Elizabeth is, by her own admission, an indoor cat in summer — sunburns in 15 seconds, prefers her outside time at dawn or dusk. This July she built a whimsy plan: 31 movies, a boundaried digital detox, and a running list of little things that delight her, to make sure her summer felt “summery”.

In this episode:

* The 31-movies-in-July project: a fast no on Fitzwilly, a charming surprise in The Reluctant Debutante, and a full roller-skating Xanadu spiral (plus a Kenny Ortega fact that connects way more dots than expected)

* Two documentary recs: Martin Short and Billy Idol

* What “boundaried” digital detox actually looks like — camera on for whimsical walk photos, podcasts off

* Curating a weekly soundtrack with zero logic required

* A soft, nostalgic detour into sprinkler summers, pajama dinners, and slipping into bed with nothing left to optimize

What’s she’s found so far is that plan was never really about the movies. It was about letting rest be simple again.

I almost didn’t record this week. Told myself it was fine to skip, that everyone needs a little vacation. Then I read two stories in one morning that changed my mind.

A saliva test for endometriosis is finally in development — now that scientists know men can get it too. Same morning, a retired guy turned “cleaning up the highway” into a personal discovery project, unaware of how the state’s existing program has been running this the whole time, I guess.

Different headlines. Same mechanism. Legitimacy doesn’t show up with the problem — it shows up with whoever walks into the room last and gets noticed first.

This week I’m mad, I’m bitter about healthcare I didn’t get, and I’m not smoothing any of it out for you. Come sit in it with me.

Before I was cynical, I was a kid with a Miss America lunchbox and a genuine belief I’d grow up to wear a red, white, and blue hoop skirt.

This week: the full machinery of the 1976 Bicentennial — Little House on the Prairie priming me for pioneer life, a Martha Washington biography that rerouted me straight into colonial gowns, the Miss America pageant’s bicentennial opening number, and every variety show in America doing a patriotic sketch — and how thoroughly it worked on a kid whose brain wasn’t even fully cooked yet.

Then: the adult reckoning.

Turns out all that flag-waving was engineered a few years after Watergate and the fall of Saigon, which tracks less like organic pride and more like parents plowing ahead with the family reunion while the marriage quietly falls apart.

I talk about what it’s like to hold the nostalgia and the disillusionment at the same time, why this year’s 250th anniversary is coasting on fumes by comparison — no commemorative Grimace cups in sight, no theme packaging, no Oreos, nothing — and why I’m still doing the bar-b-que and the red-white-and-blue this year anyway.

Subscribe. Do it for little me and her Miss America lunchbox.

It started with a Toy Story 5 trailer and a hunch that the tablet is the villain. It ended somewhere more serious.

This episode, Elizabeth follows the thread from a Leap Frog product placement rabbit hole to something that's been sitting with her: for the first time in history, there will be kids who grow up barely playing with toys — not because they don't have them, but because something more addictive got there first.

This isn't a "kids today" rant. It's an honest look at what screen saturation actually costs — in empathy, in development, in the small moments that sneak up on you in a carpool line. Elizabeth reflects on what she would have done differently had tablets existed when she was raising her own kids (spoiler: she would have handed them over constantly and never forgiven herself), and why the fact that she couldn't is one of the things she's most grateful for.

Also: Edith Wharton predicted the Kardashians. The Custom of the Country is this episode's Radiant Recommends, and the case is airtight.

The alarm has been sounded. It hasn't taken hold. So we sound it again.

My youngest graduated last week. I insisted it wasn't bothering me — even as I lost the ability to focus, retain any information, or sleep like a person with a working nervous system. Real goldfish situation.

Turns out smooshing down grief doesn't make it disappear. It just relocates.

This week: what happened when the relief finally hit, a decluttering project that turned into a reread of Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before, and what I'm learning about which of my habits actually serve me — including my habit of expecting bad outcomes, and my slow project of shifting that.

Plus: two college graduations, two totally different vibes, and why the contrast moved me more than I expected.

It's grad season and I am in my feels — which means this week I'm sharing some actual stuff that worked for me as a parent. Not advice. Just stuff.

I talk about getting off the treadmill of aspiration, why parenting is a verb and not a status, and the one thing my aesthetician said to me when my kids were teenagers that completely changed my approach.

That line? It applies to every relationship in your life. Not just the ones with your kids.

My youngest graduates from college on Friday. I am a mess. This episode is, in part, a love letter to that.

New episode is live.

Get the bangs. Write the play. Drop the volunteer gig you've been dreading. Move to Europe if you want to. Elizabeth's answer to the creative impulse is the same every time: do it. This episode is one long permission slip — and she's not subtle about it.

For all the reasons, a quick trip to British Columbia resulted in Elizabeth’s media feeds being jammed with all kinds of indigenous art and culture content. Not mad about it, she was curious about the medicine bundles and if she could find something similar derived from Celtic ancestry. And there was, a crane bag. What might you find in Elizabeth’s Riot Crone Crane bag? Tune in to find out.

Also, playlist - feed your ears while feeding your soul.

Riot Crone Playlist #1

A quick trip to a foreign country has Elizabeth exhausted and wondering how it works out that on her travel days the airports are always full of people who are experiencing their first ever day on earth. That has to be the explanation for all these behaviors, right?

She's also talking about glimmers and joy, so it's kind of a ride.

Always on the hunt for a glimmer of joy, Elizabeth’s found a consistent source in the mid 80s/early 90s show, Murder She Wrote. In a world where there’s a dearth of healthy role models for women of a certain age living fully into their whole life, but there IS Jessica Fletcher. Passing the Bechtel Test before it was a thing, MSW is an excellent choice as a comfort watch. Listen in and see if it might be for you.