's a lot of good and bad.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:05

I mean, that's life, right?

Kaykay Brady: 7:07

That is life!

Brooke Suchomel: 7:08

And that leads us into the 26th Baby-sitters Club book, Claudia and the Sad Good-bye, that was released this month.

Kaykay Brady: 7:16

I just have to release a sigh. What a book, oh my god. Yes, back cover copy. Let's do it. Brace yourselves.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:24

Everybody, take a deep breath, just like we did a grounding exercise in the last episode to prepare for primal rage screams. This is the opposite side of that, right? Where it's like, everybody, prepare for grief.

Kaykay Brady: 7:40

Yes.

Brooke Suchomel: 7:41

It's time for some back cover copy, and I quote, "Claudia has a sad good-bye to make. Her grandmother, Mimi, has just died. Claudia understands that Mimi was sick for a long time, but she's still mad at her grandmother for leaving her. Who will help Claudia with her homework...and share 'special tea' with her? To keep from thinking about Mimi, Claudia spends all her free time painting and baby-sitting. She's even teaching an art class for some of the kids in the neighborhood. Claudia knows she has to let go of Mimi sometime. But how do you say good-bye to a special friend...forever?" End quote. So the theme of this book is pretty clear, right? We know what we're getting into. They don't sugarcoat it. It's not like, is Mimi going to die? You know right away, look, Mimi is gonna die. And it doesn't happen right at the beginning, you have to get pretty much midway through the book before she passes. And so you get to see the lead up to Mimi's passing, and then you get to see the aftermath of that, which I thought was a very good decision on Ann M.'s part to sort of show the complexity of when somebody that you love is dying, how everything unfolds leading up to it and afterwards. So Kaykay, what was your take on how Ann M. portrays the experience of loss and grief in this book?

Kaykay Brady: 9:07

Yeah, I really felt reading it, this is a person who has experienced loss and grief, and probably recently, because it's very good. It's a very good representation of what it's like to lose someone. Talk about not sugarcoating. She did not sugarcoat it at all. I'm thinking specifically of a lot of the sort of indignities that Mimi deals with in the hospital. Claudia's experience of being there witnessing the indignities, for example, her gown is like falling off and they leave the door open and everyone in the hospital can see her suffering. I mean, that moment gave me chills because, you know, there are so many indignities when someone's dying, and to witness it is sometimes almost the hardest thing. To watch that human dignity be compromised, and to just have to like, hold it and be there for them. So I was blown away by this book, honestly. And I couldn't help but think about Kubler-Ross's book, you know that book On Death and Dying?

Brooke Suchomel: 9:14

No.

Kaykay Brady: 9:32

Kubler-Ross was, I think she was a psychologist. And before she came on the scene and wrote this book, nobody talked about death in dying situations.

Brooke Suchomel: 10:32

Is this the person who came up with the stages of grief? The five stages of grief?

Kaykay Brady: 10:35

Yeah, exactly.

Brooke Suchomel: 10:36

I was gonna say, the name sounds familiar, but I haven't read the book. So that's the Kubler-Ross stages of grief?

Kaykay Brady: 10:42

Yes. So she realized that nobody was talking about death. In fact, when people were dying, like let's say someone had cancer. Doctors didn't tell them. They would tell the family members, but they wouldn't tell the person dying of cancer, and nobody would discuss it with them. And so Kubler-Ross decided she wanted to learn what it was like to die, and she got permission from the hospital to do this study. And doctors like, blocked her from talking to anybody. They were like, "You're going to set them off. We don't talk about this, this is verboten. No."

Brooke Suchomel: 11:16

So American.

Kaykay Brady: 11:19

So fucking American!

Brooke Suchomel: 11:21

Delusion! We live in a land of delusion, it's not great!

Kaykay Brady: 11:25

We're all gonna live forever, we don't talk about death. So she somehow wormed her way in with like, two patients. And the patients were like, "Thank you! Thank you for talking about this. I know I'm gonna die, I know it's coming. No one is talking to me about this. I know I have cancer, I can see it on my children's faces." And, you know, she came to understand that, like, people know that they're going to die, and they really need to talk about it. In fact, it's part of the process of dying to process it with your loved one.

Brooke Suchomel: 11:57

The person who's dying most needs to talk about it!

Kaykay Brady: 12:00

Yeah. So she sparked this whole movement, and a total change in policy of how people see death. She did all of these interviews with people facing death, and she came up with the five stages of grief. The five stages of grief that anyone's going to experience, either when they're dying or when a loved one is dying, are all consistent. So this is whether you're dying, or whether you lose someone.

Brooke Suchomel: 12:27

I didn't realize that it was also for the person who is dying. I always saw the five stages of grief as being focused on the people that are dealing with the aftermath. But that makes so much sense now, given what some of those stages are.

Kaykay Brady: 12:42

In fact, it's not even just people dying, the five stages of grief happen with any kind of deep loss. It could be like, a job or a relationship, if you divorce or something. They actually are applicable across any kind of deep mourning or grief. So the first one is denial. The second one is anger. The third one is bargaining. The fourth is depression. And then the final stage is acceptance. And I think seeing this whole book through this lens, this is what Claudia is doing. She's working through all these stages of grief, and you see all of them at one point or another. And true to how it works in real life, she moves between them. The stages of grief are not a linear process, like, "Now I'm moving to blank." You can go all over the place. And she does.

Brooke Suchomel: 13:30

Yeah. This is a really raw book.

Kaykay Brady: 13:34

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 13:35

It is raw. That same scene that you mentioned that seemed to resonate with you also resonated with me, where you've got Mimi in the hospital, and Ann M. is describing how she's in excruciating pain. Describes how her back is arching as she screams out in pain, and how that's what causes her hospital gown to shift and, you know, expose parts of herself with the door open, and the trauma that that inflicts on Claudia, who was there. But Claudia, not even knowing that she's being traumatized, she's just in the room. She talks about how it's too much for her in that moment, but she wants to be there for Mimi. So she talks about how she visualizes Mimi how she was before she was sick, in that moment. She thinks about her sitting across the table from her, she thinks about them having their special tea together. It's a matter of her going to a place where it's like, this is a very intense experience that I'm having with this person, but she's guarding herself to make sure that that's not the only memory that she has. That this intensity of this traumatic experience doesn't overpower all of the positive experiences that they've had in the past. She's bracing herself to uphold that loving, positive, comforting image of Mimi that she has. She's doing it in real time, which rings very true to me, thinking of my own experiences being in the room with somebody who is actively dying. It can just be too much to bear at the time, but you have to get through this day. I think that's another thing that she does so well is portraying, like, the exhaustion, and how Claudia is just trying to get through. She's just like channeling herself after Mimi dies into this art class. She's looking for purpose and direction, and so she goes to the art class, and she's going through her day to day, but she says, "I have never been so tired in my life."

Kaykay Brady: 15:54

Multiple times she says that, yeah. Also, you make a good point with the sort of busy-ness that accompanies death. As soon as Mimi dies, it's like they have to call people. They have to, you know, make arrangements, quote, unquote, there's just this sort of like sleepwalking numbness, which, you know, that aligns with the first stage, which is denial slash shock. Numbness is the first stage. I totally agree, she portrays that so beautifully. And it totally resonates too with my experience of losing someone. I mean, I think the shock period can go on for a really long time. She even says, at some point, I think funeral, she's like, "Why aren't I crying?" So she has to kind of drum up some tears. And I totally have had that experience multiple times where that emotion is just not available to me in the weeks or months after a loss, especially not in a public situation like a funeral. But you do have that feeling of like, this doesn't look like how it looks in TV, what's going on?

Brooke Suchomel: 16:57

Yeah, so that feeling of like, there's a certain way that I'm supposed to be acting. When your experience with grief and loss, and since this is written for children, children reading this may not have yet experienced a major loss in their life, depending on their circumstances, just because they're young, there hasn't been as much time for them to experience that loss. So I think it's really powerful to show that there is not one acceptable, true way to grieve, that if you're not wailing in the fetal position, that doesn't mean that you're broken, it doesn't mean that you didn't love the person that you've lost deeply. I remember when my grandfather died, I think I was probably 13 years old, and he had had cancer.

Kaykay Brady: 17:23

So just about this age.

Brooke Suchomel: 17:53

Yeah, same age as Claudia. And he had had cancer, you know, and I had seen him in the hospital and seeing my grandmother, just the impact that it was having on everybody. But it was like it wasn't real, in a way. And I remember, my parents were, I think they were in the process of getting divorced at this time. Great time for everybody in our family. And I remember my dad coming over and saying that my grandpa died. And I was like, "Okay," and I went back to playing my video game. And I could feel that my parents were sort of shocked at my reaction. And then at the funeral, I was a mess. Something happened midway through, they started playing a song, and suddenly, you know, this was a song that he had picked that he wanted my grandmother to hear. And I lost it, and I think that was disorienting to people too, right?

Kaykay Brady: 18:49

Sure.

Brooke Suchomel: 18:50

But you just don't know how and when your emotions are going to come into your consciousness. You can't control it.

Kaykay Brady: 19:00

Yeah. And it's also interesting, because I wonder if, so sometimes your own grief can feel very far away. But you can get into someone else's grief, and then you can cry. So you know, you mentioned, "He played the song for my grandmother." And then all of a sudden your heart is like, "Oh, my poor grandmother!" Sometimes when you're shocked and numb, it's easier to feel someone else's pain. And yours has to be saved for a later time, or can give you access to yours, too.

Brooke Suchomel: 19:27

Exactly. And so I think, you know, a book like this to show kids that like, it's okay. We know Claudia loved Mimi deeply, and that she was probably the most important person in her life. We know that as readers because we have seen that over and over and over again in 25 books that proceeded this.

Kaykay Brady: 19:49

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 19:49

So we are able to trust Claudia, and we know that she has emotion. We know that whatever she's feeling is okay because we know how much she loved her. And so that process that she goes through, to have it not be a straight line, to have it not be stereotypical of how we see grief portrayed on television, etc, which normally follows the cliche.

Kaykay Brady: 20:19

Like, you get the news and you fall on your knees and you're like, "Why?!" and then you cry and you get over it. Doesn't look that way at fuckin' all. Grief is like, I always think of like, grief is a shapeshifter. It's a true shapeshifter.

Brooke Suchomel: 20:35

What do you mean?

Kaykay Brady: 20:36

I've seen grief take so many forms in people's lives, my own and clients. You think grief is gonna look like, you fall on your knees and you cry. But grief can look like not taking care of yourself, substance abuse, risk taking behavior. It can take so many forms. And it's not until later that you look back and you're like, "Oh, I was grieving." But nobody really tells you grief is this crazy shapeshifter. And a lot of times you can't clock it. You can't see it because it doesn't look like, you know, just what you're saying. It doesn't look like it's portrayed in media.

Brooke Suchomel: 21:14

Yeah. And I think that the way that our society accommodates for grief is very much in line with what we see portrayed in media. Our society isn't built for people to move through this process on their own timeline. If you are lucky enough to work at a job that gives you bereavement leave, it's usually for a very prescribed number of people who never, at least in my experience, they don't include your friends. You can get bereavement leave if your immediate family member who you might not have any contact with passes. If your best friend dies, that's usually not covered in bereavement leave.

Kaykay Brady: 21:55

Yeah, and talk about how that might affect the queer community.

Brooke Suchomel: 21:58

Absolutely.

Kaykay Brady: 22:00

Especially because queer communities, we often care for each other in death, because there's a lot of family breaks. So quite often, we'll care for each other in dying processes rather than immediate family.

Brooke Suchomel: 22:13

Yeah, it's a very sort of patriarchal, heteronormative structure that we have for grief, and also a very capitalistic one, where it's like, "Okay, you get three days, and then back to work!"

Kaykay Brady: 22:26

"You'll feel better once you start making money again!"

Brooke Suchomel: 22:28

Yeah! And it's like, that's just not how this works. There's no timeline. You're so right, you might not be feeling that pain most acutely in the immediate aftermath. That can come up and it can hit you like a ton of bricks months later. And then it's like, "Well, this person passed away months ago!"

Kaykay Brady: 22:46

It can take months for the thawing to even happen. I always think of grief as an orbit. It orbits out and it orbits back. And maybe the orbit gets bigger over time, but like, it never really goes away. It's just, the orbit might grow a little bit bigger.

Brooke Suchomel: 23:02

Mm hmm. That makes a lot of sense. So I had, obviously, what they're fighting, I had Claudia's fighting through her grief.

Kaykay Brady: 23:09

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 23:10

And how she's doing that is she's trying to find meaning in loss, keeping the essence of Mimi alive and her relationship with Mimi alive. And she does that by doubling down on who she feels that she is, and her love for art. Because Mimi, she feels, is the only person in her family who understood and nurtured her love for art. And so she is going to take that and help nurture the love of art in other people. And she does that explicitly with this new character that we get, this babysitting charge named Corrie, who also feels like she isn't getting support from her parents. Kristy comes into play here. Kristy is the other character, at least in my take, of the other baby sitters, I found Kristy to be the most interesting supporting character in this book.

Kaykay Brady: 24:06

In this, in how she supports?

Brooke Suchomel: 24:08

Right, in her commentary that she makes.

Kaykay Brady: 24:11

Yeah, I mean, laughingly, I would say this is why you need a lesbian in your friend group.

Brooke Suchomel: 24:18

It's true.

Kaykay Brady: 24:19

Because we're very good in a fucking crisis. She felt better calling Kristy because Kristy, you know, didn't break down and cry like Mary Anne. She just was supportive, and also sort of pragmatic in her support.

Brooke Suchomel: 24:32

She was like, "I will make phone calls for you."

Kaykay Brady: 24:36

Right, just like, "Let me take this on myself," you know, just solving problems like lesbians are good at. So I kind of laughed to myself, and I was like, Of course, of course. But yeah, it was very interesting, the different ways that the characters showed up for Claudia. What was your take on Kristy and how she showed up?

Brooke Suchomel: 24:56

Yeah, the reason why I jumped into that was because you see that Claudia is channeling her focus into this art class, especially channeling her focus onto this other student. And Kristy says, you know, she notices that. And she also notices that Claudia seems to be like, you know, fine on the surface, seems to be just moving on. And it's funny because she's like, "So you're really over this, and I think that's fine," you know, but she's like, she's noting it.

Kaykay Brady: 25:33

Yeah, she sees it.

Brooke Suchomel: 25:34

She sees it. And she knows that Claudia is going to be reading it, and so in a way, I was like, Does she really think that it's fine? Or does she just want Claudia to know that however she is feeling in the moment, she's supporting her?

Kaykay Brady: 25:51

Yeah, she's giving her that space, and that grace.

Brooke Suchomel: 25:54

Right. She's gonna be like, "I see you and I'm not judging you."

Kaykay Brady: 25:59

Yeah, right.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:00

But then later on, she says, "Claud, this may not be the right time to bring this up, but that's never stopped me before." She's trying to joke. And she says she notices that Claudia is filling a hole in Corrie, this new babysitting charge, who, it says that her parents want nothing to do with their kids and so they just enroll them in a ton of different activities. But at the same time, I'm like, enrolling your kids in a ton of different activities and shuttling them from place to place all the time is a lot of work. But that's the premise that we're given to set up that these are two characters who are lacking adult support and understanding.

Kaykay Brady: 26:43

These are two characters that have been abandoned.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:45

Yes.

Kaykay Brady: 26:46

And they're both fighting with this feeling of abandonment.

Brooke Suchomel: 26:48

Right. And so what Kristy says, and this is on page 109, she says, "What I want to say, Claud, is more about Corrie than about Mimi. I know you're filling up a hole in Corrie's life, but I think she's doing the same for you." And Claudia's like, you mean the hole that Mimi left, right? And Kristy says, "You have to watch when you let someone fill a hole, especially when it's being filled by a kid like Corrie. I don't really believe you'd do this, but just think over what I'm going to say. Don't drop Corrie. You're going to start feeling better, Claud, and when you do, you won't need Corrie as much. So don't, don't just drop her." And then she says, "I don't think you'll do that." She basically reassures her that like, "I'm just saying, this isn't something that I think you'll do, but just heads up." This is Kristy as somebody who has been dropped, right? Kristy has been abandoned. We know that Kristy feels a great sense of loss from being dropped by her father. So she's looking and seeing where there may be a risk of a potential thing happening, and she's careful how she approaches Claudia with that. Because earlier on in the book is where she's like, "You seem like you're totally over it, and I think that's fine. There was something I wanted to say about Corrie, but I'm not gonna say here. I don't think it's the right time." She says that in the writing, so we know that this is something that she has been thinking about, and she waits for what she feels like is the opportune moment and is very careful to couch it in a way that Claudia doesn't feel attacked.

Kaykay Brady: 28:25

Mm hmm.

Brooke Suchomel: 28:26

So I thought it was a really great example of the kind of friend support that Claudia gets. It ranges from Mary Anne sobbing at the funeral when Claudia can't quite access her tears in that way, and Stacey and her mom coming down from New York, and obviously Stacey's parents are having marital troubles, but Stacey's mom still makes the drive and lets Stacey stay till the absolute last minute to support Claudia. She's getting support from her friends, and some of that support is not just pure comfort, but also, not a warning, but like, concern.

Kaykay Brady: 29:10

Mm hmm.

Brooke Suchomel: 29:11

Which I think she needs.

Kaykay Brady: 29:13

Yeah, listening to you talk, I'm realizing how insightful that is of Kristy. And it's actually like a level of insight that often doesn't get prescribed to Kristy.

Brooke Suchomel: 29:23

Mm hmm.

Kaykay Brady: 29:24

You know, like Kristy is much more often portrayed as bossy and maybe a little like, stomping on the

Brooke Suchomel: 29:30

Or perhaps like, off the cuff, or maybe emotions. like, more speaking in the moment. A little impulsive.

Kaykay Brady: 29:37

And direct.

Brooke Suchomel: 29:38

Right. This is not impulsive. This is something that she's been...

Kaykay Brady: 29:41

Yeah, it's very thoughtful.

Brooke Suchomel: 29:42

Yeah.

Kaykay Brady: 29:43

Yeah, I totally clocked the abandonment and the filling of the hole, and I was curious for the author, you know? That just created a lot of curiosity for me around the author, like, "Hmm, I wonder what her experiences like this have been." I think too, this can often happen in relationships, like romantic relationships too. Where people can experience loss, and then they can turn to a romantic relationship, and then the romantic relationship can end. And it's such a subsequent abandonment. Anyway, I just had a lot of curiosity around like, Hmm, I wonder what happened?

Brooke Suchomel: 30:20

Yeah, how grief can lead to more grief. How grief can kind of multiply and spread if it isn't, I don't want to say "dealt with properly," because there's no proper way to deal with grief.

Kaykay Brady: 30:36

But I would almost say there, you could say there is one proper way. And that is, you do have to face it. There's no proper way to face it, but you do have to face it. Because I feel like a lot of people don't face it, and it causes problems down the road. You see that a lot in therapy, mental health, a lot of people coming in to go over unprocessed grief, just because it's so scary and it's so difficult that it's much easier in the society to just distract yourself in 10 million different ways and never deal with it. But yeah, totally, once you face it, there's no right way.

Brooke Suchomel: 31:10

Well, to your point, I think it's important that, you know, you say it because there's no way in our society, like, we have built a society that does not account for grief. That is a conscious choice made by Americans.

Kaykay Brady: 31:21

And if we're talking about the Kubler Ross model of the five stages, we're in a society that keeps us all trapped in bargaining. Well, bargaining, anger...it keeps us trapped in all the stages. But bargaining, denial, anger, we live in a society that's keeping us trapped in these stages. So for example, bargaining. A great example of bargaining is like, healthism. "Just eat right, just exercise, you'll fucking live forever." It's just a form of bargaining. Because bargaining is just "Hey, if I do this, this is never going to happen to me, right? If I do this, my loved one comes back!" So society is keeping us in bargaining, because it's actually really, like, you make great money keeping somebody in bargaining.

Brooke Suchomel: 32:03

You can make a lot of money. And the fact that when you're talking about something that is inescapable, like death, it will always just compound your grief, because you think, "I'm going to do something that will prevent something that is inevitable from happening."

Kaykay Brady: 32:17

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 32:18

And that thing that is inevitable is going to happen. And when that happens, it's going to be like, "I did something wrong. What did I do wrong?" I mean, we see that with Claudia where she was like, "Mimi was getting better and then she died." She just feels like, "I made her feel like she was a nuisance and so she wanted to leave." And so then it's like, you take it upon yourself, which just leads to more grief and leads to more pain. And it just makes it more difficult to ever come out on the other side.

Kaykay Brady: 32:48

Yeah. And it also it goes back to what we were talking about, I think in the last podcast of, you know, that's the thing about bargaining, the reason you do it is because it gives you this illusion of control. "If only I hadn't done this, they could have lived," like somehow that's in your control now. And you don't have to like deal with the existential terror of something that is not in anyone's control, and is going to happen. And so you can't get to acceptance, right? Because acceptance is like getting to that space where Claudia gets, where she realizes the doctors didn't kill her, she realizes she didn't kill her, nobody killed her, she died. And what she can do is make meaning of her life and celebrate it.

Brooke Suchomel: 33:30

Right. And I think that it's really interesting that we see this with the Japanese character. We see this with a character from another culture, Mimi's death.

Kaykay Brady: 33:43

Yeah, good point.

Brooke Suchomel: 33:44

And I cannot speak knowledgeably whatsoever to exactly how other cultures deal with grief. But I do know that other societies are much more, I mean, think about the tradition of the Day of the Dead, and how that is a celebration. It's keeping them alive in spirit in a way that like, it's just not the American way of doing things. There are absolutely other cultures who have a better handle on how to deal with grief, who have a much healthier approach to death and dying, that I think make the process of death and dying, which every single one of us is going to go through at some point. Again, it's inevitable.

Kaykay Brady: 34:28

Spoiler alert.

Brooke Suchomel: 34:29

Spoiler alert, you're gonna die, I'm gonna die, everyone's gonna die. It's like we try to push that away, try to keep that from ever happening by like, putting blinders on. I think to your point about how cancer was like a dirty word, you wouldn't say it...

Kaykay Brady: 34:44

You whisper it, you don't say it.

Brooke Suchomel: 34:46

Yeah, because it's keeping up this false façade. Everything has to be like, shiny, happy, in your control. This mythology that we have of, Everything is within your control. And so if there's a problem in your life, it's your problem. You've gotta fix it.

Kaykay Brady: 35:02

It's your fault.

Brooke Suchomel: 35:02

It's your fault, yeah. There's nothing that you can't do. And it's like, But there is. Can we just acknowledge that there are some things that individuals just cannot do? I think our refusal to account for things that are outside of individual control has a lot to do with how badly we deal with loss. How it's something that we just refuse to tackle as a society, because I think it puts our entire American ethos into question. That's a broader thing, but...

Kaykay Brady: 35:38

Definitely, and it's also a chicken or the egg conversation, too, because the American ethos is, in part, I believe, created as sort of a staving off the wildness of life. And the wildness of life includes death and sickness and aging.

Brooke Suchomel: 35:55

Right.

Kaykay Brady: 35:55

And so the whole ethos is built on that, in my opinion.

Brooke Suchomel: 35:58

Right, and you can build an entire economy around it, because fear is an incredible motivator. If you keep people afraid of death, that is a lucrative revenue stream.

Kaykay Brady: 36:11

Yeah, and you can control them.

Brooke Suchomel: 36:12

Yeah. I mean, honestly, this is something that I don't know if I've mentioned it on this podcast, but I certainly talk about it often, like with my husband, is I think that a lot of the social problems that we have, economic problems, pretty much every issue that we have as a country has at the root, as part of it, this inability to grapple with death. This inability to properly grieve, to access your emotions. This denial of reality that has, at its core, the deep fear of death. It's in everything. And I think if we could find a way to get a healthier approach to death, I think that could go a long way to improving our health and well-being in all sectors of society. It's not the only solution, but it's a key part of it.

Kaykay Brady: 37:07

Yeah, I really couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, this is something as a therapist that I work with a lot of people on, because this sort of like, no space to work through existential dread and crisis is fucking real. There used to be spaces to kind of work through it, and now there's just not a lot of spaces for people to work through it. They don't even know it's going on, because they're plugged into whatever they're plugged into every hour of every day. It's still going on in the background, like a radio, you know, like some sort of radio in the background giving static, but they're not aware of it. And so a lot of people eventually come into therapy because they really need to work through some of this existential crisis, because we've all kind of been robbed of spaces to do it.

Brooke Suchomel: 37:58

And to your point, I'm thinking about, Where were those spaces? Where have those spaces been? Where can you find those spaces? You find that in art.

Kaykay Brady: 38:09

And community.

Brooke Suchomel: 38:10

Art, community, philosophy, the humanities.

Kaykay Brady: 38:13

Yeah, great point.

Brooke Suchomel: 38:14

The sectors of a liberal arts education that have been, frankly, left to rot by society in favor of putting all research funding and all value on quantitative fields, things that can be discretely measured, things that are concrete. It's like we are investing in the concrete to the detriment of the complex. And the complex is where these existential issues reside. And I think that it's interesting that it's Claudia, the artist in this book, who is ultimately, like, that is where she finds her outlet. She finds it through art.

Kaykay Brady: 39:05

Yeah, that's where the solace comes, and the acceptance.

Brooke Suchomel: 39:09

Exactly.

Kaykay Brady: 39:10

Yeah, that is so true. And I hadn't thought of it that way. 100% true. You see the art and you also see the community in art. So there's this community art class that she's doing. So you're getting maybe art, maybe community, and also probably religion would be another space. We don't see a lot of religion here, but religion in some ways can be a stand in for community, because it's a space where you go and gather with people. But you see in this book too, the way that having support systems is the healthiest thing that she has. And that is known. I mean, that is a known sort of prescription for someone dealing with grief and loss, is like, they cannot isolate. Isolating is a huge red flag. It's very dangerous. If someone's going through grief, you need to rally around with community. And the book is just a really good example of the way that yet again, this community of friends and neighbors, the way they come through for each other and show up for each other so important.

Brooke Suchomel: 40:21

And we see that she continues to hold the Baby-sitters Club meetings, even the day that Mimi dies. When she calls Kristy, Kristy is like, "Don't worry, I'll call everybody, I'll tell him we'll cancel the meeting." And Claudia is like, "No, I want you guys here." And she does that throughout. They say that it takes a while, it's several meetings before any of their clients calls them again during their meeting time, because they just are like, "These girls have a lot to deal with right now." You know, their clients take a break for a bit, but Claudia still wants her friends to be there. And her friends show up. They could be doing other things, you know, there's no financial incentive for them to be there at these meeting times.

Kaykay Brady: 41:09

And it's scary for them. The book does a really good job of showing how, for other people, it's very scary. You know, they avoid Claudia. They won't look at her in the hallways. This frightened idea of like, you're going to catch death. But yet, her friends who also are scared, they show up.

Brooke Suchomel: 41:26

And they talk through that too, which I thought was really great. Where Claudia's like, "People won't look at me. What is that?" And they talk through some of the different reasons why. They're at lunch together, and Claudia is like, it's Dori and Ashley, other characters who are, you know, friendly with Claudia but aren't on the same level of friendship as the Baby-sitters Club. You know, talks about how people look away, she says, "It's like I'm a leper," you know, what's going on. And it's funny, it tells you something about each of these characters in their responses. They're all trying to figure out why people are behaving that way, and Dawn says, "Maybe they don't know what to say." And I get that 100%, being like, I don't know the right words. It's just fear that you might say something that makes somebody feel worse, and that's the last thing that you want to do. But after having gone through the grieving process, you know, more acutely, knowing that like any sort of contact is sufficient. Just recognition. You don't have to worry about the right thing to say, just feeling like somebody cares is everything. But you don't know that until you've been through it yourself. So Dawn has that sort of compassionate, "They don't know what to say." Kristy is like, "Maybe they think you're getting too much attention." Kristy is like, "They're jealous," you know what I mean? Kristy is immediately going to like, "Oh, these fuckers." And then Mary Anne is the one that said, "Maybe they're afraid something like this will happen to them now. They see that people you love do die."

Kaykay Brady: 43:03

Totally. To me, that's the slam dunk, and that's the through line of the book. That's the theme you and I have been hitting on, I think, for so much of this podcast, is that. I think Mary Anne dunks it.

Brooke Suchomel: 43:16

Yep, it's that fear. But then later on, Claudia comes around to understanding. So that conversation happens several chapters before Claudia says, you know, she did find some sympathy cards were slipped into her locker and in her mailbox or whatever, and some of the cards were just like, somebody just signed their name. It's not like they write out the words themselves, they're just signing their name to a card. But she says, "I guess it's hard to know what to do when someone dies." This is on page 113. "I tried to think what I would do if, for instance, Kristy's mother or grandmother or someone close to her died. I would talk to her and hug her, if that's what she wanted. But if Dori's mother died, I would send her a card and sign my name. Maybe it depends on how well you know the person." So how everybody's experience with a person who is grieving is going to vary, depending on their relationship with the person who's grieving. And so there's some grace there too.

Kaykay Brady: 44:18

Yeah, and respecting of their process.

Brooke Suchomel: 44:20

Yeah.

Kaykay Brady: 44:21

Or trying to. Definitely.

Brooke Suchomel: 44:24

All throughout it was like, and I was thinking of this while I was reading it, it's kind of shocking to me that this is a book for kids that was written in the 80s.

Kaykay Brady: 44:31

No, I completely agree with you.

Brooke Suchomel: 44:34

And shocking in a good way. Because it feels like this is a book that like, as a full-ass grown adult who has gone through some significant losses, I got things out of this. It helped me to understand the grieving process better as somebody who is constantly, like, I live in a state of existential crisis, frankly. I'm constantly thinking about these things. And this book gave me new insight into this subject.

Kaykay Brady: 45:06

I'm not surprised at all. It's so well done. I was truly blown away. I mean, I frankly am shocked that editors let it go through in this form, because it's very hard hitting, you know what I mean? Like, it's so raw and so real, I don't know that editors would let it go through today.

Brooke Suchomel: 45:26

Oh, can you imagine how angry some parents would be?

Kaykay Brady: 45:29

Oh, they'd be like, "I don't need my child thinking about their grandparent dying! I don't want to have this conversation!"

Brooke Suchomel: 45:35

Yeah, this is probably next up on the banned book list.

Kaykay Brady: 45:39

And I'm also just so curious how Netflix is gonna handle this.

Brooke Suchomel: 45:43

Yeah. Same. Because this is one of the books that was covered in season two.

Kaykay Brady: 45:50

I know, I know, and I'm so curious. I can't wait for our next summer vacation!

Brooke Suchomel: 45:55

I know, I know. So this was a deep one. This was perhaps the most profound...

Kaykay Brady: 46:01

Fuckin' existential dread!

Brooke Suchomel: 46:04

Right.

Kaykay Brady: 46:05

There you have it, folks.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:06

So speaking of existential dread, 80s moments!

Kaykay Brady: 46:09

Wait, I just gotta say one other thing before we dive into 80s moments, which is, Grandma moved in? Kristy's grandma? The Pink Clinker's living in the yard? This just happened?! This needs to be its own fucking book!

Brooke Suchomel: 46:21

Right, they dropped that in and I tabbed it. So it's early on, it's like, "Oh, Nanny moved in to care..." and I was just like, What happened? When? Where?

Kaykay Brady: 46:27

Yeah! I had to go back and reread it. Exactly, I had to go back and reread it later on.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:32

They explain it later on in the book. But yeah, it's...ugh.

Kaykay Brady: 46:36

Granny's there, the Pink Clinker. I don't know. I just was delighted to see Granny and just surprised.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:42

I'm glad the adoption process was so well thought out and planned for.

Kaykay Brady: 46:47

You just had to have Granny with Granny's jalopy move in.

Brooke Suchomel: 46:50

Right. But you know, they had plenty of extra bedrooms. If you've got an extra bedroom, do you really have a problem in your life? No. There's no problem in this world that cannot be solved by a grandmother in an extra bedroom.

Kaykay Brady: 47:04

Tangent, but I'm going there. There is a ride at Legoland called Granny's Jalopies. And I was there with my nieces and nephews, and I was like, "Is anybody else thinking that this is referencing Granny's boobs?" And they fucking died laughing for like an hour, so I made them T shirts that said Granny's Jalopies. So this is an old family joke, talking about grandma boobs.

Brooke Suchomel: 47:26

Aww!

Kaykay Brady: 47:26

So this made me think about grandma boobs and my nieces and nephews, whom I love.

Brooke Suchomel: 47:30

This is why you're their favorite aunt, I'm sure. I mean...

Kaykay Brady: 47:34

Well, God bless my sister, you know? Cuz she doesn't swoop in and be like, "Don't talk about grandma boobs with my kids!" She's like, "Yeah, get ‘em T shirts. It'll be hilarious."

Brooke Suchomel: 47:43

Yeah, come on. This is what I love, you're tapping into, What do the kids find funny? You get it.

Kaykay Brady: 47:49

Grandma boobs.

Brooke Suchomel: 47:50

Kids find that funny.

Kaykay Brady: 47:51

Yeah. But yeah, 80s moments. Cabbage Patch dolls. Have we done Cabbage Patch Dolls before?

Brooke Suchomel: 47:56

Yeah, but every time they make an appearance, it does take me back.

Kaykay Brady: 47:59

Sure. Just, you can smell it. Um, I thought an 80s moment was having to call everyone with bad news instead of just, you know, posting it to social media.

Brooke Suchomel: 48:10

Or like a group text.

Kaykay Brady: 48:11

Yeah. You know, cuz like, now, if someone passes, someone dies, somebody posts it to Facebook or whatever on a memorial site, and everybody knows. And, you know, in the 80s, you had to pick up the phone, and or enlist friends to pick up the phone, and do phone calls forever, because nobody was connected in that way.

Brooke Suchomel: 48:31

Yeah. And I wonder if the fact that everything is basically done via, you know, typing some words and then clicking a button on social media, if that also is speaking to a growing distance from, you know, especially as we're talking about how you find support and strength in community. Social media ain't a community, as much as it likes to cast itself in that way, if that's part of the problem that we see today.

Kaykay Brady: 49:01

Yeah, I think a lot about this topic and social media. So when you are like physically with another human being in a room, we all have this sort of old part of our brain, the limbic system. We feel it when someone else is in the room, and we can actually, through our limbic system, we can read what emotional state is the other person in and you resonate with the other person. And that could be, they could up regulate you, they could down regulate you, right? If they're really upset and agitated, you might get a little more upset and agitated and have to ground yourself. If they're very grounded, you might feel more grounded. There's something very real about being in a space with another human being and feeling better. It's why we love being with dogs. They don't fucking talk to us, but it's their limbic system that our limbic system is talking to.

Brooke Suchomel: 49:51

It's almost like vibes. Is that where vibes come from?

Kaykay Brady: 49:53

Yeah, vibes! It's totally vibes. It's where that movie...

Brooke Suchomel: 49:56

Yeah, the Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum classic Vibes, everybody knows that.

Kaykay Brady: 50:03

So social media, no vibes.

Brooke Suchomel: 50:07

Bad vibes.

Kaykay Brady: 50:08

All we have is that frontal cortex arguing logic machine with no limbic system to ground us and make us feel okay and safe.

Brooke Suchomel: 50:18

Mm hmm.

Kaykay Brady: 50:19

So, fuck yes. You get none of that online, even though there's like a machine of that, but you don't actually get it.

Brooke Suchomel: 50:29

Yeah, the words are there, but there is an emptiness.

Kaykay Brady: 50:33

Yeah, there's an emptiness. So I totally agree with you. And I think the process of what you were saying before, you know, when someone loses someone, just being with your friend, you don't have to say anything. This is why people used to bring food, you know, they would just show up, and they would bring food and they would sit with you. And they wouldn't say a word, they would just be there for you. They're holding your burden with you, because their limbic system is there with you.

Brooke Suchomel: 51:00

You see that in this book, too. She talks about like, everybody brings food, like, "Why is everybody bringing food? We have so much food." But that is very true. And I think to your point about being in community with people, it's a gesture of being like, "You need this to survive. I know that you're at a point where you might not be able to focus on the basics that you need for survival. So let me take care of one of those for you." It's a real gesture of support and love and care.

Kaykay Brady: 51:32

I also see it as a metaphor for bringing them back to this life. Because when someone dies, frankly, I think the biggest gift of someone dying is it kind of pulls you into the next life just a little bit. There's a beauty to that, and there's a terror to that. You're like, not in this world a little bit, you're in the next. And I don't know, I see the food as a real like, "Hey, you're still here. And we're still here."

Brooke Suchomel: 51:59

"Here's a physical sensation."

Kaykay Brady: 52:01

Yeah. Right. And like, "I'm gonna help pull you back into this world a little bit."

Brooke Suchomel: 52:05

I like that. Now I wonder, is that what stress eating is? I'm going there now. Is it a matter of like, "Okay, I need to get back into my body. I'm starting to kind of spiral, here is a pleasurable sensation that can draw me back?"

Kaykay Brady: 52:25

Yeah. And eating is a is a thing that, you know, we all kind of manage being in our heads and being in our hearts and our bodies. And there's many ways to be in your body, and one of them is eating and nourishing your body. So absolutely, that can be a very grounding experience. Especially if like, like in a family where I grew up, I wasn't taught a whole lot of grounding experiences, except for that one. So I had to learn other ones on my own. So in a lot of families and a lot of cultures, I think they haven't found other grounding experiences too, and that can be the only one. But yeah, absolutely, that is a big one. And it's also like, a reminder of your animalness, in a way. You're not just a head, you're a body. You're an animal, too.

Brooke Suchomel: 52:52

Right. That's really interesting. The complexity...

Kaykay Brady: 53:17

I know, I love this shit. I love this shit.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:19

Me too.

Kaykay Brady: 53:20

I hope listeners are enjoying this one, because this fuckin existential dread podcast is one of my favorites, because I I love this topic. I could talk about it all fucking day long.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:30

Same.

Kaykay Brady: 53:31

You know, I'm a Pisces, we are the end of the zodiac. So we're like, half in the next life and half in this life, always. And you know, things die on me. Like, I've had two strangers die on me. Out of fucking nowhere, people die on me. I'll be walking in the woods, and I'll be like, Hold on a second. And I'll veer off the path and I'll find a dead animal. For some reason I have a foot in the other life, so I love to talk about it.

Brooke Suchomel: 53:56

Yeah, I was wondering when we were going to get one of your "someone died on me" stories.

Kaykay Brady: 54:01

Might be too heavy for this one.

Brooke Suchomel: 54:02

I know. That's a little teaser. I have to say, the first night that we ever really hung out, we're at this shitty suburban Marriott hotel bar. And one of the first stories you told me was the time that somebody died on you. And I was like, We're friends now. We're friends forever.

Kaykay Brady: 54:26

What a charmer I am!

Brooke Suchomel: 54:27

I know, but we were going there, we got to that point in our conversation that quickly.

Kaykay Brady: 54:33

And as someone that, you know, really holds existential dread as something that you you actually think about, that must have been nice.

Brooke Suchomel: 54:42

Yeah, it was. Absolutely.

Kaykay Brady: 54:44

You were like, "Oh, look at this real person not talking about, like, white zinfandel."

Brooke Suchomel: 54:47

Right, I was like, Oh my gosh, it's so great that we're not talking just about like, you know, small talk is not my thing. It is way easier for me to talk about anything existential. It's way easier for me to talk about that stuff than it is to talk about like, the weather or sports. That's the painful stuff for me.

Kaykay Brady: 55:08

Hmm.

Brooke Suchomel: 55:09

So yeah, thank you.

Kaykay Brady: 55:10

Well, I'm so glad, you know? I'm so glad that me coming in and talking about death immediately made you feel right at home.

Brooke Suchomel: 55:20

Speaking of death, my one of my most 80s moments was that...

Kaykay Brady: 55:24

I love all of your 80s pivots. They're really good today. "Speaking of existential dread, speaking of death."

Brooke Suchomel: 55:31

Talking about a dead restaurant chain...

Kaykay Brady: 55:35

Howard Johnson's!

Brooke Suchomel: 55:36

Howard Johnson's, yeah. So this would be a joke that would go completely over the head of kids reading this for the first time today.

Kaykay Brady: 55:46

I wondered.

Brooke Suchomel: 55:47

Yeah, where it was like, "I thought when he said he knew the manager of Howard Johnson's, I thought he knew Howard Johnson!" And all the kids are like, "Ha, ha, ha!" I was just picturing a bunch of nine year olds being like, "What?" Looking around to dead air.

Kaykay Brady: 56:01

"What the fuck is Howard Johnson's?"

Brooke Suchomel: 56:02

Right. So that old chain, Howard Johnson's.

Kaykay Brady: 56:06

Orange colored, had sort of like an orange steeple on the top. That's what I remember.

Brooke Suchomel: 56:12

Yeah. And then Claudia's outfit, described right at the beginning, which we actually get represented, at least on the original cover, this is what she's wearing. You get her talking about how she is wearing "lavender plaid cuffed pants with suspenders over a green shirt with buttons down the front, a matching lavender beret, and not just because I'm at my easel." In the 80s it was like, if you want to be like, quirky and artsy, wear a beret.

Kaykay Brady: 56:45

Do you think that died with Monica Lewinsky?

Brooke Suchomel: 56:48

Um, I don't know.

Kaykay Brady: 56:51

She rocked berets.

Brooke Suchomel: 56:51

She did rock a beret.

Kaykay Brady: 56:52

That was the 90s.

Brooke Suchomel: 56:53

Yeah, I mean, there's like a whole new appreciation of Monica Lewinsky now...

Kaykay Brady: 56:58

I'm on that bandwagon.

Brooke Suchomel: 56:59

As we've looked back at all of these women that were treated like shit back in the 90s...

Kaykay Brady: 57:04

Like total fucking shit.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:05

Mm hmm. And so I think in her honor, let's bring back the beret.

Kaykay Brady: 57:09

Yes.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:10

She's also wearing high top sneakers and Christmas tree lights earrings that blink on and off. That whole picture that I have in my head of that outfit is beautiful, and extremely 80s. And so I would like to think Ann M. Martin for that.

Kaykay Brady: 57:26

Perfection.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:27

So that at least is a fun note to end on, to transition us into our next episode.

Kaykay Brady: 57:35

Oh boy...

Brooke Suchomel: 57:36

Which, Kaykay, we are going on vacation. Because our next episode is Super Special Number Two, Baby-sitters' Summer Vacation, which we got to see loosely adapted in the book series as the Hello Camp Moosehead two episodes.

Kaykay Brady: 57:55

Ah, Mooseknuckle.

Brooke Suchomel: 57:59

It's not Camp Moosehead or Camp Mooseknuckle in the book, but we will get to dive into Super Special Number Two, to see if that holds up any better than Super Special Number One. Did Ann M. actually want to write this one? It's not sponsored by Disney or anyone.

Kaykay Brady: 58:17

I was gonna say, is it sponsored by a huge camp? That's my question.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:21

Right, it's not sponsored by Big Camp, not to my knowledge.

Kaykay Brady: 58:24

I wanted to ask again, when does Ann M. stop writing these books?

Brooke Suchomel: 58:28

I've seen different answers to that.

Kaykay Brady: 58:31

Okay.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:31

She writes at least the first 30. And then it seems like she may come in and write some other ones periodically, but I don't know. I'm going to track that down and find out exactly.

Kaykay Brady: 58:41

Yeah, part of the reason I'm asking during this book is I was wondering if she's processing some grief saying goodbye to the series.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:49

Oh, that's interesting.

Kaykay Brady: 58:51

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I was like, Oh, this feels like her saying goodbye, too, maybe.

Brooke Suchomel: 58:56

That's a really interesting point. I mean, I would think that she certainly...

Kaykay Brady: 59:00

Knew it was coming.

Brooke Suchomel: 59:00

Yeah, for sure. Anyway, if we ever have her on the podcast, if you happen to meet her in the back of a mall security office in your dreams again...

Kaykay Brady: 59:10

C'mon, Ann M.

Brooke Suchomel: 59:10

You should ask!

Kaykay Brady: 59:11

"Ann M., I know you met me. I know you met me in your dreams in a mall security office, why are you fighting this?"

Brooke Suchomel: 59:11

Yeah, "It's me! It's Kaykay! We hung out in the back of a mall security office in our dreams, we're friends." That wouldn't be weird at all. Anyways, I'm looking forward to that. It will be very different from this book.

Kaykay Brady: 59:31

Yeah.

Brooke Suchomel: 59:32

But it's good to have variety in the topics that we cover. Hopefully the next one won't be filled with as much existential dread, but if it is, we're both very comfortable talking about that. But until then...

Kaykay Brady: 59:45

Just keep sittin'! [theme] Watch the fuckin' horses!